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Half-Life Beats Half-Life 2 Over Time?
Anonymous Coward writes "Tom's Hardware has an editorial up entitled 'Half-Life vs Half-Life 2: No comparison?' It explores the two games, and how they're holding up over time. He states that while the score of HL1 may have depreciated from 'a spectacular 95% to around about an average 70%' over the past couple of years, the score of HL2 'I'd now rate it in the low to mid 80's, or a full five to ten percent drop in a fraction of the time that the original has been around. Why is this?' The reason, he goes on to elaborate, is a lack of characterization. Half-Life was a blank slate modders could use to fill in their own worlds. HL2, on the other hand, has a definite story that ages less gracefully."
Is he even aware of how many more modding features HL2 has? Maybe he's just pissed that most of the mods are coming out via steam and being charged for, but I say good for the small independent developers who are actually making money off all their hard work.
In Half-Life 2, you get to drive an airboat, solve physics puzzles, throw barrels, drive a buggy, move planks, order insects around, follow a girl, set up robotic guns, and throw guys like ragdolls. However, for maybe 25% of the game you will actually need to point your crosshairs at guys and shoot them. Just a warning.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
You'll just wish you had your two minutes back, like me.
The second half of the article talks about why the author thinks that the fun factor of HL2 isn't nearly as high as in HL1, but as you'd expect this whole "rating" and "depreciation" score thing is completely subjective and made up. I really have no idea why this thing made Slashdot...
I loved the original. Just before HL2 was released, I reinstalled and played through it again to refresh my memory (and truth be told polish my FPS skills, it had been a while). I still liked it just as much - as much as anything else, it has character: the NPCs do things or not for reasons, the game seems to have a logical flow to it which takes you from place to place without seeming hugely contrived (although I didn't like Zen much, or the end boss). And it has that indefinable something that just makes it fun to play, even in the crappier bits, you still keep going to see what happens next.
:)
Fast forward to HL2. I get it on release day and install it, and I've instantly got Steam issues. I won't dwell on them here, but it did leave me in a mood where I was prepared to not enjoy the game which is why I mention it. Anyway, I played through almost to the end over the next day or so, and I did enjoy it. But I was left feeling like the game was a wasted opportunity. For me, it didn't live up to the promise it started with. Most of the game sections seemed to go on for too long, especially the boat and car sections. Many puzzles seemed to be an excuse to show off the physics engine rather than to be there for their own sake (buoyant barrels, seesaws). A lot of it is probably personal taste, I just felt like it wasn't all that good when viewed next to the original. I certainly have no urge to replay it, despite not having reached the end, since I reinstalled it on a new hard disk.
I'd really like to try HL:Source, the original Half-Life in the new engine, but I don't feel like paying for the privilege. I'll keep an eye on the Black Mesa mod which seems to be a more ambitious project anyway...
Game dev and music blog
Half-Life 2 decays twice as fast as half-life 1!
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BTW, the revolver, shotguns, and crossbow were all very capable of single-shot kills.
Look at www.planethalflife.com once in a while. The majority of the mods listed on that site are for HalfLife 2 and look great. When all those mods get finished and people start playing them, there will be a revival of the HalfLife 2 game.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
One thing I found lacking in HL2 that was there to some extent in the original was dynamic arenas. By this I mean enclosed areas where you have to kill everyone (or almost everyone) to get through, and you'll have to quickload a few times to do so without getting explodered. HL1 and other games like Halo and Call of Duty had these awesome arenas with friends and foes duking it out, and whether or not you participated in the fray there would be a different outcome every single time. Sure there are some such arenas in HL2, but not as many and they are nowhere near as dynamic.
Overall I would still rate HL1 in the mid 90s. It's not only a watermark setter in game design and a revolution in first-person storytelling, it's a great game through and through. It's always engaging, has great variety, and it's damn hard. HL2 is a great game as well but it's more linear - like a novel compared to a choose your own adventure book. Even if you don't have a hankering to replay the sequel right after finishing it (though I did) you'll play it again in a few months and still be astounded at the detail, but I must admit that HL1 is the game with more longevity.
Fun fact - my girlfriend noticed me playing Half Life: Source and remarked "What are you playing? It looks just like Half Life 2!"
HL2 is just too realistic compared to HL1 and it kills the gameplay. It's no wonder why CS 1.6 is still whats being played. CS Source is just over bloated. HL2 is just one great engine. It would probably had more succes if it didn't come out a year late too...
HL1: Main character is average-joe (well, scientist, but certainly a bit out of his element here). HL2: Main character is exhaulted hero praised by everyone (same guy as before, but people worship him now)
HL1: Scary sequences where you know monsters are slowly picking off people and annihilating the base. HL2: Less scary open outdoor sequences, more of a serious-sam game than before. (except ravenwood)
HL1: Fighting for survival, and little else. HL2: Fighting for an ideal and grand-purpose of saving humanity.
See the difference? HL1 had much of a more noir, dark atmosphere. HL2 had more of a "lets shoot stuff and be heroes" kind of atmosphere. The first one tends to draw players in and keep them interested and thinking about the complex story, the second is just too streightforward to keep people playing.
p.s. (completely unrelated to above comments) Hl 2 multiplayer is woefully poor. I would rather play HL 1 multiplayer. Granted, the physics engine is nice, but you see people dance up ladders (they fall, catch themselves, fall, catch themselves, ect.), see huge lag times even on direct connections, and the physics engine degrades severely in multiplayer play.
There's s threshold where games can start to take themselves too seriously, and I think this was in the subtext of the editorial. The original Half Life comes out and it's fantastic - there's the feeling that there is a larger world, there's more going on than running around shooting creepy things that look like animated Thanksgiving turkeys. You can't interact meaningfully with the environment, or the characters, but what little interaction there is has some character to it. People love it, and they start adding to it, and theorizing about it. It generates mods and fan fiction. So when Valve creates Half Life 2, they incorporate some of those things into the game, as well asthrow in all kinds of cool stuff that the latest technology allows you to do. And in throwing all this stuff in, somehow it loses it's magic. It seems too contrived and almost takes on the air of, "Ha! Here's the little details we didn't tell you about until now, see how cool we are in our mysteriosity?". So, yes the graphics and the gameplay and the moddability in HL2 are a great improvement over the original. Yet I've still only played HL2 once...and I must have played HL over a dozen times (the same goes for Thief and Thief: Deadly Shadows...I've played Thief probably 20 times, but T:DS only once). I liken it to the experience a lot of people have with, say, Basic D&D vs. D&D 3e - sure, D&D 3e is a better game but it can't help a 30-something gamer relive his early teens playing Basic D&D in exactly the same way. Even going back to Basic D&D there's a sense of discovery that can't be regained.
Maybe part of it is the big brother called Steam. I didn't buy HL2 because of Steam, even though I loved HL1. I couldn't tell you if HL2 is better/worse, or whatever, 'cause my only exposure to it is watching other people play.
BTW, Steam has killed our lan gaming events. It takes up too much bandwidth trying to phone home so it ends up killing the network for everyone else. Especially if not everyone is updated before they get to the lan, which is usually the case. The amount of people showing up for an event dropped alot after Steam killed it.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
HL2 might look prettier, have more weapons, bigger levels, more characters and more things to shoot/use at but its simply eye candy/bloatware. Nothing of substance has been added. The river boat part is there purely to show how well they can do water effects. The buggy part is just added to make the game seem longer. Why add a driving sim to a FPS? They should stick to doing one thing well, not trying to appeal to everyone but poorly. The only good part is the first 5 minutes until you meet Alyx. It doesnt matter how pretty a game is, how nice it sounds, how smoothly it plays if you dont get a sense of being involved.. in the end its just a newer version of dragons lair. I guess its not entirely their fault.. they have to make money in a world filled with ADD suffering prozac addicted sheep with attention spans of goldfish.
How many other First Person Shooters had been released between HL1 and HL2 hitting the shelves?
I enjoyed both games, but between the two I'd been constantly assaulted with a few hundred more "FPS 2000 +1 EX Edition (Now with zombies!)" and honestly I've become pretty disinterested in the entire genre as a result.
HL1 hit and it was earth shattering. That nostalgia probably accounts for a lot of its remaining popularity.
I'm still upset that I can't kill random scientists, or even the good guys. I wanted to pick one up and shake him with the gravity gun, but noooooo.
This should be VERY clear to the folks at valve that the reason people are not going nuts over HL2 is that steam always wants to play monkey in the middle between the players and the game. Why this is not effecting HL1 is a mystery to me. I personaly gave up HL1 as well and dont play HL2 anymore because of the hassle that steam represents.
As someone who owns several original versions of each of Half life, Opposing Force, Counterstrike, Blue Shift, Team Fortress, Gunman Chronicles and Condition Zero (as well as Half-life 2, CS:Source as Steam purchases) my reasons would include:
A P233 with a Voodoo card could run all of the HL1-based games at a very decent speed when they first came out. Even now my 1GHz laptop can still perform more than good enough TODAY on all the above HL1 games without needing a brute of an AGP/PCI-Express card. CS:Source kills it stone dead, as does HL2.
Each HL1 game provided many hours of play and something completely different each time (even CZ was quite different to CS). Most were designed for offline play for the most part and therefore the single player game was the primary focus. In a time when the Internet WAS 56K modems or less this was a big plus.
Mods were very prevelant and didn't require extreme 3D graphic skills to get a basic mod running. For HL2 serious physics, enormous maps, complicated AI, professional-level 3D graphics and level design all mean that a casual mod will be next-to-impossible for the average small team to produce on their own.
http://steampowered.com/status/game_stats.html
That page shows you that I'm not on my own with this. The sum total of all source-based games doesn't come NEAR the sum total of all HL based games. CS alone has 4 times the number of player-minutes compared to CS:S. Then include the fact that even the serious competitions are skipping CS:Source completely because it's been dumbed down.
The Author claims he cared more for the Barneys and dozens of cloned Scientists from HL than for the citizens in HL2. From my point of view that warrants a "WTF?". The woman waiting for her husband right at the beginning of HL2 is freaking hot, for crying out loud (Alyx no so much, too much Action-heroine/Booty-babe crossover for my taste), "There is only one way to console a widow. But remember the risk." (From the Notebooks of Lazarus Long). Yeesh, I smell a big case of "In the good ol' days" here (even though the author admits this), HL was great, but I doubt it'd get more than 30 or 40 in a test today, because, let's face it, it looks as old as it is!
While I do enjoy HL2 there was just far too much vehicle crap, this also killed the single player MOH games too, IMHO, but the MOH multiplayer just rocked.
.ini file hidden somewhere deep in the valve directory. Make customization of the server more user friendly to give the game better dynamics without having to go through file after file and make adjustments. It also makes it much easier to restore default settings.
HL2 was also a bit short. Aside from that I had a great time.
But now, my complaint is CSS. What are they thinking or am I the only one who doesn't get it: The new lighting SUCKS. Very much. It doesn't take my eyes 5 seconds to fully adjust from the dimness of looking at the shadow of a building to the sunlit street 25 degrees to my right. It's nearly as effective as a flashbang in some cases when leaving the middle structure in Dust to going into the open.
Also, they need to have more secondary attack modes. Aside from silenced and scoped weapons there is next to nothing. The reality is that when you swing an AK safty arm the entire way down it goes into semi-automatic mode and not full auto. I'd like to have this option as semi and burst seems to produce better results in accuracy. The Clarion rifle has burst, why can't the AK have semi? Or how about 3 round burst on the MP5 since there is no secondary mode on the weapon?
Also, the nades are WAY under powered. I'm sorry guys, but if a half a pound of explosives encased in a thin metal canister goes off at your feet you're probably going to die. But on the HE nades in CSS you might take 40% damage... what's up with that? And there is no secondary effect such as loss of hearing or even a minor "shell shock" effect like in COD.
I recently seen a posting on a message board addressing the lack of nade power and it was laughable that the best responce to it all was that they were under powered because it would make it easy to kill an entire team on some unknown custom map.
There is probably a way to mod this on some server settings but that should be in the server options and not some obscure
It's great that they keep bringing out new skins, now if they could just make a bot that can actually get a nade through a window and not have it bounce back on a rushing team mate...
I could probably go on for days. The sad things is this is still just as good as 90% of all FPS multiplayers, but I still find myself playing MOH objective matches 3 or 4 years after the fact because the game seems better than what CS has turned into with CSS.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I believe Half life 2 is going to be a classic, much like Half Life 1 is now. Both were fantastic games, but HL1 had less to compete with and was more impressive at the time. I think HL1 will definitely be a longer-lived hit than HL2, but not because of lack of quality in HL2. Counter-strike was a major driving force behind HL1, and I hate to say it, but CS is old-school. It doesn't have the same appeal as it once did. Unless HL2 gets a similar mod created for it, that just blows every other online game away, I can't imagine it being quite like HL1.
The writer doesn't sound like he knows much about the modding capabilities in HL2, either.
That I got back into TFC !!
HL R0075 !-!4rd
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
"Mods were very prevelant and didn't require extreme 3D graphic skills to get a basic mod running. For HL2 serious physics, enormous maps, complicated AI, professional-level 3D graphics and level design all mean that a casual mod will be next-to-impossible for the average small team to produce on their own."
There's one way to test this. Create a chart titled:FPS. List on the Y axis all the games that have sequels (preferably more than one). The x axis will represent the number of mods for that game. If what you say is true, then all of the games should show a decrease. Not just HL.
For those who remember (and some of us who still play) TFC, there is an independant HL2 mod in development, http://fortress-forever.com/
"Lack of characterization"? Then he says he likes HL1 for being a "blank slate" for modders to work with, and HL2 has a too well-defined story? How in the hell does that make any sense?
Personally I think HL2 was too far ahead of its time for a good chunk of gamers to get it. Or that it's a genre all its own that players don't yet know how to enjoy. The ass-backwards criticisms are a testament to that. The PC gaming community has become so obsessed with mod-ability (which HL2 actually is first-class in, only beaten by Unreal) that many can't enjoy a linear, non-sandbox masterpiece of a game because you're not allowed to go off in any direction and do whatever you want, GTA-style. Games don't HAVE to be open-ended.
"I know I'll be marked down but I don't care. I'm questioning why the double-standard. Why is it ok for the small guy to make money off their hard work but not for the big guy to make money off what is arguably even more hard work? In both cases someone is producing a product which they want to be paid for yet many on here feel it is acceptable to use pirated versions which they don't have to pay for and which costs the producing company money."
You want the real reasons, or the "feel good" reasons?
I like how almost half the comments made brag about HL2's 'modding capabilties' when the HL2 community forums have been bitching about the difficulties and Valve's policies for months now.
The most exciting thing in my mind right now is the project Black Mesa:Source. Playing through the original half life with updated graphics? Kick ass.
If Half Life is a better game than Half Life 2 it certainly isn't because of modding or a lack thereof.
Even though neither is a pinnacle of storytelling the original was more compelling. I think what is a detriment to HL2 is that the emphasis was on the graphics moreso than anything else. So the game was built around providing a visually impressive experience, which inevitably means other aspects of the game suffers.
Furthermore, there are countless FPS games out there nowadays many of which seem to have emphasized the quality of graphics above all else. The more recent games are beginning to overshadow Half Life 2, forcing it out of many gamer's minds.
I was never a big fan of the original, but I did find the game compelling. The new one never impressed me much beyond the visuals. But then I haven't enjoyed FPS games for a long time because they're all so generic and uninspired in every way except the use of pixel shaders and normal maps.
What are the most popular modable engines, other than Half-Life? Do any x-platform engines make it in there? Which ones do you develop for any why?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Half life 2 already down to the low 80's, what? This was the best single player FPS I've ever played. For their time they were both excellent games, but you go back and play HL1 now and it's just awful... I tried maybe 6 months ago and just couldn't get through more than a few hours, the graphics are abysmal and the play control makes you want to die. I'd give it 3 or 4 out of 10. On the contrary I've played through HL2 three times, and I absolutely love it every time, I dont think you could make a better game. There's still nothing that even comes close to competing with it in my opinion. It was 10/10 in November 2004 and it still is today. Just because there aren't as many MOD's for it doesn't make it horrible.
Joseph?
As a mod tool Half Life is truly awesome, but as a game itself I never found it very impressive. Sure, the level structuring was interesting, the whole game was basically just one large level, and the AI is quite good, but thats basically it, the story is hardly worth to talk about and that all NPC locked the same also didn't exactly increase the enjoyment for me, I mean even back then a few different face textures wouldn't have been that difficult. That the whole story is only told through Gordons eyes, is yet another point which bothered me, while intersting at first, it simply didn't work for me, not getting to know the guy that was the core part of the game was probally my main issue with it, felt like some big part is missing from the whole. In the end it simply was a standard FPS with a few basic improvent, but nothing to spectacular.
Know speaking of Half Life 2, which I however only played the demo of, I have to say that I have mostly the same feeling with it as with Half Life 1, mostly just yet-another-fps without anything really interesting. Sure gravity gun is a nice twist, but I found it felt very forced to have to throw so much stuff around simply due to the lack of ammo. It never felt real, it all felt very forced, like the developers had a new toy to play around with, but nothing more. The same can be said about the other characters in the game, demo had not much of them, but what I saw was pretty disapoint, there never was real interaction with them, I couldn't even shoot them, instead they poped up in a few locations, said a few words, gave you a gun or so, and disappeared. All felt extremly script-triggered and never authentic, same can be said about the leveldesign has well, sure it looked like a real part of a city, but instead of having some kind of free movement, one was forced to very limited paths, everything else was blocked, very annoying and steeling all the realisim from the game.
In the end I think if there wouldn't have been all the modding, Half Life would have been forgotten long ago, it wasn't bad, but really not that much better then the rest of standard fps.
Ever since seeing the news post i thought about what the parent poster said.
HL1 was something entirely new, at least for alot of people. But since then the marked has been growing rapidly, and now that pretty much "everyone" has seen stuff like this, its just not the same.
I started playing FPS at about the time HL1 came out, now im abit tired of it and only played HL2 once to try it out.
And there is no secondary effect such as loss of hearing or even a minor "shell shock" effect like in COD.
I am not sure what game you are playing, but in Counter Strike Source, if you have a flashbang or HE grenade go off near you, there is a definite loss of hearing. All sounds become muted instantly. There is no loss of hearing only in the original Counter Strike.
strike
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
you might want to think what kind of rating HL1 would get if it was released as a commericial game today.. has he even played it recently? the gameplay is pretty dull compared to that of today's games, i think that HL2 was as innovative if not even more so than HL1 was.
Game design is hard and the bar just keeps rising.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Which they did at one point in the game. And yes, most of us screamed bloody murder at it.
Some of us take great pride in conserving our ammo and thereby collecting all 231 glass arrows in the game.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I actually like the story of the OSS FPS Cube. It goes like this:
"You kill stuff."
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I hated HL2 after about 30 minutes. Dull as fucking dishwater - it's a shooter on rails. So what if it's pretty and has physics? Pretty != fun.