half life = half a game.

[shadowprophet]

The orange box. Sure its the best deal under the sun, Or is it. I notice a lot of people playing orange box lately. I have to admit I've tried it. But in light of halo 3 bioshock gears of war hell even prey. orange box just cant hold my interest. To me it seems like a stew pot of old played out ideas with an even older feeling to the play mechanics. Am I being hard on half life. Or am I just sick of it. I mean I was playing the original half life on the pc way back in the day. To me half life only feels like half a game. I'm not saying it doesn't live up to everyone's expectations. But if half life 2 episode 2 was so great why would they pack it in with two other half life's and then two crap games " just to sell" I'm not saying its not a good deal apparently it is.. There's just something about the game that bores me to tears, Half life just feels rushed and rehashed to me. yay! lets all do the same things in half life we where basically doing ten years ago !!! wow! I Cant say I hate the game, But then I cant really say I like it. half life just has this weird flavor to it that just doesn't suit my tastes. and that's really odd to because I like area 51, " the first one anyway" I like prey and other obscure alien/mutant/ psychotic robot shoot em ups. But there's just something about half life that's so boring and out of touch with today's gamer,Id much rather play a decent shooter like bioshock or halo hell even serious sam or even doom. But half life just screams, " IM A POORLY MADE CLONE OF EVERY OTHER SHOOTER EVER MADE" Idk. I'm sure a lot of people like orange box and will defend it for its stellar deal of packing five okay games on to one disc.

But in my opinion beavis was right. you can try and try. But you just cant polish a turd.

Now before everyone decids to hang Sp for a negitive review on a game im sure everyone loves. This is all Imo. I just feel the formula,gameplay, story elements, basicly every aspect of half life is very dated.

I just feel basically every aspect of half life has been done to death. It all mixes very poorly to make an outdated peice of crap.

I've played worse games but orange box should be a budget title.

[HeLL_RaiSeR101]

The orange box. Sure its the best deal under the sun, Or is it. I notice a lot of people playing orange box lately. I have to admit I've tried it. But in light of halo 3 bioshock gears of war hell even prey. orange box just cant hold my interest. To me it seems like a stew pot of old played out ideas with an even older feeling to the play mechanics. Am I being hard on half life. Or am I just sick of it. I mean I was playing the original half life on the pc way back in the day. To me half life only feels like half a game. I'm not saying it doesn't live up to everyone's expectations. But if half life 2 episode 2 was so great why would they pack it in with two other half life's and then two crap games " just to sell" I'm not saying its not a good deal apparently it is.. There's just something about the game that bores me to tears, Half life just feels rushed and rehashed to me. yay! lets all do the same things in half life we where basically doing ten years ago !!! wow! I Cant say I hate the game, But then I cant really say I like it. half life just has this weird flavor to it that just doesn't suit my tastes. and that's really odd to because I like area 51, " the first one anyway" I like prey and other obscure alien/mutant/ psychotic robot shoot em ups. But there's just something about half life that's so boring and out of touch with today's gamer,Id much rather play a decent shooter like bioshock or halo hell even serious sam or even doom. But half life just screams, " IM A POORLY MADE CLONE OF EVERY OTHER SHOOTER EVER MADE" Idk. I'm sure a lot of people like orange box and will defend it for its stellar deal of packing five okay games on to one disc.

But in my opinion beavis was right. you can try and try. But you just cant polish a turd.

Now before everyone decids to hang Sp for a negitive review on a game im sure everyone loves. This is all Imo. I just feel the formula,gameplay, story elements, basicly every aspect of half life is very dated.

Now before everyone decides to hang Sp for a negative review on a game I'm sure everyone loves. This is all Imo. I just feel basically every aspect of half life has been done to death. It all mixes very poorly to make an outdated peice of crap.

I've played worse games but orange box should be a budget title.

Did u mean to reuse that saying? lol and how dare u say bundeled with 2 crap games portal is a awesome game!

[Shadowblind]

Thank you for Pete's sake, I'm not the only one. trust me, you'll see the orange box in the front of my Gamertag--I rented it from blockbuster and the only game you'll find me playing on it is Team Fortress 2.

I never thought the original Half-Life was good. At all. My friend always gets mad at me for this, still claiming Half-Life 2 was the greatest game ever made, and says I have no taste in games. To me, its Unreal with better graphics and the same gameplay.

...Meh. I've never really liked any game Valve made. Portal was fun, but not amazing. Team Fortress 2 is fun, but by far has many issues with equality in classes. I got half-life 2 a while after it was made, but I was less then amused. I did love the gravity gun though

To me the original Doom is still the greatest FPS ever made. But its my favorite game of all time, so thats kinda biased.

[ICE]

Shadez, did you bring your fanboy repelant? I fear you may need it before long... lol

[shadowprophet]

Did u mean to reuse that saying? lol and how dare u say bundeled with 2 crap games portal is a awesome game!

I never played portal a lot, and no that was an edit snafu on my side. :P tis fixed now

Thank you for Pete's sake, I'm not the only one. trust me, you'll see the orange box in the front of my Gamertag--I rented it from blockbuster and the only game you'll find me playing on it is Team Fortress 2.

I never thought the original Half-Life was good. At all. My friend always gets mad at me for this, still claiming Half-Life 2 was the greatest game ever made, and says I have no taste in games. To me, its Unreal with better graphics and the same gameplay.

...Meh. I've never really liked any game Valve made. Portal was fun, but not amazing. Team Fortress 2 is fun, but by far has many issues with equality in classes. I got half-life 2 a while after it was made, but I was less then amused. I did love the gravity gun though

Im glad that there is someone on my side about this bro. I suspected to meet much resistance to my orange box review

All in all its just not that great, the deal of five games for a new 360 owner is a great deal. But the games themselves just irk me *nods

Shadez, did you bring your fanboy repelant? I fear you may need it before long... lol

Got it covered bro,

Nine out of ten fanboys wont enter the same room as my secret weapon

[bah]

The original Half life was one of the biggest influences to other game makers to produce more 'cinematic' gaming, with real stories and characters.
Quake 1/2/3, Unreal etc didn't have a story/plot/characters really, you were a guy with a gun that kept spawning in different levels where you picked up more guns and shot everything that moved.

I agree HL2 was less ground breaking in that respect, at the time it came out it was all about doom3 vs HL2. I was in the Doom3 camp as a loyal Carmack fan but I was certainly shown up when doom3 was boring as **** but HL2 was great. It had some really cool uses of havok physics, nice gfx (perhaps not the doom3 wow factor but it wasnt just a corridor shooter) and great gameplay.

I certainly wouldn't call it a clone of every other shooter ever made, unless your comparing it to games that have come out after it (HL1) that have taken what it brought to the genre on board and expanded on it.
It was one step in the maturation of the FPS genre, HL2 may not be the latest n greatest thing any more but its still a great game IMO.

Portal rocks too

[shadowprophet]

The original Half life was one of the biggest influences to other game makers to produce more 'cinematic' gaming, with real stories and characters.
Quake 1/2/3, Unreal etc didn't have a story/plot/characters really, you were a guy with a gun that kept spawning in different levels where you picked up more guns and shot everything that moved.

I agree HL2 was less ground breaking in that respect, at the time it came out it was all about doom3 vs HL2. I was in the Doom3 camp as a loyal Carmack fan but I was certainly shown up when doom3 was boring as **** but HL2 was great. It had some really cool uses of havok physics, nice gfx (perhaps not the doom3 wow factor but it wasnt just a corridor shooter) and great gameplay.

I certainly wouldn't call it a clone of every other shooter ever made, unless your comparing it to games that have come out after it (HL1) that have taken what it brought to the genre on board and expanded on it.
It was one step in the maturation of the FPS genre, HL2 may not be the latest n greatest thing any more but its still a great game IMO.

Portal rocks too

To be honest the original doom did have a story and story depth,"I think people forget just how popular doom was in its day" While turok n64 was one of the first modern shooters to bring cinematic flair to the genre The fact is In its day half life the original offered something because it was unique, But let us not forget, Every shooter ever. from now till the end of time will forever be a wolfenstein 3d clone. It was the first of its kind and will forever retain that honor. Now as for half life In its day It had something console shooters where unable to offer, for lack of power and storage space. I will give props to half life, But no more then I'd give to red neck rampage or duke nukem 3d. "tis a fair statment"

You have to be fair, half life 2 brought havok physics to the table. But havok physics are commonplace these days. most of today's shooters have a variation of the havok physics engine or a re imagined moded H-p engine. So yes I agree that havok physics are the bomb. what makes half life stand out amidst the other bombs when almost every other shooter commonplace today uses havok physics? half life has grown stale. they polish the graphics up and make it look as spiffy as possible its still no better a game then it was before the face lift. Sorry bro I just can not agree, Half life is still half garbage imo the series hasn't aged well.

Maybe im just bitter, The screenshots to episode 2 looked so great, But it just doesnt feel exciting or new when played. I really tried to give half life episode 2 a shot, It just failed in my eyes.



Further proof to advocate my claims of half life 2 episode 2s failure is as follows, its been admitted that area 51 black site was rushed and basically ended up being a moded version of half life 2 episode 2, this is common place news. why is it people weren't afraid to trash black site for its flaws but unable to come to grips with half lifes 2 ep 2s own shortcomings ?.. could it be rampant fanboyisim ?

Things that make you go hmmm. Well those things make me go hmmm. anyway

[WhizzBang]

I feel completely the opposite to you, Shadowprophet, so maybe just certain FPS styles suit some people more than others.

I love Half Life 2 and found it compelling to play all the way through. Conversely, I don't like Halo 3 much, which you obviously rate. I enjoyed the first game right through to the end, and the second one I lost interest mid way through. Halo 3 just looks like more of the same to me and I have only got as far as the 4th level and now haven't touched it in weeks, and I may well not ever get any further.

[shadowprophet]

I feel completely the opposite to you, Shadowprophet, so maybe just certain FPS styles suit some people more than others.

I love Half Life 2 and found it compelling to play all the way through. Conversely, I don't like Halo 3 much, which you obviously rate. I enjoyed the first game right through to the end, and the second one I lost interest mid way through. Halo 3 just looks like more of the same to me and I have only got as far as the 4th level and now haven't touched it in weeks, and I may well not ever get any further.

I was never really a halo fan last gen. In fact I only came into the halo series at part 3. So I cant speak for part one or two. But I approached halo 3 as a skeptic and a hater. I would hear people proclaim halo to be the best shooter of all time. and It would actually anger me as a shooter fan. for those reasons I avoided halo 3 like it was the video game equivalent of Aids,then I had a friend that got me halo 3 for a birthday gift. He knew good and well I hated the series. I think he did it as a joke. Anyway I got bored one day and began to play it. Then it hit me. What makes halo such a good game isn't the story or the stars wars Esq. theme, the futuristic setting or even the mighty master chief.

Halo has the most dead accurate pen point play mechanics I've ever experienced. It blows older style shooters completely out of the water, Halo in every way. Is like an evolution in shooting play mechanics, and in honesty halo 3 may have been shoved aside for the new big guns in town like gears of war and bioshock. And in some ways they do triumph over halo 3, But there is still one factor to halo 3 that hasn't been outdone. Those rock solid play mechanics. They have yet to be beaten. I sometimes doubt they ever will be. *nods

[bah]

You are playing all FPS you compare on a high end PC yeah?
FPS belong on a PC with a mouse n KB, playing them on a console with a joypad is just wrong.

Each to their own man, personally I never saw what people like so much about halo (any of them). It was a really average shooter, on a console, that didn't really bring anything new at all.
Even when it came to the PC I still didn't get all the hype.

Quake 1 (with +mlook, still remember playing online with the KB before someone told me to try the mouse with that cmnd) will probably always be my favourite FPS just because that was when I first really got into PC games when I was 13 or something. Q95 then Quakeworld, rocket jumps, users 'trying to put the pin back in' or 'becoming bored with life'. Good times.

More recently, i really liked prey, still play BF2 a bit.


Dont forget Hovertank 3d (ID) and other similar games of that time. Wolfenstein popularised the genre, but it was an evolution of an existing idea not the first ever 'FPS'.

I wouldn't call HL2 or any modern FPS a clone of wolfenstein, just the continuing evolution of the genre.
Some are cinematic and have great stories, others have RPG elements, others have puzzles, some have all of these things.

I dont know if you can compare the level of story behind the original Doom to that of HL or Prey or other modern games.
What is the guy you play in doom's name? In quake generations it was 'doomguy'. Name a character in the story other than the monsters you shoot. Name a theme to the plot other than 'demons from hell teleported here, shoot anything that moves'.

My 2c.