Personally it never was and it will never be. I always considered a random sequel that fails to capture the magic of the first game. Kinda how invisible war is to deus ex. Now if you ask me to say how many people consider it better than the first, i would say its 78% of half life fans. How many consider it the best fps ever? I would say about a solid 65% of the fps gaming population. (mind that gps fanbase is way too big) From singleplayer fps, i would say that 82% considers it to be one of the best games ever. By rating criterica, its pretty dated in many ways for todays standards. By first person shooting criteria it is very weak infact the first game had better combat, ai, guns, enemies and challenges. So the first game was a much better "first person shooter" than the second.
"If you say no, be sure to explain what you think is better and why." Well, in that case i must respond to the question you ask as the tc. Hl2 did not have good gunplay or ai or challenging enemies or good guns. It felt mroe like an action adventure game that use grab and throw stuff with the gravity gun rather an fps. Also yeah i do consider many many games to be better fps. (like the first one, or quake 2, or doom 3 or cod or far cry) While trying to see it as diffirent game with each unique ideas, i have to say i was overally, underwelmed by the "quality" of the challenges and overal gameplay, especially with games that have more complex gameplay with more options such as system shock 2 or deus ex and games that have better combat/gunplay like fear, or more complicated like far cry.
Also some parts of the game feld either dowright riddiculous or an annoyance that made no sense. For example an area full of mines, turrets that cannot be destroyed or trying to navigate under a bridge when there is practicly no space to navigate and you gonna have to make balanced acrobatics. Also some turrets that are activated with laser trips, so you have to activate them and throw a grenade in there (What a dumb way to destroy them by the way, either dont bother at all or make the turres to react like the ones in hl1.) Or some energy balls that grab on you and electrify you, so you have to use the gravity gun to throw them at the sea or when you have to pick up objects and put them on sand, so you wont have to wake up the neingboors with your footsteps (The antlions, at that part i was like "am i playing a first person SHOOTER or a road buiding simulator?)
Also keep in mind that the action is scare and it lacks good action scenes like the first or challenging fights. You could say i felt i was missing the grunts from the other fps and i was begging to shoot something. Once someone said "games nowadays have forgot what fps are about, the freaking shooting" So in the end i would say its more of a Gravity Gun first person action adventure rather a first person shooter. This is where i would like to add that the game could be improved alot if they gave us more choices, for example follow diffirent paths so i wont have to go under that bridge, or allow me to destroy the turrens with my guns, games like deus ex and system shock 2 have shown that having the ability to play the way you want is much better than having to play in a specific way the developers made the game to work.
Oh and add some action scenes please or some tough enemies. Also i do believe that in hl2 episode 1 and 2 were much better than hl2 with more action and less stupid stuff.
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