Paul Reviews Half-Life 2
Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2004 1:24 pm
There may be spoilers, so be warned.
For those of you who love having that slightly violated and soiled taste in your mouth, I fully suggest HL2 for you. I finished it this morning and I must say, I was dissappointed beyond what even I expected. Certainly I didnt think it would live up to its successor, but I thought they might be close to it at least. Well I was dead wrong. The game possess many flaws, some major, some minor and I will try and address them all. It does, however do quite a bit well, but even that is not enough to save this game.
You start out very similar to the first Half-life, but greeted by the G-Man who gives you a very compelling speech and then disappears. Bam! You're on a train heading into City 17 with only a few haggard looking people. The rest of the game you can play yourself if you like, but Im pretty sure that the beginning is probably the best part of the game.
Gameplay wise, the quality varies. The pacing, in my opinion, isnt very good. I found it too fast in places and then abruptly, too slow. At times I felt as if the story line and single player campaign was secondary to making the physics engine, because thats what really shines in this game more than anything else. You can toss almost anything around and use almost anything as a weapon, which is another problem. Once you have the Gravity gun, almost all of the very little challenege that there is to the game is removed. You dont have to conserve ammo, you just hang on to that trusty Radiator or barrel and you're good to go. The game itself on Hard, was far too easy. I replayed some of the original HL on hard and had to reload the same spot about 6 times. I think I had to reload about six time total when playing HL2. And yes, it was on hard.
Next beef. Weapons. There arent enough. HL2 gave you a veritable library of fun and fancy weapons. HL2, you get 9, one of which is only useable for a small portion of the game. Gone are the Satchel Packs, the Trip mines, the Snarks, the fly gun, the gluon gun, the gauss gun. Those weapons that do remain, are far overpowered. Almost anything can be taken down with a single shot of the magnum and the shotgun's range is ridiculous. I found I was taking down combine soldiers from a HUGE distance with maybe 2 shots. The crossbow, while nifty has been altered, not neccesarily badly, but I dont like it as much. Play and judge for yourself. The Rocket Launcher remains largely untouched, although you are limited to holding three rockets . The MP5 replacement, isnt too bad, but I hardly used it because the shotgun is far more effective and ammo is just as plentiful. I wont spoil anymore of the guns, I just found they were over balanced and took the challenge out of the game even more.
Another beef, AI. Remember how they said it was going to be so intelligent? So human like? They lied. So much of this game was scripted it isnt funny. And the AI should just be A. More times than I can count I got stuck in a doorway because my moronic squad mates would follow me blindly and crowd around me, and no matter how hard I tried, they just wouldnt get out of my way easily. Their 'combat skills' consisted of running blindly out into the open, shooting at stuff, and then running back to me regardless of my position. Maybe twice in the whole game did I see them do anything remotely intelligent, and you spend alot of time with those manakins....
Next beef is the engine itself. While it does create an immersive environment, I would hardly call it a next gen engine. The water is gorgeous, as are the facial animations and character models. The lighting is very well done, although I cant compare it to Doom 3 since I dont know how it compares technically. And thats where the engine falls short. The poly counts on some things are ridiculously low and the textures, even at high, look dated and bland. At times I almost wondered if they borrowed textures from the first HL. Not to say that the environments on the whole didnt look good, but they could have looked much much better.
The game itself hardly took me anytime at all to beat. I'd say maybe 15 hours tops, far short of the original HL's 4 weeks of constant playing. The entire game felt rushed and almost slapped together at times. I think Valve spent the past 4 years making an engine that was cool and then remembered that they needed a game to show it off.
By the time I reached the end of the game, I was kinda shocked. They DESTROY the gameplay by super-powering the Gravity gun and then letting you lose. You dont need ammo (Not that you did before with the Gravity gun or any other gun for that matter) and EVERYTHING is a weapon now. To top matters off, the ending is remarkably simple to beat, I wont give anything away, but hell, I was confused when I did beat it because I couldnt believe it was over. The ending itself is very HL-esque and possibly the most irritating thing about the whole game is it. While its cool, it screams "WE ARE GOING TO MAKE A SEQUEL SUCKER!!!! HAHAHAHHAAHAHAHA WE WILL CONTINUE TO SCREW YOU FOR CASH WITH STEAM! HAHAHAHAHA!"
Well, maybe not that bad... but you get the idea...
My final beef is with Steam. Since the day it was announced I thought it was a bad idea, and using it just confirms my suspicions. Buggy, slow and fscking irritating, Steam is what Makes this game one of the most unpleasant experiences to play. Once I installed off MY DVD, I had to wait for about an hour while it unlocked the game, and that wasnt even on the first day either. Now I sometimes have to wait up to an hour to play the damned game if they're updating and not at all if for some reason I dont have the internet and didn't sign out of Steam properly for it to work in Offline mode. Add to that the resources it ties up in the background. Its just bad in my book. What happens in a few years if Steam gets dumped? Then what? I cant play my game anymore, im screwed outta $50 and thats it.
In conclusion, HL2 had its good moments, but its faults overshadowed the entire game.
I give it a 6.5/10
Pros: Life-like characters, pretty water, well implemented physics, well done lighting
Cons: To short, stupid AI, low res textures, bad gameplay, far to easy, badly balanced weapons, lack of compelling story elements
For those of you who love having that slightly violated and soiled taste in your mouth, I fully suggest HL2 for you. I finished it this morning and I must say, I was dissappointed beyond what even I expected. Certainly I didnt think it would live up to its successor, but I thought they might be close to it at least. Well I was dead wrong. The game possess many flaws, some major, some minor and I will try and address them all. It does, however do quite a bit well, but even that is not enough to save this game.
You start out very similar to the first Half-life, but greeted by the G-Man who gives you a very compelling speech and then disappears. Bam! You're on a train heading into City 17 with only a few haggard looking people. The rest of the game you can play yourself if you like, but Im pretty sure that the beginning is probably the best part of the game.
Gameplay wise, the quality varies. The pacing, in my opinion, isnt very good. I found it too fast in places and then abruptly, too slow. At times I felt as if the story line and single player campaign was secondary to making the physics engine, because thats what really shines in this game more than anything else. You can toss almost anything around and use almost anything as a weapon, which is another problem. Once you have the Gravity gun, almost all of the very little challenege that there is to the game is removed. You dont have to conserve ammo, you just hang on to that trusty Radiator or barrel and you're good to go. The game itself on Hard, was far too easy. I replayed some of the original HL on hard and had to reload the same spot about 6 times. I think I had to reload about six time total when playing HL2. And yes, it was on hard.
Next beef. Weapons. There arent enough. HL2 gave you a veritable library of fun and fancy weapons. HL2, you get 9, one of which is only useable for a small portion of the game. Gone are the Satchel Packs, the Trip mines, the Snarks, the fly gun, the gluon gun, the gauss gun. Those weapons that do remain, are far overpowered. Almost anything can be taken down with a single shot of the magnum and the shotgun's range is ridiculous. I found I was taking down combine soldiers from a HUGE distance with maybe 2 shots. The crossbow, while nifty has been altered, not neccesarily badly, but I dont like it as much. Play and judge for yourself. The Rocket Launcher remains largely untouched, although you are limited to holding three rockets . The MP5 replacement, isnt too bad, but I hardly used it because the shotgun is far more effective and ammo is just as plentiful. I wont spoil anymore of the guns, I just found they were over balanced and took the challenge out of the game even more.
Another beef, AI. Remember how they said it was going to be so intelligent? So human like? They lied. So much of this game was scripted it isnt funny. And the AI should just be A. More times than I can count I got stuck in a doorway because my moronic squad mates would follow me blindly and crowd around me, and no matter how hard I tried, they just wouldnt get out of my way easily. Their 'combat skills' consisted of running blindly out into the open, shooting at stuff, and then running back to me regardless of my position. Maybe twice in the whole game did I see them do anything remotely intelligent, and you spend alot of time with those manakins....
Next beef is the engine itself. While it does create an immersive environment, I would hardly call it a next gen engine. The water is gorgeous, as are the facial animations and character models. The lighting is very well done, although I cant compare it to Doom 3 since I dont know how it compares technically. And thats where the engine falls short. The poly counts on some things are ridiculously low and the textures, even at high, look dated and bland. At times I almost wondered if they borrowed textures from the first HL. Not to say that the environments on the whole didnt look good, but they could have looked much much better.
The game itself hardly took me anytime at all to beat. I'd say maybe 15 hours tops, far short of the original HL's 4 weeks of constant playing. The entire game felt rushed and almost slapped together at times. I think Valve spent the past 4 years making an engine that was cool and then remembered that they needed a game to show it off.
By the time I reached the end of the game, I was kinda shocked. They DESTROY the gameplay by super-powering the Gravity gun and then letting you lose. You dont need ammo (Not that you did before with the Gravity gun or any other gun for that matter) and EVERYTHING is a weapon now. To top matters off, the ending is remarkably simple to beat, I wont give anything away, but hell, I was confused when I did beat it because I couldnt believe it was over. The ending itself is very HL-esque and possibly the most irritating thing about the whole game is it. While its cool, it screams "WE ARE GOING TO MAKE A SEQUEL SUCKER!!!! HAHAHAHHAAHAHAHA WE WILL CONTINUE TO SCREW YOU FOR CASH WITH STEAM! HAHAHAHAHA!"
Well, maybe not that bad... but you get the idea...
My final beef is with Steam. Since the day it was announced I thought it was a bad idea, and using it just confirms my suspicions. Buggy, slow and fscking irritating, Steam is what Makes this game one of the most unpleasant experiences to play. Once I installed off MY DVD, I had to wait for about an hour while it unlocked the game, and that wasnt even on the first day either. Now I sometimes have to wait up to an hour to play the damned game if they're updating and not at all if for some reason I dont have the internet and didn't sign out of Steam properly for it to work in Offline mode. Add to that the resources it ties up in the background. Its just bad in my book. What happens in a few years if Steam gets dumped? Then what? I cant play my game anymore, im screwed outta $50 and thats it.
In conclusion, HL2 had its good moments, but its faults overshadowed the entire game.
I give it a 6.5/10
Pros: Life-like characters, pretty water, well implemented physics, well done lighting
Cons: To short, stupid AI, low res textures, bad gameplay, far to easy, badly balanced weapons, lack of compelling story elements
