Half-Life
A celebrated series of award-winning FPS games which has consistently pushed the limits and expectations of the first-person shooter genre since its inception.
Kessler Kam: The Great Half-Life Debate
I agree with almost everything you said, Matt.
Also, it seems as if this video is of a lower quality than the others.
That's a rather dark discussion,
It kind of reached it's climax with the "should have ironsights" debate. At that point you're just wishing Half Life 2 was another game.
...or like Jeff was trying to focus on playing a game and hold a debate at the same time." Looks like Jeff was trying very hard to ignore you, lol. "
Personally, I've never played Half-Life 2 all the way through, let alone played the two episodes. Overall, though, I think The Orange Box was absolutely worth the value that it offered. $60 for five games, all of which are at least better than the average shit that hits the shelves? Sign me up.
With that said...get to work on organizing those comics, Kessler!!! Don't think we didn't see them back there! I'm afraid that if you don't get them organized, the next Kessler Kam is just going to be four minutes of Babs beating the crap out of you.
" That's a rather dark discussion, It kind of reached it's climax with the "should have ironsights" debate. At that point you're just wishing Half Life 2 was another game. "Yeah Half Life 3.
Seriously they can not release another Half Life 2 product, that game style is just to out of date now.
I agree that all the Half Life 2 stuff needs a good editing, it took me probably on average two good sittings to beat each level because they are so long. And dont get me started on the Helicopters, even 50 Cent would say Gordon Freeman has a problem.
" @KEITH1437 said:This. Just because a game has iron sights, that doesn't make it Call of Duty automatically. I mean, since a ton of third-person shooters have adopted over-the-shoulder camera angles, should we just call them "Resident Gears of War" or "Resident Faction Guerrilla"?So any game with ironsights is just Call of Duty now? ... "" Ironsights? I've played that game with ironsights and it does not make it better. I love Half-Life how it is now, adding ironsights would just make it "Call of Duty: Alien Warfare". "
Frankly, Half-Life 2 IS dated. It's still a good-looking game, and the gameplay mechanics work within the game that it is...but it has aged. Will makes an incredible point that six years between the base game + two episodes and not having any significant gameplay mechanic changes and/or improvements is a massive bummer. Again, I never played the games, but I've watched people play them...and that's conducive of what I've witnessed.
Not saying Half-Life 2 is a BAD game. I'm saying that its style of gameplay is dated at this point and needs to be improved upon.
As a fan of the Half-Life games, I found this discussion depressing. Sure, the pacing of Half-Life 2 feels dated now, but there was nothing wrong with it back in 2004. The two newer instalments have a much better pacing, and while Episode One was somewhat of a let down for many, Episode Two was simply an amazing game.
As for the talk with the shooting mechanics, I can not be more in disagreement. I love the style of the Half-Life combat, and I fail to see how ironsights would improve anything.
Just beat HL 2 about about 2 weeks ago and thought it was very good, sure there were some parts that I find very long and certain stages felt much longer then other stages but still a very fun game in 2010.
For Episode 1 I finished that last week, took 5 hours only shot 1 bullet, made a mistake with reading the crow bar as the cross bow somehow and started taking enemies down towards the end with the cross bow and totally missing that one achievement!!! But still had a lot of fun with Episode 1.
Episode 2 I just finished the 1st chapter and am fighting a lot of bugs, which is a odd change of pace in this episode but i guess i'm a little to early in the game to complain.
For the rest of Orange box it was amazing I loved Portal, definitely 1 of my favorite games ever and Team Fortress was a lot of fun, but can get boring at times since its so focus on capturing the enemies location. Also played it on the Xbox 360.
" As a fan of the Half-Life games, I found this discussion depressing. Sure, the pacing of Half-Life 2 feels dated now, but there was nothing wrong with it back in 2004. The two newer instalments have a much better pacing, and while Episode One was somewhat of a let down for many, Episode Two was simply an amazing game. As for the talk with the shooting mechanics, I can not be more in disagreement. I love the style of the Half-Life combat, and I fail to see how ironsights would improve anything. "Yep, the pacing in Half-Life 2 is totally off, and listening to every bit of commentary in a Valve game since, they know it and have learned their lesson. Neither episode had that problem.
Shooting was and still is fine. I could see adding ironsights, and I don't even think it would really ruin the "Half-Life feel," but to say that there's anything wrong with it as it is is plain wrong. The only person I might accept that opinion from is a kid whose first experience with an FPS game was Halo, and then that would be more just understanding rather than acceptance.
" @CL60 said:Agree. What I take issue with is people saying that any game that doesn't feature iron sights is dated. This isn't true, it's simply a design choice. I'm tired of hearing people go to an FPS's page and saying "oh this game doesn't have iron sights. It's dated and is going to be horrible"" @KEITH1437 said:This. Just because a game has iron sights, that doesn't make it Call of Duty automatically. I mean, since a ton of third-person shooters have adopted over-the-shoulder camera angles, should we just call them "Resident Gears of War" or "Resident Faction Guerrilla"? Frankly, Half-Life 2 IS dated. It's still a good-looking game, and the gameplay mechanics work within the game that it is...but it has aged. Will makes an incredible point that six years between the base game + two episodes and not having any significant gameplay mechanic changes and/or improvements is a massive bummer. Again, I never played the games, but I've watched people play them...and that's conducive of what I've witnessed. Not saying Half-Life 2 is a BAD game. I'm saying that its style of gameplay is dated at this point and needs to be improved upon. "So any game with ironsights is just Call of Duty now? ... "" Ironsights? I've played that game with ironsights and it does not make it better. I love Half-Life how it is now, adding ironsights would just make it "Call of Duty: Alien Warfare". "
"As a fan of the Half-Life games, I found this discussion depressing. Sure, the pacing of Half-Life 2 feels dated now, but there was nothing wrong with it back in 2004. The two newer instalments have a much better pacing, and while Episode One was somewhat of a let down for many, Episode Two was simply an amazing game. As for the talk with the shooting mechanics, I can not be more in disagreement. I love the style of the Half-Life combat, and I fail to see how ironsights would improve anything. "
Exactly what i was thinking
" @jakob187 said:I don't think a lack of iron sights causes a game to be dated. I think there has to be a very specific mix of aesthetics to make a game dated." @CL60 said:Agree. What I take issue with is people saying that any game that doesn't feature iron sights is dated. This isn't true, it's simply a design choice. I'm tired of hearing people go to an FPS's page and saying "oh this game doesn't have iron sights. It's dated and is going to be horrible" "" @KEITH1437 said:This. Just because a game has iron sights, that doesn't make it Call of Duty automatically. I mean, since a ton of third-person shooters have adopted over-the-shoulder camera angles, should we just call them "Resident Gears of War" or "Resident Faction Guerrilla"? Frankly, Half-Life 2 IS dated. It's still a good-looking game, and the gameplay mechanics work within the game that it is...but it has aged. Will makes an incredible point that six years between the base game + two episodes and not having any significant gameplay mechanic changes and/or improvements is a massive bummer. Again, I never played the games, but I've watched people play them...and that's conducive of what I've witnessed. Not saying Half-Life 2 is a BAD game. I'm saying that its style of gameplay is dated at this point and needs to be improved upon. "So any game with ironsights is just Call of Duty now? ... "" Ironsights? I've played that game with ironsights and it does not make it better. I love Half-Life how it is now, adding ironsights would just make it "Call of Duty: Alien Warfare". "
Take, for instance, another Valve game that doesn't believe in iron sights: Left 4 Dead. That franchise is amazing, and there are no iron sights. It doesn't feel dated at all. However, it makes up for it by being a bit more fast-paced and frantic than the average shooter by throwing swarms of enemies at you. There's no time for iron sights in those situations, and in turn, the addition of iron sights would merely be hindering.
Half-Life 2 never really did that, and so the idea of iron sights could work perfectly fine in it without killing anything great about the games. I'm not saying that iron sights HAVE to be in the game, but there are far more things about Half-Life 2 that feel dated than just "there's no iron sights". I will say that the pacing in Half-Life 2, from what I played of it, really kills me. There are times that I wish I could push a button that tells an AI-controlled NPC partner "HURRY THE FUCK UP". While Half-Life 2 created so many of these different ways to tell story through the course of a first-person shooter game (and mainly by keeping those storytelling devices IN-GAME...WHICH I LOVE), we've come a lot further at this point in storytelling mechanics (just look at Dead Space and how IT handles those same kinds of mechanics).
There's also the fact that the Gravity Gun is supposed to be this huge physics-bending thing, but in actuality, there's FAR more out there now in terms of physics that trumps the hell out of the Gravity Gun in a lot of ways.
Just overall, I think Half-Life 2...for what I played of it...was a great game...six years ago. Hell, it was a great game three years ago. However, now...it's a dated game. Doom II is ALSO a dated game. That game...still kicks a serious amount of ass.
People act as though "dated" means "bad". It doesn't. It just means that it has reached the point of "nostalgia".
Visible disdain there from Jeff about Half-Life 2.
...
We'll have to agree to disagree. I haven't played a shooting game since Half-Life 2 I've liked nearly as much, or played through as many times. I'm curious to hear what his idea of a shooting game that is better would be, because I apparently haven't played it... and I've played a *lot* of them (and there have been some other games I have *loved*... but I haven't played through Bioshock more than once).
lmao it makes me so sad that the users of this site HAVE to agree the crew. It's okay to have your own opinion.
It's really a huge bummer. I love Jeff, and Ryan, but guess what, they hate shit that tons of people love. Also they love shit just to be ironic, Ryan even made a comment about it to Jeff on TNT.
I completely disagree about the boat sequence (or any sequence, for that matter) in Half-Life 2 being too long, and the shooting is perfect.
As for Portal's console version, I only remember one occasion -- the final boss battle -- where I wished I was playing with a mouse and keyboard. I do agree with Will that it was kind of an "eh" experience, but that has nothing to do with the controls; I just don't think it's that good a game.
" As a fan of the Half-Life games, I found this discussion depressing. Sure, the pacing of Half-Life 2 feels dated now, but there was nothing wrong with it back in 2004. The two newer instalments have a much better pacing, and while Episode One was somewhat of a let down for many, Episode Two was simply an amazing game. As for the talk with the shooting mechanics, I can not be more in disagreement. I love the style of the Half-Life combat, and I fail to see how ironsights would improve anything. "I agree with pretty much everything you said. When Will was complaining about fighting the striders at the end of Episode 2 I couldn't have disagreed more, I remember my heart racing during the entire ending fight. As far as Half-Life 2 being outdated I have a feeling that could be the reason Episode 3 is taking so long. The only reasonable explanation I can see for it taking as long as it has is that they weren't happy with what they had and scrapped a lot of it, it's definitely something they've been known to do. If we don't hear anything about Episode 3 by the time Portal 2 is released I'll be a little annoyed. To put the amount of time it's taken to put out these three episodes into perspective, after November of this year it will have taken them longer to put out the 3 episodes then it did to put out Half-Life 2.
" lmao it makes me so sad that the users of this site HAVE to agree the crew. It's okay to have your own opinion. It's really a huge bummer. I love Jeff, and Ryan, but guess what, they hate shit that tons of people love. Also they love shit just to be ironic, Ryan even made a comment about it to Jeff on TNT. "What the hell are you talking about? What does it look like people are doing in this thread? They're debating.
Disagree with most of the opinions about Half-Life 2 expressed in this video. Half-Life 2 may have dated pacing but it still remains as one of the most atmospheric and engrossing games I've played. Also, iron sights? Why does Half-LIfe need iron sights? None of the guns in this game need iron sights and I still feel that the gun mechanics work swell in a single player game like this. Episode 1 was still good despite not being as of high quality as Half-Life 2, and Episode 2 is totally awesome.
However, the one thing I can't agree with enough is the sentiment that Valve should have not gone episodic with the franchise. I mean it's been almost 3 years since Episode 2 came out, so where the hell is Episode 3!
I got no problems with Kessler but his voice is soooo fucking annoying.
Not that he can help that.
And by the way I couldn't ever finish HL2. Probably because it was hyped through the fucking roof and I expected the best game of all time, which it was far from.
I actually never played Half-Life 2 until The Orange Box came out. I'm not entirely sure what this debate was about as it seems the camera started rolling half way through. However, since I never played Half-Life 2 until 2008, I felt it was completely and totally dated. That game had mechanics that were long dead even when The Orange Box came out. I did not like it. I did not like Episode 2, and had I had to actually pay for that, I'd have been pissed. It's like 3 hours long. And Episode 3 will never, ever come out because I think Valve realizes that the FPS scene has changed so much that they'd pretty much need a brand new engine for their game.
The more I think about it iron sights might not be a bad thing in a Half-Life game. It'd just replace the suit zoom, which itself is pretty damn useless. It wouldn't mean you'd play the thing more tactically cause the gameplay just isn't of a tactical shooter.
And Ravenholme was fun in the beginning when you were shooting saw blades at zombies. Then shit got real bleh. I guess it's interesting to be in a sort of horror environment, since there technically ARE zombies in the Half-Life games and then you exit and just go back to killing Combine for the rest of the game.
The boat part flew by for me. There was always something to do and somewhere to go and most of the time some motivation to get your ass moving (the choppa). Whether you're going out to raise a ramp, getting out to raid a dam, spotting the G-Man, dodging falling pillars or a shit load of bombs, or playing chicken with a helicopter, it was exciting throughout.
The rest of the beginning though can be a bit of a drab until you leave Ravenholme. And of course with games that get lots of acclaim there'll be those people who perpetuate a sense of reverance that's never really warranted. Still, that just goes to show that they remember more good than bad about it.
The episodes were great, Will Smith musta been in the bar earlier that day. And damn, the office is starting to look real homey.
Are you joking me, GiantBomb? Like, really? I'm sorry, but that was just one of the most ignorant, uninformed conversations i've ever heard on HL2. HL2 was a revolution in videogame storytelling and an amazing game in terms of enemy and level variety. It speaks volumes that none of your points are about story.
"Why am I shooting footballs at these ants?", Will Smith? It's because this game is physics based and uses gravity and physics as it's combat mechanics rather than generic shooting 90% of the time.
Still a big fan of GiantBomb and it's fellow sites, but man. That was a dumb debate.
" Are you joking me, GiantBomb? Like, really? I'm sorry, but that was just one of the most ignorant, uninformed conversations i've ever heard on HL2. HL2 was a revolution in videogame storytelling and an amazing game in terms of enemy and level variety. It speaks volumes that none of your points are about story. "Why am I shooting footballs at these ants?", Will Smith? It's because this game is physics based and uses gravity and physics as it's combat mechanics rather than generic shooting 90% of the time. Still a big fan of GiantBomb and it's fellow sites, but man. That was a dumb debate. "Yeah, have to agree on that.
Also, this:
@lucas_kelly said:
" @LackingSaint said:" Are you joking me, GiantBomb? Like, really? I'm sorry, but that was just one of the most ignorant, uninformed conversations i've ever heard on HL2. HL2 was a revolution in videogame storytelling and an amazing game in terms of enemy and level variety. It speaks volumes that none of your points are about story. "Why am I shooting footballs at these ants?", Will Smith? It's because this game is physics based and uses gravity and physics as it's combat mechanics rather than generic shooting 90% of the time. Still a big fan of GiantBomb and it's fellow sites, but man. That was a dumb debate. "Yeah, have to agree on that. "
He never said he hated it. Their debate did suck though: saying HL2 contains dated stuff compared to games that came after it is obvious and stupid. HL2's approach to storytelling was a huge influence on the games we play today and it's unfair to dismiss it." Half Life 2, ANOTHER thing Jeff hates. "
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