It's one of those things you kinda had to be there. At the time there really weren't any other games like it, where for the most part, the environment really felt like a real place and not just a fairly random mishmash of corridors and outdoor open areas(which were basically rooms with skyboxes). Having a story(such as it is) integrated into the environment rather then through cut scenes(yeah, there's a few which are technically cutscenes but few and far between). Scripted events were a very new thing at time. The fact it broke up combat with puzzle solving and making most of the bosses puzzle bosses rather then bullet sponges was also notable. AI soldiers who weren't complete idiots and actually reacted to your tactics was pretty amazing.
Half-Life 2 is a game that is widely considered to be a fantastic achievement in video game history, and is almost universally beloved. But why? I got to thinking about it, and I don't really understand.
To preface this, I will say that I liked Half-Life a lot. A whole lot. The story that took place, while not the most interesting thing ever, was different to say the least, and I enjoyed the gun play, and really everything to do with it. What I don't understand, though, is why Half-Life 2 is so highly praised as an amazing game. I mean, when it came out, it looked really damn good, and the shooting still feels really good, and the gravity gun is still a cool thing, conceptually. ![]() Now, before I go deeper, I would also like to say that, yes, the gameplay is fun. The shooting feels good. I am, in no way, saying that Half-Life 2 is bad from a gameplay standpoint, or extraordinarily terrible in the things I'm complaining about; it just doesn't do anything spectacular. The story unfolds around our silent protagonist, Gordon Freeman, or Generic Main Character 1, it doesn't really matter what we call him, since he doesn't speak and has no personality. Now, I understand why silent protagonists exist; to give the player an empty shell to inhabit while events within the game unfold. Too many times have I seen games that try to paint the player's character as this certain personality, but then give players the option to completely undermine that (Prototype comes to mind). However, as story-driven as Half-Life 2 pretends to be, I'd really like it if Freeman were actually a character. ![]() For instance, the jump between the first Half-Life and the sequel. The GMan puts Freeman into stasis from a Black Mesa train car at the end of the first game, and then Gordon wakes up in City 17, [i]in effing Europe[/i] some years later. No explanation is given to how the GMan did this, or why, not even an inkling that he is even a person, or as to why Freeman's buddies from Black Mesa are there, either. Attributing anything to the GMan's doings within Half-Life is tantamount to saying, 'a wizard did it.' I can't really argue with that, but it's such a cop out, leaves so many questions, and just feels so cheap. And, as I said, the player, nor any of the NPCs in the game, have any control over the events that unfold. Yes, there's the train station where Barney helps Freeman out, but after that, it's a series of events completely out of anyone's control. And, forgive me if I'm just ignorant of something I may have missed in the game or its episodes, but have they ever explained what the hell the Combine are? As far as I can tell, just from having played the games and ignoring outside sources, they're aliens that conquered Earth for seemingly no reason other than to be the oppresive government analog for the sake of the story of the game. How did they get here, why are they doing this, and just what the hell are they? To its credit, Half-Life 2 does have some interesting plot elements, and the universe it sets up is somewhat interesting. However, this is still a problem, because despite the interesting stuff and unique world, the story unfolding around the player still feels ultimately futile. Especially when factoring in that there must be other Citadels across the planet, and other cities (if Freeman woke up in City 17, at least 16 others exist or existed at some point), so the events unfolding in Half-Life 2 and its expansions just feel futile, and the cheering about having won the day at the end of Episodes 1 and 2 feel unearned; there's still so many combine across the planet, so much left to do, so much of a threat to humanity, it just seems like the player is doing next to nothing to help the situation. If anything, the world-wide effect of the rebels in City 17 would seem to make the combine bring the hammer down even harder elsewhere. Tightened security, more executions, whatever the Combine do; it seems like player and his cohorts would be making things worse, while not making any real progress towards stopping the Combine. Let's talk about Freeman's cohorts for a second; first of all, Alyx is a useless, boring character. She never says anything terribly interesting, she's, for the most part, useless, and the only reason I can fathome for her existence is to serve as eye candy. Why do people like her so much? I really have no idea. I mean, KOSMOS has more of a personality than her, [i]and KOSMOS is a robot[/i]. Barney, Kleiner, Eli, and all those other secondary characters are never fleshed out enough to really hate, but never enough to actually like, either. I could harp on about the story all day, but how about we move on to the Source Engine, before we both go insane. The Source engine was built for this game, and to serve as Valve's in-house engine. One of the major reasons it was built was because Valve wanted to have crazy awesome physics in their games. Life Is So GoodBut that potential is never really utilized. Yes, we get one or two 'puzzles' (if you can call them that) that are ostensibly 'grab x item, place on seesaw, walk up seesaw and jump to ledge.' That's the only real puzzle in any of Half-Life 2 or its episodes. They never really do anything with the engine. Obviously, they set up the Gravity Gun, which is cool and everything, but it's hardly a reason to include the physics puzzles. Look, Valve, if you're gonna half-ass the 'puzzle solving,' why even have it there in the first place? It only serves as a momentary annoyance, not as a fun gameplay mechanic.As I said, the gameplay is still enjoyable to an extent, but there are games out there that have great gun play, or other mechanics, that just do puzzles and characters and plot so much better, I honestly don't think that the gameplay is enough to warrant the buzz surrounding Half-Life 2. Oh, and one more thing before I go; this one isn't really about the game, but more the company behind the games. Why the hell is Valve on such a long development cycle for 'episodic' games, especially rather mediocre ones at that? I mean, Christ, it took six years between the original Half-Life and the sequel, and then another two years to get Episode 1 out, and then it finally made sense when they released Episode 2 a year later, but now it's been three years, and we don't even have official confirmation that Episode 3 is even on its way any time soon. I mean, seriously, what the eff, Valve? This is just getting ridiculous. And yes, I realize everyone and their mother has harped on about this, but I feel it's never actually been addressed. I mean, what's a normal day at Valve like? An hour of working on games, and then seven hours of swimming in Gabe's giant pool of money? I mean, sure, they have other projects, like Team Fortress 2 updates and Steam on the Mac, but come on, not even any word about the game? No screenshots, or trailers, or anything, [i]after three years?[/i] Why not have just called these 3, 4, and 5? I guess because they haven't made another huge leap in logic to put Freeman in China instead of Europe, so it's not technically Half-Life 3 yet.
Honestly, there still really aren't any games like it, but a lot of it's better points have been used by other games since then. CoD for the longest time avoided cut scenes(not counting the briefings) in favor of integrating the story(what story there is in a CoD game) into the dialogue and gameplay, More realistic level design has become much more prevalent in first person games in the 20 years since then. Scripted events have become standard features.
Half-life Download
I'll step up for the first one.
Half life one was truly groundbreaking because it was the first story driven game that didn't borrow heavily from cinema to further the narrative (no cutscenes). Half Life was the first game to maintain a first person viewpoint but maintain a balance between story and action in equal measure. It may look old now but Half Life's true charm is in its sense of immersion in the world. You begin as an employee theoretical physicist and end up saving the world from an alien incursion. No one of the FPS genre did more than start as a soldier, get a larger gun, kill mecha-Hitler before then.
For me HL2s real draw was the physics engine. I don't know of a game that had such a realistic sense of gravity, friction and boyancy and come to think of it, I don't think I've seen one since! Couple that with some gorgeous setpieces, incredible art design and a truly immersive storyline involving characters that you actually care about it makes the game hard to match.
In my mind they are two of the greatest PC games of all time. Lego stars wars 3 cheats.
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