Sorry for the delay on this video, folks - personal stuff got in the way while I was writing this episode. I still will hopefully have the videos for Episode 1 and 2 out by the end of the year! (Postponing Black Mesa to a later date). Timecodes are in the description as usual! And before you ask, yes I did watch the Half-Life: Alyx trailer. It looks really promising! I'll share my thoughts in the Episode 2 video. A question for all of you: do you prefer Half-Life or Half-Life 2?
Half-Life a thousand times over. MMod is brilliant, playing HL2 without it is agonizingly boring. But I just think Half-Life is better on all fronts, furthermore Black Mesa seems to be nearing completion. The "Complete Beta" has been rolled out and I must say, The Nihilanth fight is amazing if more than a little easy.
I find they both have there pros and cons, half life one is a classic, simple shooter. It doesn’t have much exposition or down time. So it’s great to sit down and play in a way half life 2 just doesn’t compliment. Half life 2 on the other hand is a game with rich story and fine tuned gameplay, all the pieces of it fit together in a way few other games have managed. In my opinion, I just have more fun with half life one. It’s just so easy to relax and play for an afternoon, I do play half life 2 just as much. But I enjoy the ability to play free from intrusive story moments more (not that I don’t love hl2s story)
Yeah, MMod is quite an improvement over Half-Life 2 - a game I still like to begin with. And I'm excited to finally play through Black Mesa, though I'm personally waiting until the game fully comes out of beta before I jump into it. From what I've seen of Black Mesa Xen, it looks incredible!
Agreed! I still enjoy Half-Life 2's story but after playing the game so many times, I do tend to get annoyed when story sequences occur just because I already know what's gonna happen. Half-Life 1 may have much less of a plot but it definitely has better story/gameplay pacing.
I don't really look at Half-Life's character re-introductions as retcons, more as just building characters from the blank canvas Half-Life established. Barneys and scientists were just character models with a couple of repetitious lines. They layered the story on top of their vaguely familiar faces. There was no continuity to retroactively change in that department.
Fair enough, but it still feels like a bad plot decision that so many of Gordon's Black Mesa colleagues are still around and in the same place as him during Half-Life 2. It feels too convenient, and I can understand that in the context of the overall story (that would most likely be the G-man's influence), but it's never really sat right with me. Knowing that they were entirely seperate non-Black Mesa related characters in the beta makes it stand out more to me.
@@CloudConnection I suppose it would make sense for them to stay together after the events of Black Mesa, though, so it's not all that odd. Never really thought of that much.
@@CloudConnection i know this was 4 years old and theres like no point in responding but while i agree with the whole too many black mesa survivors thing the reason gordon is near all of them is because of gman intentionally placing him there
There's nothing wrong with the game putting out more music during gameplay. In older shooters such as Doom, Quake, GoldenEye 64, etc, you had music playing out a lot.
I definitely noticed there was a lot of reuse, which is pretty normal, but honestly every time I think about it I'm kind of genuinely impressed that they pulled it off.. actually pretty much the whole thing when you think about it, this game is a deadly serious game, that still manages to be fun while at the same time keeping that atmosphere that is almost impossible unless you're doing a Schindler's list.. which I mean 1984 is a good grab, I'm still utterly impressed by how qualitatively they translated that and made it work especially in the era, and especially coming from half life which on the surface at the very least is campy at best, only getting far darker and more in line with the sequel when you look at the behind the scenes aspects....
While I don't agree with some of the changes being better or worse compared to the first game, you made some solid points that I totally respect. HL2 the game that got me into FPS's and played it before I got the chance to play the first Half Life, so I suppose I might be a bit biased or lack the perspective you're coming from. Great video as always though, especially with how you articulated your points.
You probably don't lack that perspective, actually, because I also played HL2 before the first game! And for what's its worth, I still love HL2, and it absolutely deserves its legacy. I just find myself gravitating more towards the original game.
God, what a game. I remember my dad getting swept up in the leaks news, he was SO anxious that the game was going to get even more of a delay or even cancelled outright. I remember him coming into my room and saying "Come here, you have to see this." once he got the gravity gun. He tried to sit me down to play through the whole thing but my 9 year old pea brain got scared of the security check 5 minutes in. Thought being told to "pick up that can" and ACTUALLY being able to pick it up was the coolest thing, though. I share the same sentiments about the story. Retcon after retcon and OMG GORDON FREEMAN the whole way kinda dilute the entire experience. It's weird, on the one hand it's totally fanservicing everybody that loved the first game, yet it's almost like they wanted the story to be standalone enough for folks that didn't play the original and got caught up in the review hype. Also had no idea about that arcade port. That one is absolutely fascinating.
Absolutely, the story is enjoyable on its own but the hero worship and retconned characters do take me out of it. And yeah, Survivor is quite an intriguing footnote in the Half-Life series. I'd love to play a cabinet myself someday!
Can't say I agree with you regarding the vehicle parts. Back when HL2 was out and I was still in school, there was no FPS that did/incorporated that and had this adventurous feel. Maybe Halo, but it was still a Xbox exclusive (I had only a PC so no money for consoles) and didn't have the "same" feel. The vehicle sections were fast, aggressive and the addicting part for me was to get trough them effortlessly and in one swoop. I loved leaving the buggy and wonder about to find either resources or get myself into trouble, and the atmosphere of the canals was scary, unwelcoming and... well fun. It's still fun now and I also enjoyed it in Episode 2 Also, Combine not memorable... Come on dude...
Nah man, I'm all about Frohman But seriously now. Anybody else like the first half of the game? About up to Sandtraps chapter. You were on your own (mostly) and your surroundings were changing at a nice pace. I especially love the transition from Route Kanal to Water Hazard. Coastal levels aren't that bad actually. Yes, scout car's handling has aged quite a lot but there is that nice feeling of freedom. Oh and also *the* bridge, yeah that one.
Dude that intro/ background information on Half Life 2's development was hella interesting! I mean... what games development almost involve trying to catch a hacker with the FBI! xD Yet another video though that makes me want to visit this prestigious series. Would love to get into specifics on your videos but we seem to cover games neither of us have played or completed xD But as per usual, amazing video and I can't wait to learn more about the series with Half Life 2's episodes :)
Yeah, considering everything that happened behind the scenes at Valve, it's a miracle we got Half-Life 2 at all. And I absolutely recommend playing this series! They aren't very expensive on Steam if you don't already own them, especially during holiday sales.
We already talked about Half Life as a series. I played HL1 recently and thought it was okay. My criticisms of HL still apply to the second one though.
To your points, I definitely agree that the Half-Life story-centric linearity design of the Half-Life series (which you've stated your distaste for) is a lot more prevalent in Half-Life 2. For better or worse, HL2 was at the forefront of the FPS genre as it turned into what it is today.
Series has been great so far, glad I found your channel! I can appreciate the criticisms you put forth even if I don't agree, but I haven't played any of these games in awhile so I say that based on memory and nostalgia. One thing I did wonder a couple of times throughout the video was if you played all of these games to review consecutively in a relatively short amount of time? It kinda felt like maybe by this game you were getting pretty sick of the Half-Life formula due to burnout, but of course that's a wild ass guess. If so, I do appreciate how you managed to be as fair as you were. Must've taken one hell of an effort and would be downright impossible for most!
Old video, but it's a little refreshing to see a half-live 2 review that isn't just a unconditional praise of the game. It's a good game, but not without its flaws, and I think some of it didn't age particularly well. The tech demo remark honestly rings true to me, as I think some aspects of the game were clearly made to showcase the tech rather than provide the best game experience. I think it's best noticeable with the physics puzzles - they more of a novelty piece which loses its appeal once it stops being a novelty. Not to mention that often times they aren't all that creative, and boil down to "stack some weight on a seesaw". If not tech demo, the game surely structured a bit like a theme park ride - game introduces a gimmick, and has you play with that for a while, then moves on to the next gimmick. Here's the boat level, here's the car level, here's the antlion level, here's the squad level. Can't say it's wrong necessarily, but I think it does feel a bit artificial at times and it clash a bit with the idea to present an organic world to the player. HL1 still had some of these - like On a Rail chapter but I think far fewer of them, and weirdly enough it does feel more organic. Story is often praised, but Freeman as a messiah figure might not even make too much sense, and also keeping him as a silent protagonist while NPCs talk at him becomes a little awkward. As you pointed out, other NPCs became distinct characters, but Freeman stayed the same. First game was simpler, and we had just "the scientists" and "the guards" instead of NPCs with personality, so Freeman just being a silent avatar of the player was fitting. I think it doesn't work as well in HL2 no matter how much lampshading the game does. The "no cutscenes" argument is used often as a revolutionary feature, but functionally scripted sequences when you are locked in the room while NPCs talk, aren't much of an improvement. You have control over your character, yes, but you still can't really do anything, while at the same time, you can't have the main character to interact more organically with the NPC, which leads to the previous problem. So yea, interesting video, thanks for sharing.
19:01 I don't see the problem, isn't that what games do? Forcing a plot? At least we get to move around and ignore it in HL2 than a forced cutscene. Now a lot of what you say about HL2 I disagree with and don't see it that way, but I get not everyone likes the same things. 23:58 Well, technically ... You CAN make it in the entire game with the use of ... Some cool cheats that I know.
You know I really got to push against this every man narrative that so many people seem to have with Gordon Freeman, like the blank slate character okay, sure he's a scientist or at the very least an intern.. but has extensive firearms knowledge and training, is circus performance ability to jump and Tuck his legs.. a crackheads ability to swing a crowbar at something till it dies or explodes which is technically both, and and also I feel like this is a key point.. extensive familiarization knowledge and capabilities with firearms and combat. Like sure he has power armor, power armor is nice it helps.. but there's a lot of corpses in Zen that have power armor as well.. and a couple hundred Marines, few dozen special operations ninja ladies, and pretty much the entirety of the special operations universal Union breaching team, I'll beit conscripts but still.. Like, those grunts were literally born to kill.. designed to kill.. and Gordon Freeman's just in every man scientist yeah yeah no and killed every single fucking one of them pretty much, barring any playthroughs when you figured out the vorts would more or less leave you alone, and run away for good once they took a hit... like sure he's got his PhD but like the guys definitely got to have some sort of military service under his belt, maybe ROTC or something like that at the very least are you kidding me? Just the familiarization with military firearms, like all of them LOL well all that they brought with them which weren't the best apparently cuz.. like mp5s are cool and all and the grenade launcher thing is nifty but, well I guess they are the Marines so they probably took their real guns away that they just got that are 20 years old and gave them the mp5s like right before the mission LOL. And then tried to rewrite history and say it was an M16 LOL... Classic government. Look my point is okay for one he's a PhD theoretical physicist at a top secret lab experimenting and interdimensional travel and everything else that you could probably throw into a area 51 was for tourists government facility... So right there not really in every man, the fact that he also has an extraordinary amount of combat skills, to the point of where if he had not had combat experience it would not really make sense but at the very least, at the very least a grounded familiarization with weapons and tactics, let's not even get in to the fact that he can jump 5 ft in the air duck his legs in and shoot right on into a vent in one, and on occasion a few tries of the same technique LOL.. granted he also can't climb a chain link fence but you know, at this point I think we're specialized enough to forgive that LOL. So he's got that going for him and power armor, I really don't understand how people get this every man thing going on.. for when the the character is a blank slate, it's literally every man I suppose.. but just that by concept is like some some people they're Gordon Freeman is going to do grenade Foo for speed runs, like that's not an every man that takes a grenade and flies.. exactly to where he was trying to get to, despite that most men would just take the grenade and then fly to the last place they're going to go to.. Like you can overcome traumatic situations and all that shit but like, those Marines were were trained and on the tear that they were I don't know why it was the Marines again but maybe it was a budget thing, either way they would have seen combat experience and the special forces sent in to kill all the Marines, definitely had seen combat experience before LOL like that's that's not even going into the quite possible they were la femme Nikita from birth.. and and then and then we have to go into the the enemy grunts that were actually grown and designed for combat.. like every man my asshole... Like okay so he's not like a grunt but, like somebody taught him how to fight and you can't say TH-cam cuz this was the 90s.. and and like unless it was just every black Mesa employee was trained in this regard, that still doesn't make him every man that makes him a super scientist by professional title LOL not just happened to be a super killer and a scientist in that situation.. and also doesn't explain how many heV suit bodies you walk over.... so yeah I really don't get the Everyman thing like I hear it so many times and it's just like have you thought about this for like any amount of time? Considering how many people hold it super dear, it's kind of surprising actually... My theory, join the army at a young age.. maybe did special forces whatever, maybe ROTC who knows either way it got him in a position where he was both trained and specialized and then from there GI Bill, he seems to be pretty smart you know on account of the plot requiring it.. so maybe he did it did the PHD real quick, and on account of his specialization and government inside, got a job at a top secret research facility which is an extension of the government and the dod and all the other things that we don't know about that have some sort of oversight and authority that exceeds anything that we know about, have a complicated relationship with trains and time travel shenanigans, and our old enough of an organization to still polish their junior G-Man badge from the 1930s that they got when they put on there j Edgar training bra one day and stopped a major bootlegging operation at a young age when they were walking home from the post office and saw nefarious activities taking place and at the very moment, the badges pin got loose and pricked them inspiring them to not just stand by.. and instead beat them all to death with a briefcase... And then promptly contacting the authorities and returning all the money... all right that's as far as I'm going to go with that one but anyways hopefully at some point in the several reiterations somebody gets my point cuz I feel like I'm the only one that's ever said anything about this, and that doesn't make any sense at all.. but I would like to know more people that that are also calling bullshit on the everman thing...
I think the game is really good overall, but everytime I play it, the parts I find the most tedious are the boat section in Route Kanal, and Water Hazard, And the Driving Sections along the coast. It's really nothing more then padding and where's itself out really quickly.
I’d take HL2 over HL any day. HL has aged like bread and feels like a “you had to be there” kind of game. HL2 is still impressive detached from its context. I played both games back to back and while HL is definitely fun and a decent game, HL2 just captured my imagination in a way very few games have. I hate how popular the “it’s a bad sequel” and “it feels like a tech demo” takes have become. It feels to me like contrarianism coming from people who can’t look past their nostalgia for HL.
You´re so right, hl2 isn´t perfect but I cant really point out a glaring issue, while with how old hl1 is, you can. There´s nothing that is so obviously wrong with the game, you have to really dig in to find something that´s "wrong". The complaint about it being a tech demo is silly too, the game incorporates the physics so well into the gameplay that I don´t know how people can say that, maybe they´ve just gotten desensitized because of how popular the source engine is now, but I played HL2 almost 16 years after it came out and it still captured me in a way that no other game has.
@@CloudConnection Cool. No offense, but sometimes I would rather wait for the subtitles to be uploaded and then watch the retrospective videos (Not implying they aren't worth watching without them). Same thing when for Mandaloregaming and Ssethzeentach's videos, among others.
@Rudorlf Okay, so it took me way WAY longer than I wanted it to, but I've added subtitles for every video in the Half-Life retrospective except for my Black Mesa video, which I just uploaded today. (Subs for that will be uploaded soon.) Just letting you know.
loved hearing your criticism for this game. everyone praises this game like its perfect and it gets repetitive hearing praise all the time. Great video!
I haven't played it but it looks fun, personally, It doesn't seem like a real sequel to Half-Life to me but at the same time it does which is weird and I think that's due to the upgrade in graphics which kinda disconnects the two Update: Played it, it's good but doesn't feel like a sequel to Half-Life 1, it's a good game but not a great sequel.
Like probably most of the folks here I grew up on half life but especially hl2 and the source engine. I just replayed hl2 again after probably 8+ years and one thing referring to the "convenience" of the plot and the returning black mess cast...I just couldn't get over playing this time through how deliberately "convenient" your actions as Gordon and plot characters pull you along. Making these grand decisions for all of humanity, seemingly thoughtlessly. Similar to HL1, you unknowingly kill scores of innocents. Suppose all I'm trying to say is the plot "convienence" feels intentional. Whether or not this is just fanboy cope is another subject
So I'd like to make a correction here: I incorrectly assumed that the $250 million figure was referring to how much to leak caused Valve, but I believe that's actually the amount of damage caused by Gembe in total at the time of his arrest. The cost to Valve was probably much, much less than I stated it was in the video, and that's my bad for not properly vetting the information. But to answer your question, part of the cost to Valve would be from checking and upgrading their security. They'd have to audit and review their current security standards, and it's almost guaranteed that they'd spend a good chunk of change investing in new software/hardware to both patch their network to ensure no one could access it the way Gembe did again, and potentially ironing out more security flaws beyond that. Add to that the legal fees and the cost of PR work to communicate with the public afterward (and probably a bunch of other costs that I'm not aware of) and Valve would definitely feel a little sting financially. Not the $250 million I mistakenly believed it was, but not an inconsequential amount.
@@CloudConnection oooh, I didn't think of all that stuff. It makes total sense they'd want to improve security after that. Thanks a lot for the clarification! Your videos and explanations are very interesting.
My only problem with this game is that it doesn't feel like half life. Like, what the fuck happened? I love all the half life games but like, I would love some context man
My god, you're telling me that.. valve.. created a gameplay demo that was scripted..? Scripted? Like, a series of events channel down a narrow path of set pieces that tries you might to alter the course will play out the exactly the same way and any push to have any sort of will overset pieces will be extensively patched in order to not...* Rant>> * like I swear they put a couple hundred hours into making sure that the civilians died at the set points where they were supposed to die.. like why? Coming back to this game after 15 years, in Gmod with the physics gun god mode and host time scale, and the remover gun at one point.. I have failed on more than a few occasions to save scripted cities that used to just be a matter of shooting somebody quickly before they got got LOL, and that the windows for the ones that you actually can save still like they tighten those they put a lot of effort into making sure these people would die for the sequence that has no consequence to the overall plot or narrative, the staircase one.. with the people running down the staircase getting shot, that was a shot that was so tricky even with no clip at 001 time scale l... like I thought I was being sneaky by jumping through the elevator to the other staircase to get a better shot but as it turns out they're not going to spawn unless you're at the worst place to get that shot LOL and they tighten the distance, they basically have to die as they spawn... And the civilian in the tunnel get that gets shot by CP.. I ended up in a combat duel with the remover gun host time scale, fighting infinite spawning CPS desperate to finish out the script sequence.. and I failed that one, I must have evaporated at least a dozen before a CP spawned at just outside the tunnel while I was on the other end where they were responding from the other end for their insta kill sequence, who spawned right outside the graded tunnel entrance and got the shot off on spawning naturally, as did all of them.. hence why even the remover gun it's almost like they they thought about that you might use Gmod to try to save this guy, a guy that you could easily save including the other guy that was supposed to run out that doesn't actually do that anymore. Like why why did why was this a priority? Like, the amount of effort in some of these cases for just random people that you could save from the scripting sort of.. even the guy in the tunnels with the man hacks who dies later if you go back, you can't even carry him to safety, cuz he hits a death trigger as soon as you get to a certain point.. Like I get trying to keep these sequences from getting more janky, but you now insulated the outcome of the sequence with jank... I think what really cracks me up at this point, is you can fight layers of added final destination esque determination to kill the NPC yet for the sequence.. and it's almost like as a fuck you at the end it'll trip a death trigger of some kind.. like it will let you try it will be difficult and you'll probably have to use cheats at some point, and it'll let you.. but like toying with its food, eventually it's had enough and it'll just complete it's assigned task, no matter how entirely inconsequential... And one could argue that there's a progression issue, because of how heavily scripted everything is oh wait excuse me I thought that I guess that was a secret.. anyhow, like you'll have to get to certain places to trigger certain things and if those triggers don't happen it'll break the game in a lot of cases, you can break it right back to unbreak it but.. in all of these cases, you were more likely to break the game actually dealing with the added layers of determination to play out a sequence usually involving the death of an NPC naturally.. and, for other things LOL that you might have bright ideas on the pseudo immersive Sim mechanics that are core to the gameplay but completely utilized towards completing the exact sequence laid in front of you.. like for instance when a grenade is supposed to fall next to some barrels that are easy to see, that you might want to grab you know cuz barrels right.. I'll drag barrels through map loads.. those barrels weren't moving LOL they could not be moved they should have been able to be moved... they just gosh they just weren't moving and then I remembered all right this guy's supposed to drop a grenade and blow up the bridge thingy, of course valve would do that, considering all the layers that they put in in order to make sure NPCs died.. I just I'm just sitting here like, this game had more than a few bugs, still has more than a few bugs even if it is aged fairly gracefully I'll be at in reverse naturally and that's only fair considering the hardware difference in the time span, I'll be at in a lot of cases it was on account of the update pipeline philosophy which is also why it is still as playable as it is today on modern hardware as well so it's a double-edged sword I suppose, but.. making sure that the civie in the tunnel got got.. that was that was a priority damn it! Too many people were were shooting that CP in the tunnel and keeping the civilian from being shot, and it wasn't enough to make him run out and do a machine gun fire cuz they saw through that, just in PC must die he must die, it's not enough to have the five NPCs on the wall that were shot by the machine gun that's die this one must die more importantly, the gamers are defying our scripting Lord gaben, we gave them immersive Sim mechanics light immersive mechanics, just enough to make it feel like you're missing all the other immersive mechanics and enough to impress on a technical scale.. but gosh darn it I'll be damned if those wascally players try and interrupt our scripted sequences in an unbroken first person narrative! Ladies and gentlemen we have work to do.. oh they can't crouch anymore? They don't blink anymore are you kidding me how are you even bringing this up that is not an actual thing stop wasting my time, with this trivial nonsense.. tunnel civilian must die..
Probably I'm the only one who thinks HL series are overrated :/ They are great games with good mechanics but NO story Yet, people are still praising those games because of their story???
Sorry for the delay on this video, folks - personal stuff got in the way while I was writing this episode. I still will hopefully have the videos for Episode 1 and 2 out by the end of the year! (Postponing Black Mesa to a later date). Timecodes are in the description as usual! And before you ask, yes I did watch the Half-Life: Alyx trailer. It looks really promising! I'll share my thoughts in the Episode 2 video.
A question for all of you: do you prefer Half-Life or Half-Life 2?
Half-Life a thousand times over. MMod is brilliant, playing HL2 without it is agonizingly boring. But I just think Half-Life is better on all fronts, furthermore Black Mesa seems to be nearing completion. The "Complete Beta" has been rolled out and I must say, The Nihilanth fight is amazing if more than a little easy.
I find they both have there pros and cons, half life one is a classic, simple shooter. It doesn’t have much exposition or down time. So it’s great to sit down and play in a way half life 2 just doesn’t compliment. Half life 2 on the other hand is a game with rich story and fine tuned gameplay, all the pieces of it fit together in a way few other games have managed. In my opinion, I just have more fun with half life one. It’s just so easy to relax and play for an afternoon, I do play half life 2 just as much. But I enjoy the ability to play free from intrusive story moments more (not that I don’t love hl2s story)
Yeah, MMod is quite an improvement over Half-Life 2 - a game I still like to begin with. And I'm excited to finally play through Black Mesa, though I'm personally waiting until the game fully comes out of beta before I jump into it. From what I've seen of Black Mesa Xen, it looks incredible!
Agreed! I still enjoy Half-Life 2's story but after playing the game so many times, I do tend to get annoyed when story sequences occur just because I already know what's gonna happen. Half-Life 1 may have much less of a plot but it definitely has better story/gameplay pacing.
CloudConnection Yeah, as much as I love hl2, But please Kliner shut up, Lamar is fine.
I don't really look at Half-Life's character re-introductions as retcons, more as just building characters from the blank canvas Half-Life established. Barneys and scientists were just character models with a couple of repetitious lines. They layered the story on top of their vaguely familiar faces. There was no continuity to retroactively change in that department.
Fair enough, but it still feels like a bad plot decision that so many of Gordon's Black Mesa colleagues are still around and in the same place as him during Half-Life 2. It feels too convenient, and I can understand that in the context of the overall story (that would most likely be the G-man's influence), but it's never really sat right with me. Knowing that they were entirely seperate non-Black Mesa related characters in the beta makes it stand out more to me.
@@CloudConnection I suppose it would make sense for them to stay together after the events of Black Mesa, though, so it's not all that odd. Never really thought of that much.
@@CloudConnection i know this was 4 years old and theres like no point in responding but while i agree with the whole too many black mesa survivors thing the reason gordon is near all of them is because of gman intentionally placing him there
There's nothing wrong with the game putting out more music during gameplay. In older shooters such as Doom, Quake, GoldenEye 64, etc, you had music playing out a lot.
I never even noticed the citizens only had 2 voice actors until you pointed it out!
Even Odessa Cubbage is just the male citizen VA doing an accent
I definitely noticed there was a lot of reuse, which is pretty normal, but honestly every time I think about it I'm kind of genuinely impressed that they pulled it off.. actually pretty much the whole thing when you think about it, this game is a deadly serious game, that still manages to be fun while at the same time keeping that atmosphere that is almost impossible unless you're doing a Schindler's list.. which I mean 1984 is a good grab, I'm still utterly impressed by how qualitatively they translated that and made it work especially in the era, and especially coming from half life which on the surface at the very least is campy at best, only getting far darker and more in line with the sequel when you look at the behind the scenes aspects....
While I don't agree with some of the changes being better or worse compared to the first game, you made some solid points that I totally respect. HL2 the game that got me into FPS's and played it before I got the chance to play the first Half Life, so I suppose I might be a bit biased or lack the perspective you're coming from. Great video as always though, especially with how you articulated your points.
You probably don't lack that perspective, actually, because I also played HL2 before the first game! And for what's its worth, I still love HL2, and it absolutely deserves its legacy. I just find myself gravitating more towards the original game.
God, what a game. I remember my dad getting swept up in the leaks news, he was SO anxious that the game was going to get even more of a delay or even cancelled outright. I remember him coming into my room and saying "Come here, you have to see this." once he got the gravity gun. He tried to sit me down to play through the whole thing but my 9 year old pea brain got scared of the security check 5 minutes in. Thought being told to "pick up that can" and ACTUALLY being able to pick it up was the coolest thing, though.
I share the same sentiments about the story. Retcon after retcon and OMG GORDON FREEMAN the whole way kinda dilute the entire experience. It's weird, on the one hand it's totally fanservicing everybody that loved the first game, yet it's almost like they wanted the story to be standalone enough for folks that didn't play the original and got caught up in the review hype.
Also had no idea about that arcade port. That one is absolutely fascinating.
Absolutely, the story is enjoyable on its own but the hero worship and retconned characters do take me out of it. And yeah, Survivor is quite an intriguing footnote in the Half-Life series. I'd love to play a cabinet myself someday!
Can't say I agree with you regarding the vehicle parts.
Back when HL2 was out and I was still in school, there was no FPS that did/incorporated that and had this adventurous feel. Maybe Halo, but it was still a Xbox exclusive (I had only a PC so no money for consoles) and didn't have the "same" feel. The vehicle sections were fast, aggressive and the addicting part for me was to get trough them effortlessly and in one swoop. I loved leaving the buggy and wonder about to find either resources or get myself into trouble, and the atmosphere of the canals was scary, unwelcoming and... well fun.
It's still fun now and I also enjoyed it in Episode 2
Also, Combine not memorable... Come on dude...
Nah man, I'm all about Frohman
But seriously now. Anybody else like the first half of the game? About up to Sandtraps chapter. You were on your own (mostly) and your surroundings were changing at a nice pace. I especially love the transition from Route Kanal to Water Hazard. Coastal levels aren't that bad actually. Yes, scout car's handling has aged quite a lot but there is that nice feeling of freedom. Oh and also *the* bridge, yeah that one.
Just finished playing through this again. My goodness what a great game. Still stands up. Awesome experience.
No loud music nor sound effects.
Just some good lore reading with a pleasant voice.
Not too loud nor too quiet.
Perfectly done video.
I feel like hl2 is best on it's first play through, and hl1 is best after mastering it.
Dude that intro/ background information on Half Life 2's development was hella interesting! I mean... what games development almost involve trying to catch a hacker with the FBI! xD Yet another video though that makes me want to visit this prestigious series. Would love to get into specifics on your videos but we seem to cover games neither of us have played or completed xD But as per usual, amazing video and I can't wait to learn more about the series with Half Life 2's episodes :)
Yeah, considering everything that happened behind the scenes at Valve, it's a miracle we got Half-Life 2 at all. And I absolutely recommend playing this series! They aren't very expensive on Steam if you don't already own them, especially during holiday sales.
I wrote my research paper for English class about Half-Life 2 and used your video as a source. Thanks for being a reason I got a B on the paper :]
We already talked about Half Life as a series. I played HL1 recently and thought it was okay. My criticisms of HL still apply to the second one though.
To your points, I definitely agree that the Half-Life story-centric linearity design of the Half-Life series (which you've stated your distaste for) is a lot more prevalent in Half-Life 2. For better or worse, HL2 was at the forefront of the FPS genre as it turned into what it is today.
Series has been great so far, glad I found your channel! I can appreciate the criticisms you put forth even if I don't agree, but I haven't played any of these games in awhile so I say that based on memory and nostalgia. One thing I did wonder a couple of times throughout the video was if you played all of these games to review consecutively in a relatively short amount of time? It kinda felt like maybe by this game you were getting pretty sick of the Half-Life formula due to burnout, but of course that's a wild ass guess. If so, I do appreciate how you managed to be as fair as you were. Must've taken one hell of an effort and would be downright impossible for most!
Mossman wasn't a Black Mesa employee, she applied for the same position as Gordon, who was hired instead of her.
How good HL2 looks for a game released in 2004 still blows me away
37:19
Call me crazy, but that high-pitched warbling kinda sounds like “free-man, free-man, free-man”
Old video, but it's a little refreshing to see a half-live 2 review that isn't just a unconditional praise of the game. It's a good game, but not without its flaws, and I think some of it didn't age particularly well. The tech demo remark honestly rings true to me, as I think some aspects of the game were clearly made to showcase the tech rather than provide the best game experience. I think it's best noticeable with the physics puzzles - they more of a novelty piece which loses its appeal once it stops being a novelty. Not to mention that often times they aren't all that creative, and boil down to "stack some weight on a seesaw".
If not tech demo, the game surely structured a bit like a theme park ride - game introduces a gimmick, and has you play with that for a while, then moves on to the next gimmick. Here's the boat level, here's the car level, here's the antlion level, here's the squad level. Can't say it's wrong necessarily, but I think it does feel a bit artificial at times and it clash a bit with the idea to present an organic world to the player. HL1 still had some of these - like On a Rail chapter but I think far fewer of them, and weirdly enough it does feel more organic.
Story is often praised, but Freeman as a messiah figure might not even make too much sense, and also keeping him as a silent protagonist while NPCs talk at him becomes a little awkward. As you pointed out, other NPCs became distinct characters, but Freeman stayed the same. First game was simpler, and we had just "the scientists" and "the guards" instead of NPCs with personality, so Freeman just being a silent avatar of the player was fitting. I think it doesn't work as well in HL2 no matter how much lampshading the game does.
The "no cutscenes" argument is used often as a revolutionary feature, but functionally scripted sequences when you are locked in the room while NPCs talk, aren't much of an improvement. You have control over your character, yes, but you still can't really do anything, while at the same time, you can't have the main character to interact more organically with the NPC, which leads to the previous problem.
So yea, interesting video, thanks for sharing.
The sound design for this game was banging I loved all the tracks and I got pumped when they played
19:01 I don't see the problem, isn't that what games do? Forcing a plot? At least we get to move around and ignore it in HL2 than a forced cutscene.
Now a lot of what you say about HL2 I disagree with and don't see it that way, but I get not everyone likes the same things.
23:58 Well, technically ... You CAN make it in the entire game with the use of ... Some cool cheats that I know.
7:03 oh Deutschland, you’ll never allow anyone to stomp on you will ya?
Pretty sick behaviour from Valve.
You know I really got to push against this every man narrative that so many people seem to have with Gordon Freeman, like the blank slate character okay, sure he's a scientist or at the very least an intern.. but has extensive firearms knowledge and training, is circus performance ability to jump and Tuck his legs.. a crackheads ability to swing a crowbar at something till it dies or explodes which is technically both, and and also I feel like this is a key point.. extensive familiarization knowledge and capabilities with firearms and combat. Like sure he has power armor, power armor is nice it helps.. but there's a lot of corpses in Zen that have power armor as well.. and a couple hundred Marines, few dozen special operations ninja ladies, and pretty much the entirety of the special operations universal Union breaching team, I'll beit conscripts but still..
Like, those grunts were literally born to kill.. designed to kill.. and Gordon Freeman's just in every man scientist yeah yeah no and killed every single fucking one of them pretty much, barring any playthroughs when you figured out the vorts would more or less leave you alone, and run away for good once they took a hit...
like sure he's got his PhD but like the guys definitely got to have some sort of military service under his belt, maybe ROTC or something like that at the very least are you kidding me? Just the familiarization with military firearms, like all of them LOL well all that they brought with them which weren't the best apparently cuz.. like mp5s are cool and all and the grenade launcher thing is nifty but, well I guess they are the Marines so they probably took their real guns away that they just got that are 20 years old and gave them the mp5s like right before the mission LOL. And then tried to rewrite history and say it was an M16 LOL... Classic government.
Look my point is okay for one he's a PhD theoretical physicist at a top secret lab experimenting and interdimensional travel and everything else that you could probably throw into a area 51 was for tourists government facility... So right there not really in every man, the fact that he also has an extraordinary amount of combat skills, to the point of where if he had not had combat experience it would not really make sense but at the very least, at the very least a grounded familiarization with weapons and tactics, let's not even get in to the fact that he can jump 5 ft in the air duck his legs in and shoot right on into a vent in one, and on occasion a few tries of the same technique LOL.. granted he also can't climb a chain link fence but you know, at this point I think we're specialized enough to forgive that LOL.
So he's got that going for him and power armor, I really don't understand how people get this every man thing going on.. for when the the character is a blank slate, it's literally every man I suppose.. but just that by concept is like some some people they're Gordon Freeman is going to do grenade Foo for speed runs, like that's not an every man that takes a grenade and flies.. exactly to where he was trying to get to, despite that most men would just take the grenade and then fly to the last place they're going to go to..
Like you can overcome traumatic situations and all that shit but like, those Marines were were trained and on the tear that they were I don't know why it was the Marines again but maybe it was a budget thing, either way they would have seen combat experience and the special forces sent in to kill all the Marines, definitely had seen combat experience before LOL like that's that's not even going into the quite possible they were la femme Nikita from birth.. and and then and then we have to go into the the enemy grunts that were actually grown and designed for combat.. like every man my asshole... Like okay so he's not like a grunt but, like somebody taught him how to fight and you can't say TH-cam cuz this was the 90s.. and and like unless it was just every black Mesa employee was trained in this regard, that still doesn't make him every man that makes him a super scientist by professional title LOL not just happened to be a super killer and a scientist in that situation.. and also doesn't explain how many heV suit bodies you walk over....
so yeah I really don't get the Everyman thing like I hear it so many times and it's just like have you thought about this for like any amount of time? Considering how many people hold it super dear, it's kind of surprising actually...
My theory, join the army at a young age.. maybe did special forces whatever, maybe ROTC who knows either way it got him in a position where he was both trained and specialized and then from there GI Bill, he seems to be pretty smart you know on account of the plot requiring it.. so maybe he did it did the PHD real quick, and on account of his specialization and government inside, got a job at a top secret research facility which is an extension of the government and the dod and all the other things that we don't know about that have some sort of oversight and authority that exceeds anything that we know about, have a complicated relationship with trains and time travel shenanigans, and our old enough of an organization to still polish their junior G-Man badge from the 1930s that they got when they put on there j Edgar training bra one day and stopped a major bootlegging operation at a young age when they were walking home from the post office and saw nefarious activities taking place and at the very moment, the badges pin got loose and pricked them inspiring them to not just stand by.. and instead beat them all to death with a briefcase... And then promptly contacting the authorities and returning all the money...
all right that's as far as I'm going to go with that one but anyways hopefully at some point in the several reiterations somebody gets my point cuz I feel like I'm the only one that's ever said anything about this, and that doesn't make any sense at all.. but I would like to know more people that that are also calling bullshit on the everman thing...
I agree with most things i this video except the music being overused and stuff I think the music is used right
I think the game is really good overall, but everytime I play it, the parts I find the most tedious are the boat section in Route Kanal, and Water Hazard, And the Driving Sections along the coast. It's really nothing more then padding and where's itself out really quickly.
I’d take HL2 over HL any day. HL has aged like bread and feels like a “you had to be there” kind of game. HL2 is still impressive detached from its context. I played both games back to back and while HL is definitely fun and a decent game, HL2 just captured my imagination in a way very few games have.
I hate how popular the “it’s a bad sequel” and “it feels like a tech demo” takes have become. It feels to me like contrarianism coming from people who can’t look past their nostalgia for HL.
You´re so right, hl2 isn´t perfect but I cant really point out a glaring issue, while with how old hl1 is, you can. There´s nothing that is so obviously wrong with the game, you have to really dig in to find something that´s "wrong". The complaint about it being a tech demo is silly too, the game incorporates the physics so well into the gameplay that I don´t know how people can say that, maybe they´ve just gotten desensitized because of how popular the source engine is now, but I played HL2 almost 16 years after it came out and it still captured me in a way that no other game has.
Gmod is a half life mod too! #Gmodlivesmatter
New Half-Life vid, woo.
So when you gonna cover Half-Life 3?
After 9 years in development
So no more subtitles on this series from now on? (Actually since Decay)
I'll add them later on, I was just too bogged down with other stuff to get them done before the video released. But they'll be up at some point.
@@CloudConnection Cool. No offense, but sometimes I would rather wait for the subtitles to be uploaded and then watch the retrospective videos (Not implying they aren't worth watching without them). Same thing when for Mandaloregaming and Ssethzeentach's videos, among others.
Perfectly understandable! I'll reply here again when the subs go up.
@@CloudConnection It's alright. No rush about it.
@Rudorlf Okay, so it took me way WAY longer than I wanted it to, but I've added subtitles for every video in the Half-Life retrospective except for my Black Mesa video, which I just uploaded today. (Subs for that will be uploaded soon.) Just letting you know.
loved hearing your criticism for this game. everyone praises this game like its perfect and it gets repetitive hearing praise all the time. Great video!
Half-Life 1: Chaotic Awesomeness
Half-Life 2: Slow Burning Masterpiece
42:00 Homura did nothing wrong
Homura agrees
I haven't played it but it looks fun, personally, It doesn't seem like a real sequel to Half-Life to me but at the same time it does which is weird and I think that's due to the upgrade in graphics which kinda disconnects the two
Update: Played it, it's good but doesn't feel like a sequel to Half-Life 1, it's a good game but not a great sequel.
31:02 It's completely impossible--you spend about a third of the game without it.
True. XD XD XD
Like probably most of the folks here I grew up on half life but especially hl2 and the source engine. I just replayed hl2 again after probably 8+ years and one thing referring to the "convenience" of the plot and the returning black mess cast...I just couldn't get over playing this time through how deliberately "convenient" your actions as Gordon and plot characters pull you along. Making these grand decisions for all of humanity, seemingly thoughtlessly. Similar to HL1, you unknowingly kill scores of innocents. Suppose all I'm trying to say is the plot "convienence" feels intentional. Whether or not this is just fanboy cope is another subject
this video is underrated
Why did the leak cost Valve so much? The hacker didn't delete their work, right? I don't know how these things work, can anyone explain it to me?
So I'd like to make a correction here: I incorrectly assumed that the $250 million figure was referring to how much to leak caused Valve, but I believe that's actually the amount of damage caused by Gembe in total at the time of his arrest. The cost to Valve was probably much, much less than I stated it was in the video, and that's my bad for not properly vetting the information.
But to answer your question, part of the cost to Valve would be from checking and upgrading their security. They'd have to audit and review their current security standards, and it's almost guaranteed that they'd spend a good chunk of change investing in new software/hardware to both patch their network to ensure no one could access it the way Gembe did again, and potentially ironing out more security flaws beyond that. Add to that the legal fees and the cost of PR work to communicate with the public afterward (and probably a bunch of other costs that I'm not aware of) and Valve would definitely feel a little sting financially. Not the $250 million I mistakenly believed it was, but not an inconsequential amount.
@@CloudConnection oooh, I didn't think of all that stuff. It makes total sense they'd want to improve security after that. Thanks a lot for the clarification! Your videos and explanations are very interesting.
I agree with literally everything you said lol
there is so much wrong in this video...
13:50 HAILF LIAF 2
A worthy successor? Duh.
Hello gamers, I am Thirdy
My only problem with this game is that it doesn't feel like half life. Like, what the fuck happened? I love all the half life games but like, I would love some context man
My god, you're telling me that.. valve.. created a gameplay demo that was scripted..? Scripted? Like, a series of events channel down a narrow path of set pieces that tries you might to alter the course will play out the exactly the same way and any push to have any sort of will overset pieces will be extensively patched in order to not...*
Rant>>
* like I swear they put a couple hundred hours into making sure that the civilians died at the set points where they were supposed to die.. like why? Coming back to this game after 15 years, in Gmod with the physics gun god mode and host time scale, and the remover gun at one point.. I have failed on more than a few occasions to save scripted cities that used to just be a matter of shooting somebody quickly before they got got LOL, and that the windows for the ones that you actually can save still like they tighten those they put a lot of effort into making sure these people would die for the sequence that has no consequence to the overall plot or narrative, the staircase one.. with the people running down the staircase getting shot, that was a shot that was so tricky even with no clip at 001 time scale l... like I thought I was being sneaky by jumping through the elevator to the other staircase to get a better shot but as it turns out they're not going to spawn unless you're at the worst place to get that shot LOL and they tighten the distance, they basically have to die as they spawn...
And the civilian in the tunnel get that gets shot by CP.. I ended up in a combat duel with the remover gun host time scale, fighting infinite spawning CPS desperate to finish out the script sequence.. and I failed that one, I must have evaporated at least a dozen before a CP spawned at just outside the tunnel while I was on the other end where they were responding from the other end for their insta kill sequence, who spawned right outside the graded tunnel entrance and got the shot off on spawning naturally, as did all of them.. hence why even the remover gun it's almost like they they thought about that you might use Gmod to try to save this guy, a guy that you could easily save including the other guy that was supposed to run out that doesn't actually do that anymore.
Like why why did why was this a priority? Like, the amount of effort in some of these cases for just random people that you could save from the scripting sort of.. even the guy in the tunnels with the man hacks who dies later if you go back, you can't even carry him to safety, cuz he hits a death trigger as soon as you get to a certain point..
Like I get trying to keep these sequences from getting more janky, but you now insulated the outcome of the sequence with jank... I think what really cracks me up at this point, is you can fight layers of added final destination esque determination to kill the NPC yet for the sequence.. and it's almost like as a fuck you at the end it'll trip a death trigger of some kind.. like it will let you try it will be difficult and you'll probably have to use cheats at some point, and it'll let you.. but like toying with its food, eventually it's had enough and it'll just complete it's assigned task, no matter how entirely inconsequential... And one could argue that there's a progression issue, because of how heavily scripted everything is oh wait excuse me I thought that I guess that was a secret.. anyhow, like you'll have to get to certain places to trigger certain things and if those triggers don't happen it'll break the game in a lot of cases, you can break it right back to unbreak it but.. in all of these cases, you were more likely to break the game actually dealing with the added layers of determination to play out a sequence usually involving the death of an NPC naturally.. and, for other things LOL that you might have bright ideas on the pseudo immersive Sim mechanics that are core to the gameplay but completely utilized towards completing the exact sequence laid in front of you.. like for instance when a grenade is supposed to fall next to some barrels that are easy to see, that you might want to grab you know cuz barrels right.. I'll drag barrels through map loads.. those barrels weren't moving LOL they could not be moved they should have been able to be moved... they just gosh they just weren't moving and then I remembered all right this guy's supposed to drop a grenade and blow up the bridge thingy, of course valve would do that, considering all the layers that they put in in order to make sure NPCs died..
I just I'm just sitting here like, this game had more than a few bugs, still has more than a few bugs even if it is aged fairly gracefully I'll be at in reverse naturally and that's only fair considering the hardware difference in the time span, I'll be at in a lot of cases it was on account of the update pipeline philosophy which is also why it is still as playable as it is today on modern hardware as well so it's a double-edged sword I suppose, but.. making sure that the civie in the tunnel got got.. that was that was a priority damn it! Too many people were were shooting that CP in the tunnel and keeping the civilian from being shot, and it wasn't enough to make him run out and do a machine gun fire cuz they saw through that, just in PC must die he must die, it's not enough to have the five NPCs on the wall that were shot by the machine gun that's die this one must die more importantly, the gamers are defying our scripting Lord gaben, we gave them immersive Sim mechanics light immersive mechanics, just enough to make it feel like you're missing all the other immersive mechanics and enough to impress on a technical scale.. but gosh darn it I'll be damned if those wascally players try and interrupt our scripted sequences in an unbroken first person narrative! Ladies and gentlemen we have work to do.. oh they can't crouch anymore? They don't blink anymore are you kidding me how are you even bringing this up that is not an actual thing stop wasting my time, with this trivial nonsense.. tunnel civilian must die..
Firsty??
I think this is the first time people have started a first/second/third comment train on my channel! Thanks for breaking the mold, James!
half life litterally begins on a train and youre complaining about railroading the player in HL2. come on breh lol
Secondy
This game sucks
Probably I'm the only one who thinks HL series are overrated :/
They are great games with good mechanics but NO story
Yet, people are still praising those games because of their story???
I disagree i think the story is great.
@@thatwolfensteinguy8954 but games dont tell you that story
They always focus on gameplay
It’s bc the stories is show and not tell, you gotta explore