Console vs PCs in retrospect

[RyaNtheSlayA]

To be fair, the two vehicle segments in HL2 were far too long for my liking and I actually quit around halfway through the first segment when I first tried play HL2.

That reminds me. The way they went from a bright, daytime setting where you finally meet some friendly people, and then throw you into Ravenholm was incredibly effective. I remember that place terrifying me when I first got Half Life 2 GOTY in 2005 or 2006. Even though the game looks a tad dated the atmosphere in HL2 holds up extremely well. I can't really show people why HL1 was great anymore. As isiolia pointed out, many of the things that made it cool are now taken for granted in almost every FPS. When people ask why HL2 was great. I show them the 30-45 minutes or so that leads from the open areas and simple puzzles of the boating segment to the claustrophobic and disturbing imagery in Ravenholm. It's the world Valve created in that game that makes it special, at least in my opinion.

[Menegrothx]

I never understood what was the big deal with this game... seems to me just like any other shooter. The orange box thing on the 360 bored me , more of a jetski game than an fps.

The jet ski portion is like 5-7% of the game's overall length. If that.
The locations in the Half Life 2 games are very unique so if HL2 seems like any other FPS game to you, the chances are that you haven't played many FPS games in your life. On top of the varied scenery (if you finish the game, you'll see that there's a lot of different varied locales along the journey) you've got driving sections, physics puzzles, a very unique gun/gameplay mechanic (the gravity gun) and even the general weapons and enemies are hardly stock either.

If a compilation of Half Life 2 and it's episodes, Portal and Team Fortress 2 bores you, it's likely that you simply dislike FPS games in general. HL2 and Portal (although a puzzle game) are some of the best FPS games of all time. And Team Fortress 2 is extremly solid too, although you're getting a toned down gameplay experience if you're playing on the 360 so that's mode understandable.

Edit: Also, you've got to keep in mind that this game is from 2004. A lot of the stuff you see in it that is common place nowadays wasn't "invented" before HL2 (it's the same thing with Half Life 1 too).

[Gunstar Green]

I never understood what was the big deal with this game... seems to me just like any other shooter. The orange box thing on the 360 bored me , more of a jetski game than an fps.

Half-Life was, at the very least, a combination of a lot of fresh ideas for FPS games at the time, if not adding some of its own.

If it doesn't stand out much now, it's due to the massive influence that it had on subsequent games. To the point that the elements that were so fresh at the time are taken for granted.

Indeed. The first Half-Life is one of those, "you had to be there," to fully appreciate it things. A modern gamer will likely see the clunkier aspects of it instead of the things it innovated because so many games have taken its ideas and run with them.

While it ultimately got overshadowed by its multiplayer mods it was a landmark single player game.

It's very easy to take for granted now but at the time it had a big effect on the way I thought about video games and how an interactive story could be experienced.

[Krejlooc]

Hell, Half Life 2 is still special and blows people away. Just show them the official Oculus Rift support.

[RCBH928]

HL2 has plenty of FPS goin' on, and is still one of the best in the genre. A big part of the HL games in general is how they present the narrative to the player. There aren't levels, there's a continuous journey - you can trace how you got to where you are from the start (mostly, and when it isn't it's due to Gordon being incapacitated). The vehicles allow for HL2 to take place over a larger area. If you only remember the airboat...you didn't get very far.

I completed the game , but there was a lot of airboat time...so much time that I almost only remember that part of the game .

But I would love to hear what were the fresh ideas back then... I remember part of it was that characters were talking to you in the game not through a cut-scene... big deal

[Violent By Design]

Half Life had a good atmosphere and a good narrative in general. Good graphics for its time as well.

I've always loved Half Lifes physics as well. Your character is extremely agile, to the point where it isn't realistic but it feels good. The Half Life engine is modeled after the Quake engine, which is a huge plus. Most FPS especially made in the 2000s don't offer the same type of control.

[isiolia]

But I would love to hear what were the fresh ideas back then... I remember part of it was that characters were talking to you in the game not through a cut-scene... big deal

Offhand...

Yes, the way the narrative was presented was fairly unique at the time. First person, never breaking from that view. No levels per se, though there were chapter markers. Instead, as I mentioned, the game largely progresses through its varied environments in a logically connected way.
Obstacles and objectives were, in turn, logical - or at least moreso than in a lot of prior games. They incorporate more puzzle-ish elements as well, not just "get the red keycard" kind of objectives. Similarly, ammo and health placement were more logical than in most previous games.

Enemy AI was impressive at the time as well. Where the majority of games just saw enemies that would beeline for you, Half-Life had marines (at least) that would fire from cover, that would try to flank you. Then you had the bigger encounters like helicopters or the giant aliens too.

Just as a basic consideration, FPS games were undergoing a lot of change at the time. 97-98 was when you started to see more games both get made in full 3D, and start taking advantage of it. Stuff like crouching, headshots/zoned hits, actually seeing the weapon another player was holding in deathmatch, and so on. Half-Life incorporated most/all of what was out there at the time. Picture grabbing Quake II around the holidays in 1997...and a year later, Half-Life. A pretty stark difference for a single year of evolution.


Half-Life 2 did all of that and more, its big stand outs being the physics (Gravity Gun!) and the AI for Alyx and others that would follow you. As some have pointed out, for all the hype Elizabeth got this year in Bioshock Infinite, Half-Life 2 did it first, and arguably better, in 2004.

[Gunstar Green]

But I would love to hear what were the fresh ideas back then... I remember part of it was that characters were talking to you in the game not through a cut-scene... big deal

Back then it kind of was and it wasn't just characters talking to you. Actions would occur in front of you that would've happened in rendered cutscenes in other games and they'd always be from your perspective. The game was just one continuous flow that never took you out of the world by taking control away from you. It made you feel like part of the story instead of like someone watching a story.

This was all pretty much unheard of for this type of game and almost any type of game. I really don't recall anything being as immersive at the time. I remember playing the "Day One" demo over and over again before I finally got the game.

isiolia already pretty much covered some of the other things that made Half-Life such a big deal. The leap in AI (I remember someone at Wal-Mart looking at the game told me the that on the hardest difficulty the enemy AI was indistinguishable from a human opponent which is laughable today but at the time as someone who played the "Day One" demo a hundred times I almost believed him), the feeling that you were in an actual place that you were trying to escape and not just blasting through a series of levels, the level design that emphasized thinking over shooting, the bigger enemy encounters that reminded you that you were just a dude and not a walking wrecking machine. It was all very exciting.

When Half-Life was initially released it didn't sell right away because people wrote it off as a dorky looking Quake 2 clone. Then some people actually played it. It took all of the first person shooter tropes that were current at the time and tossed them out the window. It was so incredibly different than anything else out there.

[RCBH928]

I get what you mean by now by the continuos gameplay with no levels, I see why it was very different.

I did enjoy Portal and Team Fortress much more than HL2 . I remember a lot of time in HL2 where I just wanted to quit, and I am huge FPS fan.

[Menegrothx]

Back then it kind of was and it wasn't just characters talking to you. Actions would occur in front of you that would've happened in rendered cutscenes in other games and they'd always be from your perspective. The game was just one continuous flow that never took you out of the world by taking control away from you. It made you feel like part of the story instead of like someone watching a story.

This was all pretty much unheard of for this type of game and almost any type of game. I really don't recall anything being as immersive at the time.

Thief: The Dark Project was released about 2 weeks after Half-Life. It was separated into levels and there were cutscenes between levels, but still the whole actual game was done from first person view and there was talking NPCs/enemies etc. Immersion was a big part of Looking Glass' games (Ultima Underworld 1+2 1992-1993, System Shock 1994, Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri 1996, Thief 1998, System Shock 2 1999, Thief 2 2000+4 flight simulators&huge influence on Deus Ex)