By Alec Meer on October 14th, 2008 at 4:15 pm.
At the annual Who Can Shout The Loudest competition that is the PC Gamer UK Top 100 meeting, there are rules. These rules differ from year to year, and in 2008 one of them was “only one game per series.” So we couldn’t say Thief and Thief 2, or Morrowind and Oblivion – which sounds harsh, but the idea was to ensure as diverse a list as possible. And yet still no-one nominated Big Mutha Truckers 2.
There ended up being a couple of exceptions to this rule, and the one I particularly fought for was Half-Life. I simply don’t consider HL1 and HL2 to be especially comparable games, despite sharing a lead character, partial arsenal and a name. I also much prefer the first game, for all its greater shlockiness.
Why? Because it’s Indiana Jones. HL2 is more 1984-as-action-movie, and while it’s marvellously well-realised, far more polished and thematically consistent, I don’t find that as thrilling as all of HL1’s rip-roaring high adventure.
(note – I’m pretending Xen didn’t happen for the purposes of this post. Yes, it’s a bit crap).
While the events of HL1 are hardly comical – alien invasion leads to massacre, exacerbated by governmental evil – Black Mesa is nonetheless a jollier place to be than the oppression and horror of City-17. HL the first is a b-movie and it knows it, but HL2 comes off, despite knowing comedy beats, as a lot more aloof, a lot more convinced it’s something more than an action game. That has its place and I certainly admire its accomplishments, but collapsing elevators, tentacle beasts and hapless scientists perishing in their dozens is something I’m much more inclined to return to. HL2 doesn’t mix things up anywhere near as, bar the vehicle sections and some physics-puzzling. It’s more like a sci-fi Call of Duty in a lot of ways, and it does it excellently – but it never surprised me as often as its forerunner did.
Oddly, I find HL a much more convincing journey too. Being trapped underground excuses the linearity, while HL2’s more open topography requires more uncomfortable compromises such as being unable to smash through the thin wooden fences throughout Ravenhom. (For all its spooky atmosphere, Ravenholm was the one element of HL2 I actively disliked. It was shooting for the sort of setpiece-based diversity HL1 does so well, but it felt so ghost train-contrived, especially in the maze-like layout of the level).
In Hl1, I’m stuck inside a sprawling concrete mega-bunker, a construct of tunnels and ducts: I entirely appreciate that I don’t have too much freedom of directional choice, and so the annoyances of that quintessential design handicap almost all singleplayer FPses suffer just… evaporates . As a result of this claustrophobia, those moments when I emerge into the outdoors are overwhelming and terrifying: it’s all so big, so exposed. The game entirely takes advantage of this confusion too, hovering helicopters over the open roads like deadly wasps, placing fortified RPG bunkers ominously overlooking the short jogs between shelters. It makes me long for a return to the concrete underworld, back where I feel much more like powersuited master of my domain. HL2 has plenty of outdoor/indoor switching, but there’s never that startling sense of contrast.
The age of the engine means it doesn’t work on me now, but on the first HL1 playthrough, my embarrassing vertigo kicked in when I was shuffling nervously along high-up cliff edges during one of the earlier outdoor escapades. So I faced the wall, walked sideways and refused to look down – a plan that rather fell apart when murderous soldiers started shooting at me. It all seemed so impossibly huge, like I’d been locked in a car boot for three days then suddenly awoke to find myself parachuting out of an aeroplane.
And of course there are the setpieces. HL2 has its Striders, but HL1 has the tentacle beast. The former are an incredible sight, heavy with menace and the defining statement on how the Combine manage to keep Earth in check. But once you fight them, they become just another enemy with so many hitpoints, and even worse the way to take ‘em down involves a magic box of infinite rockets. The Tentacle beast though – that you can’t fight. You can distract the stupid blind thing by lobbing grenades, but you can’t hurt it. Able to kill you in a single strike and fearsomely fast for something so huge, it’s an unforgettable monster.
You can kill it, eventually, by dousing it in fuel and setting it alight with a flame the size of a lighthouse, but you cannot fight it. Now that’s a bossmonster that never loses its threat, one that’s never diminished by falling over once you’ve shot it precisely x number of times. It’s great boss design all told, some annoying back-tracking aside – an entire level of the game is structured around it, with this huge, invincible, terrifying thing at the centre. You hear those dread bangs on its giant talons on steel wherever you are – even if it’s out of your sight, it’s never out of your mind.
I could go on, about the other splendid setpiece monsters, about how much more creepy the G-Man is when he barely speaks, about how it succeeds in making simple humans the creepiest enemies of all… But then I’d never finish this post. Half-Life 1 is the great omni-sci-fi adventure – Indiana Jones with aliens (there’s an Indy film like that, you say? You must be mistaken – there are definitely no aliens in any of the three Indy films ever made). HL2 narrows its focus in the name of tightness and polish, but silly, cocky old HL1 is the rollercoaster I want to ride again and again.
I agree, HL was way more fun than HL2.
report
I REALLY want to see tentacle beasts come to HL2. I actually had a gaming dream (I never have gaming dreams!) about how it’d be. I’ve got it all planned out. If they grew that big in the few hours of HL1, ten years of festering in HL2 after the portal storm would make for ludicrously huge tentacles. Like, the sort that could tear through buildings. It’d effortlessly pluck Combine gunships from the sky, smash through skyscrapers to reach tasty noisy morsels below, and scratch through the ground to dig up antlion nests.
It’s so beautiful in my mind. A huge crater with a massive tentacle beast in the epicentre, surrounded by the utter desolation of a city that even the combine can’t control.
report
I remember getting similar sensations when playing the first Jedi Knight game. But instead of the cliff side, they’d put you out on a tiny path in the middle of the chasm.
report
This is one of the reasons why I love RPS. You can articulate in wonderful words what I intuitively feel about many games.
report
Ah game induced vertigo how did you manage the alien levels I had to stop playing after leaving Black Mesa.
What part is the second screen shot from? I don’t remember them.
Half Life always made me feel like I was in a Dean Koontz novel, sorry I really don’t see the connection to Indy.
report
I still have nightmares about the tapping. The incessant, never-ending tapping. It never stops. Never sleeps.
tap tap tap
report
mmmmmmm
report
THANK CHRIST someone else thinks like I do. I finished Half Life on a Pentium 133 with software rendering at 5fps and I don’t think I was ever more enthralled with a game in my life.
On the other hand, I own HL2 and the first two episodes and the only one I’ve completely finished was HL2:E1.
report
HL1 also had much, much better gunfights. Which is to say they were worse, but they were comparable with everything else at the time so they seemed fine, whereas HL2′s felt stilted, awkward and clunky compared with the shooters coming out at the same time like BF: Vietnam and Far Cry.
The jumping puzzles were still a mistake, though.
report
There are things I actively dislike about both games. The final boss in HL1, the boat-y stuff in HL2, but I’m conflicted about which I prefer. I think there’s less stuff I like about Half-Life but I like the good stuff in Half-Life 2 more… if that makes any sense.
report
I remember getting similar sensations when playing the first Jedi Knight game. But instead of the cliff side, they’d put you out on a tiny path in the middle of the chasm.
Dark Forces 2? Absolutely! Strangely like in no other game since…
report
@Seniath:
“…drums…drums in the deep. We cannot get out.”
Tolkientastic.
report
Oh how I loathed the tentacle beast. So horrifying was that monstrosity that I had to come back to it years later, when it was old and decrepit, before I could kill it. Poor Gordon, spending years in that deathtrap, with death just a misstep and impalement away. It explains his silence perfectly. He suffers from post traumatic stress disorder.
report
I thought I was the only one!
Hopefully Left 4 Dead doesn’t get the same veneer of self-seriousness that has permeated Half-Life 2. Multiplayer tends to do away with that anyway, however.
report
I certainly agree on the B-movie monster aspect. Antlions got old after the first ten and the Combine is just the Combine, clothing and weapon changes can’t really alter them much. They’re dull. And the infrequency of larger things like striders means they end up with boss-like resilience.
The other thing is in 2 you’re necessarily the god like centre of the universe. In the first you’re just as guy who happened to be wearing the right suit when it all went down and you have to negotiate this three way mess that isn’t specifically about you (most of the time). That is often the sort of problem sequels face anyway though.
They ought to have accorded System Shock and System Shock 2 the same individuality based on that logic too: generations apart, distinctive and each similarly influential. But I bet they didn’t. That’s what raw popularity buys you.
(I’ll never get used to this ‘go write in the forum’ thing at this rate)
report
And at that, a thousand Steam accounts login and run HL:Source.
report
I hope you’ve taken the Jurasic Park effect in to account.
Yes, HL1 might well have had more impact and left a greater impression, but how much of that is the things you listed and how much of that is because it gave you something so far away from what you’ve seen before, at a time in your life when you’re that much more impressionable?
Look at Halo, really pretty pants. But it gave a whole load of impressionable people something totally new and because of that, despite the warts, Halo 2 and 3 never found the same place in peoples hearts.
report
There’s also the small matter of having many extra years to become a more jaded gamer, and come to think of HL1 as an unimpeachable classic. How many people who played HL2 first, then HL1 feel that HL1 was better? I certainly don’t. (I wasn’t a gamer back then, HL2 was largely responsible for me getting into games.)
report
I found HL2 really impressive, the first look at the graphics, physics and atmosphere in City 17 were truely breathtaking. More so that anything I saw in HL1. However I agree completely that HL1 was more fun, it was the game I couldn’t wait to get home from school to play and it was the game I completed three times on all the three difficulty levels.
report
I think you’re right but I think you’re over analyzing it
HL1 is still fun today because it has fun gameplay, it feels good, the guns pack a punch, the enemies are great.
HL2 is too contemplated and the combat sucks. It wowed everyone with its presentation when it came out, but all that’s left now is something that feels overly linear and scripted.
I want tripmines, satchel charges, real grenades and Snarks!! HL1 is a much more original game than HL2. EP2 is way better than HL2 though
report
Nope, I still prefer HL2. I mean, I love HL1, I’ve replayed for the umpteenth time a couple of months ago, but I still find HL2 much more entertaining.
HL1 does have fantastic setpieces but so does HL2, really. HL1 also has the Xen levels which are just plain awful and irritating.
report
HL1 was so much better than HL2. In HL2 they tried really hard, but in the end i don’t think they made a game as good as the first one.
In fact, there are some sections in HL2 where they tried to replicate the empty but tense spaces from HL1, but they didn’t get it right and the rythm of the game suffered. I think one of the key issues is how HL1 was all a cohesive enviroment, and in HL2 you had a little desert and a city and a prison and some mines and the fucking Ravenholm, all together. And of course the feeling of danger, the better marine AI, the more varied encounters, better weapons, was a longer game, the less annoying sidekicks, the minimalist plot where it had sense a hero who doesn’t open the mouth, etc etc.
report
I forgot one thing
I want gibs too! Where are they? I hate the feel of the source engine. I tried replaying HL2 after having replayed HL1 and I stopped because I got so bored. Shoot the red barrel gordon!
report
For the record, I believe Halflife 1 was a far greater game, had a far greater impact and will still be remembered when HL2 is long forgotten. Infact I always thought HL2 was over-rated, and that there are far better examples of the modern FPS than it.
report
I’m kinda torn here too. On the one hand, when it came out HL1 was amazing, and so unlike anything else.
However, after playing through HL2 (and the Eps) a couple of times, then going back to HL1, it just doesn’t hold up for me. The difficulty spikes, the Xen levels, the on-rails bit – it felt frustrating. HL2, on the other hand, feels better paced and just plain more fun.
report
When you sit down and think about it, the weaponry in HL2 is almost identical to HL1′s. Only some of the more outlandish alien stuff is absent: the Combine rifle is the Guass Gun, the super gravity gun is the Egon, Bugbait is the Snarks (pushing it a little there, but only a little)…
report
Boss article. I agree about the atmosphere and contained level design being better in HL1, but for me, HL2 needed to become more expansive in terms of game-world and tone to make as much an impression as the first game did. If Valve had just made the same b-movie game as the first one I think HL2 would not have been as astounding as it was.
report
The final level of Halflife really, really ruined it for me. After this cool adventure, with, as you say, wonderful atmospherity (not a word) and a sense of growing into your own power, you go to– magic jumpy land to defeat Giant Baby. The only parts of that I liked were in the tunnels, where it most resembled the rest of HL.
It was such a goddamn let-down, that when I replay HL, I normally stop before the end.
In the end, I preferred HL2– right up until the point I got the magic kill’em-all gun.
So, next time, Valve: Don’t screw up the end. I swear to god, you guys are the Neil Stephenson of game-making. You’re the fucking best, but you can’t end something to save your lives.
report
The tentacle monster clearly inspired certain other game
report
Half-Life 2, while I love it dearly, takes itself so much more seriously than Half-Life and, I think, loses something in the process.
Black Mesa, as a setting, is far superior to City 17 in that it’s somewhere I could never experience myself. I mean, I can (relatively) easily pop over to Eastern Europe and view the sights that inspired Valve’s vision of City 17, yet I’m pretty sure I’ll never get the chance to explore a sprawling, underground, top-secret research facility outside of a videogame. For me, Black Mesa just hits all the right escapism buttons.
That said, Half-Life 2 did add the most realistic characterisations I’ve ever seen in a game. The interaction between Alyx and Eli in particular, were ultra-convincing and actually moving. And I even felt a tinge of nostalgia during HL2:Episode 2 whilst exploring the missile silo – it was very reminiscent of Black Mesa. In fact, I think that Episode 2 managed to capture the essence of the original Half-Life far better than its predecessors.
I’m really hoping that Episode 3 will continue that trend – it’s a pity it can’t be here in time for Half-Life’s 10th anniversary in November.
report
I have to agree with absolutely everything you’ve said there.
But I would also like to add that the HLDM multiplayer side is absolutely brilliant, we still play it now. Every weapon has it’s use in every situation, there are laughs aplenty, and our favourite map just happens to be one I created. Woot.
report
I’m in two minds, basically in the same situation as Dexton and Andy F. HL1 was truly amazing for its time gameplay wise. The narrative and its expression through gameplay was unmatched in FPS land (indeed, it’s hard to think of anything else with similar ambitions at the time, let alone that succeeded). The in-engine intro. The first time you fought against the soldiers with their grenades and flanking. The tentacle monster.
And yet…
I was much more sucked into HL2. Whether it was the facial animations, Alyx and Dog, the physics, the little glimpses of life in City 17, it was just a more believable and intriguing world. HL1 was, as you say, “a construct of tunnels and ducts”. Atmosphere-wise, nothing really lived up to the opening sequence, even if the gameplay itself was more exciting in the original (judged versus contemporaries). So for the purposes of a PCG style list, it’s a really tricky call for me. Undoubtedly I enjoy HL2 more when I play them now, but HL1 was far more important and impressive at the time.
report
The thing I remember most vividly about HL1 is coming out of the tunnel & seeing a fighter plane fly *below* you. That was the moment I wanted to garb something just to steady myself. Up to Xen I vividly remember each level of HL1 with HL2 I seem to have forgotten most of the game.
report
I couldn’t agree more, especially about the underground-ness excusing the linearity somewhat.
On that note, RELEASE FAR CRY 2 ALREADY.
report
Great article! I much preferred Black Mesa as an enivronment to City 17. It’s flat-out more fun to run around that massive old cold-war bunker complex filled with monorails, teleporters and particle accelerators than the dank, dull, miserable dystopian slum of the second game.
I squealed with joy near the end of Episode 2 when Alyx finally buggered off and I was left to run around the White Forest complex alone. Just me, a crowbar and several miles of bunkers, rockets and machinery crawling with badguys. It was like being in Half Life 1 again and it was blissful.
report
… and Monkfish beat me too it. Totally agree. :D
report
I must say, HL1 will always and forever hold a special place in my heart, playing it though when I was 8. haha, my first fps, and a great one it was. In comparison, HL2 never really lived up to my expectations, nor did EP1, but EP2 came very very close mostly because it was so well written.
In my opinion, the biggest place that HL2 is lacking compared to HL1 is the gunfights. Fighting the grunts in HL1 was hard, they were smart, used grenades well, flanked you, and in HL2, all I had to do was sprint up to the combine with a shotgun and blast their faces away while they stared at me. The grunts would start meleeing me if I did that…
And I miss the snarks.
report
I don’t really have a favourite, I don’t think. Half Life 1 had the better AI, the more challenging enemies, and the, yeah, more appealing tone and setting, but it was also a game with an oft-times terrible sense of pacing, and the quality was not consistent. There were some rubbish bits in amongst the gaming excellence, and it felt far less approachable as a game. But, it was far more wide. More enemies, more weapons, and it felt even more like a survival. You were always just in one place (until horrid, horrid Xen), and you saw that place gradually getting torn apart. It felt more nerdy, too, which was nice. It was set in a scientific lab. It had enemies such as those dead cute hounds that I’ve forgotten the name of, and those big blue and, yes, crudely designed Doom rejects.
But, Half Life 2… despite its simplistic AI, unsatisfying weapons and combat, and promise that ultimately wasn’t entirely fulfilled, is just a much better made game. Its quality keeps up throughout the brilliantly told story – a story that involves the player much more, and has a far deeper sense of character than anything the original offered. The variety of places visited was breath-taking, with some truly iconic locales. THAT bridge. THAT lighthouse. THAT prison. THAT municipal building. THAT citadel. And what pace! There is never a chance to feel like you’re getting bored of what you’re doing. The buggy and boat sections added even more variety, and a sense of speed, too.
But… no. I can’t come to a decision. Both have their strong points, and both deserve to be celebrated as the pinnacle of PC FPS gaming.
report
Half Life 2 for me. Not that it matters; Episode 2 is more or less THE definitive statement of FPS gaming since Wolf3d.
report
interesting. i always think of hl2 as 1 giant tentacle beast level. in the case of hl2, the citadel itself is the tentacle beast. the ultimate boss. you cant fight it, you cant kill it directly, its presence is almost always there. i thought they captured the feeling of that level very well.
report
To HL1 fans: Stupid bouncy alien levels.
HL2 is vastly superior. It has a gravity gun and atmosphere.
report
I’ve always felt bitter towards Half-Life. The reason is, while everybody was playing it, I was trying to convince them Thief was a better game. But, typically, I was ignored, and they ignored Thief. And now they’re all missing.
report
Disagree with you Alec. Despite being told and built differently, both games have the same consistency and are equally immersive to me. I’m just in the middle of my n.th HL series marathon, at the beginning of HL2 and enjoying it as immensely as I enjoyed HL1
report
HL1 > HL2, I have always felt this and it’s nice to see that I’m not the only one. Admittedly it loses pace once you get to Xen, but I have always felt HL2 is vastly overrated. In fact, I am yet to finish HL2:Ep2. The HL2 games have just never gripped me the way that HL1 did. I think you’ve articulated why this is so.
report
Half Life 1. No question. The effect this game had on the industry is still being felt a decade later. It was genuinely innovative, perfectly tempered and in every way well ahead of the game. The fact remains that it took other mainstream FPS games up to 5 years to replicate the intelligent level design, interaction and flow of Half Life.
Half Life 2 was a great game, polished, enjoyably varied and beautiful but it had absolutely no gameplay innovations (provided one considers the gravity gun a gimmick, which I do). It was more linear, but more criminally it felt far more linear, it felt far more on the rails, like moving slowly through movie sets. It was more cinematic and exciting but it lacked the genuine revolutions of Half Life and the reserved nature of the first.
I think the singular defining characteristic has already been pointed to. Half Life revolutionised the FPS genre by removing the “one man army” feeling prevalent before and for a long time after (something noted often in pcgamer). Half Life 2 returns that tone, you are a one man army, on a mission, not just a man on his own, trying to survive. This was the single biggest problem with the sequel.
Apart from that, Episode 1 was an awful game, easily worse than the Xen levels (unless you fancied Alyx) and Episode 2 was still only good, it wasn’t as good as Half-Life 2 or its precursor.
report
I TOTALLY disagree with this article!
For me, HL2 improved on HL in almost every area. The variations in gameplay, environments, the structure of the story (HL didn’t really have one), the characterisation, the weapons; were ALL improvements on the original.
And how can you say HL2 didn’t have the contrasts of the original. For me, fighting your way through Ravenholm at night, down into the claustrophobic mine, to emerge into the open air and sunlight is one of THE. BEST. GAMING. MOMENTS. EVER!
report
@Monkfish: Well said.
HL2 is more polished and intricate in its design (especially the voice acting), but HL1 has more character. That’s how I boil it down. Throughout HL2, I asked myself, “So, when does it get interesting?” A world populated by antlions and dickhead Combine is not the most interesting.
This is not to say that loathe HL2; I just think a lot of the design effort was misplaced.
I really enjoy Portal because it doesn’t take itself too seriously and hearkens back to the “research facility gone to hell” theme of HL1. Maybe the introduction of Aperture Science and the Borealis means Ep3 will be more HL1-like?
report
couldn’t agree more. HL2 is a good game as a good game, HL1 was art. There’s nothing that appeals to me more in an FPS than a genuine reluctance for the protaganist to be involved at all. The pang of guilt you feel as you enjoy killing the last of the first bunch of marines is worth the entire physics engine to me.
report
HL1 is it for me for a combination of everyone’s aforementioned reasons. ESPECIALLY the firefights with the grunts. Nothing since has made me tense up like that, with the exception of the early levels of FEAR. “Less is more” in action.
Xen was shit, though.
report
Dammit, now I have to fit in completing HL: Source to my already hectic gaming schedule…
report
Question: Did anyone else work through the entire tentacle monster section without realizing you could sneak around it? I would just throw grenades to stun it and then dash through whatever section I was at. It took a lot of quickloads to do it that way :D.
report
Looking forward to Black Mesa Source being finished too. If that ever happens.
report
report
Half life to me as well, was way better than half life 2, I’m glad I’m not the only one.
I think its lots of reasons. One is Half Life 2 is perhaps too polished, they over engineered it. They took out parts they thought didnt work, they homogenised it. The journey is not quite as epic nor as filled with variation as the original. They made this plausible detailed world, but it doesnt quite gel, part of its the way they act towards you, and they seem so human but have even more of the flaws of NPCs before.
Half life 1 is like this huge adventure, told and focused, purely on the player and what they experience. They threw everthing in, and while some of it doesnt work, theres so much of it the bad parts are easily ignored.
report
I’m glad Alec acknowledged the linearity of HL1. It always baffles me when I read HL1 vs HL2 threads elsewhere and see no end of people lambasting HL2′s linearity while holding up HL1 as a paragon of non-linearity.
What?
I can almost understand their reasoning. Some of the later HL1 levels are geographically non-linear, especially compared to the tight corridors of the early game, but your strategic approach in those levels remains pretty much on rails.
Likewise, while HL2 may have a lot of sealed off environments, the set pieces usually put those environments to much better use, giving you plenty of options as to how to tackle them. I.e., the first section of Ravenholm, the White Forest inn ambush, most of the Strider battles, etc.
Still, it would be nice if there were more people who appreciate both HL1 and HL2 equally as much for their differences than their similarities. It seems too many people feel they have to choose one over the other.
report
I liked HL because the level design and monsters AI. “Fire in da hole!!!!”.
I liked HL because the level design, open areas, and history.
The work of Valve is amazing.
report
Grrr.. wheres the edit button? the 2th HL whas about HL2 not HL1.
report
I’ve always felt that Half-Life 2 is better “art” while Half-Life 1 is a better game. On the other hand, I prefer the episodes to both, even though I’m not fully sure why. And this comes with the general note that they all rank around the top of my list of favorite FPS’ ever.
I think it’s more of an accident (considering it’s very obviously based on a “kitchen sink” approach), but Half-Life 1′s balance is incredible; even when you remove the useless stuff and redundancies there’s still way more valid weapon and enemy combinations than 99% of FPS have (that manage to have an equal or worse relative ratio of redundancies/useless stuff). While still far better overall than most FPS games, Half-Life 2′s balance doesn’t match it.
Something I think almost every FPS after gets wrong is the overall placement and pacing of the Human battles; Half-Life isn’t afraid to keep large-scale Grunt battles rare (at least until Surface Tension, where it all peaks) and keeps them just rare enough (without stagnating them) that the Human enemies retain some threat factor and keep you on your toes. Unlike most subsequent games, that just take the “Humanoid fights are cool” lesson but then splashes them everywhere so they just blur together and lose most or all their impact, including HL2 (although, to be fair, it still gets it much better than most).
Like I said, I think the episodes get it all right. Whether intentional or not I get this overall feeling from them that’s like some refined mix of both HL1 and HL2. The new enemies also help a lot with HL2′s balance (along with Hunters counting among some of the most awesome FPS enemies ever).
I think the story sequence pacing is part of that; after the opening HL1′s sequences are mostly a minute or two at the most, while HL2 locks you in areas for five minutes+ at times. Episode 1 generally takes a HL1 like approach to the story sequences (which I think works much better for the “Half-Life” style of storytelling), and the only prolonged sequence in Episode 2 is in the bunker, which makes it feel more like a reward for getting that far (broken up by the assault and final Strider battle), rather than a semi-long gameplay interruption every half-hour to an hour.
But how long is this post getting :P ?
report
From the standpoint of a critic I think that both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are equal. From a fans perspective Half-Life is the much better game (apart from Xen.)
Episode 2 started to regain the feeling of the original which is good :D
I think my problem with Half-Life 2 is the whole ‘OMFG Gordon is back winz0r!!111!!’ that seems to emanate from all the returning characters. In the original Gordon simply survived and followed the orders of the scientists in this single place. Half-Life 2 had you as the hero of everything. Blah!
That can in part explain why I hate the Frodo parts of Lord of The Rings and love the parts with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimloi. Why Call of Duty is a much better game series than Medal of Honour.
report
I have to say I disagree with you. While I love Half Life, I definitely prefer HL2. Calling in an airstrike on the colossus thingy was fun, but not as fun as swinging shipping containers about and driving through windows. Black Mesa as a place is well realised but there are times when it gets a bit tedious: replaying it recently reminded me how annoying the Residue Processing centre is when I missed a jump between conveyor belts for what seemed like the dozenth time. And then of course there’s Xen. On my recent replay, I got to Xen and ended the session for the night. That was a couple of months ago and I just haven’t bothered to finish it.
HL2 has a superbly realised “sense of place”, whether that be sidling around in the medieval streets of Ravenholm, bumping into the strange fruit dangling from posts, or playing with Fr Grigori’s cars; or tooling along clifftop roads in a dune buggy. The equivalent of the tentacle monster is surely the bit where you have to walk across the beach on any bit of detritus you can find to avoid being devoured by antlions. And the “hold the fort until Alyx rescues you” bit in Nova Prospekt is one of the tensest parts of a game I’ve ever played.
The section underneath the bridge, with the wind whipping away in the background and the far piling just visible through the haze, is fantastically atmospheric.
If there’s one thing that’s not as good, it’s the AI. The marine AI in Half Life scared the something out me, I’d run round a corner to hide only to be followed by a grenade, or I’d find one of them had come sneaking up behind me.
report
I have to disagree. HL2 was by far the superior game. It creates an atmosphere that Half Life never quite did for me. Half Life felt like it didn’t know where it was going, or what kind of game it wanted to be at some points. And I certainly never felt as strongly about any of the characters in Half Life as I did in Hl2.
report
Half-Life 2 was the best game that I had played when it came out, but Half-Life 1 I love more. I was the right age – it and Deus Ex showed what gaming could be at about the same time. Stunning. I’ve played the first one a few too many times though not to be able to more or less burn through it, and it’s actually a fairly short game. But it’s great. Half-Life 2 was – and is – probably better though. And Ep2 finally got all nostalgic and remembered the comedy. So I haven’t given up hope that Valve are still able to do the things I loved from the first one.
Bear in mind too that when HL1 came along, we had never played anything else like that before – nothing that looked or felt that normal that real, something which can never happen again because it has been done.
report
They’re both excellent games that will be looked at for years to come as representing the pinnacles of FPS design. They both have a spot in my Top 10 Games of All Time list. But for me, HL2 was the game I enjoyed more. When I first played HL1, I had a lot of fun, and it surprised me in many ways. And yes, its AI and thus combat generally were better. But those are the only things I can say were better. Half-Life 2 actually made me believe there was a real, living world behind the screen, populated by real human beings (well, not actually, but you know what I mean), which on its own probably would’ve been enough to make it HL1′s equal. Add the brilliance of the gravity gun and the heart-pounding intensity of some of the best set-pieces in gaming history, like the boat ride through the canals and the fight through City 17 to the citadel, and the first begins to pale in comparison. The city levels really felt like you were part of a much larger conflict raging all around you.
Oh, and I actually liked Xen. Maybe this makes me some kind of bizarro-world HL fan.
report
Half-Life 1 has Blast Pit.
Half-Life 2 has physics.
I know which one scared me more.
report
I suppose that it’s a question of structure. Yes, as many have stated, HL1 takes place for the most part in a single, complex setting that is very interesting to explore and watch be torn apart. Also, I have always felt that there is a smooth progression of the ramp-up from the intro sequence through the climax of the resonance cascade and continuing as you subsequently drag yourself back up out of that lab and witness the havoc along the way. The ride just keeps going (faster and more dangerously) from there.
HL2 does not feel this way, although its structure parallels that of HL1 from the start. Instead of a stationary and mostly passive tram ride, you explore City 17 as a new citizen at your own pace. Then, the climactic event is attracting the attention of civil protection (should have stayed and gotten beat down with the others instead of racing to the rooftop) and getting rescued by Alyx.
And of course we see our ultimate destination, the Citadel, when we emerge into the square, just as HL1 gives us that glimpse of Xen in the chamber while everything is going pear-shaped.
But whereas HL1 keeps building momentum, HL2 suddenly stops and reverses direction at the critical point of your mission to assault Nova Prospekt. After you emerge from Ravenholm, you finally stop running from the Combine’s escalating attempts to hunt you down and instead go on the offensive to rescue Eli.
One of my favorite moments of the game is when you start to navigate the undercarriage of the big bridge off Hwy 17 and the whole thing starts to shake. You just sit there for minutes and listen as a tiny fraction of the Combine war machine rumbles across above you, and you couldn’t ask for a more eyes-widening representation of what you just signed up to fight against. It’s a great snapshot moment.
At the end of the story, HL1 is a videogame with all the silly childlike characteristics that make up the attached stigma, while HL2 is something more. People keep citing the way it takes itself more seriously as something to regret, but I love it that way. And it’s not as though it’s without humor, albeit dark and often self-referential rib-poking humor much of the time. But regardless, this is what Alec is saying when he compares HL1 to Indiana Jones ride and HL2 to 1984. Sure, one of those things is more fun, but which is more worth caring about?
So, if somehow forced to choose, I would definitely take Half-Life 2 over its predecessor. But choosing between these two games is a pretty silly thing to do.
Good reading: http://forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=3522
report
HL1 was always the better game for two things. first off, when things started going tits-up and the resonance cascade occurs, i genuinely thought i’d actually done something wrong. i even started up again to see if i could avoid it. granted i was 8 years old when the game came out, but no other game has ever surprised me like that since. hl2 attempted it when barney took you aside dressed as combine, but it didn’t come close to the resonance cascade. damned anomalous materials.
secondly, one moment that stood out was when those scientists fall past you in that elevator. i remember watching them fall and just as they went past i heard a voice say “ah, a fellow scientist” and then the explosion. for any other game, it would’ve been an immersion breaker. in half-life, it just went to show how damned batshit the game was.
honestly, it always pains me to see how half-life gets snubbed further and further down the pcg top 100, especially when deus ex has stayed at number 2 since it came out. really the only reason for this is surely because while half-life has to compete with the kind of affection afforded to it’s sequel, deus ex only has to compete with invisible war.
report
sorry, better game for me* subjective experience ahoy
nsj ftw
report
HL had so many memorable moments – The Tentacle monster scared the hell out of me, the opening moments of “We Got Hostiles” where you see the soldiers shoot a scientist, the sequence in the parking lot where you’re running for your life while a Garg pushes cars out of its way, when you call in an airstrike to kill that Garg after so many narrow escapes, falling on the water with an Ichthyosaur lurking there, soldiers rappelling from helicopters all around you… The fact that you had 3 factions hell bent on killing each other was great too, and some of the coolest sequences involved watching the military and aliens fight and then dealing with the survivors.
There’s no greater level in the series than “Surface Tension”. Nothing in HL2, Ep1 or 2 comes even close in my mind.
report
I’m in the two minds camp also. Black Mesa was my favourite environment in a game ever, I’d love HL2 to revisit its ruins. I loved the low key survive-em-up gameplay and the black humour.
That said, HL2 does things for me that HL1 simply didn’t. I love that they are trying to break away from the “lone starfighter” game design mentality and have you fighting through these challenges with other characters.
For instance, the sequence where you are trying to hold the combine back while Mossman and Alyx get the combine teleporter to work. I loved that the game created a moment where I was fully distracted by the combine, and Alyx shouted over to me and I turned around just in time to see that I’d ‘dropped the ball’ and let Mossman go rogue and had to watch her escape in the teleporter. Now, of course the reality is that I couldn’t have stopped her I’m sure, but while it played out I felt like I was part of this dynamic narrative involving other characters, rather than just a lone-wolf charging through a dungeon triggering monsters. HL1 had the scientists and the barneys of course, but I’m sure I read somewhere that they were sort of an afterthought and that valve were surprised that people got so involved with them.
RE. the tentacle monster
I liked the tentacle monster, but never thought of it as a boss. I hate push-button bosses! Personally I hate it when they make it so that you can’t fight the boss except by running around pushing buttons. If the tentacle monster had been the last challenge in HL1, it would have been even worse than the big crazy baby jumping puzzle – which was pretty bad as it was. As a mid game obstacle, the tentacle monster was OK, but it was very frustrating and quickloady, and I might not look so favourably on it these days.
RE. HL2′s gordon “messiah” freeman thing
This was pretty unpleasant in HL2, but I think they did a good job of toning it down in the eps.
RE. ravenholm
I hated ravenholm, after the sequence with dog outside with black mesa east, which really sucked me into the world, I just felt the game really regressed from absorbing interactive fiction to a standard FPS dungeon crawl.
RE. HL2 combat
Yes it sucks. I have been using a file with buffed damage values since day one!
RE. HL2′s self seriousness
I think this improves in the eps, not in the sense that it stops taking itself so seriously, but in the sense that the writers and designers just get better at tackling serious stuff. I love that HL2 is a serious game. There are tons of games out there that don’t take themselves seriously, but there aren’t a lot of games that are willing and able to put the time and effort into trying to create high quality mature interactive fiction. Of course its inevitably subjective, and some people aren’t going to get into it, but you can’t please everybody – particularly in terms of something as inherently subjective as storytelling.
I’m posting this without checking it. Thats how I’m responding the “no-edits” policy!
report
RE. HL2s combat
I should mention that smashing through hunters at recklessly high speeds between the striders legs in EP2 ranks as one of my favourite gaming violence experiences of all time!
report
(In the jeep ofc).
And in the game.
report
Where I think HL2 fails somewhat is the fact that it feels a bit too familiar in certain things, namely weapons and enemies. Now I do think that when dealing with a series, some things should be familiar but HL2′s weaponry is practically the exact same as HL1′s, just a few weapons less and with an added gravity gun (which is fun but not the messiah of fun as often portrayed, plus its transformation to the blue ubergun makes the end even more boring). At the same time you’ve got no in-game change in enemies – instead of the near-constant discovery of new things that want to kill you, you’ve pretty much met 90% of HL2′s enemies in some form after the first three levels or so. It’s a bit of a drag in an otherwise so well-designed game. Well, that and the miserable end.
I do think I prefer HL1 simply because of the nostalgia and memories (glad to see I wasn’t the only one who got vertigo from the mountain area), but if I try to view the games without memory goggles I’d say they’re even. They’re both fantastic games with a few minor problems and draggy end sections (I actually really like Xen’s beginning, but then it reveals itself to be overlong and the boss fight sucked).
report
Unfortunately I played HL2 first and, in fact, am still playing through HL1. I am a jaded younger gamer (well, not younger, but I came to gaming a bit later than others).
report
I do have to add as well that HL2 and its episodes are one of the very few FPS games where the vehicle sections aren’t pure pain, so credit to that.
report
Half-Life all the way. Half-Life 2 is a great sequel, but not ground-breaking like the original game. I agree about Half-Life 2 being superior (in every way), but I think I prefer Half-Life because of dark humour (which is something missing in the sequel).
report
Another thing that made HL so memorable to me was the fact that the setting was so mundane and felt so real. Granted games like Duke Nukem 3D and Sin had levels set in cities, houses and labs, but they didn’t feel much different than Wolfenstein’s drab corridors or Quake’s hell. Black Mesa, on the other hand, felt like something entirely new that I had never seen in another FPS.
And as bad as Xen was, I still prefer it to the Highway 17 level in HL2, the zombie attack in the darkness in Ep1 or the loooooooog antlion nest level in Ep2.
report
This just in – All games can be better in some way. Make a game with perfect combat, chances are, its story could be much better.
report
as much as I love hl2, I find hl1 way better.
by the way, I’m thinking about playing it someday or another. Is there a way to download the hd models for the non-steam version?
report
Hmm. I’m not sure I buy the “HL2 took itself more seriously” angle. Are we forgetting that HL1 opens with a 10-minute train ride with a portentous (though also amusing) monologue? At the time that was the very definition of “taking itself seriously”, compared to similar games of the time (which were essentially load-first-level-evil-alien-quick-shoot).
Sure, HL1 might seem more frivolous compared to more modern games, but I’d argue that’s only in the same way that M seems less harrowing than Seven, or when you compare a war movie made in the 50s to one made in the 90s. They were all aiming for seriousness but, given the maturity of their genres/mediums, could only reach so far.
Personally I prefer HL2, but that’s primarily because I love the storytelling technique. HL1 has a few too many odd design decisions for my liking, too (Xen, the reeeeeeeally long, repetitive and tedious bit near the end when you’re on the surface fighting the marines, random difficulty spikes, general pacing issues, alien weaponry that is never really utilised effectively). Doesn’t stop me thinking it’s a great game, but it does edge me towards HL2 in terms of personal preference.
I find it odd how some people seem to feel the need to strongly dislike HL1/HL2 just because they have a loyal love for HL2/HL1. I suppose it’s just the same strange brand loyalty that afflicts a particular sub-brand of geek (Mac vs PC, DS9 vs B5, Trek vs Wars, HL vs Halo, bla bla yawn).
I just see them both as awesome – but different – games and am thoroughly grateful that they both exist.
report
I think I am the only person on earth who enjoyed the Xen levels… Valve, if you are listening, I would be happpy for you to have Ep3 set entirely on the Xen/Antarctica border between worlds!
—
One thing that HL2 didn’t have that HL1 did was the humans – the combine are just humanoid aliens, they didn’t have the personality or humanity of the soldiers in HL1. I hated killing those guys because it felt like they were just doing their job, trying to contain an alien menace, and everyone who might be ‘infected’.
The Special ops ninjas though… they can eat grenades for all I care.
—
Also – I want more crazy alien guns like OpForce had – those were awesome
—
Final point – HL1 (and the add-ons) had far better level names. “This Vortal Coil” is the only one that comes close to the names in HL1. Plus the fact that Half-life, Opposing Force and Blue Shift were all (kinda) science puns was great.
report
Oh, one other thing – am I the only person that found HL2 and the episodes incredibly funny? It’s possibly a slightly different humour to HL1′s, which was a bit more slapstick, but the HL2 series still contains more genuine laughs than any other game I’ve played that isn’t called Psychonauts.
report
Personally I hated the vent crawl of HL1, seemed like half the damn game was designed as vent-room-vent-room-ventGODDAMNHEADCRAB. The linearity of the game also felt much more pronounced to me than it did in HL2 – how many locked doors are there in Black Mesa? And even when a clever bit of set piece funnels you down a particular path you always noticed how clever it was being “Oh that collapsed bridge means I’ll have to go through this vent now”.
report
My rule of thumb is: when I leap out of my seat yelling “Do you see how that works, you bastich?!” after killing an enemy, then it’s a good game. Happened a bit in FEAR and most definately the first time I managed to outflank a marine in HL (and Deagled him in the spine – oh yes).
But… HL2 inspired “Concerned”, and this in turn inspired the Frohman NPC in EP2 – the one who wrestled hunters, with his bare hands, 10 or 20 at a time. Comedy gold.
report
aslo, I forgot :
HALF-LIFE SOURCE
YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT
BRING IT ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
report
Argh. Headcrabs. I actually sat and wept for 10 minutes after finally negotiating Ravenholm to me faced with the mineshaft drop into Spider-city.
ENOUGH WITH THE HEADCRABS!
report
I disagree. There was supposed to be something like the tentacle beast in HL2, but it was removed. I think it might have been in the leaked beta, but I’m not sure. There was also something with thin, blue, glowing tentacles in one of the videos from 2003. It was earlier, because the combine had different outfits, you could knock the shelves off of something, and the alt-fire for the Pulse Rifle was different. You see it at the end.
report
The kindest thing I can say about HL2 is that much of it is technically very proficient. But the nonsense way you’re sheperded from place to place from the moment you magically materialise in the middle of City 17 just left me feeling entirely disconnected from what ought to have been an epic and spectacular journey. HL1 tells a much simpler story a lot more effectively and that alone is enough to make it a far superior game (ignoring Bouncy Alien World of course).
report
@Buemba I think it’s the attention to detail that makes the ‘ordinary’ areas in Half Life seem so more real than those other games.
It’s the juxtaposition of fighting for your life against the military, special ops and aliens in a rather (despite what they do at Black Mesa) mundane environment that gives the game a lot of it’s magic. Something that Fear tried and failed to replicate (not enough variety?).
Half Life isn’t an Indy rollercoaster ride, it’s Die Hard. The adrenaline rush comes from the cat and mouse thrills intersected with explosive set pieces. Half Life 2 on the other hand is Die Hard 4.0, it’s bigger and badder and Gordon has the whole city to play in. There are car chases and boat chases and plenty of action but it’s not the same and maybe just a bit too similar to the competition.
@RodeoClown I think you’ve just described my nightmare game, I’d even go as far as to say I’d rather play Fallout 3 than that.
report
Out of interest, how many of the “I like HL1 more” folks have played it recently (like in the past year)? Only, I get a sense of rose-tinted specs here, especially given that many of you seemed to be so young when you first played it (I was about 19, FWIW).
report
Half-Life as a whole is nowhere near as compelling as Half-Life 2. It’s a game that peaks and troughs with alarming regularity if you sit down and play it again. Anyone who complains about the Airboat section of HL2 should load up On A Rail and babysit the tram about for 10 maps of agonising boredom. Or negotiate Residue Processing ‘s retro-active enemy challenges and tedious jumps over volumes of lime green goop. Sure, no one chapter in Half-Life 2 is quite as good as Surface Tension, and no boss is quite as fun as the then innovative Blind Tentacle (which if replicated in Half-Life 2 would just seem antiquated and you know it), but there isn’t anything in the game that comes close to the utter banality of Xen or the craporama that is the Gonarch fight. Not even a swinging ball-sack could save that thing.
report
Andy F – yes I have played the original in the past year and I loved it, I still loved Half-Life 2 when I replayed it, but only the early chapters.
report
@Andy F: I always have it installed on my computer, along with it’s expansions. I love exploring the dark (and dusty) corridors of Black Mesa. I was 9 when I first played Half-Life.
report
In this case we can have the pie and eat it too.
They’re both great, play them both!
report
I know it’s part of its charm but HL1 was an awful amount of just walking around.
For the time it came out it was a genre changing switch of pace but going back to it now after the thrill rides of COD4 or even Episode 2 kind of re-evaluates that pace as a flaw.
Still; the first time you encounter and get completely pwn’ed to shit by the government troops was the most white knuckle fight I’ve ever had in an FPS.
report
Oh, one thing I forgot…
I think Black Mesa Source ought to be an interesting one, in how it compares to both games…
report
So anyway, I think it’s now fairly clear why BOTH needed to be included…
report
@Andy F, I was 12 when I first played it (21 now) and I’ve played it at least once (maybe twice) this year and at least twice last year. After my last playthrough I tried to follow up with HL2 but it just wasn’t fun.
I’ve played them both several times, so maybe it’s unfair to look at them from a perspective of knowing them inside out. I really liked HL2 when it came out, not as much as HL1 but that was probably age related.
The reasons for which I like HL1 nowadays are totally unrelated to nostalgia, because I’ve never not played it for a long enough period of time to get nostalgic about it. I haven’t played HL: Uplink in forever though. When I think about that game I remember how I felt when I first played HL1.
Anyway, HL1, when you know the game inside out, is still fun, because the basic gameplay is much better. The weapons are more varied and feel better to use, the enemies are more interesting, the environments facilitate more interesting combat. HL2 has visually stunning level design, great characterization and production values, but you know what? The gameplay isn’t nearly as fun
And that’s what games are about. Shooting the hundredth red barrel to make the not-vary-scary faceless soldier die isn’t as fun as having rolling battle with fiercesome grunts.
Now that nothing but the gameplay remains for me to enjoy I don’t enjoy HL2 anymore
report
I fucking loved Xen. I thought it was one of the best, most atmospheric parts of Half-Life.
report
I agree with some of your points, especially the comments about the bosses and the contrast between indoor and outdoor levels. I also like HL1 better than HL2 on the “fun” factor, but it fails miserably on the story side. HL2 was the first game where I felt I could spend time playing a game instead of watching a movie.
I believe most of your problems have been fixed in HL2:EP2. The very narrow, dark, damp caves perfectly contrast the large outdoor forest areas you encounter. On the monster part the ant lion fight is similar because you can’t kill it. All you can do is run for your life. I found this part very interesting.
report
how many people used cheats in the first half-life to try and kill the g-man, only to find out he was made of steel?
report
One thing I’ve been curious about…back in the day I played the original Half Life to the end of ‘On a Rail’, but then had a save game corruption (or something) and didn’t go back to it until after I’d played and finished HL2.
At that point I played all the way through HL:Source. One thing I noticed is that the marines all move at about 10,000mph and slide about on skates, making them bloody difficult to kill even on ‘easy’ setting. It didn’t feel anything like fighting actual humans, it felt almost like it was broken.
Is this a HL:Source quirk, or was it the same in the original? I’ve been meaning to play through it again in the non-Source version to see if the AI/behaviour/animation/etc of the marines is any different.
From my original play back in the day I remember that first marine encounter being thrilling and awe-inspiring, but in HL:Source it seemed strangely irritating and unrealistic. I’d love to know whether the intervening years changed my idea of what an enemy in a game should be like, or whether the Source version is that noticeably different.
report
HL1 for me. When you finally make it to the soldiers and–hot damn they want to kill you (KILL FREEMAN!!), that was just great, great stuff.
report
Ummmm….HL2 pretty much hands down. For me, and now the episodes are there, it is just brilliant. Atmosphere, graphically, story, the action and gameplay. Ravenholme is maybe a low point, but still much better than HL1′s low points and difficulty spikes.
Fair enough to be forgiving of the older game for its flaws. It is great. But personally, I never end up replaying it because that on rails bit and Xen really was rubbish.
Thank goodness for PC – unlike consoles we don’t have to choose!
report
The antlion caves in Episode 2 didn’t really irritate me all that much, other than the monotony of squishing bugs. The end setpiece with the hunters and striders, however, is more work than fun. I’ll play it but only so that I can see the end, but the car’s crappy handling combined with endless Hunter swarms and Yet Another Gravity Gun Ball Puzzle gets old very fast for me.
report
This has been commented on before, but the worlds of HLs 1 and 2 don’t really fit together at all exactly. Aside from the Xen parts of HL1, the aliens, the bouncing mechanics, and the rather quirky weapons, but above all the feel. HL2 just felt like it took place in a different world. I suppose that was part of the point, but really I think the Combine (not just the troops but the idea) took away from the HL ambience somewhat. 2 is one of the best games ever, don’t get me wrong, but it is basically set in a different world to the first HL.
report
I think this is one of the things that I will likely never agree with the gaming community at large on. I just don’t think Half-Life 1 is anything special. I will freely admit that I first got a chance to play it (I had only a Mac for years and it never came to Mac) years after its prime. But the way people talk about it, it should still be an amazing experience the way that, say, Deus Ex is today. And it’s not. It’s a bog-standard shooter with some mild scripting and way too many jumping puzzles. There are many pre-HL shooters that I think are far more lastingly exceptional – the Marathon games, for example. System Shock. In fact, I was sufficiently underwhelmed that I was not at all looking forward to Half-Life 2. But you know, I eventually got round to playing that, and it blew me away. The sense of place is almost unequalled (there are a few others now – Stalker, say) and the pacing and scripting are excellent. I don’t know if it’ll continue to be the sort of gold standard that people feel 1 was – it relies quite a bit on the quality of its engine and that will inevitably be surpassed more and more by new technology. But it’s definitely superior to the first game. No question in my mind about that.
And this despite certain missteps (Ravenholm, many of the vehicle sequences), and the episodes being far less inspired as expansion-pack concepts than Opposing Force and Blue Shift. (The episodes are great, they’re just much more standard in their conception.)
I’m hoping that maybe Black Mesa: Source will offer me some of what people see in HL1. If it ever comes out.
report
Hmm, dunno which game I like the most. I fully agree with your original point though, they’re hardly the same series. Yes, both have crowbars and a goatee’d protagonist you never see, but apart from that, they’re goddamn different games, in the same way that Halo and Call of Duty are different.
I know through hours spent arguing this that not everyone agrees with this, but I really don’t feel the gameplay had much in common in the two games. I love both games, but I can’t say one is better than the other, any more than I can say that Dawn of War is better than Monkey Island. They’re just different.
report
“I know it’s part of its charm but HL1 was an awful amount of just walking around.
For the time it came out it was a genre changing switch of pace but going back to it now after the thrill rides of COD4 or even Episode 2 kind of re-evaluates that pace as a flaw.”
Actually, comparing games like COD4 to Half-Life game reminds me that one reason why any game in the HL series is so far ahead of most other FPS games is precisely because, despite its scripted reputation, it’s not afraid to hold back on the scripting occasionally and let the player take their time and soak up the atmosphere. While COD4 takes scripting to another level and provides some of the best sequences since Episode 2 I find it more akin to a gameplay comfort food; it feels good the first time you go through, but it’s so stuck in railroading a scripted sequence around every corner that it starts to fall apart the moment you get familar with it and make any attempt to “colour outside the lines”.
report
malkav11: I dunno if I blanked out for a minute and posted under your name or something but you sound exactly like me. Also played HL1 after its prime, and after all the hype it was just so disappointing, probably one of my biggest disappointments. I blame Deus Ex, it completely ruined my expectations.
HL2 on the other hand I really enjoyed, like you say it has an unrivalled sense of place. Every thing about the design of the world just works, from the look of the Combine to the shader they use for those troop transport alien things to give its carapace a subtle slick sheen. The world feels more complete, more believable.
report
Wasn’t (?isn’t) Half-life 2 just a tech demo? It sure played like one to me. I loved Half-Life (1), but I really wasn’t pleased with 2.
report
I think the problem one faces is if you are of the age (and I am) to vividly remember playing half life 1 after a complete diet of Doom and Doom-a-likes it’s almost impossible to see it in a bad light (even the Zen levels), and not recognise how it completely transformed peoples perceptions and expectations of the FPS experience (I’d add Deus Ex, System Shock 2 and Thief as other bench setters from the same period). With 5 years between games and innumerable other releases that built upon the ideas and principles HL so successfully established in the gamer conciousness, it was always a case that HL2 was going to come off as the ugly sister in some ways. Certainly I think HL2 was/is a great gaming experience, and Valves investment in facial tech as well as making physics a core feature of gameplay was profound, however I do fear the series suffers a bit from Valve not looking to the work of other developers for inspiration/direction. HL like it’s contemporaries still clung to the backpack full of guns approach Doom introduced and it’s sequel inherited it. Where as other developers eschewed it, in favour of tighter approaches that lend more of a tactical attitude to game play (Halo, FEAR being examples). Now that’s not to say I’d like to see Gordon Freeman reduced to a choice of 2 guns in future episodes (gravity gun and…crowbar?) but the ability to carry a small arsenal on your back is pretty antiquated and needs a bit of a review imho. I would also agree that the on rails contrivances in HL2 and the episodes have been quite annoying at times and I actually fear that with more and more open ended games such as stalker and FarCry 2 coming to the fore, peoples lenience towards the series idiosyncrasies will grow less and less over time. If EP3 ships next year I think Valve might just get away with it, but beyond a year, I don’t think so. I thought it was telling that despite the fact that HL2:EP2 was a much tighter product than either HL2 or EP1 and had the fancy Cinematic Physics, etc, etc it was Portal that really stole the headlines.
report
In multiplayer games it makes sense, as there’s a definite strategic choice there, but in SinglePlayer I never got the fascination with limited weaponary at all (beyond the “realism”); all it does is add pointless trial and error if you don’t have the perfect weapon for a given situation.
While there are various other things that could be taken from other games to potentially enhance HL a limited arsenal is something I’m not interested in seeing at all.
report
As an extension, if limited weapon don’t promote trial and error, it tends to promote making the difficulty such that your choices generally don’t matter much. I thought F.E.A.R suffered from that; with the exception of one or two sequences (where what you needed was supplied), it was pretty much a case of choosing whatever method of killing you felt like at the time (E.G. Pin this guy to a wall, blow him away in a hail of bullets, or turn him into a red mist?), and I may as well have been able to carry what I wanted.
report
Ravenholm was pure fun and is precisely the kind of horror I enjoy playing. I also think that the combat in Hl2 is absolutely ace. Each and every weapon feels just like it should, and it is all oriented to fast paced, close up gameplay.
report
Jeez, throw out a warning before linking to that Edge Top 100. RE4 at #2? Haha.
report
Had HL2 thrown a bunch of super-fast Combine versions of the assassins at me, it would have been perfect. HL2 had only one enemy that made me think “oh shit, oh shit, oh sh-” (the fast zombie), but HL had them in droves. The soldiers were tough. The Gargs were tough. The assassins only showed up once or twice, but they’re insanely memorable. The enemies are always tougher than you, but you can always find a way to prevail.
On the other hand, HL2 reverses the equation and gives you lots of chances to show off how much better you are than the enemies. You can roll explosive barrels into the barnacles’ tongues. You can lay an antlion siege on Nova Prospekt. You can run wild through the dread headquarters of the Combine with a gun that can destroy everything in your path.
They’re both great games. Choosing one is stupid because they’re both fun.
report
Half-Life 2 is hardly the po-faced exercise in gloom that people have insinuated here, it’s gripping stuff! It has strings of astonishing set pieces and leaps genres in such an assured and satisfying way. It is fun and sometimes funny.
The article surprised me, because in Half-Life 2 I did feel like the star of ‘rip-roaring high adventure’ far more than in its predescessor, which had its exciting moments (the bits we all reminisce about, of course), but so often screeched to a halt in a bad idea for a room. To Valve’s enormous credit, I didn’t notice Half-Life 2 being as linear as it, in retrospect, is. It just thrilled and distracted me constantly, then it was over. I didn’t have the chance to feel cynical. Whereas I did sometimes feel reined-in and frustrated by the original, as good as it was and is.
report
Well both half life’s are bloody amazing in their own ways. But one thing HL2 is missing that HL1 has, is beating innocent scientists and barneys to death with the crowbar and smashing the corpses into gibs…..yeah good times.
report
HL1>HL2
therefore
Sven Co-op>Synergy (Obsidian Conflict is debatable.)
report
Unfortunately the sense of wonder that was HL1 will probably never be replicated again. It was the beginnings of FPS narrative for an entire generation (or greater) of gamers worldwide – a simultaneous awakening of games being more than a mere sum of parts, a continuous mix up of glorious set pieces and changes in dynamic that even until this day still have been close to being replicated. HL2 is utterly utterly a lot narrower in vision in virtually every way. Even now there are no AI enemies anywhere near as convincing as the soldiers from HL1. Why didn’t HL2 better incorporate more ‘invincible’ monsters and less predictable characters, even though they are way ahead of virtually anyone else in the field.
This is of course why soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many people are hanging for Black Mesa Source to be as great as it possibly can be. HL1 still gives me goosebumps when I go back and play it, from the opening lift ride all the way to Xen. When I play it once through every couple of years or so it really shows you that apart from graphics, development in games has hardly come far at all. Pity that.
report
HL1 is the best FPS ever. HL2 is the continuation of the best FPS ever. End of story.
report
I still don’t really get what HL is supposed to have done that’s so epochal. Again, I first encountered it in retrospect, so it’s entirely possible that it paved the way for games that I’m now comparing it to, but I don’t see the sort of seachange in FPS gaming with HL that I do with, say, Quake. (Which I also think is desperately over-rated and ugly as sin, but the jump to true 3D *is* inarguably significant, even if I think 2D games remained a better play for some time thereafter.)
report
I think anyone who remembered playing Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake has to remember HL1 fondly — it was the equivalent of moving from silent movies to talkies for FPS gaming, the first to really have a semblance of story and pacing, not just enemies and levels.
There are things that I like about HL that I missed about HL2; the sense of humor is different, the feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the sort of moral confusion — on the one hand, you want Earth’s forces to save humanity from invasion. On the other hand, you don’t want to die. The sense of being trapped in the middle of this conflict with no one to turn to but yourself was great. And some of the set pieces were great too (tentacle beast is a particularly nerve-wracking example, and the emphasis on sound there was shades of Thief). On the other hand, there was Xen. HL’s problem was that it could lose you here or there with difficulty or boredom, in which case you never went forward and enjoyed the rest of the game. Granted, going forward would take you to Xen, so it could be considered a blessing in disguise.
HL2, in contrast, was pretty black and white from the get-go: Combine Evil, Resistance Good. And some things just aren’t as shocking or surprising the second time around (say, headcrabs and barnacles). The combine, as enemies, weren’t as compelling. Woo, future nazis. Unlike the Marines (or even the shackled vortigaunts), they were inhuman and evil enough to elicit no sympathy. However, they (and their gunships, tanks, striders) were too human or mechanical to elicit that fear of “monsters” that the headcrabs and barnacles did. All too often, when there was a factional battle, you had a “side” (allies, resistance, antlions), which made things a little less bleak. All that said, I still prefer HL2; overall, it’s quality was more consistent, and the strides it took in character, animation, speech, pacing, and storytelling went above and beyond the original. It also did a lot more than shooting and hitting switches (vehicles, gravity gun, siege battles, etc.) and mostly hit the mark.
(Unlike some commenters, I enjoyed the end sequence, mainly because I just finished a lot of hard fighting with Striders, unwound a bit with the intro to the citadel, and I was emotionally primed to enjoy the massive destructive power trip they were putting on the menu. There’s also, the first time, a major sense of relief after the fake “fuck you” of vaporizing all your weapons, only to inadvertently give you the Gun of Doom.)
report
I’m a pretty die-hard PC gamer, and I’ve been around for a while (back before HL). I often have feelings like this as well: where I’m looking back and realizing that HL had something HL2 does not. That may be true, however after closer consideration I’ve realized that what I’m REALLY noticing is just nostalgia which I try and back up with “points”, which is exactly what this guy and many others have done. For every point I can come up with about why HL was the best game ever, I can come up with about 3 more for why HL2 was the best. HL2 was a far greater achievement. When I look back now, I still might say “I enjoyed HL1 more”, however I either could be wrong because of misleading nostalgic feelings, or it could just be because I was younger and less jaded back then. Either way it all involves time affecting what we are thinking. If we all would have played HL2 back around the same time as HL1 (such as right after), I don’t think we’d even have discussions like these. I know it is just opinion and everything but… I’m right.
report
Are you kidding? Xen was the best part, it was amazing and so unexpected (I played it when it came out and had no idea that there was a “another dimension” world at the end of the game.
It was just so Giger like and fun to explore. And when you got close to teleporters you could hear humans in black mesa speaking, it was creepy and perfect.
However, in HL2 they went the “if you can’t see it it’s scary” way and never shown us anything too strange or different.
WE WANT THE COMBINE HOMEWORLD.
report
Er, HL1 is so, so far from being the first shooter with pacing and story.
report
Everyone should agree with me on every issue concerning gaming. Or else.
report
Although I fully understand why HL1 was viewed as genre changing, and I agree in theory, as a game I found it tedious. There were some very fun moments (the tentacle beast, the first run ins with the marines), but there was many more repetitive and dull ones. I could appreciate the good design, and the humour, but it wasn’t fun to play. I never finished it and I have no intention of going back to try.
I fiddled with my friend’s copy of HL2, and that seemed good (and not dull); but that was only half an hour, and the start. Maybe one day I will play it.
report
HL1′s way of story telling was limited to the technology at that time. Character conversations were limited, and the cutscenes were in-game with other characters and enemies. HL2 uses a lot more character speech, but in the same way, uses the game engine to utilize in game cutscenes, such as explosions.
report
I would agree that HL1 was the more revolutionary game in its time, but a lot of you seem to be suggesting that it’s just plain better than HL2.
I mean, really, if you just compare the two games as if you’d never seen either before, regardless of when they were made… HL2 has a lot more going for it.
There’s a bit of rose-tinted nostalgia creeping in here, I think.
report
Personally, I found HL2 boring. Not entertaining. I found everything except the moments that had anything to do with the plot bland. Half Life 2 starts off in a way that leads you to believe it’s very atmospheric, so you go in expecting that. Instead you get long strectches of honestly pretty bad action scattered with the odd fun moment (taking the pier from under Combine soldiers is very entertaining :D) and every now and again a computer/TV of Breen explaining the vaguest of vaguest of vague details about the plot. I was very interested in the plot, as it seemed pretty good. Guys in gas masks run a city like a prison while some old bloke gibbers bankerspeak on TV. The plot does eventually trudge on, usually with those lovely first-person cutscenes which drove me to continue playing. These became less and less frequent and I just lost interest. My last save file is is being stuck in a wrecked building with a strider using flying cameras to see you. I imagine it’ll stay there for a long time.
tl;dr Only really enjoyed the cutscenes in FP
report
I have to agree.
While the sequel was a highly polished and highly enjoyable game, it just didn’t have the same impact. For me, Half-Life 1 was a quantum leap in gaming. Especially after playing games like Quake II, Duke Nukem etc…
report
The one-game-per-series rule in PCG’s top 100 has always really pissed me off. It really makes absolutely no sense. For instance: Thief 1 and 2 belong in the Top 100 and Thief 3 (probably) doesn’t. GTA1 and GTA3 are completely different games and both belong there.
report
Alec, you are wrong. HL1 is not Indiana Jones. HL1 is Die Hard. In a top secret science facility.
With aliens.
report
@Itsallcrap
What more does Half Life 2 have than Half Life 1. It has a forced in story which wouldnt be up to par in a movie. But it does its best to make you feel like you are in a movie. The player is forced along in this supposedly fantastic story, you cant kill anyone whom is important to the story. You have to sit back and watch these scenes play out.
The whole ravenholm section is a cliche ripped from movies and books. They’ve added these characters which expouse lines, to me they dont really exist, nor do I to them, because you have no interaction with them, you cant poke or prod them.
Half Life 1 challenged you more, it pushed you, you would see these situations and think “I’ve gotta do WHAT?”. But they were doable, gradualy, you could climb that clifftop, or navigate those laser tripwires. The sequel they wanted everyone to complete, so instead of having lots of peaks and troughs its close to a straight line.
You dont even use the grav gun and physics to a great degree. It involves you picking up the the conveniently placed objects and throwing them at the enemies, which makes it like a gun. You dont set up barricades. It has lots blanket set up situations, where you must use it to proceed.
The last difference is the purpose. In the first one the only reason you are playing or going any further is for yourself, to save yourself, or to see whats next.
Half life 2 you are a superhero who must save the world not because you want to, but because everyone keeps telling you to. I cant identify with the Freeman in Half life 2.
report
Here here! I agree completely with this articles sentiments.
I still cherish my memories of running through Black Mesa the first half dozen times I did it. I could probably have played through the uplink demo blindfolded after the number of times I completed it. I can’t wait for the Black Mesa mod to release to do it all over again in source with all of the extra goodies it promises. I just hope it doesn’t become vapourware.
I notice the dev blogs are appearing further and further apart in time.
I wonder why so many great enemies from HL1 weren’t brought forward to HL2 (Gargs, bullsquids, those cool little piranha-like critters you can use as weapons but be careful they don’t turn on you.) Great days.
report
Just completed Half Life for the first time yesterday, previous playthroughs having stalled around ‘Forget about Freeman’. Its aged remarkably well and is still a blast to play through, I particularly like the little touches in the behaviours of the Scientists and the Barneys (for instance, shooting a headcrab you’d just killed and exclaiming “I got one!”). About the only area where its age is problematic is in regards to PHYSICS! and the shonky grenade arcs; given that the graphics are consistent throughout I can easily live with the low levels of detail.
I can’t help but feel that if I’d completed it when I first picked it up I’d treasure it over its sequel, as Alec does. As it stands they both have their places and having them as two separate titles in a Top [arbitrary number] list makes perfect sense to me.
report
@itsallcrap: No, HL *IS* the better game. I’ve always thought that and am glad to see so many have the same feeling here.
HL2, when it finally arrived, wasn’t even as good as Far Cry for me, never mind it’s illustrious forebear. As lovingly crafted and polished as HL2 undoubtedly is, the first game just seemed to have…more…of everything, including fun. I disagree with many of the choices made for HL2 and it’s city 17 setting, not least is the constant feeling of being on rails – the ghost train ride between set-pieces, as someone put it earlier. In HL that feeling wasn’t so prevalent. And as a recent play of Ep1 showed me, the underlying tech has been bettered by many more recent releases (Stalker comes to mind). Graphically I have no complaints, but the AI is looking shoddy, particularly when I had to keep bumping Alyx out of my way all the time to simply move around a room. She’s not bad, but she rapidly became a complete irritation and I found myself wanting her to just go away so I could explore/fight by myself.
HL2′s self-importance annoys me, too. Much like the Matrix sequels did once the first film did so well.
HL was fun, footloose and fancy free, and just what gaming needed at the time. And no, not even the much-maligned Xen levels spoiled that for me.
report
HL1 up to Xen was like Crysis up to the alien ship for me.
HL2 is great at story telling, but many sections feel so contrived. I hated everything involving vehicles, the prison shootout while “waiting” for Alyx, and Ravenhom. I vaguely remember being slightly less annoyed at Ep1 and Ep2 though.
report
I’d really like to see a Xen re-appreciation article but it seems the ‘Xen-not-that-bad’ crowd are a firm minority.
report
I was going to do a paragraph about how, conceptually at least, Xen is great, and a fitting resolution to the game, so long as you can stomach the irksome, jumping-based execution. I was already rambling on far too much though. Maybe in a later post.
report
I really like the concept and idea of Xen, it’s the gameplay I thought sucked; if they actually make it enjoyable to play I would love to see a next-gen return to Xen. Actually, as the Black Mesa Source developers have specifically said they are improving Xen a lot it’s actually one of the remakes I’m most interested in.
report
I thought Xen was one of the worst design decisions in gaming history. It’s one thing to go to an alien world in an alternate dimension but platforms floating in a black void?
Jump puzzles just do not belong in FPS games, especially fps games where you can’t even see your feet when you look down.
report
For those who don’t know about it check out this site.
Full Half-Life 1 Remake
It’s taking it’s damn time but I can’t wait to play it.
report
Hey you stole our title :) http://www.ozsource.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1661
The speed of the Hl1 gldsrc engine in comparison to the Source engine is probably the main factor Why I seemed to enjoy HL1 and HLDM so much over the HL2 universe.
report
Thinking back on it, I can name some bullet points where HL2 does lack in some respects:
-The weapons list wasn’t as interesting in HL2 lacking the interest of the later HL1 weapons. The snark, the laser tripmine, the hivehand were all fun to use.
Both titles sorely lack a decent assault rifle though!
The gravity gun is the obvious exception though, but you usually just end up using the gravity gun and then whatever weapon the combine are using at the time.
-The enemies were a lot more repetitive in HL2.
I didn’t care for HL1′s floating babies, but the ninja assassins were brilliant and always intimidating, the Gargantuan, the heavily armoured Alien Grunt, and the other Xen creatures were far more interesting that different coloured Combine Soliders.
But probably because of its consistent enemies HL2 feels more like a story and less like a game where the bad guys are made deliberately harder as you progress.
HL1 is the only game where I’ve not felt cheated by “forced failure” though. Being knocked out and left in the garbage crusher was brilliant.
report
i almost stopped playing hl1 when i entered the xen level. too much try and error fro me.
report
ewwww high-res pack ewwwwwwww
report
I love Xen – probably the best exploration of a truly alien (and therefore incomprehensible) environment in an FPS I’ve ever played. The Nihilanth is hard to beat as a conclusion too; killing the baby from 2001 is probably the most suitable ending possible to such an epic and atmospheric SF game. HL2′s big explosion is just cliched (albeit beautifully foreshadowed).
Also, my favourite part of HL is the jumping puzzles, so I was happy to have more in Xen. Screw those malfunctioning jump pads though.
Totally agree with the HL1 better than HL2 thing.
report
“(there’s an Indy film like that, you say? You must be mistaken – there are definitely no aliens in any of the three Indy films ever made)”
Heh. Yes, the apparent 4th Indiana Jones that was a sci-fi flick in disguise.
report
So everyone here disagrees with me, then. Sigh.
Seeing as this is basically the point of this post I guess I’ll give up arguing.
We shall see though. Alec fans can’t represent the whole PCG readership. In time we shall see…
report
We be not PCG, dagnabbit.
As a note – I’m not really saying HL1 is particularly a better game than HL2. There’s certainly a lot of things the sequel does better, which is in part a matter of technology and in part Valve being more experienced. It’s just that I personally much prefer the vibe the first game shoots for, and was a little sad Valve have moved on from it.
report
Honestly, I too prefer HL2. I think it’s the setting that does it for me — instead of a linear labyrinth of concrete tunnels full of monsters that you have to wade through, with little explanation or exposition, you’ve got a big world, with history and interesting conflicts and dystopian craziness. The “Freeman as messiah” message in HL2 gets very old, but the rest of the characters and backstory are way more interesting than the comparative sterility of Black Mesa.
report
The pace is off in HL2 compared to HL1.
HL1′s objectives are presented gradually and rarely (if ever) explicitly mentioned: launch the rocket and then reach the lambda complex. HL2 always has the player running around on a new mission and Gordon is Alyx’s dogsbody throughout. I thought the gameplay in both games about the same, except for HL2 completely missing the awesome three-way battles of HL1.
As for Xen, I thought it was great. An entirely logical ending to HL1: Black Mesa is a lost cause, and Gordon can’t escape across the desert. The science team has discovered why the portals are remaining open and only one man can do the dirty work for them. The “geography” of the place was suitably alien, and there wasn’t that much jumping.
report
I think that every game over 5 years old can’t possibly be good because it’s obviously just nostalgia.
The above may be a lie.
report
HL1 is the only game where I’ve not felt cheated by “forced failure” though. Being knocked out and left in the garbage crusher was brilliant.
Possibly because it was the first FPS which did that (or at least the one that set the trend) so it felt more of an unique scenario than an expectable annoyance.
report
Halflife 2 I find a bit dull, really. Its fun, but so smoothly blended that despite all its dramatic sequences, it just doesn’t do much for me.
The first game tried to introduce a bit of varied pace to FPSes, and did well for the time but looking back it had a very uneven pace. The sequel’s pacing was incredibly smooth – too smooth in fact, as it was like clockwork.
The difficulty was so evenly balanced that there were no true ‘oh shit’ moments and only a few of the dramatic scenes were memorable. The setting was also far less appropriate for the Halflife ‘brand’ of strictly linear design.
The three-faction dynamic where you’re between a rock and a hard place also appealed to me. It ratchets up the tension throughout compared to the sequel, where this goes rapidly downhill, where the whole ‘up against an impossible foe’ thing just disappears and suddenly you’re blowing up striders left right and centre with unlimited rockets.
I just find the sequel samey – sure it has some good characters, a reasonable plot line and some nice gameplay but it lacks the standout moments and feels too homogenised.
report
Gotta run, but yes, imho HL OG was better than HL2, if only for the challenge.
You can sleepwalk through HL2 and not get killed (if you know it), shooting some dudes, throwing some stuff, moving some things, shooting more dudes. But in HL, like with FarCry, you had to use cunning. The enemies required conscious effort to evade and dispose of, unlike in HL2 where all you needed was to keep your wits about you, instead of elevating your wits to cunning.
Cunning is what it’s all about. Focus, battling on, trying hard, failing and trying again. HL2 is just an exercise in clicking the mouse buttons at the right times.
report
I’ve always seen the two as inextricable parts of the same thing… I think that’s the way they’re meant to be seen. I love every part of the saga (which is what it should be thought of, as far as I’m concerned… a saga) – HL1, HL2, the expansions and episodes. My analogy would be that HL2 is Terminator 2 to HL1′s The Terminator. In both cases, the original was more groundbreaking and influential, but the second was an epic step up in scale and ambition, that was much more polished in its execution and maintained, if not upped, the quality.
It’s a good analogy for me because the Terminator and HL series are pretty much my two biggest cultural influences ¬_¬
report
I still greatly prefer Half Life 2. To this day I consider it the most fun FPS I’ve ever played.
report
“I still greatly prefer Half Life 2. To this day I consider it the most fun FPS I’ve ever played.”
Most fun why? I thought the story was ‘okey’, but because of the episodes that followed it feels very unfinished in a way. The gameplay is very good, but it feels like they’ve cut some corners when it comes to immersion. The world looks excellent, but it does feel like the space is confined, HL1 did not suffer so much from this. I really loved the disappearing scientists in HL1 who got eaten by monsters and so on. HL2 definitely needs more of that to top HL1.
In discussions like these I always ask people to compare Quake 1 and Quake 3 Arena and tell me which one they like best. Usually they say Quake 1 was awesome, but they think Quake 3 Arena is better. I honestly don’t get such statements. Quake 1 was raw, new, brutal and challengingly fun. Quake 3 Arena ain’t really that much more than our average deathmatch shooter. Sure it looks good, plays good enough and so on, but I consider Quake 1 to be the mother of FPS still.
Same goes for Half-life 1, which is sort of the sister of Quake 1 in my opinion.
report
This article is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell people.
HL2 was interesting, but not as good as the first. Terrible pacing, retarded ending, etc.
The episodes “Route Canal” and “Ravenholm” totally make up for it, though.
report
Was I the only one who enjoyed the Xen levels?
report
Perhaps we should start a club “The Appreciation society for Xen” or “We who like Xen”.
report
I definitely did not like the Xen levels so much as the other levels. I have to say though the last levels of Far Cry weren’t quite it for me either. I guess the alien-ness is cool for a while, but no game has quite put forth a really convincing setting. Halo came close, but obviously that game has a far less realistic style and so on. Most games aren’t really comparable.
report
For good tentacle beast fighting, play Dead Space!!!! Totally reminiscent of HL1
report
I loved HL1 the first time I played it. The running and gunning, the underlying story, the hectic and frantic game play; I especially remember the moments being ambushed by an airstrike for the first time and almost pissing myself. Good times. The only part I kind of hated was the Nihilanth. A leader of an entire enslaved alien race is a giant pig/baby?
They also didn’t explain the underlying story a lot, just gave you bits and pieces, though, I suppose that was intended since you play an innocent research assistant who honestly has no idea what’s going on.
HL2 didn’t have the same gun fights or hectic game play, but I immensely enjoyed the sprawling urban and industrial maps as well as the horror elements of Ravenholm and the expansiveness of the Coast. Not to mention the indoor fights in Nova Prospekt. The war like atmosphere during the rebellion was also amazing.
As was the story element: the characters could be sympathized with more easily and had more voice acting to tell the story through (though you only got bits and pieces of what happened like HL1)
I also liked how the game made use of it’s post-processing engine to incorporate thematic elements of a dystopic, Orwellian society, crumbling and being sucked dry of it’s resources. The physics engine was the final touch that made puzzles more enjoyable.
report
I also feel that HL1 was the better game. I still like to play it it never gets old for me. I think many of todays games still cant do what hl1 did. the atmosphere, the enemies everything was just overwhelming.
i dont think that the combat system in hl2 is that bad but i have to say when i first played hl2 i was actually disappointed because it didnt give me the same feeling as hl1 did. i was actually disappointed to fight the combine and not some freaky looking alien monsters.
i somehow enjoyed playing hl2 more when i played it through the second time. ep1 was a total disappointment to me.
But when i played ep2 through i was actually sitting in front of my pc saying “damn now thats real half life thats how hl2 and ep1 should have been like”
report
“I think the singular defining characteristic has already been pointed to. Half Life revolutionised the FPS genre by removing the “one man army” feeling prevalent before and for a long time after (something noted often in pcgamer). Half Life 2 returns that tone, you are a one man army, on a mission, not just a man on his own, trying to survive. This was the single biggest problem with the sequel.”
I think this sums up, in much more succinct and non-swearing way, how I feel.
To add slightly, I found HL2 played, to me, like a tech demo. It all seemed to be “look what this engine can do!” not “look what our designers wrote/created!” While Half-Life 1 was on rails, HL-2 was on a damn rope. You climbed, from level to level, and you shot some guys and then moved on. Someone mentioned the ‘but when does it get good?’ feeling, and I had that constantly. All of the ‘puzzles’ felt really gimmicky to me, and just broke whatever tone they’d managed to cobble together.
I think the hovercraft part took about three times as long as I would’ve liked, and really added nothing at all. I love the overall atmosphere, but the actual gameplay itself was pretty mediocre. No single part stands out in my mind as exceptional, because anything I liked at any point was either just after some infuriating jumping puzzle (seriously designers, sort your shit out), or just before one. I liked Ravenholm, but I didn’t like leading up to it, nor after it. It was sort of the carrot dangled in front, that never materialised.
I liked Half-Life 1 because I felt I was running away from danger. In Half-life 2, I feel like there is no danger, I just need to kill squad after squad of some of the worst A.I. in history, with ‘help’ from friendly NPC’s with the worst A.I. in history.
report
“Half Life revolutionised the FPS genre by removing the “one man army” feeling prevalent before and for a long time after”
I’m not sure I really see this – you’re still the one single person in the entire facility that somehow has the ability to survive. Even against hardened, trained marines, you are still somehow unstoppable.
It still seems to very much abide by the ‘one man army’ ethos to me, although I should also point out that I don’t see this as a bad thing necessarily.
One thing I noticed with Episode 2 is that it seemed to be making a conscious effort to blend the styles of HL1 and HL2 together in a way they hadn’t attempted with HL2 and ep1. The section in the rebel base towards the end feels very HL1-stylee to me, albeit without cool aliens.
I rather like that they tried a different setting and style with HL2. As has been pointed out, HL1 does what it does with such panache that there’s no point repeating it. I hope that HL3, whenever that happens, takes a similarly radical departure.
report
You’re evidently the kinda dude who still thinks his first lay was the best, which on some level it always will be, but HL2 definitely took things to the next level with physics and animation(ragdoll) not to mention the cutscenes that you were apart of, i LOVED HL1 (played it with a fever) but HL2 is the stuff dreams are made of, im about to finish ep 2 and now im pissy valve is playing hodge podge on finishing the series
report
Playing the episodes currently (for the first time) I’m finding Ep 2 is approaching some of what HL1 did very well, but I’m still incredibly annoyed to be shepherding Alyx and the Vort around. In the first game I was a lone wolf, I had no-one to watch out for and that was extremely liberating. In HL2 and beyond, I am now part of a team who seem to use me to open doors for them: their bitch, essentially. For all that Gordon Freeman is supposed to be some kind of messiah, Ironically “the Free-Man”, he really doesn’t seem to have any opinions or Free Will of his own beyond solving the puzzles laid down before him like breadcrumbs. It’s creepy enough from the G-Man but is particularly galling being subservient to the good guys as well.
It’s also annoying that in HL2 Gordon’s objectives are so small and restrictive. In the first game it was a number of smaller objectives contained within one huge plan to basically save the Earth/Black Mesa from alien invasion. In HL2 Gordon is bouncing from pillar to post with no clear objective beyond survival and opening doors/paths for whoever is accompanying him. This is one of the most frustrating things for me about the whole HL2 experience. It doesn’t help that the supposed plot is boiling slower than a bottomless kettle, either.
report
To be honest I had hoped they wouldn’t implement a companion in the way they did with adding Alyx at all.
In HL1 it works great. Whenever you need someone else to help you get further it’s a great addition, but Alyx is totally not where things should have gone.
It’s far too limiting when it comes to freedom of gameplay and it feels a lot like having to babysit your little sister while going places.
I still don’t quite understand how people can be raving about Alyx and HL2 in general. Yes, it did look good (not anymore, come on those cheap episodes hardly changed the visuals at all), yes most levels aren’t that bad and yes general gameplay isn’t bad either… but damn, there’s so much they could have done so much better.
report
Why doesn’t valve just remake half-life with the blackmesasource com crew?
Im sure that would be a great way to scam us into buying another valve game. Not that it is a bad thing, every Valve game so far has been quite good. If it was not for Valve in the first place, most games would be bunny hopping DM madness and boring find the key open the door…. type storyline, Valve pushed there limit and I think to this day the map layout of half-life 1 is still the best ive seen in a game and the feeling that the game was never ending…
Valve was trying to do or at least wanted to do with hl1 i think is make it like a 1st person movie, stuff like this can be seen in other titles such as Crysis, Fear, etc.
Anyhow Hl1 story an gameplay etc rocked, but hl2 engine is no doubt much more refined in terms of code and graphics stuff. The ragdoll and other physics is quite smooth, but the size of hl2 maps felt like ambush after ambush.
The Combine felt like “dummy with a machine gun gone wild”
Whereabouts hl1, opp, BS all had that ai type invasion on YOU type feel.
not the everyday serious sam 1 person invades a entire army or empire etc… and wins. I like games to be hard, not in terms of 57 times in the head with a shotgun hard, but Grey matter hard. Thinking, games. What would u do in a life or death situation as supposed to the incident at blackmesa.?
Like if half-life 1 could be put into a movie perspective Gordon Freeman in hl1 always felt like a John McClane type character. Whereabouts Hl2 was more of a Terminator or im a supreme being!! cos i get praised 90% the time by NPCs.
But yeh like ditch the sequels because games are going the way of movies, sequels might have better graphics but that doesn’t make them better games.
Its not often in games, like movies, where you can say… I liked the sequel better…
its like most action/shooters all fell into a rut six years or so back and the only thing they can think of to add is Physics, Normal maps, bloom, etc But we are still yet to see some code that has a NPC ai code that doesn’t stand right behind u when u stick your head out and cant walk backwards for cover cos the NPC “following” code just acts as normal and is not really alerted to what is going on around its surrounding. The only game to fix this was Assassins Creed with the push person mode and the alert mode for peds.
Soz went a bit of topic there but yeh I just hoping Valve will make up some Cheesy teleporter accident that makes u appear back in time at the start of the blackmesa Thus having the Hl story a whole one big never ending story driven event, the end is the beginning of the end?!? Valve you all know we want it……… =)
report
Valve won’t collaborate with the Black Mesa mod because that’s utterly ridiculous. Why should a company give a single penny to someone who is plagiarizing their work wholesale? I think it speaks volumes that Valve are the kind of company generous enough to allow the mod to exist at all.
And Alyx is in the Episodes as a constant companion because Valve wanted to actually try something new. Which is why people apparently love Half-Life 1 so much… Get thee to Residue Processing.
report
My only problem with HL2 is that they didn’t bring back enough of the aliens from HL1. There are some aliens that I would love to see in HL2, although the houndeye that got took out of HL2 just looked…. terrible….
report
I think the main thing with HL1 over HL2 for me was the clear sense of over all purpose in the quest “I need to get out and get help.” rather than the more fragmented “I need to go over there and do this, now I need to go to this other place and do something else.” That said I still really life HL2.
I also quite like how HL1 never directly told you anything, it was all for you to pick up yourself from hints and messages and whatever. You feel really clever when you peice together your own little theory of what’s going on which may not agree with anyone else’s. HL2 manages that a bit but nowhere to the same extent.
report
Why should a company give a single penny to someone who is plagiarizing their work wholesale?
It would be “plagiarism” if they were trying to pass Black Mesa off as an original work.
report
I love this article. It went and inspired me to go back and play through Half-Life 1 again – I’ve been playing various shooters of late farming for ideas and seeing what makes them tick, if for no other reason than to farm for ideas and see what makes them tick, but having only played it once many many moons ago (and having played its sequel pre-episodes so many times more that I didn’t really need to consider playing it again) I’d forgotten about Half-Life. I’ve only just passed the dam (pictured up high somewhere) and I don’t remember a great deal about what happens later, but I’ll share my thoughts so far.
Oh, some quicky background first, incase I get that silly “first lay” treatment I saw somewhere up thread: I grew up with shooters, but I avoided HL1 like the plague not understanding what the fuss was about, yet was also too foolish and stubborn to read up on the game to understand it. I bought HL2 mainly to play CS Source with friends and didn’t play HL2 itself until some time after its release, didn’t have the time initially, and later bought HL1 to play CS 1.6 and some other mods. When I finally got around to playing HL2 I ended up staying up until 3am one night finishing it, when I needed to get up early the next day. Upon finishing, I ignored the need for sleep and started playing HL1 instead. And I haven’t listened to alot of the dev commentary from the games yet, nor do I remember much of what I have heard.
Half-Life 1 is the better challenge, but that doesn’t inherently make it the better game. Tedious comparison time!
Both games start off with the same quite nice hook – starting you in an environment that seems to live on around you, then proceeding to set the scene by having things go badly wrong and out of control for you. I think HL1 does it better: the Black Mesa labs felt huge despite you not seeing much, while HL2′s city is kind of obvious in scale being a city and all, and making the player trigger a catastrophic event that you’ve been assured was highly unlikely to happen and having to crawl out through the wreckage was a pretty gusty start. HL2′s approach is very interesting though: I found the chase sequence pretty exciting when I first played it, and loved the fact that it stripped away any remaining sense of strength and delusions of power you may have had when you first arrived in the city. You were vulnerable when you least needed to be, while in HL1 you were never really quite that vulnerable.
They seem to diverge quite wildly from this point onward though. They both tell their stories well, and great stories they are, but they approach the task from very different directions.
HL1 does a brilliant job of making the task of getting from A to B interesting, and a game in itself in a way. A large portion of the game is movement puzzles, and not just of the jumping kind. Getting to the other side of a locked door in most games is simplified: find the key or switch to open the door, maybe fight some people on the way there and back. Instead HL1 screws with you. Door’s locked from your side, so you’ve got to jump some tables across a pool of electrified water and climb through some vents to get to the other side. Or you can see the switch on the other side of a bit of glass, but you’ve got to worm your way around the place while surviving just to find _the route_ to the switch. Even the simplest of tasks (go through vent shaft in the only direction the vent shaft goes) is made interesting by the odd headcrab or two to keep you on your toes [brief note: I'm aware HL2 used this too, but it felt more predictable somehow - maybe they did it too often?]. There’s some nice combination stuff in there too, mainly in the Tentacle and Gargantua. If you want to focus on killing the beast you’ll stumble upon the way forward on your journey too, yet if you’re just focused on opening up the next route along your journey you’ll quite neatly stumble upon the method of killing the creature too (this is less obvious yet very apparent with Gargantua). The game’s just one big puzzle, with more puzzle layered on top.
It dries up occasionally in its quality of execution though, though thankfully not permanently: someone already mentioned Residue Processing and “trying something new” in the same sentence – for those unaware, Residue is a level consisting of running through a processing plant, hopping over pits of toxic waste and stuff, dodging and ducking through machinery, and occasionally shooting headcrabs and bullsquids – no idea whether that kind of thing had been done before, but it was a little underwhelming. Some areas turn into plain old gun fights too with little attention towards anything else, and the pacing is weird at times – suddenly being assaulted by gun turrets and artillery strikes after you’ve been calmly working your way through some puzzles for a while can be a little jarring. And then there’s Xen, which I wont discuss as I never worked out whether I liked it or not.
HL2 takes a different approach. It focuses far less on how you get from place to place and looks more at the story being told. Getting around the levels is still interesting, but it overall feels a little more like your standard cinematic shooter – get given the task, shoot the evil dudes in your way to carry out your task, get new task and repeat. What makes it interesting is less the way levels are designed – they’re designed well, but not in the same way as HL1 – and more to do how the plot winds around and permeates everything. Characters feel somewhat alive and give you a reason to care (or at least try really hard), each environment in the game is crafted to give a specific feel and to tell the story through its artistic direction. Everything has a story behind it, somewhere, and the game’s not shy to let you know what that story is. It does mean some stuff is lost: with less need to tell the story more through the level’s construction and more money and tech available to do more artistic things, some of the more wonderful moments of HL1 (I want to profess my love for the Tentacle monster at some point in my life without it sounding dirty, so now’s a good time!) are seemlingly lost, but some beautiful scenes appear instead.
Half-Life 2 tries new things in different places to Half-Life 1, which is a good thing in a way – they’re not retreading old ground and focusing purely on level construction, and experimenting with storytelling and “feeling” elements (some experiements aren’t entirely successful too – the whole unlit area in Episode One was slightly odd and pretty different, yet it was incredibly interesting to see attempted). And it seems like now they’ve gotten a hang with some of that they’re coming back to mix it in with other proven elements: I’m in agreement with whoever said Episode Two had more HL1-esque elements in it, and it was nice to see some older style ideas come together with the newer additions in play (the level where you first get the car is pretty nice in how its laid out, as an example). I’m interested to see what Episode Three tries to do.
But which is the better game? As I said before, HL1 was a better challenge: Valve playing by their strengths at the time ended up making lots of very tight and interesting levels, that had to tell some sort of story with a minimal amount of effort and did it well. But HL2 might be the better overall experience: its a little less involving and not quite as mind bending, but there’s alot more going on, you’re always made aware of the state of the world around you (adding to the impression its going on without you), and it stays coherent. At the end of the day it comes down to what you prioritise as making a game into a game, which will always be personal preference.
My vote? Right now I’d say I prefered Half-Life 2. I like games for the overall experience rather than specific parts, and I think HL2′s was a smoother one that I was just able to enjoy with less strings attached, and is a bit easier to relax to than HL1. That said, I just played both Crysis games very recently (for the first time ever, oh yes) which may be affecting my judgement a little, and there’s this little niggling thing in my brain about HL1. Hmm…
Oh right, Xen! I kind of liked the feel of it when I first got to it and it didn’t really annoy me all that much. Jumping around in it was strange, but it was an alien world so my mind let it slide. Ending on a confusing boss fight made me a little bitter about it though: I’d gotten so far (played through the whole thing on Hard the first time too) and I was so close to the end, yet this giant baby kept stomping me to death, so I eventually cracked and cheated through the fight because – having played through HL2 first and wondering how it all began – I just wanted to know how the first game ended at that point. In many ways I prefer the ending fights to (oh dear, I’m listing these games together, that can’t be good) HL2 and the Crysis games. They’re nowhere near as complicated, though they still manage to be interesting, and they don’t feel like a massive barrier in the way of you reaching the end of the story. They’re not much of a challenge maybe. But for me at least, a better experience.
Now I could have been playing HL1 instead of writing this, but I needed to lose some adrenaline before going to sleep. Don’t think it worked. I’m just excited about coming home tomorrow and playing more Half-Life (on easy just so I can see the game again, and maybe beat the baby this time). Bah!
Oh, before I forget, a mandatory disclaimer. I spewed my brains out then didn’t re-read it before posting because I was too tired to check my own writing with confidence, but not too tired to hit the post button. If it loses coherence somewhere, blame biology. Also, my opinion may be horribly wrong. That’s because I’m human, and possibly also because I’m male. Also blame biology.
report
Just in case anyone else has come back to this article as late as me…
Yeah, I understand the difference. But in the first sentence of the original post you mentioned the upcoming PCG top 100. I meant I bet that’ll show that I’m not alone in my pro-HL2 standpoint.
Although, since I’ve replied so late, I fear history will record that I simply didn’t know where I was. Ho hum.
report
Consider history rewritten ;)
And you’re far from alone – I’m willing to bet the vast majority of folk who read this post thought “what a load of rose-tinted nonsense” and ignored it. But the general agreement that HL2 is better is why I wrote it, y’know?
report
This is all a matter of opinion, i found HL2 more inmersive and just more cinematic. The gravity gun is just incredible, absolutely awesome.
While i love HL1 a lot (my first FPS) HL2 blew me away just took everything great about HL1 and took it to the next level and the last Episode #2 is the BEST HL YET
Everything is just so right you have sections being alone, section with the Vortigaun and Alyx (best NPC in gaming) and simply and more inmersive epic cinematic great story, all with the best FPS gameplay there is…
IMHO HL2 > HL1 but just by a little bit
report
HALF-LIFE is VERY BEAUTIFUL
ANDREHL=BRAZIL
I CREATED ONE MOD FOR HL.
tank you!!!
report
HL1 or HL2? Thats a tough one. For me it’s an engine-vs-engine thing. HL1 set the standard for multiplayer gaming, mod creation, the most convincing AI ever in a videogame and the first game i ever played that gave me that ‘cinematic experience’ i look for ever since. But even considering it’s age, the textures were bland and had washed-out colours. (Not to mention horrible tiling.) The source engine, on the other hand, gave (what used to be) next-gen graphics (with physics) running great on outdated hardware and managed to update it over the years to support multi-core and new graphics features (HDR, blooming etc). Your average company would reserve those improvements for a new title. Not Valve. Still, i vote HL1, for what it did for gaming in general.
report
game induced vertigo? guess Mirror’s Edge will be impossible to play for you :)
report
I couldn’t tear myself away from either. But of the two, HL1 was drooled upon because it was right in line, as many have stated, with the vertigo induced feeling as in Jedi Knight. We all looked forward to HL2 and what the boys and girls could deliver. But because HL2 wasn’t the first in the HL series it just gets a click below HL2 in my book. Both are breath taking, and action packed. And who really would have though 3/4 of the way through HL2:ep1 we would have been thrown across a chasm by DOG. (that was ep1, right?) or the friggin Strider fight at the end of ep2. Come on, seriously. It was moments like that in the HL2 series that are jawdropping. Well that’s just what i think.
Cheers everyone. Great topic (sorry if i stepped off it, if ep1 and 2 didn’t count).
report
I didn’t like HL2 that much. I think Portal captured the proper spirit of the original and I’d consider it a true sequel. That’s why my hopes for EP3 are quite high.
As for ending of EP2 – this was one of the few most intense gaming moments in my life, but it made EP2 non – replayable for me.
report
Portal captured the proper spirit of the original? WHAT?!
Portal is a great game in it’s own right, but damn … nothing truly HL2-ish about it. The setting is a lot more sterile, you’re basically a lab-rat trapped. HL2 had much much more variation, obviously the whole first person shooter deal instead of the first person puzzler thing that’s only cool as long as you can crack all the puzzles within say half an hour.
I don’t think EP3 will feature anything from Portal, it’s likely they’ll simply make a Portal 2 and make even more money.
report
Portal is a great game in it’s own right, but damn … nothing truly HL2-ish about it.
He said (and you said) “the original”. I think there’s an article at The Escapist that expands on this idea.
report
Do you have a link Saflo? I’d like to know what exactly you’re hinting at. :)
I know Narbacular Drop is more or less what became Portal and so on, but I wasn’t hinting on the originality of Portal… more so hinting at the originality of Half-life (1 and) 2.
report
What I meant was thtat HL2 didn’t capture the spirit of HL1, whereas Portal did in many ways feel similar (or familiar). It was the feeling I’d been yearning for long, and I didn’t get it from HL2 at all.
report
In that case I fully agree with you gaarrett. Portal did have the same mysterious, claustrophobic and linear but interesting feeling of wanting, needing to escape.
In fact, Portal did this slightly better than Half-life 1, the last few levels of Portal really stood out and made it all excellent.
report
I think what were looking at here, like with so many older vs newer games, is the imponderable fact that in the era of Half Life 1 PC games were ‘organic’. By the time Half Life 2 came around PC gaming had become ‘corporate’. Half Life 2 is a business suit game and therefore has a feel completely different from the organic feel of Half Life 1. It is for this reason these games cannot be compared. For example, while Half life 2′s graphics are undoubtedly better, they are also more ‘clinical’ in their perfection – souless you might say. Half Life 1, even when it came out, more more ‘rough around the edges’- and was loved all the more for that. I also feel that originality will always get an ‘extra score’ compared with what comes after. Hence the failure of so many book, TV and movie sequels.
Oh, and my first vertigo feeling was Castle Wolfenstein, having to clamber about on the top of that cable car!!
report
Man, thanks for bringing back some nostalgic feelings for me. The tentacle clanging is one of those great gaming moments in my book.
Though, I have to ask, what’s really the point of comparing the two games to choose which one’s best? From what I’ve read in this article a lot of people have mixed feelings about both games. Things they like/didn’t about one and others that they liked/didn’t about the other. Both games stand on their own as good games during their time and as unique experiences despite their shared franchise.
It’s fun to think of what HL2 would be like if Valve stuck to their HL1 themes. I don’t think the “shlocky HL2″ would have been as well received. Games had moved on in narrative depth. I really gotta hand it to Valve for trying all the things they did with HL2′s story, rather than falling back to what they knew how to do with HL1.
I mean just look at the Kleiners and Barneys from HL1 and compare them to Kliener and Barney in HL2. Funny, though, how Kliener and Barney are the remnants of those olden days.
report
Problems with HL2:
Combines:
horrible AI, did not feel like a threat, everything including their gunships felt like toys/cartoons from a kids show. Marines were hardcore GIs that needed to contain Black Mesa at all costs. What’s the point killing a bunch of masked alien drones that had no personalities? Valve so strongly wanted people to be wowed by its facial expression system in HL2 yet they made their enemies more faceless than ever. It would have been better if they were smarter but the AI in HL2 was so easy I bet I could kill and dodge every combine with just a crowbar!
Hero:
HL1 put you in the middle of a freak accident while a fight is being bled out on 3 factions. HL2 just completely ruined everything for me. It was you vs the combine. The Xen creatures were not a factor at all. It felt like the world of City17 was a lame broadway show that was made up for Gordon Freeman, unlike Black Mesa where Gordon went to places that he was not supposed to go into. As a protagonist, the fictional world of HL2 felt pre-discovered and everything was staged. Between the boring enemies, you also had to deal with numbskull NPCs that all had the same voices and cheerful tone whenever they saw you (“OMG IT’s FREEMAN LET’S ALL BOW TO HIM!”). I can’t stand being the center of attention. Seriously, how in the world did all these fockers got to know Gordon Freeman and ALL praise him as a god? That’s just lame. Too much hero worship.
Too much self awareness destroyed the possibility that one felt in HL1 when they played it the first time, that you MIGHT end up crawling out of Black Mesa alive and live to tell the world about it. In HL2, there is none of this feeling, it was just one melodramatic set piece, then a long boat/buggy ride through repetitive NPCs, then another melodramatic set piece. The sense of SURVIVAL was strong in HL1, and there was NOTHING like it in HL2.
Forced:
In HL1 you were forced to go through some scripted sequences. But they felt legit, choatic, if not humorous at times because throughout the whole time I felt giggly knowing EVERYTHING around you was falling down but you had JUST the right amount of vents and boxes to get you through an otherwise NON PASSABLE AREA in which you’ll be stuck in forever. After you’ve finished the game you couldn’t hep but laugh at how one little table top that allowed you to jump into a vent, and literally, allowed you to save the world from a Xen invasion.
HL2 on the other hand had too many areas where it was obviously staged for you to fight “another large lame boss” where you had to do certain things to take away from its large hitpoints. The “mission” was too transparent. Add to that, the lame friendly NPCs that just kept respawning and coming to your aid until you kill the enemy, telling you what to do (“Come on Freeman!”…). It was like Valve was giving you a hand and telling you “hey don’t worry we’ll help you beat the game!”. At no point in HL2 was I really taken by the fact that the story progressed to where it did, it was all very predictable.
If they made HL1 and HL2 into two movies, HL1 would definitely be the better one, being less “epic” and “grand” yet very intelligent and VERY concise and cohesive. HL2 would a movie that is all over place trying to encompass everything and really accel’ing at very few things.
There is hope though, EP2 near the end REALLY brought back some good storytelling elements that were missing from HL2. Parts of Black Mesa East reminded me of HL1 and hopefully Valve will move more into that direction with EP3. They need to make a shorter game with less “stretch pieces” like boat rides and car rides but make everything more intense and more about discoveries. Less is more.
report
There are two more little rants I have to talk about.
Weapons:
This has been said before but I think Gordon’s ABILITIES in HL2 made him WAY too strong. They gave him the sprint ability that allowed him to go pretty much anywhere and dodge through so many fights that are otherwise not possibly had they gave him the HL1 HEV suit that didn’t sprint. On top of that you had a lot of uninspired weapons that didn’t have the punch of the HL1 weapons. The guass gun/tau cannon was 10x more fun than the Gravity Gun, which near the end when the Combine accidentally supercharged it, felt more like this toy that they FORCED you to play with rather than allowed you to choose to play with.
Xen:
I for one LOVED Xen. I loved how in the middle of some of the most tense battles of Half Life, Valve suddenly decides to send you up to an Alien world where all the rules were bended and all logic were re-written. Especially for its time, Xen was AMAZING to behalf. The sound, the atmosphere, the “wild life” and other odd things like little eyeballs coming up from the ground (and retracted when touched/scared) which lighted up things like a light bulb, human corpses in HEV suits, dead scientist (and ONE hidden alive scientist in the final level) really made me feel like “wow I might live through this to tell the world about these aliens and what I’ve seen”. In the beginning I disliked Xen but since then I’ve played HL1 many times and REALLY APPRECIATE what Valve tried to do and the SHEER amount of imagination they had put in those levels. In the beginning you saw those Alien slaves as nothing more than scared creatures but once you got to one of Xen’s “factories” you saw the Grunts were CONTROLLING the slaves which didn’t attack you unless you attacked them first. It was like human scientists being controlled by human grunts. Great concept.
report
Characters:
Ravenholm.. what’s the point of adding all these ninja zombies and that old man with the shotgun. It’s like Valve is TRYING SO HARD to add in horror elements they saw in a film but can’t seem to do it right without devoting an ENTIRE chapter to it. It’s stuff like that it pisses me off, it’s completely 180 away from Half Life which FLOWED better.
report
And someone else already mentioned this but in HL1 you felt like you HAD to survive, there was a threat, a danger, looming over your head and the lives of all the barnies and scientists. In HL2 there was no hurry, no rush. I didn’t see a real “reason” to fight, other than the fact that a bunch of stupid friendly NPCs told me I was there to save them.
report
And yeah, hate to go on and on but I HATED Alyx until EP2. In HL2 and EP1 she was useless. Basically invincible and I had to babysit her. EP2 made her stronger and more interesting.
report
If I were to write HL2. I would make it so NPCs are all the same. These friendlies would have their own opinions. How about some of them actually HATING you for pushing the test sample into the portal? You opened a door that the combine eventually got through. God I can’t stand the fact that now Gordon is suddenly a HERO when all along he’s just a rogue. Sure you wanted him to be a good guy but let’s not make him out to be jesus in a city full of Christians.
report
I hate it when people cry nostalgia/rose-tinted because they can’t believe someone likes a game even though it has “old” graphics.
Since Half-Life 2′s release, I have played through it exactly once. I tried playing through it again recently, but it was too dull. I have played Half-Life 1 many times since 1998. In fact, I’ve played through it 2-3 times since I’ve finished Half-Life 2.
I am also one of the few who like Xen.
report
I had a distinct fear of the tentacle beast. The tapping, it’s invulnerability, the tapping, it’s blindness, the tapping, it’s massive size, THE TAPPING. Oh god, the tapping.
report
i remember HL1 scaring the crap out of me and being horribly difficult. new one was seriously easy, don’t think i completely ran out of ammo for the entire thing. but still twas mint, love the HL storyine more than anything
report
Wow…
WOW…
W…O…W…
I am shocked.
I found what I thought did not exist.
A person, who isn’t an idiot.
I HATE HL2 fanboi’s, NONE of them care about the single player game as much as the multiplayer kill fest… but they’ll drone on and on about how superior HL2 is to ALL OTHER GAMES. (Graphics and Physics do not make a game… expecally if the only use physics has is to show how pitiful HL2′s weapons are. *To Instant kill with grav gun… or to expend absurdly limited ammo* is our motto.
Though… I must say… the linearity of HL1 and HL2 is purely awful. Every other FPS is superior (in that regard) because of having far less linear levels. (Oh, did I say levels? HL doesn’t HAVE levels… it’s just a walk across the entire game) and more STORY in between. Though, HL1 has a better “story” than HL2… (why is gordon freeman known by everyone… he’s a nobody scientist who died after a top secret lab was nuked (or so says the obituary).).
HL1 simply… is better. Xen creatures… the Xen levels (though the jumping gets old)… there was soo much more aww factor and MUCH cooler enemies. HL2 has only one enemy. The combine. Zombies aren’t that big a deal (cept in ravenholm where you never want to see another f’n zombie again).
And HL1′s puzzles were pletiful… and actually THERE. You BACKTRACKED more often than not in HL1 making the game seem far less linear. HL2? No such thing. A few stupid physics puzzles (I HATE physics puzzles… it’s allways “lift up some heavy stuff and put it in a basket” STUPID… HL2 fanboi’s call THAT premium entertainment?
report
I just can’t understand why anyone would call the peice of shit that is HL2 “Game of the Year”.
PORTAL deserves Game of the Year… that WAS unique, it WAS cool… and I had far more fun with it than HL2. (Unfortunatly it was a pet project… too short, puzzles either too difficult or too easy. [And the only ones that were difficult were ones that required you to run and throw a portal somewhere else… and pray that the timing was right.
I mean, portal is one of those games where physics COULD have gotten REALLY REALLY FUN (without a DAMN grav gun). But was JUST slightly off (Mostly, things became more “portal” than physics… I think if they threw some of those HL2 physics problems into portal, they would have been a little LESS stupid… or how about catapults? Or Merry-Go Rounds :D.
HL2-Physics without substance.
Portal – Physics… but just not enough… rube goldberg! (Maybe if there were some perminate portals like in the beginning of the game, througout the game) Or even another portalgun (unstealable this time)
I mean, PORTAL is just awsome when compared to HL2…. It’s not an FPS so it’s a bit hard to compare to a decent game like HL1 but… If HL2 had a PORTAL gun instead of a grav gun… then only 1 of 200 things would be fixed. (Such as how barnicles become your primary enemy for a while… or how annoying manhacks are if you don’t kill then with the grav gun.) .
But portal is awesome. And it was just a pet project. But HL2 sucked.
*hehe* One MAJOR gripe here.
The HEV Hazardous Environment Suit… does NOT protect against radiation or biohazard. HL1 had it protect as long as it has a charge.
Wait, I’ll take it back.. HL2 does have a FEW decent puzzles…. but they’re SOO HORRIBLE when compared to HL1. I’m talking about the maze puzzles… and they’re all single room puzzles so they’re horribly short versions of the HL1 ones.
More griping… HL1 has the Tau Cannon which = Superior Grav Gun. WHY? Because Newton’s thrid law says picking up a person with a grav gun, and hurtling that person at 200m/s, will cause you to be hurtled in the oposite direction. Tau cannon allowed COOL Physics puzzles where Gordon jumped and fired to get to distant platforms. (Instead of just being a noob and pressing “suck object to me”)
report
tl;dr
l2opinions
Stop applying real world science to a video game
That is all
report
HL2 Fanboi’s
But, Half Life 2… despite its simplistic AI, unsatisfying weapons and combat, and promise that ultimately wasn’t entirely fulfilled, is just a much better made game. Its quality keeps up throughout the brilliantly told story –
So HL2 has HORRIBLE AI, HORRIBLE Combat, HORRIBLE Weapons… but the “story” that was… not there (seriously, there IS no story. You’re gordon freeman… out for revenge. And you kill every poor combine soldier so that you can kill breen, the damn man who caused that cursed G-man to ruin your life) It works JUST AS WELL. There’s nothing to really explain why you’re doing anything… and asside from Breen TV or Resistance Radio there’s nothing to go on. You just do things because you can only move in a straight line.
To HL1 fans: Stupid bouncy alien levels.
HL2 is vastly superior. It has a gravity gun and atmosphere
It has a GRAV GUN… So what, Grav Gun = Covenant Sword… a weapon for n00bs. Of course the only GOOD “real” weapons in HL2 is the Combine Rifle’s grenade and the Crossbow. (Only an idiot claims otherwise. HL:DM is all about crossbow… and grav gun.)
As for Xen. It’s a SINGLE ARC, of a game that is easily larger than HL2.
And how can you say HL2 didn’t have the contrasts of the original. For me, fighting your way through Ravenholm at night, down into the claustrophobic mine, to emerge into the open air and sunlight is one of THE. BEST. GAMING. MOMENTS. EVER!
Give me FUCK’N AMMO. And it’d be fun. Maybe. But any sane person would realize ravenholm is a failed physics experiment. You have more traps than ammo and you end up using the grav gun way too much.
I liked HL because the level design, open areas, and history.
Source is a horribly weak engine. Just remember that before talking about “open areas” (maybe Halo, for instance…) Level design? “Didn’t we just pass that door? That building… that ROOM?
History? Most of it is player made up. People CLAIM Gordon was frozen because of the “wakeup” (you’re NOT asleep in suspended animation) scene… and the breen tv convos where he talks about how you were unable to improve your skillz (How would breen know ANYTHING in the firstplace)… All player interpretations.
including HL2 (although, to be fair, it still gets it much better than most).
Don’t be fair… be even. HL2 sucked. You ONLY fight combine… everything else is just “there” Ravenholm does not exist… antlions are just annoying (till they become weapons), and the slaves aren’t even your ENEMY… HL2 is Combine, more combine… and more combine. There really isn’t much else (and stalker / gunships are… well… stupid. Ulimited Ammo FTL)
From the standpoint of a critic I think that both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are equal.
Fanboi
It and Deus Ex showed what gaming could be at about the same time.
OMG DEUS EX > HL2 (actually, it is… thats why I reinstalled Deus instead of HL2… gunfights and AI suck… however)
HL2 does not feel this way, although its structure parallels that of HL1 from the start. Instead of a stationary and mostly passive tram ride, you explore City 17 as a new citizen at your own pace.
For all of 5 min… Stop Roleplaying. HL1 has the same damn opening,
But whereas HL1 keeps building momentum, HL2 suddenly stops and reverses direction at the critical point of your mission to assault Nova Prospekt. After you emerge from Ravenholm, you finally stop running from the Combine’s escalating attempts to hunt you down and instead go on the offensive to rescue Eli.
No, you have allways been on the offensive. Gordon is a Retard who can only walk in a straight line. You don’t RESCUE anyone… you just keep walking until someone tells you to do something. There IS no offensive, there is no DEFENSIVE… only snipers and the inability to aim a grenade.
HL1 is a videogame with all the silly childlike characteristics that make up the attached stigma, while HL2 is something more.
NO IT ISN’T…. STOP ROLEPLAYING.
HL2 is a MOD HAPPY game, HL1… less so… but realize that you’re roleplaying this entire review… you MAKE Standard Dystopia 17 into something it isn’t… you’ve been brainwashed by graphics and nothing more.
SERIOUSLY, is a Big Brother system… with a few random and completely stupid levels in between… more immersive? NO. It’s just something that is easier to roleplay in. (Roleplay a smart person… it’s hard… roleplay an idiot… it’s even harder :P)
report
“Fanboi’s”
“Fanboi’s”
“Fanboi”
“Fanboi’s”
“Fanboi”
“n00b”
“fanboi’s”
I get the distinct feeling you’re on the wrong website.
report
RE. HL2 combat
Yes it sucks. I have been using a file with buffed damage values since day one!
In Other Words… HL2 SUCKS (You said so yourself).
If you have to MOD a game for it to be a good game… it is not a good game.
For instance, the sequence where you are trying to hold the combine back while Mossman and Alyx get the combine teleporter to work. I loved that the game created a moment where I was fully distracted by the combine, and Alyx shouted over to me and I turned around just in time to see that I’d ‘dropped the ball’ and let Mossman go rogue and had to watch her escape in the teleporter.
No, it’s completly scripted and completly stupid. Alyx should have cuffed Mossman, alyx should have tied her up… but NO, you let her escape because she was MENT to escape. Completly unrealistic. (let alone that mossman would beable to USE the teleport) Alyx is just too hot over you to care.
“I think this improves in the eps” No it doesn’t… Besides HL2: EP2 is NOT HL2. Expansions are NOT the original. So you can’t rate them into the game.
HL2’s weaponry is practically the exact same as HL1’s, just a few weapons less and with an added gravity gun (which is fun but not the messiah of fun as often portrayed, plus its transformation to the blue ubergun makes the end even more boring)
Are you an IDIOT? Yes you are… HL2 removes the Tau cannon, the Guon Gun, the SAW, Sniper, Satchles, Mines, a GOOD pistol and a GOOD assault rifle… and those were the GOOD weapons (seriously, the pistol was soo good that I used it whenever I didn’t need the heavy artilery)
HL2 has… a crossbow and a combine rifle… everything else just sucks.
I do have to add as well that HL2 and its episodes are one of the very few FPS games where the vehicle sections aren’t pure pain, so credit to that.
HALO.
And HL2′s vehicle sections are a FUCKINGPEICEOFSHIT YOU RIDE ABOAT FOR what 5 LEVELS?
HL2′s vehicles are GOD AWFUL… the only plus is that they aren’t track vehicles…. but even ADVENT RISING has better vehicles than HL2
report
“HL2 took itself more seriously” angle. Are we forgetting that HL1 opens with a 10-minute train ride with a portentous (though also amusing) monologue? At the time that was the very definition of “taking itself seriously”, compared to similar games of the time (which were essentially load-first-level-evil-alien-quick-shoot).
You mean Duke, Quake, Doom and those games? System Shock Anyone? Uhh, can’t remember any other old games… but HL starts a little slow. And the intro is only 3 min (mostly because it’s a “we are valve… read our names” intro)
.
Personally I prefer HL2, but that’s primarily because I love the storytelling technique.
THERE IS NO STORY.
Xen…
RAVENHOMN… The fuckn beach… the Citidel (though that was the one repetitive part I loved to play… it’s the ONLY TIME when there are more than 5 enemies around)
I think I am the only person on earth who enjoyed the Xen levels…
I liked Xen… I liked the jumping… there was just a little too much of it.
Also – I want more crazy alien guns like OpForce had – those were awesome
Barnecle Weapon > Grav Gun
Personally I hated the vent crawl of HL1, seemed like half the damn game was designed as vent-room-vent-room-ventGODDAMNHEADCRAB. The linearity of the game also felt much more pronounced to me than it did in HL2
Thats because you’re an idiot. Idiots have short attention spans and typically quit on level one… idiots also like shiny shit (thats right, SHIT) and they like to look at how shiny it is. HL2 just has purdy graphics… it distracts you longer so you don’t realize that EVERY DOOR in HL2 is locked (actually… it isn’t… as those doors aren’t real doors) Also, HL2 LACKS doors where there should be doors.
HL1 has similar faults… but there are more “traverse the area” levels where you backtrack… than HL2.
report