THE BORE
General => Video Game Bored => Topic started by: Billy Rygar on December 05, 2007, 03:43:56 PM
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Half Life 2 has always been for me a 70% game, that is 70% of it is excellent and 30% of it is crap filled with bad jumping puzzles, turret management, that terrible highway level, and the whole last level. This isn't to say that the game is bad, or even approaching, it just suffers in some spots between the awesome. this became even more clear upon replay when I felt I had to just skip some parts entirely in order to enjoy the game as a whole. the game seems to get itself stuck on a good idea for entire sections at a time and proceeds to run them into the ground, the ultimate example being how godawful it was to use the gravity gun near the end compared to how brilliant it felt earlier in the game. Episode 1 began to correct some of these problems with an almost totally bullshit free game (I say almost because there are still a few bad parts ie. cars in bug holes) that is blessedly short and tight comparatively. I say comparatively as this didn't become apparent to me until I played all three games back to back and realized what a perfect bridge between the overly bloated and ultimately unfulfilling HL2 and the fuck awesome Episode 2, which takes the good ideas from both games and distills them to their core parts (small scale encounters, puzzles, and the occasional large encounter) and distributes them evenly throughout, culminating in one of the best end sequences of the forever. Taking both episodes as a whole package it is clear that this is what Half Life 2 should have been. More thoughts later as this is kinda rambling.
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But episode 1 is awful
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Well, I'm sure it's more enjoyable if you don't go for the one bullet achievement, then find out that you fail if you use the Crossbow :'(
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How is a hot iron a bullet? Don't be gay, Valve is wrong
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Sucks to be Iowa! Valve is still wrong and EP1 is still awful
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Valve hates console gamers. You and your achievements are an abomination to them.
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That's why they've got achievements on the PC version then! Don't be daft, little one
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I honestly just hate the gravity gun. Give me some bullets
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You have to admit that Episode 2 is hot sex on a platter, especially after the Hunters are introduced.
I'll get back to you on that once I actually play it
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That's why they've got achievements on the PC version then! Don't be daft, little one
Not on Episode 1. They did cave in and put them on Portal, TF2, and Episode 2, although I'm sure it broke Gabe's heart. :(
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That's why they've got achievements on the PC version then! Don't be daft, little one
Not on Episode 1. They did cave in and put them on Portal, TF2, and Episode 2, although I'm sure it broke Gabe's heart. :(
Oh, well good, EP1 sucks anyway
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Ravenholm + Gravity Gun are the reasons I dont like HL2 as much as most
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Highway 17 onward was where it starts going downhill
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I made it to Nova Prospekt and quit the first time around. is it worth finishing up/replaying or should I jump straight into Ep 1?
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I thought Ravenholm was pretty cool, I actually liked the 'survival horror' element more than your typical survival horror game! How you needed to use anything and everything to survive and make it through. I'm really looking forward to playing Episode 2 though, Episode 1 had way too many parts that were annoying for me (especially the final chase, ugh).
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I really dug the whole anticitizen one/follow freeman chapters. I'd say it's worth cheating your way through the turrent-zany parts of nova prospekt to experience them.
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I'm at the turret parts now :(
First time I felt compelled to use a guide just to see if there was a better way of placing them :(
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There is maybe one or two battles with the striders that are cool, but after the hell of the turret management nothing in the game really redeems itself after that, and the end game is a grand-mal dissapointment. Just go to Episode 1 and knock it out in a day or two.
The striders were awesome. Too bad, the whole level had the stuttering bug when I first played it. I had the fastest videocard and 2gbs back then too. HL2 should been docked at least 10% for that annoying bug.
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I loved the Highway level. I loved that sense of being on a journey and all the little stops along the way. Episode 2 is essentially a refined Highway 17, so why the hate? The fucking hoverboat can fuck itself, though. Episode 1 is a snoozer, but it's because all the fireworks are under the hood so it gets a pass.
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The turrets section in the prison fucking sucked.
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it's funny, the turrets are where I stopped playing. I had no idea they were legendarily annoying!
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The turret part in Episode 2 was a lot more fun and less stupid.
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I enjoyed Chronicles of Riddick more than HL2.
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when did platforming become "jumping puzzles"? pc gamers ::)
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I'm at the turret parts now :(
First time I felt compelled to use a guide just to see if there was a better way of placing them :(
Placing them WTF I don't remember that.
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Use of the epithet may have spread, but I don't remember ever seeing it prior to 1997 or so and then it was always used in reference to FPS like Quake and almost always in a derogatory fashion (it's basically a slur. People who like platforming elements in games don't generally call them "jumping puzzles". it's like Trotskyite vs. Trotskyist.) I don't remember ever reading about the jumping puzzles in Super Mario Bros. 3.
Even now, if I do a Google search for the phrase, the hits I get are dominated by games which are either on PC, in genres that originated on PC, or at least Western-developed. Aside from the post-facto Wikipedia article, I have to go to page 7 to find it used in reference to a well-known example of the platforming genre; if it were really a neutral term you'd think the popular genre that is heavily focused on "jumping puzzles" would get a bigger chunk of the hits for "jumping puzzles"! You'd also think more of them would be positive, considering how many of the most popular and beloved games of all time (e.g. SMB3 again) do in fact focus on "jumping puzzles", but it's almost always negative.