Half-Life 2: Awesome or Not?

[Callisto]

Now that I've finally broken open my Orange Box, I gotta ask: Is it worth playing through this? I'm likely to be receiving a PS3 + MGS4 in the next couple of days, and this might sound silly but I need to seriously budget my video game time, as I still have my responsiblities as an endgame leader and jobs I want to level and such, and I still have to give some time towards minor details like eating, sleeping, and the g/f...so I don't want to start a new game unless it's going to be good...so what's your guys' verdict?

[Kuro]

Re: Half-Life 2: Awesome or Not?

I never liked Half life at all. It has a good engine... but the game allways seemed shit to me.

I got bugged on the first game trying to go through the vent at the start aswell lol.

[Olorin401]

Re: Half-Life 2: Awesome or Not?

I also just got the Orange Box (I finally have a computer that can handle newer games!) and decided I'd go with HL2 first and leave Team Fortress alone. It's tough even on the easy setting, which I like a lot. The graphics are really amazing - I just got to the bridge level last night and I'm seriously impressed at how realistic it looks and plays. And the gameplay is really good too, though I wish I had a functioning gamepad because the keyboard/mouse combo controls are tough to master especially when you're driving the airboat or dune buggy.

[Raydeus]

Re: Half-Life 2: Awesome or Not?

You'll have plenty of time to think about the meaning of life while going through City 17, so just stop wasting time and start running.

[Tickmeoff]

Re: Half-Life 2: Awesome or Not?

HL2 is pretty good and short enough to finish before you obtain said PS3 and MGS4.

You're looking at about 17 hours to clear MGS4 once and maybe 3-4 hours to clear HL2 once. If you're going to play the original HL2, Episode 1 and Episode 2 they'd probably come to a total of ~10 hours.

All in a days work either way.

[Raydeus]

Re: Half-Life 2: Awesome or Not?

3-4 hours to finish HL2? For realz? Man I'm a slowpoke then.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Half-Life 2: Awesome or Not?

I enjoyed HL but HL2 didn't impress me. The graphics are great but there just wasn't any "meat" for me. It was the same old, same old. C+

[DakAttack]

Re: Half-Life 2: Awesome or Not?

Nothing in the Orange Box was really worth the money, except Portal.

[Losrase]

Re: Half-Life 2: Awesome or Not?

I would say yes it is worth playing through. I finish HL2, HL2 ep1, and HL2 ep2 last week. I had a blast playing through them. I didnt enjoy HL2 as I did HL2 ep1 and HL2 ep2. It seemed HL2 wasnt as polish and the later episodes.

I dont know how Tickmeoff got through it in 3-4 hours or 10 hours for all 3 games. He must be some gaming Guru or something to that effect. It was at least 10 hours (i think i took about 11-12 hours) for HL2 and 5 hours for each episode. I did only played 1-2 hours per sitting and that maybe slowed my progress through the game.

[Lmnop]

Re: Half-Life 2: Awesome or Not?

I'm with TGM. I really really enjoyed the first Half-Life. I played all the different expansion things and really enjoyed how much story they ended up telling but without using cutscenes (ok, there's 1 in the original arc but even then, it doesn't break out of 1st person). And the billions of recurring elements (the way you see a security officer locked out of a door in the beginning of the Freeman arc and you end up being that officer in Blue Shift, for instance).

But I feel compelled to mention that a great deal of my enjoyment for FPS games comes from making them fun. Mainly, this means finding outside-the-box methods of killing rooms full of people and then there's big one: never sticking to just one weapon. Just machine gunning your way through a game is so bland.

So on the other hand, HL2 didn't seem too incredible to me. While I could still quickly swap my weapons, it never seemed as effective. More importantly, though, I didn't feel attached to the story at all. Instead of being this long-stretching, entrenching story, it's not just some element that I'll never understand running the show and no matter how much I win, I always lose. Valve's not gonna elaborate, they're not gonna satisfy my curiosity. Just an invincible guy with a briefcase that hangs onto his Ss too long.

Still, it's entertaining enough to play. TGM gives it C+? I'd go for B-.

Also, that game took me 3 weeks to beat. Took my roommate a day.

I haven't played either episodic expansion...