HL2 post game analysis [spoilers]
 

Ending kind of sucked. Gordon should be dead from that explosion, and I was kind of expecting an epic battle for the end, but instead its another shrub-niggarath. I really wasn't expecting that scene to be the end. Left way too many unanswered questions.

It was mentioned that the combine were from another universe or something, but that really didn't explain very much. They should have stretched out the last chapter to explain more about the combine and make a decent end "boss".


I'd rate HL2 80%. Better than Doom 3, but still could have been better. Mostly bug free, but at this one scene in the game where Gordon, Alyx and Mossman are working the teleporter at the end of the prison chapter the scripting was broken for me. Everyone just stood around.

Re: HL2 post game analysis [spoilers]
 

actually i think the combine are Hgrunts but i could be wrong

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Yes they're human, as Barney was recruited as one.

Re: HL2 post game analysis [spoilers]
 

he wasn't recruited, he was under cover

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Well same difference.

Re: HL2 post game analysis [spoilers]
 

Heyyo,

Definately another universe man, remember, that main badguy said that he'd be teleported to another universe... well, before the ending that is. ;)

The scripting worked perfectly for me, I think for a game it's the best, cause the cutscenes weren't cinematic were you couldn't move, you cound run aboot and do what you wanted. ;)

Gordon may be a scientist, but the stuff you do makes him seem like a n00b, like, going into one of those prisoner clamps... i mean, why not hang onto the outside? I'd be hard yes, but better than incarcerated...

I hated those headcrabs that poison you, it shouldn't take you down to only 1 health, I've died a couple times from them and then another headcrab would leap outta somewhere and kill me... annoying...

I LOVE the new crossbow, how it launches those heated metal rods, freakin' pwns. :D

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Yeah the crossbow is a lot better, but I miss some of the old guns like the hand-held guass gun and the egon.

Re: HL2 post game analysis [spoilers]
 

Heyyo,

True, but the one part that pissed me off is how rockets are guided only... you can't change it to off. I've died a few times by striders cause I couldn't turn off the guided mode, and had to stand out there so the rocket would hit it, or I'd hide, and the rocket homes in on the object just infront of me... oh the choices how few and agonizing they are. :P

Re: HL2 post game analysis [spoilers]
 

finished HL2.

The ending did not suck at all! Although it did come unexpected. Btw, gordon does not die because time gets frozen. And actually i think its a lead to HL3. Remember the teleporting with Alyx? The scientist said you where away for a WEEK. Though it was only a few secs for you and alyx.

The g-man really rocks, though its very hard to spot him. I have seen him 2 times appearing in the game. I bet he is mroe often visible, though you are busy with so many other things :)

Also, noticed the ending is the same as the begin? (the stars, and such). And, as the g-man said, it also looked to him you did your job within a few seconds too.

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Still, I was hoping for more answers and less questions. Now to wait for HL3:D

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i think, in HL3 you get in a time machine and fix Black mesa's incident. And nothing ever happened. Cliché ? :D

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Heyyo,

http://members.shaw.ca/storage_4/hl2story/

There ya go, the WHOLE HL story, from pre-HL1, to post HL2... well, a little post HL2, just after gman's outtro.

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If the writer of the HL story says its accurate I guess its pretty good:)

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yeah i read it. Ow well, we get HL3, then we have HL:The movie + HL : The Book

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Thats one thing we don't need: A Half-Life movie. I still mourn for Doom, as its getting a movie.

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I already saw that Half-Life will get a movie. There are plans for it, i even saw something for it on the internet.

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Gaah!

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Heyyo,

Heh, yeah, there was rumors of one. I remember, I think it was PC Gamer, but they wrote for the cast of charaters this for headcrabs: David Spade. Lol, it had a pic of him in that Joe Dirt movie with the big sideburns and they wrote something like, "Even his side burns resemble those of a headcrabs front sensors, and there's just something satisfying about the idea of taking a crowbar to David Spade's head." :D

Re: HL2 post game analysis [spoilers]
 

Feh! Now the Doom movie has absolutely nothing to do with Doom anymore. Its not on the moons of Mars, they aren't Marines, and the monsters aren't demons from Hell.

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I just realized something. You know how at the end you launch a combine ball into the portal? Well, a combine soldier does that when you are teleporting out of Nova Prospekt, and you live! What if Breen is still alive...

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What the hell kind of ending was that? I mean we don't even know if Gordon at least got to sleep with Alyx once or nothing :)

No, it wasn't that bad, but i sure would like to know more at the end, hell i guess HL was like that anyway so oh well, i can see a HL3 coming out though, hopefully before 2055. ;)

I think the gameplay was way better than Doom 3 as far as the overall gameplay feeling. Doom 3 has got HL2 licked as far as plot goes though, but not Half-Life as a whole (if that makes any sense).

Was a rather short game, maybe i'm just getting better at video games, but didn't HL2 seem to go by rather quickly? I mean it took me over a month to beat HL, and even Doom 3 was longer than HL2.

Overall though it was a great game, a bit short but that's okay. I still hate that Steam crap though, i hope they go a little bit softer on that activation stuff in the future. Not so much for multiplayer, but it shouldn't be required to activate your game if your playing Single Player only.

Hope we see some expansion packs soon, like a HL2: Opposing Force would be neat. Or a continuation of the storyline where the ending left off. All i really hope is we don't have to wait like 6 years for a sequal.

Re: HL2 post game analysis [spoilers]
 

Heyyo,

Err.. HL3 is already in the makings I believe... ;)

Sure, Doom3 has actual storyline (for a change), but HL2 storyline's pretty good too... but you need to like, know it before any of it actually makes sense. Like, those newsclippings of 'the 7th war' and how 'earth surrenders' diddn't really make sense. But yeah, read that link I pasted on the 1st page of this thread, and it'll make a lot of sense. ;)

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In Doom 3, you actually know what happened. Not so in Half-life.

The only thing I wasn't sure about was Dr. Betruger. Was he the devil? Also, did the marine go crazy at the end?

Re: HL2 post game analysis [spoilers]
 

I don't think Betruger was the devil, he just made a deal with him and failed. I don't know if Doomguy went crazy, but he'll be back in the expansion anyway.

And I definently agree with Denny, Doom3's plot was better than HL2's. Namely, HL2 didn't have any plot development. Aside from how you learn about the "benefactors" existance and the fact that Breen is working for them, you don't learn anything that you can't learn from reading a preview of the game.

Doom3 even beats HL2 for the end-boss. Doom3's Cyberdemon was a dissapointment, too easy to beat and you can only hurt it with that cube thingy, but HL2's "boss" was just plain awful. I was hoping for some epic battle with some sort of mutant Strider or something cool, but no, I have to shoot a few balls at a teleporter.

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Exactly, i mean we couldn't even take him on with regular weapons, at least it would been more of a challenge, especially with those imps and stuff getting in your way. The Cyberdemon was an alright boss, but the way you go about beating him was all wrong. The Spider Mastermind or something woulda been more "Doom Like" or remember that skull thing at the end of Doom 2? Good lord was that tough to beat, i had to cheat eventually just to finish that level.

For HL2, that's what i was expecting too, actually i was expecting to go back into Xen and have an epic battle there, like you got sucked into the teleport or something. Those gunships were a little annoying, but pretty easy to beat, i mean 2 energy balls and they were finished. Remember Nihlanth(Sp?) in the first half-life? man that guy was tough, first you had to shoot his head open, then toss explosives in there, was quite tricky.

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I'm not yet there, I've just started playing HL2 yesterday... but for what I witnessed, the Combine AI is like, uh, impressive!

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i played HL2 on hard right from the start, and its difficult! The AI is way better then set on normal or easy..

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I completed Hl2 easily on Hard mode, shame I think. Maybe I play too many games instead of concentrating on my uni course... lol
Haven't finished Doom 3 tho cos of stupid hardware not good enough to run it well enough to get a decent playable fps. Not to mention I am using nv graphics card. But must admit the A.I in doom3 don't have to be sophisticated since they only have to shoot down a corridor, while with Half Life 2 the area is larger. No one else have any dumb A I moments? eg shoot one cp and the other didn't react?

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Denny, do you mean the Icon of Sin?

I think it was funny that you got to kill John Romero. In fact, I hear if you play the challenge at the level backwards, it says something about it being him.

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"To win the game you must kill me, John Romero."

ID really should get that guy and the old team back together.

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Yeah, that's the level, god was that next to impossible to beat. I mean having to face all them enemies that keep respawning and then having to hit the actuall skull in a certain spot was frustratingly hard.

Lethal brings up a very good point i forgot too mention, HL2 runs way better than Doom 3 graphic wise. I averaged 30-35 fps on Doom 3 with some lag almost constant (bearable though) but in HL2 i experienced absolutely no slow down's at all except a couple real minor one's. Kudos goto Valve for making the engine run so smooth.

Maybe i should try HL2 on Hard, i played it on normal (like most games), maybe it's just time for me to start playing initially on hard mode for every game because man am i dusting through games fast these days not to brag or anything but they don't seem to be getting any harder on normal skill setting. :)

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Making a game artificially difficult isn't a good way to extend game's longevity. You're dusting through them fast because apparently according to developers most gamers don't finish their games, so they think that $70 CDN is only worth 7 hours of game play.

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So in short, developers are making them shorter so more people finish the game, correct?

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Heyyo,

No what he means is most people don't finish the game cause they usually get frustrated with it, or get a different game. So usually the span of attention to a game isin't too high (well, at least for games in the past this was so..), so developpers know they don't have to make huge storylines and hours upon hours long longevity fun. So in other words:

Average gamer attention span to singleplayer (According to developpers): 5-6Hrs.

Average time to complete the campaign (According to us gamers): 7Hrs at the most.

So you see, they usually try to make games at least longer than our spans, so they think it's a huge campaign n' stuff. Nowadays, most games are getting good storylines and good gameplay, so most people do try and finish them. ;)

Ya know whats sad though? we get short storylines (that's our standard) and for RPG's if the game's less than 20hrs of gameplay it's not worth it. (Many people hate $boxes 'Fable' cause it's beatable in 8hrs...)

If only we could raise our gun-ho standards to a few extra hours....

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RPGs and RTS game campaigns are usually pretty decent lenth, but FPS game campaigns are much too short. The last FPS game that I played that had a decent lenth to it was "The Suffering", and its a few years old.

I think 15-20 hour single player campaign lenth would be great for FPS games, but sadly they always have the shortest lenths. I usually don't play through the entire campaign in RTS games, and most RPG games get boring long before I've beaten them.

My attention span is longest for FPS games, theres only two FPS games that I didn't beat; "Will Rock" and "The Fortress of Doctor Radiaki".

"Will Rock" was awful. They took all the worst elements of FPS games and packed it into one big heap.

And the Radiaki one, I was really young when I had it, and all it was was a knock-off of Wolfenstein. There was no competition there as to which one to play.


Edit: Got all nostalgic on Radiaki, looked it up here. It was out in '94, later than I thought. I guess I had Doom to play instead, not Wolf. Mobygames score: 1.5/5 , ouch.

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Heyyo,

Lol, will rock, yeah, I read it was ghey, so I just stuck with the good ol' Serious Sam series... I heard will rock diddn't even have MP coop... One of the main reasons I'm probably not gonna buy Painkiller. :(

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No, Will Rock has MP coop, but its still unplayable.

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can't wait for HL 2 cooperative ;)

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Heyyo,

Stefan, you can already do really cheaply emulated HL2 coop:

disconnect
net_start
sv_lan 0
deathmatch 1
maxplayers *number*
map *mapname*
restart


then for the other computer type:
connect *ip and port*


then there ya go.... the built in gordon model is fugly since it's just there for hitboxes I bet (lmao, all guns shoot out of his 3rd leg :P)

Also, bots are only so far programmed for 1 player eh? so it only shoots at whoever's hosting, so anyone else gets a walk in the park. :D

Careful, don't whip too much stuff at eachother, or else it can crash the server... also, for a better gordon model, go to http://www.hl2files.com and get that gf_gordon model or whatever it's called...

Or, if you want an actual good coop experience, wait in line with us all for svencoop2... there's some cool dev pics at the official site: http://www.svencoop.com ;)

Re: HL2 post game analysis [spoilers]
 

i already know that method, heh, but it sucks! :D ;)