Spun-off from the Pippa thread,
@thhrang put forth this:
The video:
And my response:
"I was barely one year old when this game came out"
Right off the bat, I want to die.
His first focus is on story, characters, and performances, putting these in the light that they are positive advancements for the game (and games in general). I contest the opposite: these things are
why Half-Life 2 is lesser, and why the game has had a negative impact. What makes a game is the game - everything else is window-dressing. Window-dressing can be very welcome, and can add a lot to the feel and memorability, so long as they don't get in the way of the game. The level of injection that the new (and returning yet modified) characters brought in Half-Life 2 distracted from the game itself on average to a greater extent than any of the long-winded NPC expositions in the first one. This was not a positive advancement, but a negative one.
Makes good points on character design telling you about the characters themselves, along with the world around you. This is called environmental storytelling. It used to be the norm in any action game by necessity, with more extensive storytelling being resigned to games that better suited it - like Text Adventures and Japanese Role Playing Games. Now most action games seemingly must kneecap themselves by cementing your feet every five yards so they can do their "storytelling." Christ, it's bizarre as fuck to me that there's more of this today in First Person Shooters than there was in Dungeon Crawlers, isometric Role-Playing Games, or even Full Motion Video games. I'm not sure what route the Souls games took after Demon's Souls (still yet to get to even the first Dark Souls), but we were seeing this narrative creep come into action games by the mid-00s, and in 2009, Demon's Souls focus on environmental storytelling was a welcome return to the much more gameplay-focused style of, well, gaming.
Points out that Half-Life 2 had a larger and more involved world than Half-Life 1. This is partially due to improved technology and a large budget, but such more varied landscapes was still doable prior to that. The key question should be: is it a benefit to the game? Something tighter and more focused also ends up being more personal. It's why the better Superhero films are one that deal with more limited matter and on a personal level, while the more forgettable ones are larger and "must stop the world ending threat for the nth time." You could have globe-trotting in a medium, but usually that's just background scenery, while the particular storyline with the handful of characters being the focus (the better James Bond films for example). You go outside this, more often than not everything ends up with less weight to it, making things more shallow.
Oh holy shit, he's actually talking about gameplay now, halfway through. Makes actually good points here. Agree that the weapons, while more limited and less interesting, are better utilized in Half-Life 2. Half-Life 1 kinda felt like it was trying to lift off some of the fun of Duke Nukem 3D, but it didn't quite work out. Duke 3D was lightning in a bottle all over, so trying to emulate any aspect of that is going to result in a lot of hit and miss. HL2's weaponry had far better utility, and the Gravity Gun and how it was implemented does deserve a lot of praise - that is something that easily could've felt like a complete gimmick, but Valve managed to make it a real game asset.
Completely right about the grenades. They had their utility in HL1, and could be quite fun, but they were also frustrating more often than not. Looking back on it, it's strange considering how many games before then got grenades better than HL1. Guess it was low priority for Valve.
Ragdoll physics for the guns is fun, but not a true gameplay element. But yes, fun. Smile on face.
The thing he's alluding to, however, is something that would actually be a big debate, and more likely than not would boil down to an immeasurable perspective, and that is: set pieces. Half-Life 2, for me, had a lot more set pieces for levels than Half-Life 1, and Half-Life 1's flow was its true biggest strength.
Both games had set pieces, as most classic games do, just for variety's sake. How they're implemented, however, determines how much they feel like a natural progression of the game, or how much they feel like they're shoe-horned in, giving a stop-and-go feeling that takes you out of the game. With Half-Life 2, so many times it felt like, "here's this section now, for you to deal with this thing, that you obviously need to use this weapon for. All done? Okay, leaving this section now, back to using the other weapons you use more normally." It didn't bring about that more natural discovery of what works best in a scenario. In HL1, even in the most obvious of the set pieces, how you proceed with it was more emergent, and could fluctuate depending how what situation you find yourself in. This would be the crux of my problems with HL2 - it's less of a game than HL1 was.
Good points on the AI. HL1's was more dynamic and helped the world better. HL2's was relegated to pretty much the
good CP and how they engage with you. I'm more partial to HL1's because it felt more alive, even though HL2's was technically better for the gameplay. However, I think it's a little overstated, as in practice the
good CP AI wasn't all that much better than the Marines in HL1. Much better on paper, but you'll likely only run into a few more times when they act less stupid than the Marines. I don't think it makes up for the rest of the game, however.
Disagree on the Combine design. It's distinct, yes, but so were the particular Marines in HL1. They honestly feel more like they're from some 1970s future dystopia film. Take some police from one of those, slap on some clothing more suitable for winter, and bam. This was probably actually the thought process for their design. It's not bad, but they honestly look kinda goofy. Dudes in a poorly shaped gasmask.
Fully agree on the headcrab variety. As I recall, those in HL2 were intended for HL1, but had to be left out.
More stuff on lore. Lore is fluff. Can be fun fluff, but fluff nonetheless.
I agree that the game is far more than a tech demo. I think a lot of that view is because of the incredible tech in HL2, and how much of a jump it was. I called Max Payne a glorified tech demo on this forum before, and also had the unfortunate position of being hyped of for State of Emergency, which ended up being a tech demo that had to be worked into something resembling a game fifteen minutes before release. Hell, I remember vividly when id software was often disparaged about "creating engines, not games." I have to imagine such attitudes are derived from being let down or just underwhelmed, so the positive aspects in such views are made to be the dominant ones.
Agree on the episodic format. Never liked the idea when it was happening. You can imagine my opinion on how a lot of games have "seasons" now.
Mixing the world of Half-Life and Portal does seem like a mistake... on Half-Life's end. I thought it was a cute little thing in Portal, but it should've been left at that, and never brought up in Half-Life 2 episodes.
Correct on how they used the Vortigaunts as basically magic. Fuck that noise.
Ultimately, I'm in agreement with his final point: Half-Life 2 is a good game. I'm just coming from the position of someone playing first person shooters on computers before Half-Life 1 came out, playing HL1, waiting for HL2, then playing HL2. It's still a disappointment, but it's more like saying the steak I just ate wasn't as good as a particular one I had last week. The main disagreements I have are that some things he views as positives I view as negatives, and much of the impact HL2 has had
in gaming has been a detriment.
