Board 8 > Somebody explain Half-Life's popularity to me.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I have never understood it and never will. Was it most people's first FPS that wasn't Doom or something? Is it ALL because of Counter-Strike?

Starsiege Tribes came out the same month and basically revolutionized the entire genre of video games, but you would've been hard-pressed to find someone who actually knew what it was for at least 10 years after it came out.
---

I wasn't around at the time, but I gather that Half-Life was very revolutionary for single-player FPS.

I'm not familiar with Tribes, but isn't its "thing" a physics bug that lets you move around really fast?
---

Yes it has a jumping movement thing that lets you go super fast.

It was more that it was the first fully 3d FPS that had a really interesting story.
---

My favorite thing about the original Half Life is how seamless everything felt. There are chapters and setpieces, sure, but they're all connected via combat, exploration, and an interesting situation/setting that it always felt like I was being pulled forward to whatever came next.

I love HL2 too but it just doesn't have the same feeling. Large parts of that game were 'move forward until you find the next setpiece'. Half Life was woven together beautifully.
---

Lucavi000 posted...

It was more that it was the first fully 3d FPS that had a really interesting story.

That and dialog happened during gameplay instead of having cutscenes
---

Both Half-Life and HL2 were absolute breakthroughs in FPS game design on a magnitude that would be difficult to explain if you weren't playing games at the time.
---

Xiahou Shake posted...

Both Half-Life and HL2 were absolute breakthroughs in FPS game design on a magnitude that would be difficult to explain if you weren't playing games at the time.

This.

Basically RS, you know how we have cover shooters these days? Half Life invented the language they speak. Like, completely. It's the source of everything they do. If you've got time to kill and a mind for technical discussion of what HL did right or wrong, look at this. It should explain quite a bit of why it was so revolutionary: http://thegamedesignforum.com/features/rd_hl_1.html
---

So everyone knows Valve, correct? They're the company that used to create really good video games until they found out it's way easier to just run a storefront and make all of the money in the world. In 2004, they developed Half-Life 2, which is the best linear FPS campaign of all time. Don't believe me? Well, that's really dumb of you, you fucking idiot.

Half-Life 2 presented us with a dystopian future Earth, ruled by the aliens whom invaded in the also amazing but severely dated Half-Life. From the beginning, you walk a scripted path with no real control over what you can do. Trying to leave the path or doing funny things like throwing a can at one of the guards results in them beating the shit out of you. This sense of oppression looming over the city hits hard, and it makes for a game that feels fairly tedious. But as you move further along, you begin to gain more freedom. Areas begin to open up, you meet up with old friends. Then, after a bit of story, you finally get your first weapon: A sick-ass crowbar. But immediately after, you start being shot at, and you're all like, "Wtf? Why did they give me this lame dad tool?" But the first enemy you're able to actually attack holds a gun. And boy oh boy, once you get that, it's exhilarating. It gives you a quick section to learn the controls, then throws you into this massive battlefield filled with enemies and hazards that you saw in a fairly safe environment. It takes about 25 minutes to get to this point, and it is so crucial in establishing the philosophy of HL2: Power.

Without that first chunk of the game holding your freedom hostage, the payoff wouldn't have been as satisfying. You spend so much time being limited with every interaction, that when you finally get to the action, it's a blast. HL2 isn't necessarily the most mechanically sound FPS out there, but it makes up for that by having some of the best gameplay pacing in the medium. It knows when to restrict you and when to let you loose, and it's incredible how perfectly it marries these two opposite concepts together.

There's a lot of examples I can think of off the top of my head, so I'll list my favorite ones out:
- Finally being able to fight the helicopter after it spent the past two hours or so making your life hell.
- The final sequence of Ravenholm functioning as an arcade-style on-rails shooter after you spent an entire section with barely any ammo
- Getting the ability to control antlions after spending an entire section with your movement limited by them
- Gaining access to those annoying turrets in Nova Prospekt, using them as your own weapons
- Returning back to City 17 and leading a rebellion
---

That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure if I dug deeper and harder I'd find way more smaller examples. Anyway, the main thing that sets HL2 apart from other games is that it never actually weakens the player. So many games take away abilities or equipment or impose some form of debuff on the player, but HL2 lets you keep everything (Aside from the final section, which flips this philosophy on it's head in the most brilliant manner by stripping you of all your weapons only to make you absurdly OP). The challenge comes from the player learning to adapt to these situations, rather than being forced to play the game in a different way. It's incredible stuff for how basic the gameplay actually is. How fitting that this is all accomplished in a classic tale of rebellion against a brute alien force.

Then you have the story and aesthetic, which also serve to set the game apart. In HL2, you don't just scurry through grey hallways and battlefields, you have a massive waterway to open things up, followed by a razed city filled with zombies, then you hop onto this wide-open highway with little waypoints scattered about, then a BEACH, then into an abandoned prison, then youre back in the city you started in, but now you have all these gunz, and then you're in some giant evil villain palace and then you think, "Why does this have to be over?" Every part of this game is memorable. No location bleeds into the other because they each feel totally different, not only visually, but mechanically as well. As I said in my bulleted list, the levels explore their own concepts while managing to dip back into the primary philosophy when all is said and done. There's always some new gameplay element being pushed onto the player, and it's always so simple to pick up and satisfying to use. So many games keep throwing complex ideas at you, and you wonder if you're using all of your tools properly, and sometimes the segment will even end before fully realizing the potential of such concepts, but HL2 doesn't try to amaze you with it's ideas. It just wants you to have fun in the easiest manner possible. It's not an easy game at all, at least for me, but the player can literally save at any moment, allowing one to create their own checkpoints. It doesn't want any battle to feel unwinnable to even the weakest of players, because it knows what it is, and it knows it's a god damn blast.

I just love Half-Life 2 so much. So many of my other favorite games have pretty chunky flaws. The Wind Waker is made for 4-year-olds. Metroid Prime has the artifact hunt and Impact Crater as it's last hurrah. Dark Souls has a number of dumb, dated mechanics. Dark Cloud has existence. I legitimately cannot think of anything I would consider to be a major problem in HL2. Everything about the design is fine-tuned to cut as much bullshit out of the experience as possible. Maybe it has a few minor problems here and there, but it all gets swallowed by the sheer amount of quality it oozes from every fiber of it's being. Half-Life 2 is a fucking masterpiece, and if I had to state something dumb like what the objective best game ever is, it would be Half-Life 2. It's that fucking good. It's more than that fucking good. It deserves to be on the Switch.

I've never played it on PC tho.
---

It was the first really successful set-piece fps, and a lot more patience-based compared to earlier run-and-gun shooters. Most later FPS games follow its layout, at least in their single player campaigns.
---

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Xiahou Shake posted...

Both Half-Life and HL2 were absolute breakthroughs in FPS game design on a magnitude that would be difficult to explain if you weren't playing games at the time.

This.

Basically RS, you know how we have cover shooters these days? Half Life invented the language they speak. Like, completely. It's the source of everything they do. If you've got time to kill and a mind for technical discussion of what HL did right or wrong, look at this. It should explain quite a bit of why it was so revolutionary: http://thegamedesignforum.com/features/rd_hl_1.html

KanzarisKelshen posted...

cover shooter

This gives me a "why I should hate it with every fiber of my being", but not a "why other people like it to the point that it killed off the entire FPS genre".
---

Because it had a very well told story, a scripted AI that felt highly immersive at the time, excellent game design (this cannot be emphasized enough; HL1 is probably the tighest FPS ever designed after the 2d Dooms and its new reboot), phenomenal use of setpieces, which it pretty much pioneered, and a great usage of non-core game elements to mix things up and keep the formula constantly fresh.
---

I played the HL2 campaign for like an hour and dropped it. HL1 never interested me.

Guess you kinda had to appreciate it in it's time. It's like when I went back to OoT a decade after release and just...was bored.
---

I find it strange that people are saying how revolutionary it was "for its time" and how so many other games ripped it off when, honestly, I still don't feel like anything today comes close to achieving what the Half-Life series did, especially 2. Honestly, I think the developer commentary for Half-Life 2 is an amazing insight in itself into what makes the game so thoughtfully designed. Has there ever been another FPS game in development for 5 years either? (And in actual development so no, Duke Nukem Forever doesn't count.) Tazzy's post is epic and he didn't even play it the correct way -- on PC -- either. Craziness.

I fucking love Tribes too though, but I mean it's a completely different experience and not close to being on the same level.
---

Mobilezoid posted...

My favorite thing about the original Half Life is how seamless everything felt. There are chapters and setpieces, sure, but they're all connected via combat, exploration, and an interesting situation/setting that it always felt like I was being pulled forward to whatever came next.

I love HL2 too but it just doesn't have the same feeling. Large parts of that game were 'move forward until you find the next setpiece'. Half Life was woven together beautifully.

*clapping, crying*
---

LapisLazuli posted...

I played the HL2 campaign for like an hour and dropped it. HL1 never interested me.

Guess you kinda had to appreciate it in it's time. It's like when I went back to OoT a decade after release and just...was bored.

Lmao trying to pass off personal opinion as justified by age. You wouldn't have ever liked em bud.
---

I never cared much for Half-Life, but I sure enjoyed what was done with the engine. Counter-Strike and Portal have some of my favorite PC gaming memories.
---

pjbasis posted...

LapisLazuli posted...

I played the HL2 campaign for like an hour and dropped it. HL1 never interested me.

Guess you kinda had to appreciate it in it's time. It's like when I went back to OoT a decade after release and just...was bored.

Lmao trying to pass off personal opinion as justified by age. You wouldn't have ever liked em bud.

He might still like the game a whole lot either way

The first hour of Half-Life 2 is mostly just setting up the world, not playing in it.
---

HL1 is just a really well designed experience. Very memorable story and set design with interesting gameplay challenges. A lot of it is pretty standard generic stuff today... but it was very innovative at the time. I'll always remember my time in Black Mesa with my trusty crowbar.

Then on TOP of being an awesome game, it spawned many other classic games that were designed off of it's engine. Some by Valve, many by fans. Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, I spent many many hours playing these games. But the fan made ones were just as awesome. Natural Selection, The Ship, The Specialists, Vampire Slayers. man those were some good times

So Half Life is a top tier story mode single player shooter just by itself, and it directly spawned numerous other classics. Seems like it's popularity is a no brainer. Seems to me the only reason you wouldn't "get it" is if you just weren't there to play it at the time.
---

Ive tried to play HL1 multiple times but never made it for longer than an hour or so

Not sure why it doesnt do anything for me, I never played Doom until like 2013 and absolutely love all those games now so its not a for its time issue I dont think

And I absolutely loved TF2 for a few years and like Portal so not totally sure why I dont care for HL2 either
---

StartTheMachine posted...

e: oh, I do think OoT is super dated though, even still liking it a whole lot. but the Half-Life games don't suffer that problem except in the graphics department

I find Ocarina to be the far better aged game than Half-Life 1!

But that's besides the point. I just don't like the insinuation that if you don't like an old game it's BECAUSE it's old. Or that playing it at it's time was the only way to enjoy it.
---

pjbasis posted...

I find Ocarina to be the far better aged game than Half-Life 1!

upon further reflection maybe not but I think it's a toss-up and illustrates the subjectivity to even describing how well a game has "aged."
---

They both aged terribly but most people will say OoT simply due to nostalgia.
---

Lucavi000 posted...

They both aged terribly but most people will say OoT simply due to nostalgia.

No, really not. Good FPSes are different from most games in that they don't age very much. Doom is still one of the top 10 best games of all time for a reason. Due to how simple their mechanics are, an FPS that gets them right is good pretty much forever. And HL1 has excellent base mechanics.

(Now, 'cinematic' FPSes, yes, those can age really poorly because it's their story that props them up.)
---

I'd say quite the opposite - that story ages well, but gameplay does not.

I didn't get very far into HL1, but I'm not sure if it's because it aged poorly or if it's because I was starting to realize I didn't like FPS games anymore. I loved HL2 and its episodes back in their day, though.

Ocarina of Time has aged poorly not because of any problem with the game itself, but because every Zelda game afterwards is better than it is, imho. It's the base foundation on which the 3D Zeldas are built, but a foundation doesn't make a great house on its own.
---

Red Shifter posted...

Starsiege Tribes came out the same month and basically revolutionized the entire genre of video games, but you would've been hard-pressed to find someone who actually knew what it was for at least 10 years after it came out.

I mean, Tribes has always been doomed by by being both difficult to pick up and impossble to master. That's not something that readily attracts new players.
---

If you only see a base foundation in Ocarina you didn't look hard enough!
---

HL1 still holds up to this day. I remember playing it for the first time in like 2008, after playing HL2, and kinda liked it more. That's because everything that makes up modern FPS games was invented by that game. So the only real difference is the number of polygons.

Tribes is awesome but it's just multiplayer.
---

Keltiq posted...

I'd say quite the opposite - that story ages well, but gameplay does not.

Play Doom and report back to me on your experiences then (no seriously, please do - seeing people play truly excellent games like it for the first time is always a joy). I maintain, confidently at that, that it holds up to this day without issue and I think anyone playing it would agree.
---

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Keltiq posted...

I'd say quite the opposite - that story ages well, but gameplay does not.

Play Doom and report back to me on your experiences then (no seriously, please do - seeing people play truly excellent games like it for the first time is always a joy). I maintain, confidently at that, that it holds up to this day without issue and I think anyone playing it would agree.

Definitely - played it for the first time this year expecting something merely important, got an absolute masterpiece (along with Quake). id knew what they were doing.
---

I can't play Doom at all because of the aiming
---

foolm0r0n posted...

I can't play Doom at all because of the aiming

What do you mean? The mousestrafe? You can turn that off. If that still isn't enough, just download GZDoom (which is a sourceport) and get true mouselook and aiming.
---

Just the 1D aiming where you can only turn in a circle and shoot what is vaguely in front of you. The feedback is so abstract it doesn't even feel like I'm playing the game.
---

It's pretty apparent when you watch gameplay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9HvAXZgGeQ" data-time="

Like how is this guy hitting any of this. I remember it feeling good back in the day but I could see why ti would feel weird now. I played this and a ton of Wolfenstein 3D which was pretty much the same thing. You are literally missing an entire dimension.
---

yeah just use (G)ZDoom then

it's a very handy modern day convenience so absolutely make use of it, nobody's gonna get on your case for it. I think even speedrunners accept partial (ie not vertical) mouselook? So that goes to show how the QoL won't really change the game much. Even full mouselook gives an advantage but now a huge one.
---

Yeah any modern sourceport can give you full mouselook as an option if that's what is hindering you. It makes a small handful of things easier but it doesn't make much difference. It's how I played my first time, now I just use horizontal-only mouselook.
---