To keep it short, do you think (all bias aside) it really is good in terms of gameplay even now, or it only was when it came out, but now it’s outdated?
Some may even say it was bad back in 2004, and got praised only thanks to hype, then groundbreaking engine, and because many fans wanted a sequel… In terms of story as well, I saw comments about how it’s a joke to introduce characters out of nowhere and make them with Gordon know each other, retconning pretty much everything, with: “yeah, these are few of those generic looking NPC from HL1, given backgrounds and history, accept it” + mute protagonist, random antagonists and the G-man, random character with purpose and ambitions unknown, being neither good or evil, whatever Valve think about, aka. guaranteed sales for those many who want to know the “mystery” that might not even exist.
Come to think of it, most of HL1 is fun enough but some parts of HL2 are very boring to some people, despite being more “cinematic and actiony” (being chased and stuff)
With these being said, I don’t have an idea how do the guys at Valve want to stay relevant with HL3… HL2 brought more open environments, more varied enemy encounters, physics, vehicles, advanced AI partners, but the weapons alone were bland and boring imo.
So the questions are:
-is the series really worthy of being thought of as the third coming of videogame revolution? What if we are going to be disappointed?
Not to set up a fire, but I think it’s a possibility that people don’t believe in it’s success, rather are amused with the thought of a vaporware blowing mind of everyone.
-what changes do you think Valve has in store?
-what are your expectations?
I will start, I think they should say good bye to City 17 and drastically change the setting, the initially thought Episode Three’s arctic placement sounds interesting to me.
Also more realistic, fun to shoot and varied weapons, and please, no “plastic” appearance nor sounds.
Less loading times, and I’m sold… so that’s it, no trolling, be civil.
HL2 was never about the guns, it was always about the story
you said that ‘‘OMG, they introduced characters out of nowhere’’, but looking back, there simply wasn’t much to have a sequel, retconning was the only way to make the story interesting and varied, but I do agree that there’s way too much parts that nothing is happening in Half Life 2, but the game does pick up at half the storyline and combat becomes a bigger priority.
And I have absofuckinglutely no idea how Valve you pull another revolutionary game again, considering that almost every FPS after HL2 has been dumbed down(even Duke Nukem got dumbed down), key elements of Half Life simply don’t fit with the view of how FPS’s nowadays should be.
Either a dumbed down game or a masterpiece
You’re arguing that the game is no longer significant because the engine is no longer groundbreaking? That’s not really accurate.
Also, the argument that they shouldn’t have retconned in a bunch of characters is absurd. HL1 barely even had any characters to begin with; how could they possibly have reused the same five generic NPCs? Expanding them into unique characters was vital, and they did a spectacular job of it.
I know I’ll probably get assaulted by all the fanboys, but compared to HL1, I thought HL2 was, in all honesty, somewhat shit. It was sweetened drastically, got a lot easier and the sound design nearly makes me cry. The reload sounds are the worst by far, but then again, the pistol sounds like a peashooter and the explosions are suspiciously similar to bursting a midget snark. Anyway, I may seem to be looking through rose-tinted glasses at the (entertainingly challenging, seemingly less rushed) original game, but it has absolutely no nostalgia value for me. I played HL2 last year and finished HL1 this August, so no, I’m not. Sure, it hasn’t aged well, but HL2 just seems half-assed to me. As you’d said, the weapons in general were boring; no experimentation, it seems, and perhaps too real and bland. That said, I have high expectations for HL3/EP3/whatever happens, probably set by Black Mesa, showing us what even a small portion of the fanbase can do.
It’s like Portal, where the sequel is decent, but it just fails to satisfy the original’s colossal standards. Bottom line though, it’s not overrated, just maybe a little flimsy.
tl;dr It’s not bad, I just don’t like it as much as the first one.
You are right to certain degree about Half Life 2
But, for me, HL2 is much more story driven and there’s some neat gunplay halfway through the end of the game, but I admit it drags a bit in many parts
No weapon experiments in HL2? What, did you become a CoD fanboi that likes to forget the GravGun all of a sudden?
Characters from the middle of nowhere? They were always there, only we didn’t know!
Gun sounds certainly sound better than Modern Warfake 3 and Black Cops 2.
As to the story, and the characters… From what they had left from the first game, they did a great job actually bringing the characters up.
Also, how the hell would you even be able to remain in City 17? That place is reduced to rubble. Unless you want a Stalingrad-like city gameplay, of course. Plus, the immediate need to visit the Borealis came up at the end of Episode 2.
I call all yours points fake and void. Valve always finds something to put in it’s games to make them a masterpiece.
Please stop, just stop. Nobody compared it to Call of Duty, so stop making it sound like someone did. Now, saying that VALVe always finds something to put in their game to make it a masterpiece is however a ‘fake and void’ argument.
What made HL2 great to me was how it kept you immersed throughout the game. Not many games do that for me. That and how they managed to introduce interesting gameplay mechanics and keep gameplay interesting, even if the base mechanics may not have been “original” (though they certainly were fairly new).
I expect HL3 to do the same. Introduce a number of new base mechanics and overall improvements that they can build on.
half life 2 has a huge problem running on intel onboard graphics from up to 2009, but you can actually play pre-orangebox HL2 on a computer from 2003 as long as it’s not intel extreme graphics.
I don’t know about half life being overrated, since I’m not really in touch with what the major opinion of it is these days.
The original half life was okay to me, I got a little bored of just running around and pressing buttons and shooting aliens though.
Half life 2 was pretty good to me, I liked messing around with physics, and the story and objectives are a lot more clear since you have actual characters instead of just miscellaneous scientists who tell you what to do and what’s happening.
I didn’t play the half life series when it came out, I am relatively new to the series.
I expect no miracles out of half life 3. I’m sure it’ll be a fine game (assuming it ever comes out :fffuuu , but I can’t really think of how they’d make it huge and groundbreaking while still being a sequel to the previous games :retard:
I thought Half-Life 2’s only real problem was its overly-rushed pacing. (Compare Half-Life 1, whose only real problem was similar, but smaller in scope - Xen’s rushed pacing.) The story’s scope and tone are simply all wrong for its length, which works better with a typical, less cerebral shooter. The game could double or triple its length with padding and it would not feel worse for it - in fact, it would feel better because it would allow the setting to be explored and developed more.
[COLOR=‘Green’]I see, then it’s misinterpreted. Also you misunderstood, I said that some other people said, not my opinion. And that’s it, the original had little to no story, or at least not one well thought-through making much sense, but the gameplay was fast, entertaining, varied, mysterious and well paced, so it didn’t matter that much, and it was within then technological limits and videogame standards more than acceptable. The point about HL2’s story is, that it was a mistake to “remake” characters which were there in Black Mesa as generic NPC with no grand roles, into: Hello Gordon, it’s “me”
So the player is suddenly meant to form some emotional bonds with them through his avatar (Gordon) as Gordon supposedly knows those people from nowhere aka. Black Mesa, as they didn’t even exist in the original game, apparently them being “them” It’s kinda like if I approached some random person on street and pretended I know him/her for a long time, with: “Don’t you remember? It’s me, Bob, ur best friend from High School! How could you forget?” eventually convincing the person the lie as being true. For the bolded part, that’s it. They should have made HL2 a new unrelated story, instead of an attempt at good storytelling. If you think about it for a sec, you don’t even have to play the original game to get (or not to get) HL2, making it a mere excuse for a more grand plan with Combine conquering worlds/G-man, leaving the Black Mesa incident as something with little importance. About the guns later;
[COLOR=‘Green’]About the engine, read again, that’s not what I’m saying, I haven’t even said anything, just quoting some thoughts.
The rest, introducing brand new characters instead? Originally, Eli Vance was to be 2 separate characters, “Eli Maxwell” and “Captain Vance” complete strangers to Gordon at first, they just wanted to tie the two games together more, so merged them and created a backstory shared with Gordon. To make it clear, I’m still NOT feeling it, Eli and Isaac have short appearances in HL1 for me to care about them already once I start playing HL2, so even this Black Mesa remake changed nothing.
It’s Half-Life with better graphics and here and there modified gameplay, but in terms of story, it added nothing.
For you not to think it’s bitching, think of it this way: HL3 announced, Valve introduces new character Frank Turquoise, and he is “the” fat security guard from Opposing Force. Such excuses are simply ridiculous, but okay, acceptable at first. But Magnusson already felt a bit forced
[COLOR=‘Green’]I agree, though Episode Two is great. HL2 alone (desite me being a fan) doesn’t deserve 10/10 or close to that.
[COLOR=‘Green’]No doubt, I trust that HL3 will be good, but if it’s going to be successful and accepted as lucky HL2 is questionable
[COLOR=‘Green’]Some areas dragged on for too long, got boring in some places
[COLOR=‘Green’]
To add my own opinion, I think they should take their time to come up with (finally) good story that connects all 3 games well, while not relying too much on the prequels, expanding things and introducing brand new unrelated story elements that fill the plotholes. In terms of gameplay, I say: GET RID of the Combine Overwatch/Civil Protection, they get boring to fight early on.
All in all, I think Half-Life series doesn’t have a good story, only the storytelling and characterization are above average. It’s a mess, mysterious man in suit takes a mute character through space-time for no apparent reason, they need to start explaining things.
For the gameplay, it doesn’t have to change much, just better guns and enemies and less boring vehicle passages
I think both games were absolutely splendid, I can’t wait for HL3, and quite honestly I don’t think they need anymore time to perfect a story that unifies all three games, it’s been quite long enough.
I don’t get why you complain so much about the characters, if they were characters without much thought into them, how come people still like them?
Also, I LOL’ed at the fact that you seem to hate the fact that Valve lets their fans create their own theories about things in the game
How can that be messy? Sure, it doesn’t seem to make sense and there’s still stuff to be explained, but since when is creating mystery a bad thing?
Forget the Combine Overwatch? Hahaha, yeah, will happen
Can you tell me a plothole in Half Life 2 (and beyond) that wasn’t a RETCON (and that wasn’t related to the G-man)?
I lol’ed when you said that they shouldn’t have tried to make a good storyline and when you said that the Black Mesa incident is not ‘‘very important’’ to what happens in Half Life 2, considering it’s something mentioned a lot in the story
I also don’t get why making a game that can be played and understood without any other one is a bad thing and fits with what you said that ‘‘they should’ve tried to make it more separated game than Half Life 1’’
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.
, but I can’t really think of how they’d make it huge and groundbreaking while still being a sequel to the previous games :retard: