What does /vr/ think of Half Life?
I think it is awesome. Replaying all the games rightnow.
How did you get it? Was it special for you?
It destroyed FPSs as a genre just like Metal Gear Solid ruined adventure games
Took me a few years to get into Half-Life. When I came out I hated it for the realism. Reloading, boring realism weapons (the fun sci-fi guns are at the very end of the game) being killed by a short drop that would take 10 health away in Quake, the military grunts and all that military silliness that came with them (go! go! go!), all this stuff turned me off.
But I grew the fuck up, realised that not everything has to be Quake and came to really enjoy Half-Life in the end.I still blame it for really starting the realism trend that ruined the FPS genre.
>>3230882
>I still blame it for really starting the realism trend that ruined the FPS genre.
But that was Goldeneye
>>3230872
It was a great experience back then during release and overall provided an experience that was a step-up from what came before.
By itself it wasn't a timeless game but the modding community was nothing short of incredible. I think that was its greatest achievement.
It is the most overrated game of all time. Even the fan made Counter Strike is a better game.
Great game. Timeless classic, etc.
If you don't appreciate it, you just don't understand what it was like to play 5~ years of Doom/quasi-Quake clones before this game came out.
Still stands the test of time, in my opinion.
>>3230896
Eh, I'd prefer the Doom clones
>>3230886
Goldeneye is cool, simple.
But no.
>>3230872
Its a decent game, but hugely overrated. Thief, Thief 2, System Shock 2, and Deus Ex were far more interesting games of the time.
>>3230872
It sucked, especially that putrid final boss battle.
The Thanksgiving turkey-headed scientist monsters were hilarious though.
Has great atmosphere and is pretty fun every now and then. A bit overrated, sure, but is miles above it's sequels which I thought were weaker.
>>3231190
HL2 i reckon starts very poorly, and picks up once you get the Gravity Gun. Generally not as consistently good as HL1. E1 is pretty boring. E2 I actually liked almost as much as HL1.
I recently played Half-Life for the first time. I love the graphics and gameplay of fps games in its era, so I enjoyed most of it by default. Some parts felt overly slow without much happening, but it mostly feels rewarding once you get past it and progress the story.
>>3231280
Not him, but I dont really like GG and few other weapons.
Couldnt play E2 because it needed some shaders bullshit HL2 and E1 didnt needed and I dont have.
I played HL1 few years ago, followed by OF and BS, and I liked them all in various degrees.
I know there is one more? Decay? Couldnt find it at the time, might look around again someday.
>>3230872
anyone who says the game is overrated did not play at launch. it revitalised a genre that had peaked. it is heralded as one of the most important pc games ever, and rightly so.
>>3231175
Omg, my sides. Your joking is hilarious.
Played through Half-Life 1 and base-game Half-Life 2. I thought they were okay, but they're incredibly simple and terribly generic in comparison to most games that have been produced since its release.
Apparently only spent like ten hours in Half-Life before beating it, but it felt like a god-damn eternity since it was so dull by the end.
Boring game with an obscene fan-pandering sequel and an autistic fan base of 30 something neckbeards and broken condom kids.
>>3231280
E1 is a goof ass waste of time and I'm shocked they bothered making an E2. E2 feels more like Halo than the first two games, it's not terrible but strongly indicated that the series had lost its way, or rather that Valve had run out of ways to make the basic formula of the first two games interesting.
Half-Life is a good game, but for some reason people only seem to remember about it that its good, but Xen is terribad, when this is completely mistaken and the Xen levels are the coolest stuff in the entire series. I don't know of any FPS environment that so effectively conveys alienness and weirdness. The closest thing I can think of to that completely spaced-out, "how the fuck did I get here" feel is Marathon. Yeah the jumping puzzles and difficulty spike are frustrating, but the entire series has really shitty combat and jumping puzzles to begin with -- if that bothers you, why even play the games? They're all about spectacle and ambience, and Xen has both in spades.
IlikeEpisode 1 more than Episode 2. The environments are way better than thedullAntlion caves and endless trees in Ep2.
>>3230872
I read the guides at stores while my parents shopped, and I played it once at a relatives house on their computer during a birthday party. In 2001, I got it for the ps2 and played through it myself.
One of my top 10 favorite games ever.
I can't agree with the people who point out it's flaws, because for me they aren't flaws at all. This is just a 10/10 game, pure and simple. It's one of the few that I don't find anything wrong with.
Posting for those who've never seen the right
>>3232849
huh?
Story ripped off from Doom (research installation, something goes wrong, monsters come from somewhere else, guy fights through, goes to where monsters come from to fight boss, comes back, sequel takes place in cities on earth)
Horribly linear and boring
Gameplay feels on like you're on ice
Enemies and obstacles are a bunch of controlled set pieces that have no real struggle to them mostly due to poor level design
It's the beginning of the downfall of FPS games. The much better designed Unreal was so much better and should have gotten the attention fucking HL did.
It's overdesigned, oversimplified shit like HL that game companies produced starting in the late 90s for the NewGamers that care more about style than substance that brought down gaming.
>>3230893
I think you mean half life 2
>>3230872
>theyre waiting for you gordon..in the test chamberrrrrrrrr
>>3232804
>FPS genre had peaked and was revitalized by Half-Life.
HAH. Are you kidding me? Half-Life isn't even the best FPS of 1998. Rainbow Six and Unreal were both better. Also Quake 3 came out in 1999 and was well into development. Unreal Tournament: 1999, Goldeneye: 1997, Perfect Dark: 2000, Halo: 2001, Return to Castle Wolfenstein: 2001. FAR FROM PEAKING in 1999.
Go back to your kiddy pool, you're embarrassing yourself in front of the grownups.
>>3233087
>the Xen levels are the coolest stuff in the entire series.
I like you. I'd buy you an alcoholic beverage.
I guarantee if Goldeneye was on PC, HL1 wouldn't be praised nearly as much. Most of the "new" things it did, Goldeneye already did a year earlier.
>>3233280
The Mist.
half-life 1 is great
half-life 2 is utter shit (sans the engine)
>>3234265
Sounds like a skele-ton of fun to me
Half Life 1 is a solid FPS, the music and sound design goes a long way to making a very deep atmosphere that sort of engulfs you on longer sittings. The last boss is kind of infuriating from a design perspective tho; the whole game up to that point is a pretty straightforward shooter and the final boss is like a shitty game of skeeball.
Once you're done you should play Gearbox's expansions.
Blue Shift is good for a little more story closure and a look into the mileau of Black Mesa as a setting.
Opposing Force, though, is probably one of the best silver-age PC FPS out there. If HL1 isn't Quake enough for you, OpFor is where you need to be. Balls to the wall shooting action, insanely fatal and intelligent enemies that use their strengths against you while guarding their weaknesses, smart 3D level design. I don't know where this era of Gearbox went, but I'm happy they gave us this game. It also gave us pic related, who brings many lulz with him
I enjoyed it but for some reason I barely remember anything about it. I played the base game and the expansions but I have like no memory of it.
>>3234173
Much of the "new" things Goldeneye did were done by other FPS on PC beforehand too.
>>3230872
You haven't truly played Half-life unless you used A3D 2.0 sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAOcdfCN-RU
>>3234715
>Much of the "new" things Goldeneye did were done by other FPS on PC beforehand too.
Name a PC FPS released before Goldeneye that had a physical keybinding for reloading your gun.
Name a PC FPS released before Goldeneye that knows that you've shot an enemy in the leg and applies less damage.
Name a PC FPS released before Goldeneye with scripted story-based set-pieces within normal gameplay (no menus that cover up the screen or FMV).
Name a PC FPS released before Goldeneye where enemies make physical evasive maneuvers to avoid getting shot (e.g. roll out of the way).
>>3230872
I only played the PS2 version. It was ok. It came with the add-on with the two women's quest. It was just ok too. I didn't like HL's final area and the boss was too hard. I had to save scum my way through him.
>>3234710
then the game failed for you.
I absolutely love Half-Life 1 for a lot of things.
I like the realism in Half-Life, and the fact that the research facility feels so very authentic, it genuinely felt like a place where people worked,instead of just like a videogame level. The place just felt incredibly comfy, and the introduction to the research facility felt incredible.
The game itself has a very haunting vibe to it,and when you find out that the government forces aren't actually there to help you, but to kill you, you go like "oh shit!". The whole "oh, the government is actually evil"-plot hadn't also been overused at that point so it had more impact.
The audiovisual design is top notch,especially the audio. The noise of the footsteps for example changes based on what type of surface you're walking on, guns sound different in vents, etc.
The A.I on the Marines is pretty great too. They react to grenades, throw grenades, set traps,relocate etc.
The Xen levels always turned me off
>>3235136
Yeah I remember the first time I played it, getting up the surface, and thinking 'oh great, some backup" and then they started to shoot at me.
>>3231175
By of the time you mean after half life
Blaming Half-Life for "destroying FPSs" or forcing a sense of realism on shooters is like blaming a caveman with a burning branch for house fires.
Other people have done it wrong, Half-Life is still a great game almost twenty years later.
I enjoyed it because it has the same plot as Doom and Quake, out of control scientific experiment into other worlds. Just replace demons and eldritch horrors with the most generic aliens possible.
>>3233087
The Xen Factories made absolutely no sense at all, that was the worst part about it.
I never actually beat the game despite owning it for years. I enjoyed what I played too so I have no good reason for not doing so.
>>3241940
Vortigaunts are a slave species to the Nihilanth. The factories are where they made produce for exporting. Y'know to build the Xen economy and such.
I found the story a little hard to follow
>why are humans shooting at me in an alien invasion
This is the first time a. e NPC spoke to me without subtitles or cutscene. I was blown away
>eavesdropping on NPC conversations
>>3232790
>I know there is one more? Decay? Couldnt find it at the time, might look around again someday.
It's only on PS2. Grab a friend and do some bro op.
>>3234173
I'm still impressed by how the implemented camera shakiness to simulate exhaustion, something that the rest of FPS don't do, even today.
>>3243202
Its been ported to PC.
>>3238208
I really don't understand the people who claim it started the "realistic shooter" trend. While Half-life's weapons arent as goofy as most shooters of the time, it still had plenty of goofy alien enemies, with somewhat abstract level design.
>>3243231
They could do this on the N64 because it's a console shooter, especially a single analog stick shooter. When you run around, you are just controlling the player movement, not the look. You cannot have this on a PC shooter because it would mean your constantly in-control mouse look is fighting against a look-bobbing. Imagine playing a multiplayer shooter where you mount on a vehicle's turret and your buddy is constantly swerving, steering your aim off. It would fucking drive me nuts.
>>3243236
Thanks, I'll check out the PC port. Seems like it would be very fun to do since it was ported.
Half life is an overrated piece of crap that caused fags to treat video games like books.
It's not really that bad in it's own right, but it's not that good either.System shock 2 was a much cooler game, and I prefer Serious Sam/ Doom and it's clones to half life, or anything modern.You can have all the fun in the world by downloading free megawads off idgames..Fuck DLC.
But I would actually blame Halo for screwing up FPS games more than Half-life. That's when those faggot ass publishers decided every game should have regenerating health, because god knows the modern gamer can't be bothered to explore a level.
>>3233368
but in contrast to hl all those games sucked.
>>3234760
Not quite released before Goldeneye (Three months later), but Quake 2 had all that and more, IIRC.
>>3245267
gr8 b8 m8
>>3244616
The realism trend was really mostly brought on by Counter-Strike and Action Half-Life / Action Quake and so on.
But I don't dislike the realism either, people would've grown tired of le silly shooters anyway.
>>3233368
>unreal was better
I can name you like 10 other better fps games from 1998...and you didn't even mention Delta Force in your list.
>>3230872
It's ok, but I never got the hype. I remember working at a retail store and selling a few copies of it only because people wanted it to play the COUNTER STRIKE MOD. kek.
>>3249165
>Delta Force
muh nigga
>half life is old enough to be retro
Played through half life when I was 6
I was 6 and loved pretty much any game at the time but mainly stuck to FPS games like half life, quake 3, various other lesser known and now very poorly aged fps single player games with an arena multiplayer mode attached just because...
However even now at 19 I can go back and enjoy playing half life
Half Life 1 will always be my fav just for the environments, atmosphere and the music but the other games in the series are solid but fuck that black mesa piece of shit dont even bother just stick to the original half life
>>3230881
>Metal Gear Solid
>Adventure game
What
>>3249283
Yes, 1998 also saw Unreal, Sin, Thief, Shogo, Turok 2, Forsaken.
