- Joined
- Dec 19, 2019
We're around, I suspect possibly more than you might think....maybe.
I don't care to answer Star Classic's questionnaire in its entirety - which I think is a result of aging but I guess I have some thoughts to give.
I think HL1 is one of those things you had to be there for. I don't think younger people realize how important that aspect with any piece of media that becomes hugely popular, at least as far as how people remember and rave about something years after the fact. I don't think my 20 something sibling's children will ever give half a shit about HL1. And even I was slightly late to the scene because I fucked up monumentally and went with Mac when they were practically giving away PC's in the late 90's. Stupid, believe me I KNOW, but the family computers were Macs and, like religion and so much of what forms your taste, what you grew up with in your house determines so much. Anyway my friend showed my HL1 which made my then creeping realization that I had made the wrong choice concrete. I then got a hand me down windows PC, and later after saving up I built my first PC specifically for and just in time for HL2.
It's hard for me to say why I personally like HL1 so much, for me it's just more than the sum of its parts. Movement, sound, etc. The story and music are quintessentially 90's, something that goes along with having to be there for it. I even really like Xen, I don't give a fuuuuck. Maybe it's in part the Quake 1 engine, I will forever hold that game in super high regard and like stuff like the movement, which very clearly carries over to HL1.
I thought HL2 was great. Not as good as the first but great stuff. The cliffhanger ending made me roll my eyes so far back into my head I could see my brain. Stuff like texture tiling was pretty bad, even HL1 had a system to reduce that. The sound was great. I think the guy who worked on the sound in all of Valve's earlier stuff is a fucking genius. The physics in the game were for me absolutely mind blowing at the time and I don't understand why it's pretty much the only game that was quite like that. Chucking a grenade into a room and seeing just EVERYTHING going flying still sticks with me. I remember entering a room in Portal 2 that was full of chairs and being slightly disappointed in the back of my brain that they were all static and glued to the floor. Sure other games had had it for a while but I don't think nearly as well (see Far Cry 1, love that game but the physics are meh, everything is ridiculously floaty and slow). It imparted a sense of vividness that can be hard to find even today. Related, it's why I like Max Payne 2 so much.
I didn't think too much about HL as a franchise ~2006, I was busy playing other games; in general they actually still made them pretty good around then though the rot would creep in soon enough.
I generally subscribe to John Carmack's theory on game storylines so HL2 was fine. I'll leave the autistic theorycrafting and such stuff to others, at the end of the day I generally don't care that much. Just don't insult my intelligence and don't propagandize and we're good.
It's hard for me to say why I personally like HL1 so much, for me it's just more than the sum of its parts. Movement, sound, etc. The story and music are quintessentially 90's, something that goes along with having to be there for it. I even really like Xen, I don't give a fuuuuck. Maybe it's in part the Quake 1 engine, I will forever hold that game in super high regard and like stuff like the movement, which very clearly carries over to HL1.
I thought HL2 was great. Not as good as the first but great stuff. The cliffhanger ending made me roll my eyes so far back into my head I could see my brain. Stuff like texture tiling was pretty bad, even HL1 had a system to reduce that. The sound was great. I think the guy who worked on the sound in all of Valve's earlier stuff is a fucking genius. The physics in the game were for me absolutely mind blowing at the time and I don't understand why it's pretty much the only game that was quite like that. Chucking a grenade into a room and seeing just EVERYTHING going flying still sticks with me. I remember entering a room in Portal 2 that was full of chairs and being slightly disappointed in the back of my brain that they were all static and glued to the floor. Sure other games had had it for a while but I don't think nearly as well (see Far Cry 1, love that game but the physics are meh, everything is ridiculously floaty and slow). It imparted a sense of vividness that can be hard to find even today. Related, it's why I like Max Payne 2 so much.
I didn't think too much about HL as a franchise ~2006, I was busy playing other games; in general they actually still made them pretty good around then though the rot would creep in soon enough.
I generally subscribe to John Carmack's theory on game storylines so HL2 was fine. I'll leave the autistic theorycrafting and such stuff to others, at the end of the day I generally don't care that much. Just don't insult my intelligence and don't propagandize and we're good.
That was more than I thought I'd give so I spoilered it to prevent fatigue to others who won't care as much.
