The Dink Network

So before I start this, I need to remind you that people have opinions and you need to respect them.

So one diddly happy day at school, I saw some popular games on steam were on sale. So I bought the whole Half-Life series :]

LITTLE DID I KNOW I MADE THE WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE. JK

So I played HL1 just so I can then play HL2. Because the "half life 3" joke (which is so funny btw HAHAHAHAKILLMEHAHAHA) made me want to see what the fuss was all about. I played Counter Strike in the past, so I knew what to expect for graphics, sound, and some gameplay. I must say the game was....decent, at best. But then...half life 2 came.....and....it changed my life forever.

Before we continue I must say, I also bought the half life games thinking I'd enjoy them (even though I never played them) because L4D, Portal and TF2 are games made by the same company that I enjoyed.
However I was OH SO WRONG.

The beginning, where you don't fight anything is really good. Amazing landscapes, that's something this game did really good (especially at the end of the game at the citadel, that blew me away). Then I got a gun.....and I could feel my fun being drained until the last drop. What I thought would be hours of fun in the hl world turned it to painful hours through which I went just to finish the god damn game. The combat is so BORING and ANNOYING. The guns are so ducking weak, I waste a whole clip on a single enemy WHILE THE COMBINE PIECES OF SHIT CAN KILL ME IN A SECOND AND WHAT THE FUSDBKGVHJHV. Sorry, but the combat, being 80% of the game...is SO...GOD DAMN ANNYOING.

Music and graphics are nice though

After I finished hl2, still being amazed at the visuals valve succeeded in creating, I started up HL2 ep 1. It felt like half life 2, just shorter and more annoying. Now I'm at episode 2, and I don't think I'll finish it any time soon. I don't give a shit about half life 3, and after seeing how the brainwashed fanboys reacted after some people expressed dissapointment after playing the game, I've come to the conclusion HL2 was good for it's time, but by today's standards it's...quite shitty...

Or not, maybe it was shitty all along I played games older and younger than Half Life that I enjoyed from beginning to the very end. That's my opinion though.

Waddya guys say? Am I right, wrong or deserve to be executed for not liking "the best game of all time"?

I liked the first Half-Life. I played Halo: Combat Evolved (the PC version) before Half-Life, so I naturally compared the two games to each other. I thought the gameplay was a million times better in Halo, but Half-Life's storyline was a million times better than Halo's. It was very long, and did interesting and varied things. The part where the gravity completely changed blew me away at the time.

Half-Life 2 was suck. I played about halfway through and lost interest. It was too formulaic, shooting section -> driving section -> shooting section -> driving section, the story hadn't gotten interesting by the time I stopped playing, and the gameplay was too mediocre to make up for it.

I rather enjoyed HL2 at the time, but thought it wasn't as fun as HL1, which still ranks as one of my all-time favorites (loved the Black Mesa update). It hits that sweet spot between "run-and-gun" and "duck-and-cover" shooters that did an excellent job of showing rather than telling to convey a story, which kept you all the more involved. I think part of the appeal of HL is that you're just a regular guy in a hazard suit and massively outgunned in most fights. And those fights are going to be brutal, nerve-wracking, and may take you several tries to get past.

after seeing how the brainwashed fanboys reacted after some people expressed dissapointment after playing the game

I feel the same about Halo fanboys. It's an okay game and not much beyond that, honestly.

I had ALOT of fun with HL2, but like striker and yourself mentioned, it's probably cuz i played it in its time. If i had played it for the first time in THIS day and age, perhaps I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.

For me it's like pokemon, I never watched it as a kid, and when i tried to get into it for the first time NOWadays...
Well I thought it sucked balls... Queue the aforementioned angry fanboys.

The combat is so BORING and ANNOYING. The guns are so ducking weak, I waste a whole clip on a single enemy WHILE THE COMBINE PIECES OF SHIT CAN KILL ME IN A SECOND AND WHAT THE FUSDBKGVHJHV.

are you telling me nothing changed when you became turbo gordon and blasted everything away with the blue gravity gun?

(also, get synergy.)

(also, headshots might do more damage. i'm not really sure. so, do that)

are you telling me nothing changed when you became turbo gordon and blasted everything away with the blue gravity gun?

I'm talking about the whole game here, not the last 20 mins of a 5 hour game.

Half life 2 was groundbreaking in technical way, but the game was rather boring for me. Too dark ( generic dark, that is ). Half life 1 on the other hand is a truly epic game. So bright colours, so dark game. Level design is also mind blowing, and game soundtracks and sound effects are still used in various things. Khm, great remake. The story is also uniquely told, and ideas implemented in the game are still great. I suggest you to give the game another passing, but pay attention to details this time.

If not, I suggest you to find following mods for half life on moddb:

-edge of darkness
-reissues
-Uss darkstar
-Life's end

These are, in my humble (yet unmistakable, and highly valued) opinion, creme de la creme mods. Im also waiting for the release of the mod named "the core" and "black ops".

I played HL1, opposing force and blue shift about 10 years after their release. I had played other FPS games like doom, duke nukem 3d and quake before them, but I found the valve ones quite entertaining. The story for me was really hard to understand the first time I passed it. Even after the second time, I didn't get the whole picture. Later, I went to read the wikia sites... even if they're over-analysed and maybe exaggerating, I found them quite interesting, honestly. Probably deeper than one might think. And like they said in a reply, the little details in those games are important, since the story is told in a different way than other games.

I tried to play HL2 in the same computer, but it ran really slow and sloppy because of the specs.

Later, I got a better specs computer, I got to play HL2 well finally, along with the episodes. I found their stories and details really nice, too. The graphics and its engine are, in my opinion, a huge step forward Valve did for PC games back then. The community exaggerates a lot, but many other big videogame communities also do, by what I have experienced. Part of their sense of humor, I guess.
Its modding engine must be really good for there to be so many mods and quite a few quality mods.

Anyway, by what I read in the wikias, the HL2 episodes were more of a... "showcase" (?) for Valve to let other companies see what new features their Source engine had compared to others.

About two years after that, I got to buy them on steam.

Portal 2... in my opinion, it's another story. Quite a remarkable masterpiece of art, almost made me cry when I understood the story.

Waddya guys say? Am I right, wrong or deserve to be executed for not liking "the best game of all time"?
No, I don't think you're wrong.

Tried the Black Mesa standalone remake of HL1?
https://www.blackmesasource.com/
Just something to add.

Nah. This thread is mostly about hl2

blue, what do you think of the final battle of half life 2 episode 2? isn't it nonsense?

As I said, I never got to finish episode 2. And I already know that *certain* characters are going to die..and to be honest...I couldn't care less ¯\_(ツ )_/¯

One other thing I forgot to mention which was really important about Half Life 2, was that, every time you met someone which SHOULD'VE helped you along the way, it wasn't long before something would happen that would split you from the other person.

Example: Beginning of HL2 EP2: "Oh shit we got nowhere to go lets go through this forest TOGHETER and blah blah blah" 5 minutes later: Alyx: "I'll just wait here and let you do all of the work. Cya"

Example 2: "DUCK, ALYX IS DEAD. LETS GO THROUGH THIS ABANDONED PLACE" 10 minutes later: "Ooopsies, something happened and we gotta split. I'll leave you alone now."

Example 3: Ravenholm in HL2. You make a team with the crazy dude, and he's like "I wanna stay here, see you later"

Example 4:HL2 EP1: Beginning: Alyx: Ay Dawg, throw us into the citadel. BYE DOG

Example 5: HL2 EP1: You're in the citadel with Alyx (This time it was over 10 minutes, congrats, Gabe) "I'll stay in this room, you go down that elevator. BYE"

It's like, through out this whole series of games, EVERY TIME I met someone, I thought "Ok, how long till something happens and we'll be forced to split?" And usually it wouldn't even be 10 minutes.

That made me think that Valve wasn't confident in their AI. So they tried to make you feel like you had companions along the way only for short periods of time every....1 hour. And I'm surprised I was the among the few people who noticed this "Let's go togheter. Oops, the ceiling fell between us/I'm trapped/I can't go further/We have to go different ways, see you later" situation used SO MANY TIMES. It was SO PREDICTABLE, HOW DID NO ONE NOTICE THIS?!

The only good thing about HL2 are physics and visuals, nothing else.

HL1 is and always will be better than HL2, although Unreal/Unreal Gold beats it a mile.

That made me think that Valve wasn't confident in their AI.

well the pathfinding is pretty good. and 2000 years later, other devs still don't give a shit about their games enough to design something like it.

i am waiting for the full release of black mesa just a excuse for getting back to hl, still havent finished ep1 and ep2 holding it for the play before hl3

why would you hold off a game forever?

unless it's something worse than horrendous?

"i am waiting for the full release of black mesa just a excuse for getting back to hl, still havent finished ep1 and ep2 holding it for the play before hl3"

As long as Valve makes money on Steam and microtransactions while working on VR at the same time. You will never, ever, get HL3 or even see Episode 3.

Drop this kind of stuff, shut up about it and be happy about something that is actually happening after 16 years since the release of the second game of that series which ended with a cliffhanger.

You naive dummy.