Half Life thread - Discussions about Valve's FPS magnum opus(es) and any related content (spin offs, expansions and etc)

[RSU 1741]

I think Doom 3 ultimately held up far better.

It depends: if you like monster closets Doom 3 is still unbeatable. The amount of Imps that appear right out of nowhere just to spook you is unending, and the many, many problems of Doom 3's gunplay are apparent. I won't fault the atmosphere for being great (superior to Doom 2016 for sure) but as a game, Doom 3 has serious issues. Level design, non-existant and repetitive. Weapon selection bar the Cube derivative and boring (seriously, Doom 3's shotgun deserves an award as one of the worst shotguns ever). Embarrassing boss fights.

Half Life 2 has problems as a tech demo mostly in its... charming, if we can with some charity call them that, setpieces based on physics. Not the Gravity Gun, that one at least was still a good idea and probably the only "original" weapon in the frankly unimpressive HL2 arsenal. As a shooter, it doesn't waste your time. One could argue that the last chapters and the city fights are a tad too long, but HL2 is impressively well balanced on always throwing the player in new situations and new setups despite not having a great variety of tools.

On the ambience, a lot depends on the individual. I have a deep love for abandoned places and HL2 nails the theme with great efficiency, and the Eastern Euro setting is great, even if awesome stuff like the church in the Lost Coast is misused. The Combine are in the end just a poorly-explained 1984-style alien-human hybrid faction, but their appearance is striking enough to work. Pity they're inferior in durability and skill to the HECU, making fighting them less satisfying. Love the chatter though.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

HL2 is impressively well balanced on always throwing the player in new situations and new setups despite not having a great variety of tools.

But that's just it - the game is so intent on dazzling with constant novelty that it never concentrated on making any one type of gameplay particularly good. Then again, I also find Doom 3's monster closets eyeroll-inducing and incredibly tedious to deal with.

I don't think either game aged well and the mid-2000s were generally a low point for shooters not named 'Halo'.

 

[The handsome tard]

I don't think I'm the only one who think the Combine as an enemy faction is far too abstract to really connect with. And the sheer nihilism of "yeah no matter what you do it's not gonna matter because how the fuck do you fight a multi-dimensional interstellar empire?" isn't really something that compels me to revisit the game. The drab Eastern European setting just compounds this.

I want to believe they were setting up SOMETHING with the Borealis being this slingshot to the Goliath that was the Combine, at least to get them off Earth forever.

Otherwise its difficult to buy how the resistance could ever hope to come out ontop. Even their victories were small setbacks for the Combine long term. Feels like we were just fighting to buy time until SOMETHING would appear.

Between Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, I think Doom 3 ultimately held up far better.

Eh, I wouldnt go THAT far. Doom 3 is great until the fear factor wears off, then you see how kind of weak the combat is. It is impressive, indeed, but its game design leaves some to be desired in my opinion. Its a game with an identity crisis because its trying to be something new while also remaining relatively loyal to its roots.

Part of me thinks Doom 3 would have worked best if it wasnt CALLED Doom 3 and rather its own thing.

 

[Seventh Star]

I finished Half-Life a few days ago. Damn, what a good game. My only complaint is that the bosses and minibosses are annoying rather than fun, but they are an unique experience, at least.

 

[The handsome tard]

I finished Half-Life a few days ago. Damn, what a good game. My only complaint is that the bosses and minibosses are annoying rather than fun, but they are an unique experience, at least.

What? You didn't like fighting a giant quadruple ball sack ?

 

[RSU 1741]

My only complaint is that the bosses and minibosses are annoying rather than fun, but they are an unique experience, at least.

Half Life never managed to have good bosses. FPS bosses are hard to design properly.

Half life 1
Gargantua: essentially a puzzle boss
Tentacles: I'd argue they're the best boss by not being a boss, more of a level hazard interconnected with level design
Gonarch: shoot at the giant testicle and its enthralling phases
Nihilanth: shoot at the giant baby and its pseudo-puzzle boss characteristics

Half life 2 did away with "bosses" that are essentially difficult enemies or rushes. Striders, Gunships and Hunters do the job decently, even if the Rocket Launcher is a peculiar weapon to fight them with. I'd say the only "real" boss fight is the chopper, and it works because you're playing with specialized weapons in a specific arena and it goes pseudo bullet hell, so they could control the environment a bit.

Probably nuDoom is the first shooter in ages that tried really hard to work on its boss fights as "boss encounters" and not difficult setpieces.

a low point for shooters not named 'Halo'.

Halo live and dies by MP and cinematic campaign. Halo CE is essentially half a game that repeats itself because no development time, Halo 2 is unfinished and its boss fights are atrocious and Halo 3.... well, the double Scarab fight is better than anything HL2, Doom3 or other shooters threw out, so I'll concede.

 

[IrishGuy088]

Between Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, I think Doom 3 ultimately held up far better.

I think a few of my friends just died a little bit. But yeah, you raise a compelling point.

Do you remember the old HL2 leak? That tech demo stuff? I think that was what you were referring to. That was really cool. Stained glass windows and whatnot.

 

[Slav Power]

I think a few of my friends just died a little bit. But yeah, you raise a compelling point.

Do you remember the old HL2 leak? That tech demo stuff? I think that was what you were referring to. That was really cool. Stained glass windows and whatnot.

HL2's Source Engine aged insanely well. You can tell that HL2 was more of a tech demo than it was a game, but still, the graphics, the implementation of Havok and the facial animations still hold up incredibly well to this day for an almost 20 year old game. Way more solid than Doom 3's id Tech 4.

Especially when you realize that what we got in 2004 was basically ready by 2002:

And 2003 where you wouldn't be able to run it on your 486:

Valve was way ahead of the competition with Source.

 

[Varretnon847]

Especially when you realize that what we got in 2004 was basically ready by 2002

I mean I think you could argue the same thing about Doom 3, which also looked mostly finalized around 2002 with its cut E3 demo.

Though I do agree that HL2 held much better in graphics and gameplay then Doom 3.

 

[The handsome tard]

Both engines were great but Source did have more staying power. Maybe the engine was also easier to use or/and license ? I only really recall very few games using the doom 3 engine, like Prey, a great game but still.

Meanwhile the source engine is still technically used to this day sometimes, even among more recent engines. It's an old reliable workhorse .

 

[WULULULULU]

Case in point: Gmod and S&Box. One has charm using Source Engine Assets, another is derivative using what seems to be a mishmash of Roblox and Fortnite aesthetics.

 

[Varretnon847]

I only really recall very few games using the doom 3 engine, like Prey, a great game but still.

Phone posting, so will be phrased a bit weird.

The IdTech 4, while it looks great, had issues that made it undesirable for developers. While it excelled with its shaders and shadows and some other features, those features came with negative side effects, mainly the stencil shadows. The size of levels were also limited, when games at the time were reaching for larger environments.
Overall the source and UE3 engines were shown to be much for desirable for games, and it resulted in IdTech 4 not getting as much third party games compared to the previous Id engines.

 

[The handsome tard]

Phone posting, so will be phrased a bit weird.

The IdTech 4, while it looks great, had issues that made it undesirable for developers. While it excelled with its shaders and shadows and some other features, those features came with negative side effects, mainly the stencil shadows. The size of levels were also limited, when games at the time were reaching for larger environments.
Overall the source and UE3 engines were shown to be much for desirable for games, and it resulted in IdTech 4 not getting as much third party games compared to the previous Id engines.

Yeah, it was difficult for IdTech 4 compete in a world where the UE3 and Source Engine exist. Just because Id could easily handle it, doesnt mean other third party devs had as much of an easy time.
At that point in time, devs were after a balance of larger richer environments without coming too much at a cost of performance and UE3 and Source just proved to be more reliable in getting results. Valve truly knew that the true winners of gaming rivalties were the ones licensing the battlefields, very smart.

Makes me wonder how HL 2 would look like in IdTech 4 and Doom 3 in Source Engine.

 

[RSU 1741]

Makes me wonder how HL 2 would look like in IdTech 4 and Doom 3 in Source Engine.

You have Quake IV for an attempt to do "something else" with IdTech 4. Hell, you have all of Raven's attempt at making the engine marry different style of gaming with both Wolfestein 2009 and Quake IV. Prey has magnificent ambience and interesting ideas, but it's both incredibly half-assed after a certain point (the plot wanders around but then essentially you have lore dump, boss rushes, internal coherency cracking and the script itself shows the cut corners) and honestly its core gameplay loop is just.... interesting, despite portals, varied weaponry and spirit walking. In the end you're shooting endless Quake-style enemies with Quake-style weapons, only in bio-organic style.

Quake IV tries to ape the HL2 style more with in-game cinematics, "war sequences", varied vehicles an' shit. It's competent, and Wolfestein adds so much shit to a mediocre gameplay loop (pseudo-open world, Soul-Reaver style spirit world, upgrades, a legit good final boss fights).... I'd say everyone that used IdTech 4 tried to do better compared to Doom3, a very pretty but ultimately empty Half Life 1 clone. I remember back in 2003 when amongst the "hoooh haaah" for the pretty graphics a sizeable minority was adamant that Doom 3 barely counted as a Doom game, being so fucking slow and with such poor encounter/level design that it didn't simply count - Croteam capitalized on that market instead.

 

[IrishGuy088]

Valve was way ahead of the competition with Source.

I think Valve's great flaw is that they became incredibly lazy. Yes, their engine was very good. But they squandered their riches and all we have now are hats and unfinished stories.

 

[Slav Power]

I think Valve's great flaw is that they became incredibly lazy. Yes, their engine was very good. But they squandered their riches and all we have now are hats and unfinished stories.

Episode 3 was a result of their "do whatever you want" policy. It got stuck in a development hell, nothing was being done, Valve stayed afloat thanks to Steam, but most of the talent left the company, including Laidlaw, and once they've redone the company culture they got shit done and released Half-Life: Alyx. But it's too late for them to go back to making games like they used to.

 

[IrishGuy088]

Episode 3 was a result of their "do whatever you want" policy. It got stuck in a development hell, nothing was being done, Valve stayed afloat thanks to Steam, but most of the talent left the company, including Laidlaw, and once they've redone the company culture they got shit done and released Half-Life: Alyx. But it's too late for them to go back to making games like they used to.

Oh yeah! You're right. That was when they were bragging about "our desks are on wheels and we can work anywhere we want!" and all that hippie-dippie stuff.

 

[Slav Power]

Raising The Bar: Division 3 is underway. Hard to say if they're gonna make the deadline, it's either today or tomorrow if they want it out on "April 2024".

It motivated me to finish up Division 2, albeit with cheats, because holy shit the giant zombies are way too OP and they need to be nerfed when you throw two of them at the player at once.

 

[Slav Power]

RTB:R Division 3 Demo is now out. So, not the full Div 3 but a teaser of what's to come, I misunderstood that part.

 

[BirdUp]

ive just started playing raising the bar redux
the first chapter had too many alleyways and breen has been replaced with a comically evil dictator but i like the look of the combine and the locations, with the plaza you have a shootout in being my favorite so far