How, erm... how do i multi quote. Humour me someone and explain it pls. Skulks off to dark corner......
(Before someone thinks of locking this thread.) PLs explain to me how what you have described is anything but making more money from the back catalogue and giving them a slight refurbishing?? and how on earthdoes that show willingness to further the series? Because as far as I see it its dropped right off the radar and into irelevance some time ago, what with left 4 dead 1 & 2 and portal 2 giving us a tiny hint theyre not interested in making ep3. I want to see the story concluded as much as you do.
Hey where the hell is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl at on this list as it easily beats Crysis. and ArmA II should be there also. We are all entitle to our glorious opinions so I'm not gonna argue why someone doesn't like HL1 or HL2 as the 100's of game of the year awards they received is case in point but with the exception of The Legend of Zelda Street Fighter II John Madden Football GTA San Andreas Final Fantasy 7 and Half Life 2 no other games in the history of games have defined their categories like these Mt. Rushmore of video games.
The Source engine has grown up around the Half Life series - each episode or Source-based title from Valve has pushed things even further. The engine needed to be modified for Episode 2 and the engine has moved on again in Portal 2. Lets not forget that Aperture Science is part of the Half Life universe too. According to this clicky, Doug Lombardi has said that Episode 3 is "highly ambitious" - which leads me to believe that the engine needed work to be able to handle what they wanted to do - Portal 2 is likely to be the newer engine's first airing before Episode 3 appears. Besides, if you didn't care about the series, you wouldn't waste developer time on a title that nearly everyone already owns and isn't going to earn you any money. You certainly wouldn't go to the trouble of adding achievements as well.
This is the truth! For example, I hate Left4Dead! I mean, when I first played it I though 'meh' but its popularity leaves me very angry an my opinion of it drops lower. This is the point at which people say something like 'OMG youz n3v3r plyed it wiv mts'. Well I have and they also agree: it's sh!t. Still, I respect that people enjoy it (the mentally impaired ones anyway ),,,
This thread has gone quite a bit out of control. Mind you the only thing that really really matters is whether you like it or not. Who gives a flying rat about if someone else likes it. I'll openly admit that I like FC2, was a great game, no, but I liked it. Same thing with Half Life, it was fun, yes, and I did replay it, but when you get down to the gritty details, I was still confused by the end.
Are you trying to tie the engine to the series? Source used to be the half life series, but it would be very hard to maintain that opinion now. Porting it to the Mac, adding achievements and bringing the whole series up to the ep2 engine version looks a lot like leveraging older titles for maximum financial gain (perfectly legitimate) rather than that being a precursor to another instalment coming imminently around the corner, or even being in serious development. It’s a lot like serious Sam hd. Same content spruced up a bit. Perhaps not caring was the wrong wording on my part. Ep3 is not a priority, and hasn't been since when valve decided to make left4dead. Hard to spin changes to the back catalogue as signs of a shift in the right direction.
Reviews are opinions. A good game is subjective. Whilst it is perfectly possible to give merit to the technical aspects of the game (i.e. the source engine) saying a game is bad because 'you' didn't enjoy it is inherently wrong. What one individual thinks is the dogs bollocks another might think is the dogs sh*t. Such is life. Clearly the vast majority of people like the combination of elements that goes together to form Half Life 2 but there will always be number of people who don't. @Action_Parsnip: You clearly don't like the Half Life 2. Whoop-de-doo. What is this thread meant to accomplish other than you stating that? I feel you're as likey to convert the people who like the game as they are to convert you. Personally I think Half Life 2 is an incredible game, for many reasons. But they are my reasons and I don't need them validated by anyone else.
Maybe Action Parsnip is secretly Craig Lager, author of such infamous works as Far Cry 2 is Underappreciated, BioShock was Unmissable and Crysis Was Terrible?
His initial post was at night... by day he is [profession] but by night he is Against-the-grain boy!!
I never said it was bad. I said it wasn't great. Did you read my first post? It was about a list I found. Oh and noone has actually said anything else to the points i made except 'everyone else likes it', or some great broad statement like it was a 'landmark game' or a 'milestone' or 'groundbreaking'. Farcry 1 was better imho. Then again I like fps games with a capital 's' not a small 's' that are difficult and that don't have health and ammo every 20 metres. @cabe6463 - :-D ....I studied German at university, I like languages but I picked German because noone in blighty likes it haha classic. Learn Spanish? French? pffff im not a sheep lol @Ficky Pucker - Bioshock is pretty overrated. Stylish but not all that 'fun'.
I always find it a shame that there wasn't at least a set piece that featured the 'monster' featured in the last part of the trailer here. However, at the time, I thought HL2 was utterly gripping. The sense of belief of the gameworld was utterly captivating, for me. Darting between the thumpers to avoid the antlions was tense. The start of the prison level was ok.. it could've been done better though - having to down a chopper and survive an onslaught of combine was a bit of a copout and tbh not really thought through. That was the only part I had a gripe with though. I wanted something big, nasty and smelly to grab the heli out of the sky and obliterate the combine forces with me thinking, 'Well, at least the combine are gone but now I've got to deal with this bloody great thing'.
Yeah I remember feeling disappointed that it wasn't included at the time but c'est la vie; maybe in Ep 3.
I played BioShock for a few minutes (got bored and quit after 30) well after its release, and even after its sequel's release. The water effects were no longer anything special and everything else was pretty bland too, so it was strictly down to gameplay to hold me. Obviously it didn't. On a little note, I can play HL2 and still have a good time even when it isn't so pretty, but then I like being confused and being in a world I don't totally understand. Myst was a blast.
