Why is half-life 2 so great? (no trolling please) (spoilers if you can even spoil a 10 yr old game)

03gade

03gade

Member
Ok, so i finally went and did it, i played through half life 2. Now I got to nova prospekt and was willing to give up because the first half of the game is simply boring. you are airboating through the abyss with the occasional helicopter. You are traveling to eli's lab and then black mesa east without really any reason other than alyx told you to. My friends told me to keep going so I did and yes, the second half of the game is a pretty intense shooter. So it definitely redeemed itself. The r-town is boring now a days but i see how it was creepy back in the day.

So you can say the second half of the game is great. No problems there and if you wanna argue the first half sets the scene of one man against the world i will give you that. But here is the problem i want someone to explain to me. The story is almost non existent. You go along with alyx saving her dad and overthrowing dr. breen, but as a player, I had no motivation for such acts. What is city 17? How the hell did the Xen end up all over the city? What makes the gov't so evil? What is all this talk of immortality? I read all about the answers to these questions online but that doesn't count, it was not explained in the game, and i haven't played the episodes but the game was praised on its release and the stand alone title is the one that shows up on best of lists.

2 things I want to state. 1) this game was released a week after halo 2. I feel like in the collective memory of gamers it is older than that. Yes it has dope graphics and physics but compared to halo 2 and call of duty 1 the whole shooting/walking/drive without any visible arms/ pick stuff up by floating it in your face/walk up ladders underwater like its 1995.... dates the game very very badly and also, compared to the ridiculously fleshed out story of halo 2, i don't see how the story and mechanics weren't gripes at the time.

2) valves similar effort portal 2 (portal one doesn't count cause it was pretty much a side project) was all about story. it was similar to half life with no cutscenes/a silent character but you learn all about the history of aperture science and the origin of glados. PORTAL EXPLAINS ITS WORLD HALF LIFE 2 DOES NOT.
 
no way man if you had played HL1 all the way through there really shouldnt be too many questions on the story except for the ones they don't want to reveal. The game is also hyped up a lot for having a story without a single cut scene. The less you explore and interact with the less you learn. when i started playing hl2 i watched the video recordings in city 17 all the way through. without cut scenes its easy to miss out on key points but if you're observant it all comes up. Breen gives a pretty solid intro if you paid attention. I remember being blown away from HL1 in the beginning when i could use the sink and the hand dryer, super interactive and puzzle filled yet still a fps plus the story is intricate. You sound a little stuck up as a player, I mean you're trying to save humanity and escape from your captors. all the call of duty games and halo games are also "save the world". solid motivation i'd say, also remember this is almost ten years after its release
 
I never played HL1 but I loved HL2 for some reason. The gravity gun is just too damn fun plus with Gary's (or Garry's I can't ever remember) Mod it makes it almost a brand new game. The 2 episodes afterwards are great too.
 
Ahahah gmod is mad fun. I play it all the time. It's crazy because there are a number of different games created within gmod as well so its like a game within a game within a game. I've never played HL2 though. I've played Portal 1, Portal 2, TF2, Gmod, and CS:S though and honestly everything valve makes is great.
 
i listened to all of breens speeches, the one at the beginning states they are on the cusp of immortality and instinct must be suppressed. thats great but you never learn who the suppressors are, whats the story behind this immortality and again, how the xen ended up all over the place.

they ended up all over the place because the portal created in half life 1 cause multiple rifts in the 2 dimensions opening portals to xen. the xen then conquered earth in 7 hrs and dr breen surrendered on behalf of humanity and became their puppet. cool story, never told in game. also doesn't explain the surpression
 
different characters throughout the game explain small bits and pieces as you play for you to start to piece together but cool so you know the story now and they didnt spell it out for you. if you still don't like it don't play it. its an acclaimed game for lots of reasons, if it doesn't seem like a fun game to you then fine
 
yeah i'm fine with agreeing to disagree, i posted this on a number of forums and asked my best buy and ex gamestop coworkers and noone was going apeshit about how awesome it is. I think i'm learning the gaming community isn't heralding it as much as these countdowns that put in the top ten games of all time seemed to suggest. thats what really got me posting.
 
The game itself isn't anything spectacular when compared to something like say Battlefield 3, Halo 4, or Crysis 3 however it stands tall for one reason IMO.

It's the first shooter I can remember that really REALLY involved physics into the gameplay.
 
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