I have to agree that hl2 doesn’t have a payoff you either enjoy the set pieces and driving on their own merits or you don’t. The last part of the game isnt gonna make a difference if you aren’t already bought into half life 2 cuz i would argue it isn’t the games strongest material especially past nova prospekt
great game though had a blast getting all the achievements before the 20th anniversary update
Also I’m glad the vortigaunt village got fixed because that was an actually cool section that was literally unplayable a year or so ago
I also highly enjoyed the new Xen segments in Black Mesa. Really was a delightful bit of extra HL2 to goof around with.
Yeah actually, the last thing I remember doing in that game was going around from island to island in a boat, so I think I probably did stop there. If I could make it through all of Black Mesa, I feel like I can get through HL2 this time.
HL2 is fine but I think it was over polished. It could really benefit from some jank TBH.
Its really fun to make Half Life 2 damage really huge but also increase ammo and health availability.
sv_cheats 1;
sk_dmg_take_scale3 3; (default 1.5) scales damage for hard difficulty.
sk_ammo_qty_scale3 4; (default .5) scales ammo pickups for hard difficulty.
sk_healthcharger 100 (default 50)
sk_healthkit 100; (default 25)
sk_healthvial 100; (default 5?)
To me this makes every area feel like a little puzzle. You can reduce the difficulty to toggle damage changes if a section is too crazy.
Sadly I don’t think there is a way to set vehicle speed higher without modding.
Also a good time is having a wacky powerful shotgun that sends ragdolls flying.
Set the shotgun pellets to like 100 (default 7). Then maybe reduce pellet damage if you don’t want it to be a super weapon (default 8)
sk_plr_num_shotgun_pellets 100;
sk_plr_dmg_buckshot 1
OK so the start of Half Life 2 is very strong, cool worldbuilding delivered in a clever way, but every time one of Gordon’s allies is on screen they’re all constantly pivoting around to face me wherever I walk, with either extreme “fuck me” eyes or looks of utter devotion, like a father looking at his baby. It’s creeping me out, a lot.
It’s literally one of the worst things about the game. I know they wanted to show off the faces but I feel like it isn’t until the episodes where everyone stops leering so much at you and talking to you like you’re a very special boy. The psychological torment of Gordon Freeman…
It’s one of the things that makes Bloodlines a way better showcase for the expressive NPCs of the source engine because it’s dramatically less disturbing
yeah probably the thing that ages hl2 the hardest is how tech demo-y it gets, them showing off how they can make facial animation that’s actually expressive gets grating when everyone is leering at the protagonist all the time just to prove that games can do this
it was really a breath of fresh air when someone was finally rude to you in like the last half hour of episode 2, at one point going “what do you want, a hug?” after you plugged in another giant cable or whatever
but i think there were still lines from alyx in episode 2 that made me slightly ashamed to be playing the game in front of my roommate
Good job, Gordon. Throwing that switch and all? I can see that MIT education really pays for itself.
(This is in like the first 30 minutes of the game btw)
barney is like the only guy who busts your balls at all and he’s not even in 80% of the game
we can settle this once we see how osb reacts to black mesa east
this is why breen is the best character in the game by miles tbh
I’m wondering if there are any games that deliberately employed this effect for comedy, horror etc
Even when he said that, he delivered the line like he was looking for an excuse to sincerely praise me and bring up my MIT degree while covering himself with the littlest jab at the end to try and make me feel like he wasn’t flattering me too hard. You know, like people lightly rib their bosses to ingratiate themselves. And the whole time he was looking at me like I’d just cured his sister’s cancer.
it’s funny in retrospect that the characters in half-life 2 are so stoked for half-life 2 and love gordon freeman as the embodiment of half-life 1
Diegetically I didn’t really get that reading, it seemed like a buddy giving another buddy shit; but actually it’s funny because the second layer is the author lampshading the reality that “theoretical physics PhD” Gordon Freeman spends his time pushing rocks into lasers and floating barrels under grates. I think it’s one of the funniest jokes in games.
See also: the way Barney tosses you your crowbar as though it’s simultaneously garbage and Excalibur. This is like your… thing… right?
The best line reads do all come from Breen though, and the #1 best line in HL2 is right near the end, so… let’s see if you can earn it…
okay a theoretical physics guy FLOATING OBJECTS AND PLAYING WITH LASERS is exactly what he should be doing how does that even need to be lampshaded
Original HL2 is still basically a tech demo. It feels like a game where they are still trying to figure out what they want it to be / how to make it fun, and never entirely succeeds. It’s good, but not great. Each selection of levels is roughly-themed around a gimmick - like the airboat, car, antlions, etc - but there’s very little in it that is as iconic to me as, for example, Blast Pit or Questionable Ethics from HL1.
Episode 1 was a portent of AAA-gaming to come.
Episode 2 is where I think they finally find their footing and make a game that is fully realized. Strong level design with mechanical and visual polish (HL2 vanilla has so many areas that are just “box corridor with texture” which feels unfinished!), fun setpieces that build upon the gimmicks in HL2, and it doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Oh Bobby Culp… truly you are one of the most iconic Columbo guest stars.
OK, so, the boat chapter kinda sucked and went on waaay too long, but I did like getting a rechargable boat gun at the end.
I’m in Ravenholm now and I can see why people consider this chapter iconic. Suddenly I’m in a pretty effective zombie survival horror game, nifty. Great lighting. I really liked the traps where you can drop cars on guys and then jump on the cars to ascend. Pretty good shotgun in here too.
I think I posted this back when this thread first opened, but I’m not a huge fan of the gravity gun. Good idea, not sure about the execution. Every object I pick up has the same weight and feel to it, like all the objects in the game are made of foam like on a Star Trek set. I do like using it to throw exploding barrels though.
Ravenloft with gravity gun only is a really fun way to play that chapter. There’s essentially two classes of physics object, the ones that feel like you’re hucking a foam boulder at captain kirk and bladed objects which just cut through anything at outrageous velocities