Half Life 2: What's the appeal?

It's a FPS isnt it? The fact that there is somekind of maze at all is what I think sets it above the other FPS games and why it is so lavished. I do not know though, never played it or any other FPS since Doom.

 

HL2 is a so-so shooter, it's sometimes a little boring and sometimes you just want to kick in the groin and wonder why everybody else loves it. It's not even hard.
I kept playing because of the athmosphere and characters. Plus, it gets better in the end.

...And the box came with Counter Strike: Source.

 

I loved it. It's the only shooter I enjoyed mainly because of the story, the right balance of weapons and the gravity gun.

I also really suck at shooters so I actually have to load because of dying quite frequently so the difficulty level is right up my alley.

 

I loved it. However, if you don't see the appeal of the singleplayer, go download a copy of Dystopia and see if that does it for you. Think Neuromancer + more body mods (or Shadowrun Pen 'n' paper minus the magic) + other players, and you'll have the right idea. Objective based, and you have to split your forces between meatspace and cyberspace.

Invisibility, thermal vision, leg boosters, scanners, sound wave triangulators, medplants, cortex bombs...these are a few of my favorite things. Not to mention rocket launchers, basilisks, laser rifles, boltguns, miniguns, ion cannons, shotguns, lock-on smartpistols, spider mines, emp grenades, grenade launchers, and semiautomatic rifles. Mm. Yummy.

 

You do some missions with Alyx, Barney and some other guys. But there will be running, oh yes.

Err... what game isn't about that?
Seriously, it gets better towards the end, "just you wait!".

 

I didn't go very far into the game (I was playing on someone else's desktop) but didn't really see the appeal either. Then again I was never a fan of the original game either (which I did complete). The fact it is maze-y (as opposed to one long corridor) sets it apart from almost all the post-2000 FPSs, but that's hardly an achievement considering the best of the older games were not linear without being a series of mazes. The story's good... for an FPS (read: it has one). If you're going to compare the story to just about any adventure or RPG, it doesn't really hold.

I'm expecting Barmy to once again scream "Blasphemy!"

 

Half Life is amazing. Great story, differences in FPS game play (not just walk around and shoot stuff), intelligent AI, brilliant set pieces and immersive atmosphere. It's rated the best game ever pretty much everywhere for a reason. It's one of the best games out there. End of.

 

I'm not really sure why the Half-Life games get praise for their stories. My guess, if it doesn't sound too condescending, is that people are confusing "immersion" with "good plot". The HL series is immersive as hell. The story itself? 'Oh look, we opened an interdimensional portal and aliens invaded. And then the army killed all witnesses.' Hardly original. Or compelling.

However, the way it's told? Fun. At least for me.

FWIW, I did feel as though the game got significantly better once you receive the gravity gun. If you make it through Ravenholm and still aren't enjoying yourself, it's probably time to stop.

 

That pretty much sums up my opinion of HL2.

HL1 was a pretty good game, at least, until you hit the alien world...then it fell apart.

But HL2 fell apart right at the beginning. Other than Ravenloft, I felt like every part of the game is too long, and they tried to cram too many playstyles in. (It's an FPS, now it's a driving game, now it's Tetris, now it's a crane game, etc.)

As for the story, there's not much and the end is, to me, a huge disappointment.

I think a better name for the game would be "Some Guy who happens to have the Gravity Gun which is the *real* star\hero of the game."

But I guess Half-Life 2 is shorter.

-D

 

To me HL2 was a pretty good and enjoyable game, but not nearly as good as so many people make the game out to be.

I have to agree on this. If the extra interaction (well not really interaction, as Gordon seems to be a mute) before Ravenholm and playing around with the grav gun in Ravenholm don't catch your fancy, then the rest of the game won't either. You didn't seem to like the canals, and it seems to me that the coast (which comes after Ravenholm) is much the same, and what comes after that is not what I would consider the high point of the game either.

 

I sorta feel the opposite. If you're going to make me solve a puzzle, make it exciting. Throw in an airstrike or something. If you're going to put me in a maze, throw in something to up the tension. So long as the game isn't going to commit the unforgivable sin of combining limited, predefined save points with instadeath jumping puzzles, anyway.

Although come to think of it, I tend to hate games with predefined save points regardless.

 

The game differs so much, which is not usual for FPS games. Ravenholme is a creepy Resident Evil style level with nasty traps you can actually turn against the enemies, and a cool NPC guy. Nova Prospekt is my favourite level, where you do all sorts to kill the hordes of antlions, including controlling Combine static machine guns, and trick combine/antlions into fighting each other whilst you watch then clean up the afters. On high difficulties the choppers can bring you down very quickly and need 4 or 5 rockets to put down, very satisfying when you down them. Running into your first Strider is a good experience. Those buggers will probably chew you up to begin with. Each level brings different things and challenges. Some of them took me ages and lots of trial and error to get right.

The ending to Episode 2 is breathtaking.

It's a fantastic game, I can't understand why anyone can't like it.

 

If you cant stand the game (I love it), hate the storyline (It's better if you've played HL-1 but again, I loved it) and don't want to continue playing then I have one word for you: Mods.

Some gems are Pirates Vikings and Knights II, Minerva, Zombie Panic: Source, Zombie Master, Black Mesa (not finished) and Dystopia (already mentioned).

And even if you hate all of them, there's still TF:2, which is hours of fun.

 

I'm not a FPS fan, but I'm finally trying to push through HL2 months after my brother gave it to me for Christmas. It's fun, but not exactly my style.

...however, if you're looking for a FPS with plot and atmosphere, I would recommend Bioshock. To use a word that I rarely employ, it's AWESOME. I've played all the way through and so far it's ten times the game as HL2.

 

Tell that to the PCPP top 100