[redmenace]

I did want to create a new thread for this. I have a personal philosophy, why create a new one when there is another perfectly good one out there.

[deep_eyes]

Originally posted by Kalfireth
As much as "you're the hero, kill the bad guys" seems simple enough, I just didn't get on with the way it was implemented in HL2. I found myself spending an awful lot of the game thinking "alright, I killed these guys. Fine. But why...".

I think I really would have gotten along with it better if there was some kind of filling in that was done at the beginning of the game. Just to let me know that:

"You are Gordon Freeman, these guys have moved in from another dimension and pretty much enslaved humanity. Breen is their human contact."

But being dumped into the situation with no information at all made things more confusing than they did "an interesting enigma to be solved". At least in the original HL you knew why you were doing what you were doing. You caused the disaster and were trying to get out / stop what was happening.


Perhaps it boils down to a matter of taste. I just didn't get on with it.

I think that was the whole idea for HL2. Your just suddenly thrust into this future where humanity is controlled, not knowing why or what your suppose to do or your purpose is, the only SURE THING YOU KNOW is that your actions in Blackmesa PUT THESE EVENTS INTO PLAY WHICH IS NOW REALITY, IE: the Combine on Earth, is YOUR FAULT. forget the fact that your an MIT graduate... it has no relevance. The only thing you know is that your actions (good or bad or unintentional), and you being who you are, the one "free-man" motivated the civilians to revolt against the combine. Its kinda a passive story IMO because no one really revolted until your presense and the hell we raise in Nova Prospekt.

BUt think about it, at the end, (without revealing any plot or story), you are left with questions like, "ok so why did i do this? what the hell was my purpose?" as a human player and as in the shoes of Freeman. if this was for real, you would ask yourself the same questions.

The why is so much more.... that is why people enjoyed HL2 in terms of story. albeit Halo 1 had the better story of both parts of example, hell i even read the backstory novels, however, halo 2 for example was crammed with story to get to the points they wanted to get to, IMO not a good idea, but halo 2 to a degree was still a decent game with a decent story to follow. it got watered down a littlebit but it was still good.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by deep_eyes


I think that was the whole idea for HL2. Your just suddenly thrust into this future where humanity is controlled, not knowing why or what your suppose to do or your purpose is, the only SURE THING YOU KNOW is that your actions in Blackmesa PUT THESE EVENTS INTO PLAY WHICH IS NOW REALITY, IE: the Combine on Earth, is YOUR FAULT.

 forget the fact that your an MIT graduate... it has no relevance. The only thing you know is that your actions (good or bad or unintentional), and you being who you are, the one "free-man" motivated the civilians to revolt against the combine. Its kinda a passive story IMO because no one really revolted until your presense and the hell we raise in Nova Prospekt.

BUt think about it, at the end, (without revealing any plot or story), you are left with questions like, "ok so why did i do this? what the hell was my purpose?" as a human player and as in the shoes of Freeman. if this was for real, you would ask yourself the same questions.

If it was for real, you'd be able to actually ask those (and other) questions.  And you would ask questions, even at the risk of looking an arse doing so.  

Not only do we not have that ability in HL2, the methods of gaining incidental information (reading the old newspapers from Highway 17, for example) are not available to us.  You just follow a blind, linear path without the reasons for it being explained in any way; it's a glorified corridor shooter.

Highway 17 is my favourite level.  But it doesn't actually add anything to the story; there's no explanation of the world or similar.  So it becomes just an excercise in methodically moving through the eye-candy shooting cloned enemy #10220.

[Turnsky]

look in vance's lab at black mesa east, it has some semblence of events of what transpired during your absence, also, look at the photo of him and alyx as a child (she looks, what?..7-10 in the photo?) and compare her to how old she looks now.. there's your timeframe.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Turnsky
look in vance's lab at black mesa east, it has some semblence of events of what transpired during your absence, also, look at the photo of him and alyx as a child (she looks, what?..7-10 in the photo?) and compare her to how old she looks now.. there's your timeframe.

That illustrates my point, actually; take the newspaper cutout of the 7 day war - what can you actually read off of it?  I can't test the highest resolution on my machine, but AFAIK the most you can read is the headline and subheading.

Compare that to if it was real, and you'd be able to read that whole article.  One analogy i can think of is Deus Ex if you removed the datacubes from it.

[Turnsky]

Originally posted by aldo_14


That illustrates my point, actually; take the newspaper cutout of the 7 day war - what can you actually read off of it?  I can't test the highest resolution on my machine, but AFAIK the most you can read is the headline and subheading.

Compare that to if it was real, and you'd be able to read that whole article.  One analogy i can think of is Deus Ex if you removed the datacubes from it.

precisely, just headlines, and some fuzzy textures..

something like datacubes, or even old news reports, even people talking about the past would do.. the fact is, you don't know much beyond Combine invading, taking over in 7 hours, Breen orchestrating human surrender, becoming administrator of the cities, all in the space of what?.. 15+ years? (going by the photo and Alyx's current age)

that's pretty vague, really.

all HL2 boiled down to was "shoot the bad guys, shoot this, shoot that, shoot something else...then if you feel like it, hit a headcrab with a flying cinderblock"
i mean, even Doom 3 was punctuated by nice little story tidbits by way of some cutscenes, character interactions, and the oh so good to read emails on your PDA.

personally, i think Valve Copped out by this "walk in gordon's shoes" bullcrap, all they did was slack off on the story, it may have supposedly been the pinnacle of gameplay (hah!) but, as illustrated before, it's just another generic Shooter, like any other out there..  kinda like Pariah, supposedly had a cracker of a storyline.. i'm still curious as to where they found it.

[vyper]

A huge portion of the story telling in-game maps were dropped after the Source leak. In effect, Valve rather vindictively punished the HL community for playing the leaked version by removing some crucial plot content.

[aldo_14]

Apparently a flashback cutscene explaining a lot of what happened post HL1 was cut (it was to be shown at Vances lab).  From what I can tell, there's more of the story in the 'making of' book than in the bloody game.

[vyper]

That does explain the rediculously short amount of time you spend in Eli's lab in the final release. It felt such a wasted effort - you fought through all the canals, the waterways, the attack helicopter, for what? The gravity gun? Seeing a few Vorts with chefs hats on?

[Tieowbeijas]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Apparently a flashback cutscene explaining a lot of what happened post HL1 was cut (it was to be shown at Vances lab).  From what I can tell, there's more of the story in the 'making of' book than in the bloody game.

That is true, I've got the book and it contains tons of information on what happened before HL2, and some about what happens during the game.
For example, there were supposed to be a somewhat more substantial introduction sequence, where you'd get to see some outdoor area that change, from nice green to a wasteland, until you are put on the train, with a monolouge of the G-Man playing at the same time.
And then there's the slideshow sequence that would have happened in Eli's lab, where'd you'd get to know about the combine invasion.

[Fineus]

Is that really so? I mean... it would explain a lot if information was cut out of the final release. But surely Valve are shooting themselves in the foot by removing crucial information before shipping..

..or maybe they're not. Because we all bought it anyway.

Even so, it's what makes HL2 less than a complete game for me. I realise it might be quite extreme of me to say so but it does feel something like a tech demo at times. There's a story there - and gameplay - but it only hints at the potential it could have had.

Doom 3? Far Cry? Halo? They delivered on that promise.

[Tieowbeijas]

There were also some large gameplay parts that were cut, there were for example some atmospheric processor that you were to destroy, and you would also get to... "visit" a combine factory.
And the manhacks where first supposed to be controlled through an arcade, were citizens would spend their spare time playing "games" that actually were them controlling the manhacks to hunt down fugutives.

So yes, the story areas of the game feels very thin, but I still like the game.

[Corhellion]

...I'm not going to argue with anyone...

Seeing as how everyone here is all gung ho about Halo (Burn eeeeeet!) and Doom 3...I'm alright with D3 and RoE...they're good games...

I'm all for Half-life...nothing going to change that. And I'm fine with Steam. Seeing as how it's a very simple and effective way of tracking and reporting cheaters/hackers.

Btw, the Aftermath teaser Trailer has been released...and The Lost Coast is going to be released by the 23rd of this month...

This "discussion" reminded me why I left...only a few people have any common sense in how awesome HL2 is...and if you're not a fan of HL2...there's always HL1...

But enough...I'm done...

[Ransom]

Originally posted by Corhellion
This "discussion" reminded me why I left...only a few people have any common sense in how awesome HL2 is...and if you're not a fan of HL2...there's always HL1...

Your opinion is not fact.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Corhellion
...I'm not going to argue with anyone...

Seeing as how everyone here is all gung ho about Halo (Burn eeeeeet!) and Doom 3...I'm alright with D3 and RoE...they're good games...

I'm all for Half-life...nothing going to change that. And I'm fine with Steam. Seeing as how it's a very simple and effective way of tracking and reporting cheaters/hackers.

Btw, the Aftermath teaser Trailer has been released...and The Lost Coast is going to be released by the 23rd of this month...

This "discussion" reminded me why I left...only a few people have any common sense in how awesome HL2 is...and if you're not a fan of HL2...there's always HL1...

But enough...I'm done...

You left because people had a different opinion to you?

Why did you even join then?

[CP5670]

You left the whole forum because people didn't agree with your assessment of a game?!

...

Sorry, but that is simply retarded. I used to have respect for you (I'm a fellow Lego fan), but you are taking this way too personally unless you work for Valve or something. Besides, everyone here is posting reasons to back their opinions.

I'm not a big fan of D3 or Halo, but they were still much better than HL2, as was HL1 for that matter.

[Unknown Target]

Yea, that is really dumb Corhellion (but welcome back anyway).
HL2 was really sub-par. I won't even go over the ridiculous loading times, that's been done to death. But this expansion pack looks to be basically what a bunch of talented modders could do.
Not only that, but I want to say something about Valve: Everyone hails them as God's gift to gamers, but in reality, what have they done? Half Life and Half Life 2. Everything else is mods and stuff they ripped off of the community and resold. Half Life was only good because it was something new, but if you play it today and compare it to modern games, it's really not that great.
Half Life 2 is basically Half Life 1 with better graphics and a different setting. The gameplay formula and everything is pretty much the same - and like I said before, that's not that great.

Also, Steam is crap. First of all, it does nothing to stop pirates, which was what it was intended for. People pirate the game still, and even worse, people who bought the game cant even play it because some pirate stole their key. On top of that, if Valve goes under or you don't have the internet, you can't play the game. On top of THAT, these so called anti-cheating measures are still topped by a good old PunkBuster.

[CP5670]

I agree with almost all of that. All things considered, HL2 is the most overrated game I have played in years, as it just got so many things wrong IMO. HL1 was quite a nice game for its time though. The only thing was that it was released right between two revolutionary games that have become all time classics, Unreal and System Shock 2, and it wasn't really comparable to either of those.

[Blaise Russel]

Originally posted by Unknown Target
if you play it today and compare it to modern games, it's really not that great.

Well, well. Fancy that.

[Omniscaper]

Doom 3 better than Halflife 2? Thats a good one. LMAO.

Halflife 2, like its predecessor, brought simple FPS's to another level. System shock 1 &2, Deus Ex are of a a different genre to me. What makes HL2 revolutionary is the interaction with the environment and its integration into its gameplay, not to mention a great story. The story unfolded in away that did not make you feel like a rat in a maze. Of course this may not sit well with folks who like the simple "find the key, explore, find exit" formula.

Doom 3 was the tech demo. The " BOO, I scared you!"" got boring after 15 minutes of play time. Doom 3 felt much more linear and they didn't even attempt to hide it, and the gameplay was overly repetitive. The only thing going for it was its technical achievement in lighting.

I'm looking forward to and can't wait for the expansion.

Steam ALLOWS you to play these games without the internet connection (once you have all the game data). Dont get all pissy because it wasn't an easy warez find.