What is the appeal to Half-Life franchise?

i would like master race to explain what makes this series so great. ive played half life 2 (around 05/06) and found it very boring but because it gets so much praise i forced myself to play further but i eventually couldnt. years later i tried again and i furthest i got was that zombie level part.

half life is so damn boring i dont understand the praise for it, the guns feel great but there is hardly any shooting and ammo is very scarce. the story is meh and the game is mostly puzzle solving like open a valve or something. very overrated game

Dude, it's from like 2004, there is practically no appeal. It's more like a piece of history at this point.

"Rise and shine, Mister Freeman, rise and … shine. Not that I wish … to imply that you have been sleeping on … the job. No one is more deserving of a rest, and all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until … well … let's just say your hour has come again. The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference … in the world. So, wake up, Mister Freeman. Wake up and … smell the ashes."

Quality game deserves long lasting praise.

but i played it for first time in around 05/06 only a year or 2 after release and it didnt wow me in any aspect. its just very blah

.. Half-Life 2 was released 10 years ago it's going to age, especially when the mainstream fps's have basically used it as their blue print in making narrative based fps's..... Not to mention both HL1 and HL2 have been a guiding example for other devs out there in having a open source system for modding which people TO THIS day are still playing and making HL1 and HL2 mods, not to mention the popular spin offs of TF2 and Counter Strike source which came in the retail packages.. Which are some of the most popular fps multiplayers to date..

Half Life 2 "wowed" me while Half Life 1 didn't

Well then I can't explain that lol. It's your taste.

I only played it a year ago, I actually enjoyed it for a while, but it kind of got boring. The pace is very slow, something that games nowadays do well (pacing).

same. I play hl 1 for the nostalgia. I was really impressed with HL2 though. Scared the crap out of me when I was young.

HL1 > HL2 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> TLOU

The presentation is fantastic to this day, the world building is top notch, G-Man is the shit, the gravity gun is cool as ****, and the game has variety in spades. Let's not sugar coat this: Half Life 2 had more gameplay ideas in one game than the entire Halo Franchise under Bungie had in 5.

The problem is all of those ideas are tied to average at best shooting mechanics and dimwit enemy AI. It's also not a very well paced game for all of its variety. At the least everything before Ravenholm is a fucking slog through monotonous corridors, shit vehicle segments(the airboat is cancer), and who the **** likes fighting the headcrabs anyway? They are like shitty versions of Metroids. Slightly less shitty, but still shitty enemy in comparison to the flood (who are the shit kings of shit mountain). It's plot line is the cliff notes of things 1984 was doing, and done way worse because Half Life 2 is a pitiful video game, and it's ending is a glorified cliff hanger. Followed by 2 expansions that get you no fucking where.

It's a boring ass First Person Shooter that got so much mileage out of its technical achievement, gimmick weapon (not to be confused with unfun weapon), and the fact that it was a sequel to a classic and came 6 years after as opposed to coming out so quickly. The only thing stopping that game from aging worse is that the modern first person shooter has shown very little evolution over the years, with only something like Shadow of Chernobyl being anything progressive in the genre.

I played it around mid 2012, I found it boring at first but after getting the suit and when the shooting start I was addicted to the game. The shooting was fun, levels were awesome and some were creepy, Gravity gun was fun especially at the end, I found the story to be interesting but only after I played episode 2 etc. I can understand why people may not like it.

I disagree with this sentiment.

Super Mario World is still fantastic today.

Megaman X is still fantastic today.

Planescape Torment's plot is still fantastic today.

Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime, Ninja Gaiden 1 would all still be incredibly satisfying in gameplay today.

If Half Life 2 truly was one of the greatest games ever made. The pinnacle of the FPS genre and beyond reproach like it's made out to be, it's game play would hold up fine. If all it had going for it was technically mastery (the only thing that truly ages in gaming) then the game wasn't that good to begin with.

so u could half life 2 started the trend of narrative based fps games that master race hates so much? but system shock released before half life and from what ive played it seems to be very story driven

Musterdpeace.

so tell me what you do like.

Movies like TLOU. *Hides before cows attacks.*

half life is great, but as someone pointed out, it's just a relic at this point.

@Gamerno6666: They also like movie marathons like metal gear solid. (Embraces the incoming stampede.)

u make good post, always go deep into the topic. i purchased shadow of chernobyl long time ago but not got around to playing it, might check it out in a week or 2.

so he is praising half life 2 because it didnt copy its predecessors 'great gunplay' which means 'that a fairly sizeable chunk of the game is quite poor and a game people can easily be disappinted with' lol

@ghostwarrior786:

You are a system wars user. You don't come here to have your mind changed, you come here to argue. I could list a large number of reasons the franchise deserves its status, but you won't listen and you won't care, so I won't bother.

Story, atmosphere, gameplay, the usual.

I honestly couldn't tell ya... I know what the Apeal of Portal is. :)

@ghostwarrior786: It's kind of like asking what made Seinfeld so appealing.

Very true. Unlike recent pop culture hits among teens (Naughty Dog) with quality quickly diminishing with sequel after sequel, the Halflife series endures. quality increases and admiration spreads.

It's wonderful to see so many people feel privileged to have experienced two of the most important video games in history.

well i played the game multiple times and gave it a chance but it couldnt change my mind so u are right, nothing u will say is going to BUT i am interested in why many people like this franchise so much.

in terms of fps bioshock 1, original halo trilogy ermm nothing else comes to mind

I actually like ammo being scarce, its more realistic and fun to. Why would anyone ever play a game with unlimited ammo? what are you 5 years old?

No idea, still haven't played the original. Gravity gun is cool though

@ghostwarrior786:

Read the reviews of the game when it was released. Things were pretty different back in 1998.

Think about the amount of techniques people have stolen from the games. You might not see the value in the series, but that's neither here nor there. There is absolutely no doubt that Valve changed the gaming landscape with the Half Life games.

You wouldn't be the first person to dismiss a critically lauded game, and you won't be the last.

It was a benchmark game back in 2004 and used latest technology to its full potential . Not only that but even puzzles were designed around physics and stuff . Those who played the game back in 2004 still play it till this day , and appreciate Valve's achievement .

Those who are playing now , may not find its graphics jaw dropping like people did back in 2004 (of course) but they can still appreciate the way how NPCs feel real and how they react to your presence in real time .

Then there are great characters and mysterious figures like G-Man who steals the show every time he appears throughout Half Life series . Not to mention fast paced and fun gameplay with no weapon limit and auto regen health . Modern games take themselves too seriously and lose their "fun" factor .

And ammos are not scarce in Half Life 2 . It clearly means , you are not exploring enough . There are hidden items , left and right . You just need to look beyond obvious paths and you'll find plenty of interesting stuff .

Last but not least ; you don't have to wait for Captain Price to open doors for you .

@ghostwarrior786: Far as I know Its well paced between battle set pieces, environment puzzles, with some exploration. Every level you're doing something relatively unique compared to the last level.

Its more of a tension and release experience, rather than 24/7 all up in your face, cover behind wall experience. You can bumrush your way through the game if you choose to, and keep all the weapons you gradually earn.

The game knows how to hide and suggest things to players without throwing "too much" spectacle and stuff in front of your face to look busy.

Was one of if not the first games to take full advantage of environmental storytelling, without cut scenes or stopping you from moving.

Its engine is very moddable.

It next to halo was the cinematic FPS that many games afterwards copied off of or tried to mirror, unfortunately focusing on all the face value parts of it, and not the core of what made it work.

Play Black Mesa. While I enjoyed HL2, I would agree that there were a bit too many puzzles and such that disrupted the flow of the game. HL1/Black Mesa is far more like a typical shooter and rarely gets as bogged down by puzzles.

Tell that to MGS3

It's pretty impressive to see people explain why a game is good while simultaneously not explain why it's good at all. Words mean nothing if you provide nothing to measure them by.

yes black mesa looks interesting and i will play it when they release on steam too bad i already know the story but the gameplay looks interesting

champ I agree with this post. And Halo is my favorite series. But I have always considered HL and 2 possibly the best made I have ever played. Much like Citizen Kane is a marvel to me in film, but it isn't my favorite film.

Now my question is: what is the point of questions or threads like this? Does TC think we will explain to him why we like Half Life and his level of enjoyment will suddenly change? If I don't feel joy when playing a game, I don't play it. Its that simple. I don't need to break it down to its parts for myself, or have others educate me. If I feel joy/happiness/fun while playing a game, I keep playing it.

i dunno

Whatever your real purpose behind this thread was... its pointless.

"Hermits go on about Half-Life" I'm sorry who does? the game is 10 years old. Most "Hermits" only modern day connection to Half-Life 1/2 is the amazing games that spawned from it, be they mods or full games.

Its like me making a thread saying "So Ummm Sheep, why was Resident Evil 4 so good again? I played it at the time and thought it was "meh"" or ironically bringing up TLOU over and over when its a last gen game and barely relevant to the system wars meta now.. other than ofcourse... a remaster.

Never heard of it..

Ten years of hipster glasses. Have got to give respect when a videogame influences what kind of glasses hipsters wear............................for ten fckng years or so.

Well the game is awesome and all that and It was something revolutionary back then, defined FPS genre.. But I prefer Portal series.

the point of this thread is i want to know why people enjoy it. i always see half life being mentioned among the best franchises but never understood what made it so great, im always going to find it boring but i wanted a different perspective from people that enjoyed the game

wtf, when did i say 'Hermits go on about Half-Life'? i just asked pc plebs to tell me what they enjoy about it. and there would be nothing wrong with asking sheep why re4 is so good, i dont enjoy that game either so thanks for thread idea. and tlou is very relevant, it was all up in the media just this week

great vid, thanks for posting

I can tell you why Half-Life 1 is so highly reguarded, I can not tell you why Half-Life 2 ever was.

The first Halflife is pretty much THE game any modern FPS game with story elements are based on (although I would argue that one would have to accept Sin as another possible candidate). The way Halflife told the story was pretty groundbreaking, how the camera never leaves the eyes of Gordon was a first as far as I am aware, basicly you only knew what Freeman saw/heard, and you were not informed about any story except from that. Which made me have an ageless "Wtf" moment when the army I was making my way towards for my salvation became a thread perhaps bigger tehn the intruders.

The game is also the first as far as I know that had NPCs act and react in a fairly Deep way, and different factions fighting it you with or without you around.

The most important part of Half-Life is likely its nick name "The thinking mans shooter" It was not about running around and gunning Down everything in a mindless rage. You had to think, find ways to get through levels, which did not just mean find the colour coded keycard. Ammo were often limited, and the ai were likely amongst the best ever seen in an FPS game, and it still performs fairly well.

Basicly Half life made an illusion of a living World, told through the eyes of you, the player, no innformation, and only the story that you yourself could copple together.

Halflife 2? I know why people claim that it was so good, the NPCs were a step up, reacting often believable to some extent, and continuing the trend with telling the story only through what you as a player could whitness. It introduced physics based puzzles and aids in combat. Both of those has since also become corner stones in FPS games, although in both cases, they were simply an evolution of what was already happening throughout fps games, where HL1 had defined and rewritten the rules for FPS games (if you Count out Sin). But Halflife 2 was not the allround awesome package as HL1 was. The shooting in HL2 felt weightless, and empty. And while the level design Again was on the top of the heap, the enemy ei had taken a huge downgrade from HL1. I found HL2 simply good, nothing more.

@ghostwarrior786:

Fair enough. That was mine. When I play Half Life it feels fun.

Play it again, explore a bit more, just a bit more and you'll get your ammo. For the shooting part, that's just a lie what you say there.