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.
Related Stories:
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.
Looking forward to Black Mesa Source being finished too. If that ever happens.
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.
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.
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.
Grrr.. wheres the edit button? the 2th HL whas about HL2 not HL1.
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Half-Life 1 has Blast Pit.
Half-Life 2 has physics.
I know which one scared me more.
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
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.
sorry, better game for me* subjective experience ahoy
nsj ftw
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.
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!
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!
(In the jeep ofc).
And in the game.
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).
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).
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
aslo, I forgot :
HALF-LIFE SOURCE
YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT
BRING IT ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
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!
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.
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).
@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.
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).
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.
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.
@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.
In this case we can have the pie and eat it too.
They’re both great, play them both!
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.
Oh, one thing I forgot…
I think Black Mesa Source ought to be an interesting one, in how it compares to both games…
So anyway, I think it’s now fairly clear why BOTH needed to be included…
@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
I fucking loved Xen. I thought it was one of the best, most atmospheric parts of Half-Life.
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.
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?