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."

Comments

huh?

[trigonalmayhem]

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.

Re:huh?

[smooth wombat]

but I say good for the small independent developers who are actually making money off all their hard work.

As opposed to the large, non-independent developers who are trying to make money off their hard work, right?

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.

Re:huh?

[NichG]

It's only a double standard if you take all people to be a single entity. Realize that in any sizeable group of people, you should hear conflicting opinions expressed. If you don't, thats stranger than if you do.

Another explanation is that when large companies do business, their output is often somewhat homogenized since they have to target a broader audience to sustain themselves. Whereas smaller companies/developers can be niche. So a statement like that can be in support of niche development which is optimized for a smaller community at the cost of a smaller audience and a lower chance of success in business. And from that point of view, it makes a bit of sense - the large companies are seen as blocking the market, so one wants them to fail, whereas the niche developers are doing new stuff and would take a bigger hit from each illegitimate copy, and so those you're accusing of holding a double standard wish to support them since they so obviously need it.

Of course with things like mods that sort of falls through. Most game mods are done for the love of the game, not the love of the dollar, and would be made with or without financial support. With that in mind, encouraging mod makers to become commercial is sort of like pushing 'linux - everywhere!'... the whole idea of being a part of the market ends up being more attractive than the actual thing being produced, and you're back to big companies again.

Of course, I can't speak for any other person, so this is just a set of possible interpretations, not a definitive answer for other's motives.

Myself, I'd prefer if everything were developed freely and just because the developer(s) wanted to do it - including larger projects. I don't even really have a problem with support via donations for the larger projects which are very time-consuming to develop for - but I haven't seen severe consequences or thought that through to the end so maybe I'll change my view on that when it becomes more common and if/when faults become evident. 'Everything' developed and released for free is unrealistic of course, so I don't expect it to happen. But 'some projects' is quite realistic and has been happening even more of late. I'm certainly not going to encourage the reverse direction by paying for fan-made modifications to a game. But I can understand that some people would, and why some people call it a step forward.

Re:huh?

[2nd Post!]

Well then, now you're comparing the SDKs from ID and Valve, aren't you? The original HL was based solidly on Quake, even if the engine was updated by Valve, so a lot of the basic stuff would still be sourced from ID.

The new HL2 is totally new, so there is no common descent from Quake3 or Doom3. Id's had several years and generations to get this stuff right, and Valve only one generation of development.

Don't bother with TFA.

[beavis88]

You'll just wish you had your two minutes back, like me.

Subjectiveness

[Kennego]

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...

Maybe Steam is the difference?

[Sporkinum]

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.

Re:Maybe Steam is the difference?

[Richard Jones]

Killed your LANing? What are you on about? I've attended three large (80 person) LAN parties since Steam came out, and the games being played there are Counter-Strike: Source and Day Of Defeat: Source.

The LAN has a strict rule that all computers and servers are up-to-date as of 10pm the night before. Apart from that, you just have to make sure your Steam is configured for offline use (it's a single checkbox in the prefs pane) and you're good to go.

It's not frickin' rocket science.

The most obvious difference...

[EvilCabbage]

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.

Re:Half-Life 2: The FPS for people who hate FPSes

[HelloKitty]

>>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.

And these are bad things to have in an FPS?
Sounds immersive to me...

I guess the die-hard counterstrike, sneak-and-be-killed-in-one-shot type of person might not like it because sometimes they have to *gasp* do something other than sneak and shoot... but as an immersive world, adventure, story, gameplay, and as an fps, it stands up well and is quite an experiece and worth playing.

and I didn't even mention graphics...

Completion of the story....

[Tragek]

Well I do think he may have been off base on a couple things; he's spot on with other things. The ending of HL left me craving more, but in a way that felt like I had achieved something. On the otherhand, the cop out that was the ending of HL2, made me feel as if everything I had done in the game was really for naught. Now, we know that stuff like that will be resolved in HL2:Episode 1 (aka Aftermath), but to be honest, dropping more cash for something I know will continue ad infinitum is not exactly my cup of tea.

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.

Re:Lack of Imagination

[DeafByBeheading]

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)

Um, for what it's worth I completely disagree. As another poster has already stated, HL2 is immensely atmospheric. Maybe 'scary' is not the right word to describe most of HL2, but 'creepy' certainly is. It seems to have that Eastern European WWII-era squalor look down perfectly, and with the Combine, the Striders, Doctor Breen's messages, plus the way zombies sometimes rise up in the distance and shamble towards you, and sometimes just pop out of nowhere, the feel of that game is incredible. Do you remember the first time the fast jumping zombie guys come at you? Among the best OMGWTFBBQ moments in all of FPS-dom.