Re-visited Half-Life 2 and boy, it's started to show its age. Early Source engine stuff just looks bad now. It's at an awkward half-way point between the 'impressionism' of earlier 3D environments and modern, detail-rich realism. The faces hold up though and I still love the design of the Citadel and Gunships. Fighting the latter is fun and the way they're animated just looks great. The articulation in their bodies makes it seems as if they swim through the air. Even the colour scheme is perfect.
My personal highlights were (we don't go to) Ravenholm (any more) and the Nova Prospect prison break. Launching sawblades at zombies is just fun and the new zombie and headcrab types are a welcome addition. The regular shamblers are just not dangerous enough, even in numbers. And who doesn't like to sick a bunch of Ant Lions on Combine soldiers?
The Ant Lion introduction however also shows a big weakness of this game. All that glitchy physics nonsense. None of it seems like you're actually meant to solve puzzles the way you do with how everything jitters about with next to no friction. Leap-frogging across the Ant Lion infested beach just felt broken because of it. The Source engine ice-skating doesn't help that part, either.
I wonder if physics simulations now are robust enough to actually build a seesaw, because HL2's had to fudge things. Nobody does this stuff any more, even though there is potential for more than buildings bridges and stacking crates. Traps and barricades, for one.
The low point was everything in City 17 once you go back there. Endlessly replenishing squad mates that are only good enough as meatshields and stand in your way half the time. Inside the Citadel isn't much better. Not even the powered up Gravity Gun is all that interesting. So you can pull more things now, including people. Great, let's turn it into a chore by throwing masses of now completely ineffectual enemies at you. Meh.
As an aside, I am now completely over the philosophy of leaving the player always in control, seeing everything through the protagonists eyes and having the protagonist be silent. I see no value in any of it. The couple of times that the game does nothing but gob exposition and tutorials at you exposes it as completely fucking pointless. The events are either interesting enough to focus on or they're not, trapping me in a room to tell your story doesn't help me appreciate it any more than showing a cutscene. Walk and talk, it's the best way for any action game. Speaking of: "You don't talk much, do you?" Why would you have the most human character in the entire game lampshade the fact that you're controlling a psychopathic husk of a person that never responds to anything? Gah!
I also re-played HL2: Episode 1. It's - a three-hour intermission. No wonder they took their time for Episode 2. They even repeat the Gravity gun mistake from the main game and tease the Hunters, only to wait until Episode 2 to actually feature them. Come onnn.
It does have one of the best songs in all of Half-Life though, even though it doesn't match the action at all (you shoot zombies in a corridor, big whoop):
How amazing would it have been to fight a Strider or a gunship on the train with that playing in the background? But Source probably couldn't (and maybe still can't) do that. How different would the series have been overall if they had a streaming engine?
Anyway, all of this has been said before. Gonna start up Episode 2 now.
