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| 20 MAR 2005 at 8:11am |
STooGE4444, EastCoastDoom...Schattenjger
Posts : 2099
Joined: 15 OCT 2002
Status : Online | Hey y'alll....
I just finished it tonight.....
I thought it was a pretty good game and I never got bored. HOWEVER, as Agus said it is very convuluted......there is virtually no means of describing the "grand" plot at all sans little "easter egg" type bits, which themselves are so mysterious that you don't even know they're about the plot. And I don't think it's me that I didn't pick up every detail of the plot because normally I always understand a movie/book/game's plot....
If you feel that you had no idea what everything was about, you DEFINITELY have to go here (MASSIVE SPOILERS inside!!!!!!!) http://fragfiles.org/~hlstory/.....this details the whole Half-life saga....Essential if you want to more about the story.....
Now looking at the timeline in the history you can definitely understand how everything works out. However, I was totally surprised by most of it since many of the details were not divulged directly in the story.
I really really really really think that Valve made a tremendous mistake in not expanding on this grand plot. I think they did it to be mysterious....But in having such a myriad of events without background info, it made it seem like HL2 had no plot at all.
It means something when you end a game saying, "What the f@ck just happened?" It's just not good game design. It's obvious they were trying to be artistic but I mean there has to be a line somewhere.....
Please, goto that link if you have finished the game and tell me what you think......
Besides the plot, I thought everything was awesome. The atmostphere was excellent, sounds, models, level of interaction (it's great to build barracades with the grav-gun)....there are three things that were lacking gameplay-wise.
No plethora of weird weapons: the first game had a good variety of strange and novel weapons but this seemed to have none except the gravity gun. And what the hell happened to the stun baton? id I miss this in the game?
No plethora of weird creatures: the Crazed-super-fast Wolf-zombies, Antlions, and Striders were awesome....but nothing near what we were given in the first. Yes there were other characters, but I like aliens or at least mutated humans.
No advanced commands for squads: the AI for the squads was pretty good but they couldn't follow the HOLD command worth crap.
~rbeeler SVT &&Name's STooGE$$$$ Valpurgius TNT; it's not PLURAL&&[img]http://www.riseaboverecords.com/sleep/image/sleepfront.gif[/img]&&151.Generally speaking Sludge Doomsters are Angry, Gothic doomsters are sad, funeral doomsters are barely breathing, death doomsters are dirty, drunk and dribbling, Stoner Doomsters don't care, drone doomsters are out of it and traditional Doomsters are permanently pissed off, mainly with other doomsters
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| 20 MAR 2005 at 7:07pm |
| Deleted User | Great link you have there.
I've played HL2 two times in a row, and looking back at it a few months later, it is definitly one of the most well-balanced and simply enjoyable game ever. Sure, they could have put more weapons, or at least more exotics weapons as you put it, but I'm not so much of a weapons buff so it didn't bothered me at all.
Story-wise, I did feel exactly like you the first time I finished it, but now I really like the baroque way they put the ( relatively common) story in such a visual and original way. Nowadays, stories are so often over explained in case we miss something (in movies as in games), that I think it's refreshing the way they did it. My two cents .
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| 21 MAR 2005 at 1:31pm |
Jeroen StoutSchattenjger
Posts : 2798
Joined: 14 NOV 2003
Status : Online | Originally Posted By Randdom (20 MAR 2005 7:06pm)
Story-wise, I did feel exactly like you the first time I finished it, but now I really like the baroque way they put the ( relatively common) story in such a visual and original way. Nowadays, stories are so often over explained in case we miss something (in movies as in games), that I think it's refreshing the way they did it. My two cents .
Often in television series (Stargate comes to mind) there is this moment that something is obvious and characters spend 10 minutes explaining what is going on in boggling detail. Usualy I'll say to the people watching with me "Now they're explaining it for the Americans" (which comes from the idea that most American series/movies have such moments in annoying amounts), so I'd call it "American Moments".
HL˛, lacked American Moments, which made it feel wonderfully mysterious and unexplained. I hate the over obvious explanations and 'it must all make sense now' feeling a lot of games have (which would be a reason why I'm attracted to the Adventure Genre, although the recent games might be getting 'anti-mysterious' at times).
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| 25 JUN 2005 at 7:44am |
Mr. WrecksSpace Cadet
Posts : 118
Joined: 5 OCT 2004
Status : Online | I'm a tad late here, but I've played through HL2 about 5 times now, never got bored once. The story, to me, evolved around you. The scenery told the story along with the characters. Looking around at different levels, scenes and scripted events, you slowly start to understand what happened prior to your showing up, how it's being handled presently, then afterwards (spoiler - kinda) how everyone is trying to bring it all down. I dig it royally. I think it immerses you better than any shooter to date... maybe with the exception of the first Half Life.
The other thing for me was how real everything seemed. No not the zombies and such, but just the environments - that's what scares me the most in games. Realistic settings littered with sci fi elements... that pulls me in. Kind of like a subtle "Hey, this kinda could happen, kinda"... but again, placing the freaky out-of-this-world elements into a realistic, modern-earth type setting, sends me into gaming heaven...
I dug HL2. Never got bored. ValvE is genius and I'm pumped for Aftermath.
My 4 cents... Ponder
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