Happy birthday Half Life 2

[RyaNtheSlayA]

This day today exactly 10 years ago Half Life 2 was released. I think I'll play through it again in the next few days. I kind of consider the series dead but every time I play it or see it I just think about how cool it would be to get the final chapter in the series. It left us on one hell of a cliffhanger.

Here's an excellent article by Eurogamer that tries to explain just what made Half Life 2 so great over the competition and why it still holds up today:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014- ... 0-years-on

[Cronozilla]

I don't think the series is dead, it's just on Valve time.
Whenever they finish their new Engine, I'm sure it'll be shown off with Half-Life.

But, HL2 is an amazing game and I actually feel pretty lucky that I was there for everything surrounding it. That entire period from discovering Half-Life and the mods, moving into the hype for HL2 and the launch of Steam. It was all pretty exciting.

[Xeogred]

I had no idea about this but just replayed the game and both episodes recently. It's disturbing how well they hold up and are still fun to me. Even though the entire first half of Half-Life 2 feels like a tech demo for Havok/physics, it's still... just super fun? I've always been a fan of the weird platforming and puzzles in these games too, so the pacing is always great. No iron sights is about the only thing you have to readjust to, and regardless, the combat is still among the best in the genre I'd say.

Also, probably the best and most intense gun sounds ever. That second combine machine gun is my favorite. lol

[fastbilly1]

I built a PC to play Half Life 2 in December 04/January 05 since I could not afford to when the game came out. I still use that PC now for shmups. Half Life 2 is still stunning to me, and changed the FPS landscape many ways. But most importantly, it let me kill people with moving pallets, inches above the ground. Well that and toilets. Toilets are always good weapons.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I remember getting Half-Life 2 on the Orange Box, which I got to show off my new PC (even though the games featured on it were very very very outdated at the time), and played Half-Life 2 for the first time.

I had been an avid fan of the original when it was published by Sierra (I was still in the, "I Love Sierra," stage of my life).

To me, nothing really compares in how it built a world that seemed alive. Everything had a sense of deliberation about it, details that would serve some purpose in that world.

I have a strong feeling that that is why it is taking so long for Half-Life 3, they are trying to infuse that same amount of detail in the current gen world and it takes a lot of time.

Even though the entire first half of Half-Life 2 feels like a tech demo for Havok/physics, it's still... just super fun? I've always been a fan of the weird platforming and puzzles in these games too, so the pacing is always great. No iron sights is about the only thing you have to readjust to, and regardless, the combat is still among the best in the genre I'd say.

Also, probably the best and most intense gun sounds ever. That second combine machine gun is my favorite. lol

I feel like, looking back, you can say that the first half feels like a tech demo, but at the time it really was unheard of. Comparing it to other first person shooters at the time, with the original Far Cry being the exception, there really was nothing quite like it.

[Cronozilla]

The first Far Cry came out along HL2, though. Doom 3 did as well. A few "pushing the envelope" PC FPS' came out that year.

I don't think Half-Life was ever a front-burner project since they released Orange Box, to be honest.

I think it's just a combination of, it'll be on Source 2, and unlike when they built Source engine, they're managing a lot of other, very large, things at the same time. They built/managed Steam, SteamOS, Steam Machines TF2, DOTA2, CSGO, Portal/2, L4D/2 during and since the last HL2 episode came out. That's quite a lot for a sub 350 person company. Not to mention, whatever we haven't seen yet. It's just a lot of work and they put some priorities over Half-Life.

I think Portal 2 probably had the most attention to detail out of all the games Valve has made internally.

[Xeogred]

I feel like, looking back, you can say that the first half feels like a tech demo, but at the time it really was unheard of. Comparing it to other first person shooters at the time, with the original Far Cry being the exception, there really was nothing quite like it.

I always think of Doom 3. While it still looks great to this day... the sound (those guns, ugh), the gameplay, and other things about it are simply no match for Half-Life 2 looking back on them. Very easy to tell who stood the test of time.

Never been big on Far Cry (1) personally. You could probably argue Unreal had bigger maps. lol

A dream achievement for Half-Life 3 to accomplish for me, would be good enemy AI. That's one thing that has not advanced in games for well over the last 10 years or so. Not much even to this day really compares to Half-Life 2, FEAR, etc.

[Cronozilla]

Better AI can eliminate fairness in games.

You wouldn't see them coming, for instance. What needs to happen is better state machines for behavior and more situational context sensitivity for enemies/allies. Essentially, just better player feedback. I don't think the actual logic needs to be anymore complex than it already is.

Most of the time when developers talk about the AI they've used in their titles, they talk about how play testers thought the AI was "dumb", because it was more advanced. Bungie has a pretty good explanation of all this regarding some of the Halo titles. It's just based on feedback from play testers.

Better AI usually means players have a less fun time.

I always felt the advantage of Far Cry 1 was the freedom it allowed, not necessarily the size ... none of the maps are particularly large. But the freedom to handle encounters however you see fit was really refreshing at the time. Though, I doubt most people even realized you could.

[BogusMeatFactory]

And also Far Cry was the dominant game in terms of visuals. It really did push the envelope on what could be done visually, even if the game did lack in real depth outside of Crono's comments. That was really what made Half-Life 2 feel so interesting was that at no point did you feel you were doing the same thing over and over again. Remember the boat? Ravencroft? You had horror elements, mixed with tactical shooter mixed with tower defense all jumbled in a beautifully meshed world. It was diverse and really tugged at a wide range of emotions.

So good!

[Cronozilla]

Just to be clear, I don't think Far Cry is a better game. I really do think it's only positives are the freedom and visuals. Outside of that it's about as mundane as they come.