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Is it me getting older and jaded or Half-Life 2 is one of the worst shooters?

Lyric Suite

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Time to post le favored Codex teenager lel again:



Not only did Half Life 2 fail as a game, but the writing is just about the most insulting shit i ever had the displeasure to experience. The only thing the game had going for it were the production values.
 

Ivan

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WTF IS THIS SHIT. Half Life 2 has hilarious physics driven death animation. Drilling combine corpses w/crossbow bolts, awwwwwwwwww good stuff. and the fuck you magnum. some standout guns in a generally pitiful arsenal.
 

catfood

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Time to post le favored Codex teenager lel again:



Not only did Half Life 2 fail as a game, but the writing is just about the most insulting shit i ever had the displeasure to experience. The only thing the game had going for it were the production values.

latest
 

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HL 2 was incredibly mediocre, I never really cared much for it, the visuals were bland, levels were completely rail-road linear, the combat situations felt like scripted set pieces, gameplay/enemies were boring, the pacing was all over the place, plot was lame as shit, very overrated game, why everyone is so eager for a sequel is beyond me.
 

Soulcucker

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Massively overrated and a step down from HL1/OF, but close to half of the game is pretty good. I thought Ravenholm right up to the Citadel was good minus the overly long car section, everything before and after was pretty mediocre. Episode 1 was mediocre, but Episode 2 quite good.
 

Murk

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Time to post le favored Codex teenager lel again:



Not only did Half Life 2 fail as a game, but the writing is just about the most insulting shit i ever had the displeasure to experience. The only thing the game had going for it were the production values.


This kid's p gud. He gives a shoutout to the kkkodicks in his deus sex vid too.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
HL2 is a tech demo. Everything else is irrelevant.

At its time, it was technically impressive. Very, very impressive. The physics were great and added so many possibilities to gaming - one very popular mod was Gmod which allows people to derp around with physics. The facial animations are great, and are one of the reasons Bloodlines is so immersive, which runs on the same engine. I would even say that Source engine graphics still look vastly superior to many modern games because they've got quite realistic looks to them and relatively high visual fidelity (good quality assets etc), but it's not overblown with stupid post-processing effects like most modern games are.

So that's why HL2 was popular and is still well-remembered as an influential game. It was one of the last "generation-shifting" games on PC: vastly improving technology and possible features of an engine. In these days, we don't get such games often anymore because everything is made for console. It's first and foremost a technical achievement.

I remember back before its release how some German gaming mags previewed it and always focused on the tech of the engine. Physics, graphics, relatively open outdoors levels, etc.
 

pippin

Guest
The thing is FEAR could also be seen as a tech demo, but it was way more tight and focused and ended up being a much more enjoyable experience even if it's still a very linear game.
The problem about HL2 is that there's nothing keeping the game together. It's not just story or themes, it's just that everything seems like a part from a different game. Ravenholm is probably the only truly good part about the game in my opinion, the rest always felt like fluff.
 

Lyric Suite

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Not only did Half Life 2 fail as a game, but the writing is just about the most insulting shit i ever had the displeasure to experience
You haven't played metal gear

I haven't played metal gear but for the record i didn't mean it in the sense i consider the writing to be particularly bad. I mean it is but it isn't Bethesda bad for instance. I just hated how condescending it was. That kid nailed it in that review. The game was just taking me for an idiot with all the coddling and the constant references to the original that made no god damn sense.

"Hey it's me, Barney"

Fuck you Valve.
 

Eyestabber

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I played HL2 at release. Got INCREDIBLY bored, uninstalled and never looked back. Never understood the hype around it. Forgive my simplicity, but I think shooters should be about, well...shooting.
 

sullynathan

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I haven't played metal gear but for the record i didn't mean it in the sense i consider the writing to be particularly bad. I mean it is but it isn't Bethesda bad for instance. I just hated how condescending it was. That kid nailed it in that review. The game was just taking me for an idiot with all the coddling and the constant references to the original that made no god damn sense.

"Hey it's me, Barney"

Fuck you Valve.

Fair enough. Metal gear is just poorly written.

I played half life 2 immediately after half life 1 and I wasn't big on the references, I didn't know people even paid attention to them.
 

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Time to post le favored Codex teenager lel again:



Not only did Half Life 2 fail as a game, but the writing is just about the most insulting shit i ever had the displeasure to experience. The only thing the game had going for it were the production values.


One of the best videos I've seen of HL
 

garren

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I liked the game back when it came out, but nowadays having to watch all those talking sequences just to advance in the game is boring. Lemme shoot stuff, goddamnit.
 
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This came out recently, a low down on the state of HL3 and Episode 3 from an ex-worker from Valve.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2017/01/11/searching-for-half-life-3.aspx

Basically the HL2 team had disagreements for where the game should go and the team broke up to tackle other projects which were easy like DOTA 2 and ambitious like their space pirate game which got scrapped. In the end they burnt out and lost their mojo. For all their talk of a cabal system to get things done, it seems they're too dysfunctional to make it work.
 

GrainWetski

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There are hundreds and hundreds of worse FPS, so I wouldn't go as far as saying "one of the worst FPS ever" though it is certainly overrated. Maybe you can stretch it there if you ignore all the absolutely horrible console trash released in the last decade or so.
 

The Dutch Ghost

Arbiter
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May 26, 2016
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681
It has been ages since I played this game, I think the last time I played Half Life 2 and the expansions must have been about two or three years ago.
Back when it was released I was rather impressed by it, but I also was by Doom 3 at the time.
And perhaps they did some things that were exciting or new or improved on earlier gameplay elements of previous FPS games, but that is all now far in the past.
Strip the technical impressiveness away and you end up with rather bland games.

For a long time I wanted to play Half Life 2 Episode 3, or Half Life 3 to see how the story continued, I really wanted to know about the mysteries behind the Combine, and what would be next for humanity now that the Combine is driven off.
Will we recover or is the slide into chaos and extinction already to far. Earth is fucked up because of alien planetary engineering and all the wildlife of Xen that was set loose.

But I really don't care any more. 2008 would have been a good release date for a Half Life sequel, or at best 2009.

It is to late now, even if Valve suddenly got their heads of their asses and get an actual team organized. The gamers who played Half Life 1 and 2, who were in their teens or twenties, are now jaded adults, and I doubt the new generation of gamers really cares.

I would rather see a spiritual sequel to Half Life and all the other FPS "classics" than sequels or reboots, preferably by a developer that still cares and wants to prove itself, trying out new ideas to make FPS fans interested and excited again.
 

Muty

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Wasteland 2 BattleTech
hw2 is the definition of mediocrity. Good that Valve finally realized that you should lay off the coke for a bit before making games and stopped making any.
 

ZagorTeNej

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Messages
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I don't know how you guys can complain about half life 2 but like FEAR even though these same complaints exist in both games but are worse in fear.

Aside from being linear FPSes, the two games are nothing alike. HL2 strength is supposed to be its gameplay diversity (you never spend much time doing the same thing), story/world building and atmosphere while FEAR is about its stylistic, over the top John Woo/FP Max Payne gunfights against enemies which have excellent AI and some Jap style horror sprinkled on top of all that. As far as I'm concerned F.E.A.R does what it does extremely well (which is why I replayed the game quite a few times over the years, including Extraction Point which is one of the best expansions ever made) while HL2 I've barely finished once on release, I even prefer FEAR graphics (I've always liked how it used dynamic shadows, particle effects during gunfights and visual design/art direction of enemies and weapons).

HL2 has more guns than FEAR so it should be forgiven

It doesn't, FEAR has more weapons than you remember and all of them right down to the starting pistol (let alone heavyweights like shotgun and railgun)l are far more satisfying to use than HL2 pea shooters.
 

sser

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Time to post le favored Codex teenager lel again:



Not only did Half Life 2 fail as a game, but the writing is just about the most insulting shit i ever had the displeasure to experience. The only thing the game had going for it were the production values.


Watching this made me like HL-2 even more.
 

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