What Half-Life 2 lacks

I always felt that Half-Life 2 was lacking a certain something that Half-Life 1 had. When I was playing a mod where the Vortigaunts were enemies it hit me. Half-Life 2 lacks intelligent alien creatures to fight against. In Half-Life 1 there were the Vortigaunts and the alien grunts, yet in Half-Life 2 all of the alien enemies are simply like wild animals and the only intelligent enemies are combine soldiers which are basically modified humans. On Half-Life 1 it felt good to give the A gaunts a dosage of good old buckshot because they represented the face of the alien invasion. On Half-Life 2 there is no equivelant of directly fighting the invading forces. Who's with me on this? I might copy this post and post it over at the Steampowered forums to get some more opinions as well.

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

I personally think if Valve either made hunters more intelligent or made a more advanced looking and intelligent acting hunter to be "the face of the alien invasion" it would improve the feel for the game (or at least Ep2) alot. I also think it would be a good idea to post on the Steam forums, seeing that Valve seems to pay more attention to their own forum than third-party ones.

I wonder though if that is the biggest thing HL1 has over HL2. I always thought it was the graphics level of that time, and the way it made the player fill in a few small gaps visually with their imagination. If you look at how realistic HL2 is compared to HL1 it makes you think, "Why are game companies going for realism if one of the biggest reasons to play video games is to escape into a different world than your own?". Although this is just my opinion as it is.

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Now remember kids. Asking questions is a good way to get censored by the government.

@Flynn: Well, I think I disagree a bit.

In Half-Life 1, the Vortigaunts (man I feel like a geek adding that name to my dictionary so the browser doesn't underline it anymore, :lol:), the Vortigaunts were like the grunts. Of course looking at the bigger picture of the Half-Life universe, we know they were one species of slaves looking for a way to escape the Combine, Freeman simply opened a portal to their dimension. There were many non-human alien species to shoot at in Half-Life, but of course debatefully so, the Vorts were probably the most common.

But regardless of which species were more common or let alone, had a face at all, It's hard IMO to call one or the other "the face of the alien invasion" because there simply wasn't an organization to blame, except for the G-man, whom until some of the later revelations in HL2, we all thought orchestrated the whole thing (and we still can't say for sure yet he didn't anyway).

Flynn said:
On Half-Life 2 there is no equivalent of directly fighting the invading forces.

That's real hard for me to agree with personally. I find HL2 much more visceral than HL1 simply because I think in HL2, you are finally seeing the face of the enemy. And it is a planned invasion. Unlike HL1, it's more like a happenstance of the Test Chamber, and the interdimensional aliens take advantage of the situation. But later in HL2, it's evolved to the point that a new interdimensional race, the Combine, -a much smarter (collection of) species make an effort to occupy, rather than annihilate the Earth and humanity. If HL2 is missing anything from HL1 IMO, it's the alighted-ness HL1 accepted, or took for granted. In HL1, you're technically naive about the whole situation, and it's about staying alive in the middle of an unprecedented incident, and getting to the surface to warn everyone. It's easy to go about carrying a shit-ton of weapons and smashing up places that aren't your own because the only weight you're carrying is your own survival mode. In HL2, you're the savior of City 17. Everyone is depending on YOU to make your way through the Combine for the sake of the resistance. Every place you visit has a history and Valve really wanted you to feel like there's a world beyond your experiences, and stories to be found in all the content. Remember, you had been in G-Man stasis for 20 years, so a lot happened. In HL1, it's just another day at the lab in an otherwise uneventful world, and the portions of the facility you visit, are only damaged from 1 day to 2 weeks of the accident, it's all fresh, and there isn't an alien infrastructure.

HL2 started like all good novels do, in the middle of the action, you get the joy of experiencing the present changes, but also learning about what everything once was. There's way more history in HL2, and IMO, is what makes it a much more serious game than the first.

@Condus Mundus: HL2 is more realistic than HL1, but to more of a functionalist's end, rather than for the sake of aestheticism.

Because HL2 was meant to be a more serious game, they wanted to employ new features to make the player care about the world more. Most importantly I think, were the systems and graphics developed to construct and convey character's emotions to the player-character, which are still the most advanced (and IMO most convincing) in the industry. From there it trickles down to the game play mechanics of enabling robust physics into the world. These were supposed to be the bread and butter of the new engine, and what was meant to set it apart from the rest of the industry. The realism befell from that. We call it realistic because it simply has more categories of quantized interpretations of the world representable in more frames of the game. The move to make a materials engine for the game enabled a better grasp of the world. Indeed, there are videos of Gabe Newell talking about the work they put into animating the Crowbar and simulating how best it helped the player to 'feel' the world, by tapping with it, much like how a blind man might use a cane and getting different sounds or other effects from different materials. In this way, Valve successfully quantizes materials in such a way that fits within the fiction of the world. They're not gonna give Freeman a "touching" ability, naw, they're gonna let him use his tools, and the tools need to do more than just kill baddies.

Condus Mundus said:
"Why are game companies going for realism if one of the biggest reasons to play video games is to escape into a different world than your own?"

I'd argue that the more "realistic" a game might get, the easier it is for someone to get caught up in it. Games are trying to suspend your disbelief of such a world existing. The less you have to suspend, the more believable the world becomes more often, and the less work they have to do convincing you otherwise with every scene. If there is more you can relate to, the less surprised you might become if something you didn't expect happened, and the less chance of you taking a step back to realize it. It's easier to understand a world that fits within your frame of reference. Look at the stories in the Bible That's my take on it anyway; sorry for the long post, it's hard for me to cut-to-the-chase.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Condus Mundus said:
I personally think if Valve either made hunters more intelligent or made a more advanced looking and intelligent acting hunter to be "the face of the alien invasion" it would improve the feel for the game (or at least Ep2) alot. I also think it would be a good idea to post on the Steam forums, seeing that Valve seems to pay more attention to their own forum than third-party ones.

I wonder though if that is the biggest thing HL1 has over HL2. I always thought it was the graphics level of that time, and the way it made the player fill in a few small gaps visually with their imagination. If you look at how realistic HL2 is compared to HL1 it makes you think, "Why are game companies going for realism if one of the biggest reasons to play video games is to escape into a different world than your own?". Although this is just my opinion as it is.

Hunters do feel quite 'alien' so to speak. On graphics, the funny thing is, I actually prefer the HL1 graphics to the HL2 graphics, especially with the High Definition pack. I loved the chunkyness of the HL1 graphics, whereas the HL2 graphics aren't that appealing looking to me.

The only video game I had really played before HL1 was Tomb Raider 2 which did everything by cut scenes so coming from that to HL was amazing, because on HL everything was in real time. I also find HL1 far more interactive than HL2 for some reason. I really don't find HL2 that realistic at all compared to HL1.

Riven said:
@Flynn: Well, I think I disagree a bit.

In Half-Life 1, the Vortigaunts (man I feel like a geek adding that name to my dictionary so the browser doesn't underline it anymore, :lol:), the Vortigaunts were like the grunts. Of course looking at the bigger picture of the Half-Life universe, we know they were one species of slaves looking for a way to escape the Combine, Freeman simply opened a portal to their dimension. There were many non-human alien species to shoot at in Half-Life, but of course debatefully so, the Vorts were probably the most common.

But regardless of which species were more common or let alone, had a face at all, It's hard IMO to call one or the other "the face of the alien invasion" because there simply wasn't an organization to blame, except for the G-man, whom until some of the later revelations in HL2, we all thought orchestrated the whole thing (and we still can't say for sure yet he didn't anyway).

Flynn said:
On Half-Life 2 there is no equivalent of directly fighting the invading forces.

That's real hard for me to agree with personally. I find HL2 much more visceral than HL1 simply because I think in HL2, you are finally seeing the face of the enemy. And it is a planned invasion. Unlike HL1, it's more like a happenstance of the Test Chamber, and the interdimensional aliens take advantage of the situation. But later in HL2, it's evolved to the point that a new interdimensional race, the Combine, -a much smarter (collection of) species make an effort to occupy, rather than annihilate the Earth and humanity. If HL2 is missing anything from HL1 IMO, it's the alighted-ness HL1 accepted, or took for granted. In HL1, you're technically naive about the whole situation, and it's about staying alive in the middle of an unprecedented incident, and getting to the surface to warn everyone. It's easy to go about carrying a shit-ton of weapons and smashing up places that aren't your own because the only weight you're carrying is your own survival mode. In HL2, you're the savior of City 17. Everyone is depending on YOU to make your way through the Combine for the sake of the resistance. Every place you visit has a history and Valve really wanted you to feel like there's a world beyond your experiences, and stories to be found in all the content. Remember, you had been in G-Man stasis for 20 years, so a lot happened. In HL1, it's just another day at the lab in an otherwise uneventful world, and the portions of the facility you visit, are only damaged from 1 day to 2 weeks of the accident, it's all fresh, and there isn't an alien infrastructure.

HL2 started like all good novels do, in the middle of the action, you get the joy of experiencing the present changes, but also learning about what everything once was. There's way more history in HL2, and IMO, is what makes it a much more serious game than the first.

@Condus Mundus: HL2 is more realistic than HL1, but to more of a functionalist's end, rather than for the sake of aestheticism.

Because HL2 was meant to be a more serious game, they wanted to employ new features to make the player care about the world more. Most importantly I think, were the systems and graphics developed to construct and convey character's emotions to the player-character, which are still the most advanced (and IMO most convincing) in the industry. From there it trickles down to the game play mechanics of enabling robust physics into the world. These were supposed to be the bread and butter of the new engine, and what was meant to set it apart from the rest of the industry. The realism befell from that. We call it realistic because it simply has more categories of quantized interpretations of the world representable in more frames of the game. The move to make a materials engine for the game enabled a better grasp of the world. Indeed, there are videos of Gabe Newell talking about the work they put into animating the Crowbar and simulating how best it helped the player to 'feel' the world, by tapping with it, much like how a blind man might use a cane and getting different sounds or other effects from different materials. In this way, Valve successfully quantizes materials in such a way that fits within the fiction of the world. They're not gonna give Freeman a "touching" ability, naw, they're gonna let him use his tools, and the tools need to do more than just kill baddies.

Condus Mundus said:
"Why are game companies going for realism if one of the biggest reasons to play video games is to escape into a different world than your own?"

I'd argue that the more "realistic" a game might get, the easier it is for someone to get caught up in it. Games are trying to suspend your disbelief of such a world existing. The less you have to suspend, the more believable the world becomes more often, and the less work they have to do convincing you otherwise with every scene. If there is more you can relate to, the less surprised you might become if something you didn't expect happened, and the less chance of you taking a step back to realize it. It's easier to understand a world that fits within your frame of reference. Look at the stories in the Bible That's my take on it anyway; sorry for the long post, it's hard for me to cut-to-the-chase.

Wow, thanks Riven for the monster post. If I try to quote specific bits of it I'll only mess it up, so I'll just address your main points.

What I'm saying about the face of the enemy is, for better or for worse, yes, I know an intelligent enemy will not do the fighting themselves. It still doesn't make me detract from wanting to blast the Combine Advisors with the shotgun. And why do the Combine soldiers use human weapons? I would much rather they used alien weapons and only the rebels used human weapons. And that brings me to another thing, it is hard for me to take the rebels seriously. They are pathetic, they look pathetic and they fight pathetic. The security guards on HL1 were a far better companion IMHAO.

I didn't realise HL2 was meant to be more serious than HL1 at all. I personally find HL2 a bit weird myself, what with all of the Alyx business and the family type atmoshpere that is in that game. HL1 seemed much more militatistic than HL2 did, HL1 was sort of technical and action packed, HL2 is on the more nerdy side of Sci Fi. I personally find that the physics in HL2 detract from the rest of the interactiveness. For example, what happened to the idle chit chat of NPCs? In HL1, the security guards and scientists would say things without the player prompting them to, just like a real life person. Heck, if you got two of them together, they would even speak to each other! On HL2, once the scripting talking has finished, they will only talk if you bump into them and then it's something lame like 'sorry, let me get out of your way'.

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

IMO HL1 Is way better than HL2. The atmosphere is better, it had cooler weapons and more awesome enemies.

Yes, I agree with Flynn that HL2 lacks something that HL1 had.

Maybe it's also because I started playing HL1 when I was about 8 years old, and it was one of my first fps games that I played.

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Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nibgames

Wow, that was early to start gaming! I think I bought the Generation Pack after seeing a friend play Half-Life, but he didn't really appreciate it. I realised what a great game it was so once I had saved up for it I bought it. That was back in 2003. I definately prefer the HL1 weapons as well as you, Niborious. Much cooler hardware.

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Well, it's one of the first FPS games I played at that age... I already play games since my 3rd

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Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nibgames

Wow you must be a hardcore gamer! I've only played a few games other than Half-Life, but I've enjoyed them all.

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Ya I am, but sometimes that results bad things.

I might make a list of all games I've ever played when I'm in Greece. In times when I am bored of course lol.

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Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nibgames

OK, from the top(I really should have used a pen and noted down what I wanted to comment, now it's just going to make it harder, and I should be studying physics right now ):

"Riven" said:
I think in HL2, you are finally seeing the face of the enemy. And it is a planned invasion. Unlike HL1, it's more like a happenstance of the Test Chamber, and the interdimensional aliens take advantage of the situation. But later in HL2, it's evolved to the point that a new interdimensional race, the Combine, -a much smarter (collection of) species make an effort to occupy, rather than annihilate the Earth and humanity.

Absolutely agreed.

"Riven" said:
In HL2, you're the savior of City 17. Everyone is depending on YOU to make your way through the Combine for the sake of the resistance. Every place you visit has a history and Valve really wanted you to feel like there's a world beyond your experiences, and stories to be found in all the content.

This one I have to disagree with. If they made it have the feel of HL1, it might have ended up feeling just like another map of HL1. In HL2, so much depth was added to the story, 20 years have passed, and as you said, a lot of events have occurred. It becomes your mission to figure out what has happened by putting together all the little clues to form the big picture.

"Riven" said:
HL2 started like all good novels do, in the middle of the action, you get the joy of experiencing the present changes, but also learning about what everything once was. There's way more history in HL2, and IMO, is what makes it a much more serious game than the first.

Ah, right, you said that.

"Riven" said:
Because HL2 was meant to be a more serious game, they wanted to employ new features to make the player care about the world more. Most importantly I think, were the systems and graphics developed to construct and convey character's emotions to the player-character, which are still the most advanced (and IMO most convincing) in the industry.

No question about it, absolutely spot on.

"Flynn" said:
On graphics, the funny thing is, I actually prefer the HL1 graphics to the HL2 graphics, especially with the High Definition pack. I loved the chunkyness of the HL1 graphics, whereas the HL2 graphics aren't that appealing looking to me.

Have to disagree. HL1 is set in New Mexico, it has a certain warmness about it. As is expected of an area like that, and they captured it beautifully, even with the technology back then. HL2 is set in the Eastern Europe, and when I played through it, I felt exactly as if I was in Eastern Europe - cooler colours, certain coldness about the atmosphere.

"Flynn" said:
I didn't realise HL2 was meant to be more serious than HL1 at all. I personally find HL2 a bit weird myself, what with all of the Alyx business and the family type atmoshpere that is in that game. HL1 seemed much more militatistic than HL2 did

I actually prefer that in all honesty. In HL1 you felt new, as if on the first day on your job and everybody having just met you. You struggled and earned a reputation. In HL2, you start right away feeling that warmth of the (major) characters, who clearly remember and respect you from the old days. And if we want to go for a militaristic feel, might as well call it Call of Duty/Medal of Honour/Battlefield/..ok I'll stop there because I can go on for hours.

"Niborius" said:
IMO HL1 Is way better than HL2. The atmosphere is better, it had cooler weapons and more awesome enemies.

That also adds a flavour of reality. All those foreign organisms introduced to a new environment.. Think about it. If you introduce an Australian Koala into Russia it wouldn't do so well, let alone a species from a different planet. Such extreme changes would definitely have chosen against them and only the fittest survived. The absence of these creatures again makes you wonder what might have happened. Perhaps some of them survived, but were killed off by the humans/combine.

"Flynn" said:
Wow, that was early to start gaming! I think I bought the Generation Pack after seeing a friend play Half-Life.

I think I was about that age also. I came home from school and my brother was playing Half-Life: Uplink from a demo CD. He told me "Look, a full game". Me, being 8 years old, thought that a FPS game was a full game and not a demo. It was then that it became my favourite game, and has always remained so (including all subsequent releases of course). My father bought us the full game in 2000 I'd say.

Hmm, Riven, I think you're off the hook mate. I might right now officially hold the record for the largest response..

Now does everyone see the beauty of The Pit? Here we have a couple of people discussing a particular topic from different points of view. No one is fighting, no one is flaming, and nobody's opinion is discarded as meaningless fodder (unless it needs to be ).

I personally think thats pretty cool.

On a side note, I think I have all of you beat.

I've been playing HL1 since I was 5 .

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Now remember kids. Asking questions is a good way to get censored by the government.

Wow I didn't even know how to use a computer when I was 5 It seems that I am in the minority prefering HL1 to HL2. HL1 just seems much more technical to me, the depth of different monsters and weapons is so much more, it feels a lot more...I don't know. Just a lot more Just on a side note, remember that weird breathing noise that you got when you fell down a big drop on HL1? Where is that in HL2?

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Flynn said:
Wow I didn't even know how to use a computer when I was 5 It seems that I am in the minority prefering HL1 to HL2. HL1 just seems much more technical to me, the depth of different monsters and weapons is so much more, it feels a lot more...I don't know. Just a lot more Just on a side note, remember that weird breathing noise that you got when you fell down a big drop on HL1? Where is that in HL2?

You are just like me! There's some... THING in HL1 that is so amazing. Perhaps it's the memories.[quote="Condus Mundus"]Now does everyone see the beauty of The Pit? Here we have a couple of people discussing a particular topic from different points of view. No one is fighting, no one is flaming, and nobody's opinion is discarded as meaningless fodder (unless it needs to be ).[/quote]

It's one of the things why the Snarkpit is the best forum ever.

Did you know that normally I never got past 50 posts?

Well, only once, my record is 494 but I am easily going to break that record.

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Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Nibgames

"Flynn" said:
Wow It seems that I am in the minority prefering HL1 to HL2.

Oh no, I would never choose between them. I love them all equally, they all have something special. From HL1 to Episode 2(so far). Oh, and I think you could be right, it could be the nostalgia of HL1 that makes you love it so much more than HL2. Most of us played it first as 10-11 year olds, back in the best times of our lives. It was also one of the few FPS around, and was so much better than the others. HL2 is in a battle with an incredible amount of FPS games, so that might take some of the magic away from it for some people. I still love it just as much as I always have and will. Valve is an amazing team of people who will (I hope) continue making amazing titles that always stand out from the crowd. So far, for me, they all have.

HL1 > HL2?

Pretty subjective stuff but FWIW I'll point out the nostalgia factor at work here, playing HL1 has a certain set of memories attached that are different from 2. It's kinda like when you get into a certain band, and really dig Album X; you have a lot of images and feelings attached to it. So when this band comes out with Album Y some years later and it becomes a smash, it's not necessarily gonna be your new favorite, because of all the imprinting the first experience has had. Hope that makes sense somewhat.

That said I will agree on the basic premise that HL1 is a better game for its time, blindly disregarding the awkward pacing of the Xen episodes. Remember a lot of HL2 takes place in bright sunlight and expansive environments, which is in contrast to the claustrophobia and fear generated in early Black Mesa. Hearing those swinging chain sounds and those drip drips still gets my nerves up!

edit: ah Dedi was thinking the same thought at the same time looks like

haymaker said:
That said I will agree on the basic premise that HL1 is a better game for its time

That's an excellent point! HL1 pioneered so many more factors than its counterparts did in subsequent years. Again, like Dedi pointed out, a lot of us here played it during influential times in our lives, and there wasn't a whole lot of competition to counter it. I think this might play a larger role more than any other factor the game may stand on to make it such the triumph that it is.

I have my nostalgia too when I play HL1 or related mods. I still get shivers down my back through the whole of "Inbound" and "Anomalous Materials." It's just so much fun to wrap your mind around the scenario Half-Life plays out for you. It's how the beginning of the end got started. It's the answer to T. S. Elliot's last stanza of his "The Hollow Men" poem:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

HL1 is much more open-ended in this regard. I think it has the advantage of being a broad beginning to an otherwise undefined outlook for the future of the fictional world it has created. It ended in somewhat of a cliff-hanger and left an open-ended interpretation about the actual dilemma taking place in the game. I think the later sequels followed suit to much the same degree. There are plenty of open-ended questions left around about the fiction. It makes for really compelling stuff amongst fans.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, ya, I agree about HL1 having that extra "SOMETHING" as Niborius pointed out that makes it stand out and perhaps even outlast its sequels, but it's not something that could happen again. -At least not in the same way or scale perhaps. I think the context of the time within which it was released plays the biggest factor in making the game such a landmark moment, or a leap of the medium not just in gaming, but also indeed computing history.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

I know what you mean. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the only game I had played before Half-Life was Tomb Raider 2, which did everything by the cut scene, as opposed to H-Life where everything happened at a time when the player could still interfere with it. To me, aged 13, that was simply amazing. Normally they would even have a backup plan for if a player did interfere with something, it could have a detrimental effect on the player's progress or end the game all together. The weapons were sooo realistic as well! They all ejected empty shell casings and had very realistic noises, which, again, coming from Tomb Raider 2 was unheard of. Things happened on such a large scale as well, roofs where blown off my missiles, walls were smashed through by APCs, entire facilities collapsed while the player was running for their life! The graphics were very good as well, and, with the High Definition pack in a high resolution would stand up to many newer games. I loved the solid chunky graphics of HL1 rather than the HL2 graphics.

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Just Kidding

Just Kidding

Condus Mundus said:
Now does everyone see the beauty of The Pit? Here we have a couple of people discussing a particular topic from different points of view. No one is fighting, no one is flaming, and nobody's opinion is discarded as meaningless fodder (unless it needs to be ).

I would have liked to see how far this thread would have gotton over on the steam forum.

No really, i would have.

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