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What did I think of Half-Life 2? I thought it sucked and you're all a bunch of nostalgic assholes.
No, no, I'm kidding. I actually would like to briefly lay out my feelings on Half-Life 2 as I had never played this game before (or even Half-Life 1 for that matter). This is a game loved and praised by many. The PC version received nearly perfect scores across the board, SpikeTV named it “Game of the Decade”, it received 39 Game of the Year awards, and is commonly praised as having redefined the shooter genre as much as its predecessor did in 1998. The real question going through my mind as I ventured into City 17 was whether or not Half-Life 2 stands the test of time. Would it be one of the few games remembered and praised decades after release?
I'm going to come out and admit shooters aren't exactly my preferred genre, but there are a few that I have thoroughly enjoyed. With that said, I couldn't help but question what exactly Half-Life 2 had revolutionized about the genre. To me, Half-Life 2 played like a corridor shooter with the occasional vehicle sequence. Of course, it did feature more weapon/enemy variety than you would see in most modern shooters; It featured no regenerating health, allowed the player to carry more than two weapons, and featured everything from common soldiers and zombies to gunships and monstrosities (that resemble the Gekko from MGS 4). Whatever Half-Life 2 revolutionized, however, seemed to have all been stripped away and streamlined only three years later with the release of Call of Duty 4.
Since this is a shooter, it seems only fair to devote some space to what takes up the majority of the game time. As I stated above, Half-Life 2 felt, to me, like a typical corridor shooter. There certainly are a few open areas and the scout car segment does give opportunity for a couple outdoor shootouts, but those are few and far between. Most engagements with the Combine or headcrabs are in cramped, small hallways with enemies just rushing out of side rooms to attack. As such, I found the shotgun really takes priority in most fights throughout the game. I never even touched the pistol or magnum once I had the shotgun and SMG on hand. I would just save the assault rifle for scenarios in which Combine soldiers would rush me in large groups. Even the crossbow got barely any use; I would snipe annoying enemies in unreachable places and move on. Disappointingly, pretty much every other scenario was solved with the shotgun or SMG. The gravity gun, for obvious reasons, has the most utility of any weapon here. It can be a pain to use as a platforming tool, but it is always satisfying to launch exploding barrels or buzz saw blades at enemies. It's just a shame the game doesn't allow the gravity gun to fling enemies around until the last section of the game. Half-Life 3 had better let the gravity gun rip weapons out of enemies' hands so I can shoot it back at them.
Unfortunately, I didn't find the actual “shooty” bits of Half-Life 2 all that engaging. I will say, however, that I enjoyed the vehicle sections immensely. The air boat was just a blast to drive around that canal while avoiding mines, debris, and gun fire at high speeds. The sections where a gun ship chases your boat were incredibly well done in my opinion. There is just something exciting about trying to outrun a gunship with a small boat and no way to really defend yourself. The scout car section I enjoyed for a completely different reason: change of scenery. Most of the open area gun fights in Half-Life 2 take place while driving along Highway 17 and they are a very welcome change of pace from the corridor segments. Valve apparently really knows what they are doing when it comes to vehicle sequences. More of those, please.
There was one other section of Half-Life 2 that I really enjoyed. The lead up to Nova Prospekt and the actual prison itself were made so much fun by the simple fact you can control a small group of antlions. Here is something the game really needed more of. Some poor Combine soldier is sitting behind a rock thinking he's safe and all I have to do is throw that pheropod at his general direction. My antlion buddies fly right over to the bastard and maul him to death in seconds. All I had to do was sit back and watch as the Antlions devastate the Combine forces. I even felt some compassion for the giant insects. If there was ever a section where the Combine had a turret and were just mowing down my Antlion brethren, I would pop out of cover to get their attention long enough for the creatures to run across the field. That was truly satisfying: victory gained through myself and the antlions making sacrifices. Or maybe I just really wanted that achievement.
That's really all that stands out for me about Half-Life 2. Over twelve hours of gameplay and I only enjoyed two sections. Everything else about the game was just "okay". Ravenholm I didn't find all that atmospheric or fun. I actually thought the zombies' ability to literally spawn out of nowhere made that segment a bigger headache than it should have been. The rebellion in City 17 was made a chore by the sloppy follower AI constantly getting in the way and running into turret fire. I felt the Citadel had the best atmosphere when you're going along in that pod for a brief tour of the interior, but that quickly just falls to the wayside for more corridor shooting. Honestly, aside from the vehicle sections and the antlions, I didn't find much that stood out or was really enjoyable.
So, do I think Half-Life 2 is a bad game? Certainly not! Do I think it deserves all the praise it gets? Not really. I can't speak for how Half-Life 2 compared to other shooters back when it was released, but I honestly don't feel it still holds up. It does, ironically enough, have some elements that are a nice change from most modern shooters, but that alone doesn't really make me think Half-Life 2 is a great game. It's a decent shooter that handles vehicle sections very well. Like I said before, I have never played Half-Life 1 and mainly played this just to try and understand the hype behind Half-Life 3. Sorry, I just don't get it. Maybe I'll have to play Episode 1 and Episode 2 to truly get a grasp on why people love this series so much, or maybe Half-Life just isn't for me. Whatever the case may be, I know a lot of you will continue to go nuts over every conspiracy theory concerning Valve and the next installment of this beloved franchise.
Comments
10 years, 8 months ago
i think you would have like the game more if you played it when it first came out, litter been knocked of the table, people talking to you when you throw things at them, physx, the AI, enemies that move to cover then flank when your not looking at them, all the things you take for granted were all revolutionary at the time. and as for the original Half life you could look up ....UP... amazing for the time, you could even head shot people...fing incredible.
for both games this was all done and it even has a compelling story
10 years, 8 months ago
You had to be there at the time. It was miles ahead of everything else in the genre at the time. The only game that could rival it at the time would be F.E.A.R.
10 years, 8 months ago
Maybe it just isn't for you. I don't see the big deal about Knights of the Old Republic, or League of Legends. Different strokes for different folks.
10 years, 8 months ago
I need to get around to playing and finish half life 1 so I could play half life 2
10 years, 8 months ago
You are, of course, out of touch with the game; it deserves every ounce of praise it got, notably so for the time it was released. It changed and moulded first person shooters by raising the bar by a massive level, and was one of the first games people could point to and say: "Yep, this is the next generation."
It was the first game to put the cinematics in front of you as opposed to a cutscene, it was the first game to have realistic and believable facial animations, it was the first game to have a huge priority on physics, and, hey, it was wrapped up in a nice shell of astounding atmosphere and a variety of gameplay elements.
You have missed the boat by miles, unfortunately. Going back to a game like this having played others that were inspired by it (i.e. Call of Duty) renders it plain. It's like playing a really great puzzle game and going back to Tetris and saying, "What's so special about this? Bejeweled is better.."
But hey, do play Episode 1 and 2, as they're pretty good experiences as well, if you enjoyed the story even a little bit.
10 years, 8 months ago
Half Life was really a game to be played in and around the time of its release , You can't be exposed to modern games and then expect to go back without feeling letdown.
Maybe fans of the series look back with rose tinted glasses , but that's only because it was such an amazing experience when they first played it and they enjoy reliving these feelings.
I got it with the Orange Box which I only got to get Portal, I was shocked to find this incredible game that I had never heard of on the disk. currently in my top 5 of all time.
10 years, 8 months ago
"You're wrong because you didn't play the game in an unobtainably specific context"
10 years, 8 months ago
Perhaps going into the game with this ultra-hype mentality soured it a bit?
10 years, 8 months ago
This coming from a guy who has LoL on his favorite games of all time. derp
Everything about Half Life 2 is brilliant and it still holds up more than most shooters that come out these days that have been influenced by it. It's sad that you don't see it that way when apparently you think of most of the sections as "corridor shooters." Just because those sections are like that doesn't make it bad.
10 years, 8 months ago
I played half life 2 the week it came out originally and once a year since then. I still feel it holds up beautifully but maybe thats alot of nostalgia talking. At the time everything felt fresh. From the characters and your relationship with them to the sense of world atmosphere. Its the same argument with mario 64. At the time mario 64s open world platforming was ground breaking. Try and go back and play that shit on an n64 controller now.
10 years, 8 months ago
Being just a bit too dense to truly enjoy most stories in this kind of media, and being a bit too clueless at the time that I played it to appreciate the innovative things, I didn't really enjoy Half-Life 2 beyond "It was a fun shooter".
I've always preferred the first Half-Life because of the environments and enemy variety+designs. I just can't enjoy jumping around boxes and shooting the same few Combine dudes the way I enjoy jumping around boxes and shooting four different kinds of aliens in the same room, all of whom act completely different from each other.
10 years, 8 months ago
This is like when I played OOT for the first time a couple years ago. Maybe its amazing for its time but when you play it for the first time now its just alright. I played HL2 when it came out and its one of my favorites. Definitely my favorite FPS. As for it having problems, I honestly cant think of a single one by today's standards let alone 2004's standards. Still better then most shooters FPS games in my eyes.
10 years, 8 months ago
Here's my question to the guys that are saying it's too late to get the full experience of Half Life: then why are there so many who continue to drool over it like it's the greatest game of all time, most of whom I can only assume didn't play it when it came out? I'm like Frank, I played Half Life well past it's initial release. I first played Half Life on the PS2 and HL2 on the 360 Orange Box about a year ago and both were pretty meh to me. I can appreciate that their development had a pretty big impact on the FPS genre, but I can't see why these games are still held in such high regard as though they can match up against some newer games that have refined and perfected the ground work laid by Half Life.
10 years, 8 months ago
I really think its your own tastes on this one since I played the HL series a little over 2 years ago and loved all of them. People simply have games they enjoy and some they don't, HL 2 (or any other games in the series) doesn't seem to be your bread and butter from what I've read in this article. The closest I can relate to is playing Gears of War a couple of years back and thinking it was a huge steaming pile of shit, looking back on it probably wasn't that bad a game but it just simply wasn't for me.
10 years, 8 months ago
I have my fair share of problems with Half-Life 2, but I do hold it in high regard and I have to say that I don't fully agree with some of the points made here. For example, I disagree with billing it as simply a corridor shooter; I look back on the game's chapters and find that this isn't largely accurate, at least from my experience, considering in my multiple playthroughs I've usually approached most conflicts differently every time and been perfectly able to succeed.
And I really must say that while I understand the shotgun and SMG are effective, relying on them for the entire game isn't the fault of the designers. Yes, the classic short range and mid-to-long range FPS guns were effective, but what else were you expecting? The triumph of Half-Life 2, other than its atmosphere, art design, and introduction of Source (and, thus, the game industry's obsession with physics tomfoolery) was that it rolled out a big ol' toolkit of options and it gave the player free reign to take advantage of them. If you were expecting the game to craft specific situations for specific weapons and go "okay, now use the Magnum" or "so this is the crossbow sequence," then I'd argue you were expecting a lesser experience.
Again, I do have my issues with HL2, and if there's anyone who understands that an opinion is an opinion it's me, but on these two points at least, I felt a need to retort.
10 years, 8 months ago
Just to respond to comments: People who say Bioshock is one of the best shooters of all time are sorely mistaken. The shooting is certainly not one of the high points of that series and the weapon variety was useless. :/
10 years, 8 months ago
>I can't speak for how Half-Life 2 compared to other shooters back when it was released
then you're completely missing the point of the game (or at least, what was my major takeaway from it, and what I remember it for) - which was the new physics engine that completely blew everything else at the time out of the water. Being able to pick up an object and throw it, seeing a realistic ragdoll effect, an object bouncing around properly - these were all very novel and exciting to experience for the first time and brought excitement for the future gaming. The physics also allowed new types of gameplay - the physics puzzles, the gravity gun, and the entire Ravenholm sequence.
10 years, 8 months ago
I remember going back to Half Life 2 a few times. I remember after the Heath Regen Eara I went back to it and felt like it was Halo, only you didn't regen your health until after you clear the room, or beat a boss by looking around in the environment. 3rd time played it on Hard which forced me to use other weapons due to ammo constraints. Headshots with bow and mag kill guys faster if you have the skill for it.
I feel the same way you do, I try to look at it as a moment of time when things were shifting away from level design of HL1 and the corridor style of CoD or Halo.
Funny to think that Bioshock follows HL1 formula pretty well and could be considered HL2 if it wasn't a spiritual successor of System Shock.
10 years, 8 months ago
Nice article. Glad you took my sugestion and called everyone nostalgic assholes.
10 years, 8 months ago
Half-Life 2 is a game that suffers from its own technological advancements. When we were following this game before its release, gamers were stunned. Its physics engine and cinematic improvements over the first title were unlike anything in gaming at the time, but nobody paid attention to the gameplay. If the action wasn't focused on the Source engine it was commonplace, linear, and easily reproduced. This is more so apparent today and possibly the reason why Valve has been pushing back HL3 or Episode 3 for so very long.
Half-Life 2 is simply a big budgeted action piece with way too much focus on its cinematic core and if you didn't play it for the first few years it came out; you missed the party.