SteelAttack said:

Foolz said:

ALL of the vehicle points are overly long and completely pointless. It's impossible to get lost in the hovercraft sections for example, but you're still literally floating around on sewage doing nothing for 10 minutes or more, and the helicopter battle was a massive disappointment and pretty contrived.

The pacing was one of the worst things about it.

ALL? You mean...all TWO of them? Maybe I can concede that the hover section (Water Hazard) drags a bit, although saying that you do nothing but float in sewage for ten minutes is a gross exaggeration. You have to pass through the sewers and canals fighting Combine soldiers constantly, jumping from ramps and stepping down the hover a number of times to open gates (guarded by soldiers). You are not doomed to stay with your ass glued to the hover seat for an hour. What were you expecting from the helicopter battle? I have to say that after having that bitch on my ass for the better part of the whole section, getting the chance to finally nail it was very satisfying.

But the buggy section? Pointless? When you are not fighting Combine soldiers or antlions you have to step down the vehicle for some of what arguably are the best sections of the game, like the crane, the fight with the gunships at the top of the lighthouse and the bridge on Highway 17!

Different strokes, I guess.

gamingeek said:

That whole F-ing section on the hoverboat/bike thing was a waste of everybodys time. It went on forever. Plus boring stuff like spending 10 hrs wandering about pipes trying to get out of the city. Plus the ending was shite.

See above.

 The buggy section was no where near as bad, but are still driving around for minutes doing fuck all before you stop at the combine sections. It's lame pacing because there is nothing to connect the driving and the combat. Fail. 

And it's not a gross exaggeration becuase you only fight combine soldiers VERY rarely in the hovercraft section, the rest oft he time when you stop you just go back to breaking walls with the crowbar. Yawn.

ASK_Story said:

Dvader said:

Foolz said:

SteelAttack said:

gamingeek said:

Fuck no, the pacing is bad because of overlong boring vehicle bits. RE4 is king of pacing, followed by Mario Galaxy. But yeah, Half Life 2 would have been sweet if I could send letters and presents to people.

Huh? Which long vehicle bits? You got lost? If you are wandering aimlessly without doing something in HL2, chances are you fucked up at some point.

ALL of the vehicle points are overly long and completely pointless. It's impossible to get lost in the hovercraft sections for example, but you're still literally floating around on sewage doing nothing for 10 minutes or more, and the helicopter battle was a massive disappointment and pretty contrived.

The pacing was one of the worst things about it.

Foolz clearly lives in bizarro world.

Holy crap GG too. Steel fight the good fight. Half-life 2 is the greatest FPS ever made. Period.

HL2 is definitely one of the best, if not, THE BEST, single player story-driven FPS ever made. It's not the shooting but the level design. You always do something different and the environment is never always the same.

Maybe the vehicle parts were a little long but you always came out of the vehicle to do some ground bits. And as for pacing, RE4 is probably better but what Half Life 2 did amazingly well is that it made you really feel like you're in a huge world.

On that note, I really did enjoy the first original Far Cry which was also a great single player FPS with a lengthy campaign. But those darn mutant monsters almost killed the enjoyment. But other than that, it's also a great game.

 The level design was shockingly boring for me, so much time is wasted doing pointless BS with no relevance. It had its moments, but most of the game was an absolute bore.

HL2 isn't even in Dues Ex's league, so it couldn't be the best, let alone one of the best. I haven't even played SS2 but I still know it's better, as is Marathon which I have played!

but calling something a story-driven FPS kinda cuts down the competition drastically.

To be fair Episode 1 and 2 were a HELL of a lot better. (Especially 1 in terms of design.) So therefore HL2 isn't even as good as its episodic sequels.

I must add, though, that apart from the boredom due to just plain bad pacing a lot of the fun moments lost a lot of impact due to how influental HL2 was and how late I played it. I'd done stuff like that before in games that had used Valve's ideas and imroved upon them. if I'd played it when it first came out i'm sure I would have liked it a lot more, but I know for a fact that all the things that pissed me off would've pissed me off again, because I played Half-Life when it first came out, and tht was incredibly boring also. I would've been thankful for jumping puzzles in HL2 at times, just for something to do.

Foolz said:

The buggy section was no where near as bad, but are still driving around for minutes doing fuck all before you stop at the combine sections. It's lame pacing because there is nothing to connect the driving and the combat. Fail.

And it's not a gross exaggeration becuase you only fight combine soldiers VERY rarely in the hovercraft section, the rest oft he time when you stop you just go back to breaking walls with the crowbar. Yawn.

.

I wonder if the definition of pacing is different in bizarro world. Nothing to connect the driving and the combat? What the fuck are you talking about? And you must have gotten a different version of HL2 because in the one I played, Combine soldiers kept appearing at every single turn.

The level design was shockingly boring for me, so much time is wasted doing pointless BS with no relevance. It had its moments, but most of the game was an absolute bore.

HL2 isn't even in Dues Ex's league, so it couldn't be the best, let alone one of the best. I haven't even played SS2 but I still know it's better, as is Marathon which I have played!

but calling something a story-driven FPS kinda cuts down the competition drastically.

To be fair Episode 1 and 2 were a HELL of a lot better. (Especially 1 in terms of design.) So therefore HL2 isn't even as good as its episodic sequels.

"I haven't even played SS2 but I still know it's better"

It's a sarcastic comment. It's not meant to be taken and reasoning, and is only meant to express my distaste at the game. Take it for what it is, and not an important argument. But technically I have played System Shock 2, and the first few minutes of it were better than all of Half-Life 2, so it's a valid criticism now.

The driving section I remember most well is the one soon after the hovercraft---straight out of the boring pan and into the slightly less boring fire? Anyway it started off with those sand creatures attacking you, but it was nice to see that the gun had a freaking gattling cannon on it so it wasn't so bad to begin with. Then you got to the road. And for a good while you weren't shooting combine....no you were shooting debris out of the way. -_- Then you would stop, kill some Combine, open a gate or do whatever and continue on. I'm excluding the parts where you stop from the driving, so presumably that's what you were referring to when you were talking about combine at every corner. Well there wasn't really anything connect the driving and then clearing the path to me, and I really don't see any reason as to why they couldn't have been a little more clever in their level design rather than just driving and shooting stuff lazily in the way.

Take the area after the lighthouse. There wasn't much shooting after the combine had attacked, but I enjoyed that section because going across the bridge felt fresh and required some sort of thought. Even the part in the sands (while pretty boring compared to the bridge) where you've got to work out paths and so that they sand things don't rip you a new scrotum were far better level design than any of the driving sections because they actually required me to do something that engaged me with the surroundings, rather than just floating across sewage then stopping to hit down some debris with a crowbar, or driving over an empty road and stopping to shoot some cars.

Hopefully that makes what I was saying clearer. Oh and I remember talking to somebody on xfire about it and they said something like: "but dude*, you just described everything I loved."

*without the use of dude. Cause that'd be totally lame.

"I dunno. I played it as recently as this year and found it to be an outstanding experience. Perhaps your FPS background is far more comprehensive than mine, however, so I'd be glad to hear about all those FPS that have excelled at improving over Valve's ideas so I can try them."

I'm referring to their good ideas, so the FPSs that ripped them off when it came to overly long driving sections and door knocking sections are few and far between, which may well be telling seeing those are basically the only elements that other FPSers haven't used. But as for which ones, basically any FPS made after Half-Life 2.

Josh Barnett disappoints me!

He actually got Affliction Trilogy cancelled

gamingeek said:

Has Grammaton hijacked SteelAttacks account here?

Since you stopped playing City Folk you've become pure evil.

Dont confuse solid reasoning with what Grammaton some times does.

Go Steel!

SteelAttack said:

But dude! Ok I'll stop now.

Like I said before, you are my friend and I trust and respect your impressions, even though I am still astounded by them; nevertheless, I am willing to overlook your abhorrent impression of a magnificent game such as HL2 just because you liked my ass in those PGR4 pics.

 It wasn't your ass I liked, but the way you stradled the handle bars and road the seat at the same time.

gamingeek said:

SteelAttack said:

But dude! Ok I'll stop now.

Like I said before, you are my friend and I trust and respect your impressions, even though I am still astounded by them; nevertheless, I am willing to overlook your abhorrent impression of a magnificent game such as HL2 just because you licked my ass in those PGR4 pics.

What?

gamingeek said:

Sickos.

om nom nom.

SteelAttack said:

I think the only game that has disappointed me in recent memory was Condemned. It had it all going for a kickass thriller in game form. A serial killer on the loose, creepy environments, lots of CSI type gadgets to use in your search of the horrors.

But then the actual game got in the way. With its stupidly shallow combat, and design decisions made with the ass, like enemies spawning behind of you in corridors you already had been, or stuff that could only be broke with specific tools (i.e. a certain door could just be broken with a shovel, not a hammer), or keeping the cool CSI gadgets for use only when prompted by the game, like some sort of interactive cutscene. Bah. It had so much potential.

And Noby Noby Shit. But that one, I don't consider it a game.

I liked Condemned, because I got it cheaply. It's fun, but very repetitive.