Is it just me or is every PC gaming publication going absolutely nuts over this game? Is there any thing truly revolutionary about this game? The physics engine isn't that inspiring ( it is cool however, especially with the gravity gun), and terribley over used (with puzzles), while the graphics are the only real strong point.
Is there even a decent plot? Not at the beggining, and it sure takes a while to get to the end. The gameplay is tedious, as the guards look, act and fire the same.
The AI in half life 1 at least were advanced for their time, in this game they seem the exact same. The weapons aren't anything special (with the exception of the gravity gun).
The installion is a major pain in the ass, and downright impossible without an online connection.
An 80 % game at most, this isn't the timeless classic it's cranked out to be.

[ 12-30-2004, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Sir Degrader ]

Best Single Player FPS I've ever played. Why? Atmosphere, AI, realism, HL1 references, Big Brother...
If you just run and shoot, what is teh AI supposed to do? Shoot, what else. They duck behind cover to reload, they attack in teams, and the bastards are really precise on higher difficulties. If, on the other hand, you try to use some advanced tactics against the AI, then it really comes to shine. If they are set to hunt you, they will hunt, they will search and the will kill. What more do you want from an AI, to sit down and have a cup of coffee? The game is really all that.

lol, that would be handy [img]tongue.gif[/img]

The game is revolutionary. No doubt about that. It's better then Doom 3. Doom failed miserably, becuase everyone expected to what HL2 is IMO. But the funny thing is that Leslie is playing BG more then HL.

Well I think the game is pretty revolutionary in a number of areas, a lot of them derived from the physics engine.

The plot is on par with HL1 IMO, not novel quality but good for a first person game.

How far are you along? The guards are just one of the opponents you'll face. The AI varies between fairly uninspired (guards) to pretty durn good (the flying aliens, the fast head crabbed monsters in Ravenhome and the tripod dudes). Watching the tripods manuver to get a shot at you when you're hiding is pretty impressive, they can figure out how to get under and around obstacles and none of it is scripted.

As far as being too long... the only gripe I had was that the game was too short, I finished it in 3 days.

The traditional weapons aren't anything special, but the grav-gun is the coolest weapon I've ever seen in a game, especially once you get into the combine. Combined with rag-doll and the insane level of interactivity and just about anything can become a weapon.

The level designs are IMO the best in any shooter that I've played... and I've played them all. COD has some very cool levels, and the Unreal franchise had a couple too, but HL2 had a TON of them, the bridge, Ravenhome, the airboat, the crane, and many more.

The installation thing is a matter of system capability. I told steam to pre-download the game and installation was about as painless for me as any game I've ever played. When I wanted to play the game on a different system I installed steam, copied the download directory from my other system and had the game running in minutes. Of course if you don't have a fast computer and broadband their approach is going to be a big PITA, so I can understand that complaint.

There's no such thing as a "timeless" game, they all look dated after a year, so that's not an issue IMO.

Sure there'll be better first person games in the future, but there's nothing close on the market today.

I'me running around a haunted village Ravenolme (sp). Please tell me the game gets better.

BEST FIRST PERSON SHOOTER EVER! HALF LIFE2 = GODLIKE AS WELL AS COUNTERSTRIKE SOURCE GAME WAS AWESOME FOLLOWED FROM HL1 EXACTALLY, GRAPHICS GODLY, AI GODLY, FUN LEVEL GODLY, ENVIORMENT GODLY. THERFORE GAME = GODLY. They put six years of devolpment into the game how about a lil credit.

Aarrrrrgh, all the people that put HL2 > Far Cry. All the game sites place HL2 as THE best FPS shooter for 2004. Man, I recently removed Far Cry from my pc because I'm completely through with it (in case im not making myself clear here: I've been playing Far Cry since it came out and now I decided to uninstall it. I didn't even last that long with VTM:B and I'm all RPG fan!!). That game came out May (or March?) this year. I actually traded HL2 in for TCOR:EFBB and was blown away by the sheer beauty of it. Plus that game is more original in gameplay then HL2, still, the atmosphere and graphical prestige from Far Cry isn't toppled by it.

[ 12-30-2004, 06:33 PM: Message edited by: Zuvio ]

This game is definetly a very good game, but IMHO,

1) The water craft level wasnt long enough, and the buggy level was too long. I have a save where there was a fork in the river, and i took the path to a headcrab infested bungalow, and i must have hit something triangular because next thing i knew i was on TOP of the bungalow. LOL

2) The graphics were incredibly good, the monster design and the Combine Technology design were top notch.

3) The one thing i had a gripe about, was that when you got the shotgun in Ravenholm, look to the right of Yuri Gagarin(thats what i call him :D ), and it looks like Ravenholm is a box.

4) Dog is a BEAST! THAT THING CAN TAKE DOWN ANYTHING! Anyone who has reached AntiCitizen One knows what I'm talking about.

5) The Gravity Gun was cool and original, and was implemented at every turn( a good thing).

6) This out performs Doom 3 in every way. The level dwsign blows Doom 3's away. Doom 3: The level designers must have had a fetish for quadrilaterals, because you where either in a rectangular room, a square room or a hallway. if you weren't in one of the afore mentioned things, you obviously got there by one. HL2: The level design was open, the draw distance was unbelieveable, (but not a good as Far Cry's). The design for 'Anticitizen One', 'Follow Freeman!', 'Dark Energies', and 'We Don't Go Into Ravenholm...' were open stunning, and Ravenholm was scarier than all of Doom 3 together. On the plus side, HL2 will run full specs on lesser graphics cards, and look better than D3. My bro got a 9600XT for X-Mas, and it goes full specs on HL2. It won't even run Doom 3.

Far Cry was good... but it's graphics weren't up to Doom3 standard much less HL2.

Have only played EFBB on a buddies system... looks cool but nothing earth shattering tech wise.

JMO but HL2 is way beyond anything on the market today.

The only game that comes close to HL2 is Far Cry, and HL2 kicks Far Cry's ass.

As someone else said, the only thing I didn't like was how short the game was - I would've liked it better if it lasted a bit longer.

Expect an add-on in six months, the ending practically shouts it out.

I had more fun with Halo 2. [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]
One reason for this is the storyline. I found HL2 storyline a little....cliche. Be part of the resistance and beat back the government bad guys with all the high tech gadgets. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

This is from a person who has played and beaten both games. [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]

Alright, I'me now in the mine. I like the interactivity, but I hate the wandering around needed to do this game. That, and I seem to have puzzle solving problems (like with the car), the Level design is at times excellent, but other times frusterating as hell. I guess I overthink things, which detracts from the experiance.

I really enjoyed hl2

However I would agree the plot was terrible.

And it was too short. and the last level was too easy and boring.

But thats the negatives, the positives were it was very exciting and interesting. You do lots of stuff that you never do in a first person shooter.

I cannot resist but....

Best FPS ever? Nonsense especially since you didn't get a chance to try out HL3 [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Counterstrike is real fun and addictive I admit....

Graphics are great especially the wide outdoor enviroments and faces are spectacular. But there are some things that look a bit....bland.

AI is average I think. They don't perform advanced and sophisticated tactics.

Fun Level...what about when you arrived at a puzzle that really had your brain crankin? So much that you feel that you are back at school.

Enviroment look at my comment of graphics

If the game was truly "godly" everyone would adore it and play it until they starve to death.

Six years I very strongly disagree. Yes Half-Life came about in 1998 but that didn't mean Valve started making Half-Life 2 right away. They must have been busy making expansions such as Opposing Force. And might have waited until a new generation of graphics dawned. And they did. Before 2000 nearly every game had characters with square hands and very poor lip sync if there was any at all.

Godly is really in the eye of the beholder (nyah nyah nyah), why else would there be so many different religions, faiths and even more believers? Still, like pop-music, we choose based on numbers.

Which means that in a poll of which is THE BEST FPS OF THE YEAR 2004 and you had to choose between Far Cry and HalfLife 2 and like 250.000 ppl voted for HL2 and no one voted for Far Cry, then we just have to apply Dutch Calculus which means that the other 5.999.750.000 ppl who didn't vote, automatically voted for Far Cry.

So: yeey Far Cry!

P.S. if you don't believe me on the Dutch Calculus thingy, read how our constitution of 1801 was accepted :D

Nah the game is pretty good but the instalation of it was a pain in the ass!
System Shock II is a way better game the story is perfeckt there! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Well polls are opinions and ontop of that I bet many who vote did not play both FarCry or Half Life 2.

Guys, the real reason HL2 is honestly one of the best games of all time isn't because of HL2 itself. It's because of all the mods that will be based off of HL2.

CS:S is already out. They're working to release DoD:S, I think TFC2 is somewhere down the line. On top of that, some other mod group is re-writing HL1 with HL2's engine.

Those are just the three most popular mods, there will be many, many more.

Blasphemy.

Physics engine IS that inspiring, please offer me any other game before the Half-life 2 engine that had code superior to that of Half-life 2, or anywhere close for that matter. It's overused as much as you decide to use it essentially, except in sections where it's simply convinient to use it anyway.

There is a decent plot, you've just played the first part of the game. How are you expected to judge the quality of say a an entire book from the first few chapters? Hardly fair is it?

AI, again the engine is significantly advanced. What do you want them to do, start break-dancing for you?

Weapons. You haven't finished the game yet.

The only con I can suggest with this game, and the one you correctly highlighted is the long and tedious installation process. Unfortunately, that was made neccesary after the hacking scandal back in 2003/4.

But the Positive factors-Perfect Modding potential, Counterstrike, Fantastic enemy model design, interesting vehicle sections, inspired set-pieces, terrific voice-acting, the ultimate linear game experience, perfectly balanced weaponry, visionary freedom within a linear pathed game. This game is all that and the discount bag of potato chips availiable in your local supermarket.

Best.Game.Ever.

And you wait until the good mods come out (waiting for the Day of Defeat mod).

Painkiller has the same physics engine base if I am not mistaken.

Nice Azeral :hehe

Decent plot? Yeah a decent plot with many holes in them. I beaten the first and second and I was hoping that there would a explanation of what happened between Black Mesa and City 17. And I may have missed this but does it say anywhere that <font color=red> Minor Spoiler: How those electric aliens are in leauge with the Resistance? Wouldn't they be pissed since Gordon commited a geniocide of their race and killed I guess leader or god or superior that was the boss of the first game? </font>

Just please elaborate on how "advanced" the A.I. is.

All the weapons are ok and the gravity gun is sweet and even that I cannot deny.

Regardless it is still an awesome game. But I don't think it deserves the "Best Game Ever" title. Such a game would be perfect with no flaws. No game I have known as achieved this but some has come real close, such as BG 2.

[ 01-06-2005, 05:51 AM: Message edited by: Sythe ]

I thought the AI wasn't that special, really. Once they start shooting a salvo they won't follow your movements. They hardly take cover, and usually remain in plain sight. And don't get me started on their response to grenades.

LOL

Is this the "significantly advanced" Artificial Intellgence Sigmar? [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

Blasphemy.
Physics engine IS that inspiring, please offer me any other game before the Half-life 2 engine that had code superior to that of Half-life 2, or anywhere close for that matter. It's overused as much as you decide to use it essentially, except in sections where it's simply convinient to use it anyway.
There is a decent plot, you've just played the first part of the game. How are you expected to judge the quality of say a an entire book from the first few chapters? Hardly fair is it?
</font>[/QUOTE]I just finished HL2, and as Sythe says, the story leaves out massive chunks in it.
I'd be perfectly happy if the AI took cover, tap dancing would be way out of context. The weapon's were not very special. Ooooh a machine gun and a "future" machine gun. How interesting. The best linear experiance ever?
Nay. Call of Duty, the UT tournament, Dawn of War, AGE OF BLOODY EMPIRES as well as Diablo 2 and the warcraft series had better linear play. Though you were right about one thing. The mods will be awesome.

*stretches neck*

Right you lot, no need to be cheeky.

This post will contain spoilers.

Anyway. Let's begin class...

1-First the storyline issue. The fact that they haven't shoved everything into your face and told you "The Evil Dark Lord Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach and blah blah blah" doesn't neccesarily mean there are plot holes, it means they are being subtle about the whole issue, just like in Half-life 1. The electric aliens, the "Vortigaunts" are in league with the resistance thanks to your actions in the first game (I'm assuming you've all played the first game). In the first games, although not immediately obvious, it turns out that the Vortiguants and their "leader" the N'illianth are being oppressed by another unseen force. When you're fighting the N'illianth you hear him say (although in massive echoey words) "Freeman, free us". In Half-life 2, talking to a few specific Vortigaunts you find out that they were all under Combine control, and by killing the N'illianth that you released all the Vortigaunts from the their control. In Half-life 2 one Vortiguant says they had been shackled, but I haven't played Half-life 1 for such a long time now that I can't remember whether they had physical "shackles" or it was a figure of speech. At the very beginning of the game (half-life 2) when you head right you see a combine soldier forcing a vortiguant to pick up a can and put it in the bin. He's in shackles then.

The Combine is a (Slug-like) alien race which enslaves different worlds throughout the universe and modify's it into a slave race essentially (like those "Humans" you saw at the end of Half-life 2 within the Citadel, the Stalkers. Humans who had all their internal organs removed, replaced with a liquid which their remaining shell and brain could function on, as well as replacing their arms and legs with handy gear shifting metallic limbs.

What happened between Black Mesa and City 17. The point of this game is that you are Gordon Freeman trying to survive some crazy exploits, with typically no idea how you got there or what to do. At the end of Half-life 1 you're basically kept "on ice" by the G-Man until you were reawakened and "entered" (thrown head first)into the World of Half-life 2, Gordon had no idea what's happened either, he'd been stuck in limbo. Nonetheless you can still pick up on what happenend by talking to various characters in the game, specifically Elijah in his lab when you face his notice board (7 Day War etc)

All the dialogue and story are communicated directly to you from characters you interact with in the game. If you choose not to talk to some people, you might not understand some of the subtleties of the plot.

If you want to know more about the story, or you still missed things out check here: http://fragfiles.org/~hlstory// A Valve approved story guide.

2- The A.I everyone seems to be more than willing and eager to throw back in my face. Please note: Notice my carefully worded "significantly advanced" as opposed to say... "THE GREATEST A.I EVAAA1!!!111" :D My reference was to it being better than Half-life 1's A.I, which together with that of Halo's and Perfect Dark has always been my benchmark for FPS A.I quality.

Once in combat, the computer A.I. takes over from the scripting and each enemy operates with one goal in mind: killing you. While most of the time the A.I. is pretty good, it just doesn’t seem as dynamic as it was in the first Half-Life (before the "Contradiction police" come after me I'd like to emphasise dynamic, i.e when in combat HL2:"Ooo a grenade BAM" HL1:"RUN *actually runs*). Enemies tend to take cover in most situations, but given enough time, will run at you without any care for their safety. They may see a grenade and even yell about it, but for some reason they don’t get out of the way. Changing the difficulty settings only seems to change the amount of damage your weapons do as opposed to changing the behavior of the A.I. Still, compared to other games I've played recently (too many mediocre first person shooters to name) Doom 3, Far Cry. It is significantly advanced A.I, though admittedly flawed (there is a patch in the works, but then isn't there always?), but in truth the most impressive A.I I have seen in any FPS is that of Halo's.

3-Weapons...hoo boy, I lurve these weapons.

Pistol-Perfectly balanced primary firearm, lost some of it's uniqueness by not being one of the few weapons that can fire underwater (unlike in Half-life 1) but since there are no extensive underwater sections this isn't a big loss.

Crowbar-Smashy Smashy.

Magnum-The portable hand cannon's been toned down so that the game is more balanced (especially the deathmatch!)

Crossbow- Just like Painkiller's only decent contribution to the FPS world (aside from being the blatant physics-engine advertisement that it is), the Impaler wood thingy. The Crossbow is a joy to use, especially to impale enemies on walls in various different ways!

Shotgun-Perfect shotgun. Shorter reloading time than in the first, decent damage and the perfect headcrab infestation cleanser.

Standard Machine Gun- The bread and butter of the Half-life 2 world, they did a good job of making it look weedy compared to it's Combine counterpart.

Combine Rifle-Best rifle in any game (except perhaps Perfect Dark's Minigun) ever. The noise, the look, the reloading, poifect. The bouncy ball of doom seconday function is just a nice treat.

Rocket Launcher-I lurve the guiding system, so much better than the crappy fire and forget missiles in (nearly [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) every other game.

"Ant-Lion's"- Genius. Personally felt a bit overused in my opinion.

Gravity Gun+nearly every object in the game-Mindblowing, the game world is your oyster baby with this thing. Best weapon ever....you can kill combine soldiers....WITH A TOILET! Use it to pick up grenades thrown at you and then launch it back at the same enemy. Grab those spinning robot discs of doom, and smash them into walls or each other, or even cut some zombies in half with some higly dubious harvesting equipment left lying around!

Gauss Gun-"mounted on buggy" always felt it was a bit naff in Half-life 1 really. I'm glad they kept it on the buggy.

Greande-Frag grenades have a relatively small explosion radius, and they have some kind of LED on them. Otherwise, they're pretty straightforward. They're great for clearing dug-in Combine soldiers or large groups of less dangerous enemies, like zombies. Also, remember that you can pick them up with the gravity gun and toss them back at Combine that throw them at you. Joy! Better than the "Holy Hand Grenades" that other games portray them as.

Perhaps one of the reasons that the weapons could be misconstrued as not very special was that it was Half-life 1 that first ushered in a weapon set so balanced as to rival Goldeneye's. It's not Valve's fault that every other developer and their auntie's have decided to rip them off in one form or another. So on top of providing us with the brilliant weapon set from the first game, they've also thrown in the lovely Pulse rifle and the Gravity Gun. Plus, it's in the same game universe. So no Serious Sam Hand Cannons, big deal! :D

If you're still disappointed, I recommend you play through the game a second time with the Ultra Gravity Gun. Brilliant.

4-Physics engine. Forgive my self-induced stupidity in my previous post. The best use of the Havoc Physic's engine...dare I say it...EVVAAAAA!!111.

5-Best linear experience. Probably to contribute that to personal opinion really isn't it? For me, it's Half-life 2 all the way.

I hope that's been of some help to all of you, as well as clearing up some misconceptions. Remember, there's no need to be rude dears. :D

[ 01-07-2005, 10:57 AM: Message edited by: Sigmar ]

Man, I can't argue with those calculations! :D

I wasent being rude, I am fairly sure that pain killer and halflife 2 has the same physics engine just that halflife 2 has really beefed them up.

Not the physics engine, only the HAVOK component. And Half Life 2 uses the most of HAVOK's capabilities, far beyond those of Painkiller. Painkiller's OK but HL2's physics rule.

I bet it was me being the rude one with my cheeky ( [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] ) attitude. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] See! Sorry about that, I sometimes go on and on without realising what I am really doing. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

And I suppose its the best game ever for some people. Though I still disagree Half Life 2 is the most awesome game in the entire universe even though you cleared many of the misconceptions for me Sigmar.

I was hoping the tone of my post conveyed that I wasn't really that bothered about people being "cheeky". :D

It's hard when you can only express what you're thinking through one dimension (I.E. words on a brown message forum).

Never say "best ever" on a forum... next month there will be something better and your post will still be here... MOCKING YOU! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Then there's always PowerWord:Edit :D

[ 01-10-2005, 05:42 PM: Message edited by: Zuvio ]

Then there's always PowerWord:Edit :D </font>[/QUOTE]Only if nobody quotes you to tell you it's a bad idea to say "best ever" ;)

Best Game Ever Written. But still not worth putting up with steam on a 56K connection after valve patched it and broke the offline play functionality. Yes, thats right. I swore I would never buy this game, but after reading on IW that it did work offline and was generaly excellent, I broke down. And what do those ****s do? They break the ******* play offline function! Im going to go away now before I say something about those incompetent *******s that'll get me in trouble.

Brill game though.

True dat Arledrian.

The installation process makes me feel like imploding.

So does the working offline stuff.

For no reason it wouldn't work offline yesterday so I had to connect with my 56K modem and spend Half and hour waiting for a supposed "update".

Bah, I blame the hackers.

I can't stay mad at the game though, ever. :D

Arledrian! Is that you in the shell of andrewas?! I never knew! [img]tongue.gif[/img]