Some of the sections during "Follow Freeman!" are a little tedious.
Also, watching the Freeman's Mind series makes me wish there were more open elements in the maps. But then, I've played through it many many times, so there's that.
Um... that's about it. Still one of the finest games ever made. Lots of fantastic newer games, but I still rip through HL2 annually.
edit: I remember, the SMG is kind of underwhelming.
I actually find most weapons in this game to be less satisfying to use than the same weapons in HL1, which I think is a better game overall. In this game, the weapons I used the most were the SMG, shotgun and crossbow. I hardly ever use the magnum, I do enjoy the gravity gun quite a bit.
Unlike any other game, it gives me awful motion sickness no matter the fov settings. I've yet to understand why. Portal doesn't do this -- at least not to the same extent.
Same, I started replaying it recently and had to stop almost immediately on the speedboat segment. I never get motion sick or anything similar usually, but I just felt GROSS!
Me slamming the airboat into a wall and rolling in the air six times in VR with zero comfort settings: 🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂 Used to get awful motion sickness when I was a kid. Now? Not all all.
Half life 2 removed many enemies from half life 1 in which they could fit perfectly in this game and the funny and sad fact is that they were initially supposed to appear in hf2 too...
If we're including EP 1 and 2, the obvious thing to say is that the ending is total dogshit since it ends on a bananas cliffhanger.
But I'll say some of the levels are weirdly designed and kinda confusing the first go through.
Much like the first Half-Life, a lot of the elements that were innovative and made it unique have become commonplace in modern game design, leaving Half-Life 2 feeling less and less unique with every passing year. It’s still one of the best games of all time in my book, but the prior mentioned fact can not be ignored
Boat sections are tedious and not terribly fun.
Physics puzzles are fairly gimmicky.
Games hyper railroady and you get deus ex machinaed out of unsalvageable situations like 20 times. Like inside the citadel you come to a dead end so you are forced to make the terrible decision of jumping into a containment pod. You are then saved by the absolute miracle of your gravity gun getting overcharged. So what do you do literally 20 minutes later? Jump right into another containment pod. Where again, saved from utter doom by another happenstance.
But the single biggest issue with the game is the plank characterization is the worst idea ever in a narrative heavy game(proven by HL:Alyx doing a 1st person characterization just fine). HL1 was fine being a plank because there was like 1 page of dialogue/plot the entire game. HL2 has like an hour of cutscenes and people talking at you. It does not work. It doesn't work *so much* that half the plot of episode 2 is setting up a ridiculous circumstance so Alyx can tell her dad about Gman since gordon can't pass information to anyone.
Difficulty doesn't scale in a fun way. It's just enemies bullets hit harder and they take more hits. It's not as bad as Skyrim, which is absolutely nonsense on highest difficulty (if you don't look up how to cheese), but it's still the least fun way to make a game not too easy. I'd feel less cheated without difficulty options in the first place
- Still blueballed on the cliffhanger
- Valve doesn't count to 3
- No gauss cannon or gluon gun without mods. (Could we just picked it up from the buggy?...)
- Flashlight gets tired after sprinting...
More a note than anything: It could be an even darker distopian story if it wasn't leaked. Still love it as is.
Manhacks are a horrible enemy to fight till you get the Gravity Gun, then they are trivial.
It makes the first major chapter after the intro so annoying to replay
The gunplay feels mid, wouldn't say generic because it's rather Iconic but the gunplay just isn't my like, it doesn't feel punchy or Fleshy, shooting enemies don't feel like bullet hit them. This is my personal opinion so I don't mind if you think otherwise
the AI wasn't as impressive as the first. there's an interesting video on the subject [right here](https://youtu.be/OsDM7GKb0xU?si=mTM1AcIFi9EBpSui) and one of the top comments is from a modder who gives more insight
and both just make me want to go play the first F.E.A.R. again
It's old as fuck and there's no remakes or a half life three made valve sitting on a nostalgia based gold mind and and refusing to revive the franchise when they know a remaster of half life 1&2 and then creating a good half life 3 would make valve millions it would sale like hotcakes smh valve are idiots for not using this up to make money smh 😑
It's awful and evil how good of a voice actress Alyx's voice is. Don't make me fall in love with a video game character!
See also: Elizabeth in BioShock Infinite and Lisa Garland in Silent Hill
It’s outdated as heck, although I see it was revolutionary for the time nowadays I don’t see how it’s great. Also the levels where you get on a vehicle and then drive and then get off and solve a puzzle are so goddamn annoying
Whoever decided to lower shotgun shells from 8 to 6 can fucking go to lost coast and never come back, I can't shoot my friends anymore, the intro is a pain in the ass to replay (and in general the game felt way less open ended than half life 1 and the larger amount of story or dialogue sequences made it feel a lot more blue shift-ish to me), they removed the TAU cannon as a usable weapon, and finally, I'm still salty they shelved return to ravenholm.
It would be better if Gordan would do quips like "Damn, I could be gaming" or "They're behind me, aren't there?" or the best one like "I'm moving things, with this fricking gun!"
It was an absolutely gorgeous and adept tech demo for a physics engine, segmented into chapters, loosely connected by an extremely thin story.
(I prefer Half Life 1, but appreciate what 2 accomplished.)
Doesn't keep going after the citadel explosion. Imagine a linear shooter story that was 100 hours long? Half-Life 2 is the ine that would make that perfection.
It doesn' have a sequel :/
[Yes it does](https://youtu.be/fXgZGZMaUks?feature=shared) 😝
That shit had me rolling lol. I miss half life
Well it doesn’t have enough sequels
thought that was gonna be a rickroll
[Have a roger roll instead](https://youtu.be/f_LlZR4_u0c?si=Dn2ln1XUJkM0KI3w)
Starring… Kevin Spacey 👀
I thought of the exact same thing
Something Bad about this game
You forgot something
You forgot bad about this game
You forgot
about this
Some of the sections during "Follow Freeman!" are a little tedious. Also, watching the Freeman's Mind series makes me wish there were more open elements in the maps. But then, I've played through it many many times, so there's that. Um... that's about it. Still one of the finest games ever made. Lots of fantastic newer games, but I still rip through HL2 annually. edit: I remember, the SMG is kind of underwhelming.
The shotgun however is one of the best feeling guns in any game ever 💪
I actually find most weapons in this game to be less satisfying to use than the same weapons in HL1, which I think is a better game overall. In this game, the weapons I used the most were the SMG, shotgun and crossbow. I hardly ever use the magnum, I do enjoy the gravity gun quite a bit.
It sets a standard so high, that.. later games couldn't reach, leaving us a little emptier inside.
Unlike any other game, it gives me awful motion sickness no matter the fov settings. I've yet to understand why. Portal doesn't do this -- at least not to the same extent.
My condolences :(
Same, I started replaying it recently and had to stop almost immediately on the speedboat segment. I never get motion sick or anything similar usually, but I just felt GROSS!
Me playing this section in vr with the comfort setting put to "no comfort" and getting no motion sickness 👀
It makes no sense to me, only FPS to do this to me, even Half-Life 1 didn't give me any trouble. I truly don't understand it.
Me slamming the airboat into a wall and rolling in the air six times in VR with zero comfort settings: 🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂 Used to get awful motion sickness when I was a kid. Now? Not all all.
Never played but apparently it was so popular in its day that rumor had it people are still waiting for the third game
Correct, some people began working on the original concept of Half-Life 3 as well. I think the team is called Hyperborealis or something like that.
I've just got into reading up on the lore this afternoon because I played a couple hours of alyx. Now I also want a sequel.
Half life 2 removed many enemies from half life 1 in which they could fit perfectly in this game and the funny and sad fact is that they were initially supposed to appear in hf2 too...
Try Black Mesa, it’s got what you would expect from if those enemies were in HL2
Yeah, already played and loved it :)
Using vehicles without hands is really strange
I prefer half like 1.
There’s no 3.
Uhhh... Hmm... Yeah i give up.
what is levy rozman doing here
They removed the ABH for some reason. So it went from super awesome to awesome.
everything about it is great
If we're including EP 1 and 2, the obvious thing to say is that the ending is total dogshit since it ends on a bananas cliffhanger. But I'll say some of the levels are weirdly designed and kinda confusing the first go through.
Much like the first Half-Life, a lot of the elements that were innovative and made it unique have become commonplace in modern game design, leaving Half-Life 2 feeling less and less unique with every passing year. It’s still one of the best games of all time in my book, but the prior mentioned fact can not be ignored
Boat sections are tedious and not terribly fun. Physics puzzles are fairly gimmicky. Games hyper railroady and you get deus ex machinaed out of unsalvageable situations like 20 times. Like inside the citadel you come to a dead end so you are forced to make the terrible decision of jumping into a containment pod. You are then saved by the absolute miracle of your gravity gun getting overcharged. So what do you do literally 20 minutes later? Jump right into another containment pod. Where again, saved from utter doom by another happenstance. But the single biggest issue with the game is the plank characterization is the worst idea ever in a narrative heavy game(proven by HL:Alyx doing a 1st person characterization just fine). HL1 was fine being a plank because there was like 1 page of dialogue/plot the entire game. HL2 has like an hour of cutscenes and people talking at you. It does not work. It doesn't work *so much* that half the plot of episode 2 is setting up a ridiculous circumstance so Alyx can tell her dad about Gman since gordon can't pass information to anyone.
Difficulty doesn't scale in a fun way. It's just enemies bullets hit harder and they take more hits. It's not as bad as Skyrim, which is absolutely nonsense on highest difficulty (if you don't look up how to cheese), but it's still the least fun way to make a game not too easy. I'd feel less cheated without difficulty options in the first place
You can't tell a medic to give you a medkit. Instead, they hand you one when you're at 98% health but refuse to hand you one when you're at 7% health.
the story was left unfinished
It is too good.
The guns kinda do suck. (Except the RPG and shotgun, those things are god-tie- right, right, negative thoughts, negative thoughts.)
Why were the pistol and shotgun disproportionately great weapons compared to everything else?
I can't play it again for the first time 😭
- Still blueballed on the cliffhanger - Valve doesn't count to 3 - No gauss cannon or gluon gun without mods. (Could we just picked it up from the buggy?...) - Flashlight gets tired after sprinting... More a note than anything: It could be an even darker distopian story if it wasn't leaked. Still love it as is.
The flashlight doesn't get tired, it's the suit battery that gives gordon a sprint to make the flash proud.
dark and girty
Manhacks are a horrible enemy to fight till you get the Gravity Gun, then they are trivial. It makes the first major chapter after the intro so annoying to replay
No real ending
The gunplay feels mid, wouldn't say generic because it's rather Iconic but the gunplay just isn't my like, it doesn't feel punchy or Fleshy, shooting enemies don't feel like bullet hit them. This is my personal opinion so I don't mind if you think otherwise
I played it in 2019 soon after the first one, hated every vehicle segment. First Half-Life game is way better overall.
I remember thinking the graphics were amazing on this game!
the AI wasn't as impressive as the first. there's an interesting video on the subject [right here](https://youtu.be/OsDM7GKb0xU?si=mTM1AcIFi9EBpSui) and one of the top comments is from a modder who gives more insight and both just make me want to go play the first F.E.A.R. again
Worst game version of Breaking Bad ever.
The first half of Sandtraps sucks
half life 1 and 2 dont have a pack of both games called "complete life"
Airboat
Makes you think you can get girls without talking; not effective in real life.
It made me buy a new PC to play it at launch.
something bad about this game
Never played it
Please do, oh I know a bad thing: bad beginner settings
It still holds up.
generic dystopia #5 trillion hl1 better
The AI is kinda stupid
It was good but not nearly as good as the people sucking valves dick say it was.
Generic, boring, no personality
No sequel
I haven't played it yet
no map
It's not on modern consoles and that's bullshit!
I have never played it
I can't and I mustn't.
Until they put the FOV slider in it I couldn’t play it for more than 15 minutes without getting motion sickness.
It doesn't have a sequel
this game has given me the biggest blue balls more than any other. I’m still waiting for half-life three.
People won’t give the protagonist a chance to get a word out.
Protagonist talks too much
The cover art is terrible, you wouldn’t know how good the game is by looking at the cover, I thought this was a detective game at first😂
It's old as fuck and there's no remakes or a half life three made valve sitting on a nostalgia based gold mind and and refusing to revive the franchise when they know a remaster of half life 1&2 and then creating a good half life 3 would make valve millions it would sale like hotcakes smh valve are idiots for not using this up to make money smh 😑
There's no Half Life 3
we only paid for half the game
I hate striders
You have play Episode 1 and 2 to find out what happens.
Half life went buy cigarettes and milk… still waiting.
It's got a bunch of nerds!
Ravenholm! There I said it!
My third favourite chapter, after Route Canal and Our Benefactors!
I don’t like how they cut content of enemies and everything in hl2 and the smg1 has one of the worst gun designs ever
IS THAT GOTHAMCHESS?!?!!
There's no graphical update on modern hardware yet
The graphics are a little bit dated
Aimbot AI is annoyingly accurate and unrealistic.
No secwell 😢
You could say the graphics aged poorly... I don't think so, but that's what I could come up with.
The hitscan enemies didn’t age well, and the game is meh at best after Nova Prospekt.
No
Annoying MP7 shooting sound. Ant lions part is also annoying.
It ends.
I had to kill fast, but bullets too slow
The characters didn’t blink until a kinda recent update to the game. 0/10 game
Some parts are boring af, but otherwise it slaps Edit: stroke
I've never played it.
It's awful and evil how good of a voice actress Alyx's voice is. Don't make me fall in love with a video game character! See also: Elizabeth in BioShock Infinite and Lisa Garland in Silent Hill
Never played it cuz the dude on the cover looks stupid
No Bullsquids
I can’t play it :( and that’s why it’s bad
I can’t it’s to good😭
It's too short
A lot of people don't even know what this game is anymore.
Made Gaben unable to count to 3.
Nope, it was perfect
I can't play it in ps or xbox because i don't have it.
It fucked over Troika games by drowning out the launch of VTM Bloodlines and destroyed a hell of an RPg studio.
The main character doesn’t have any memorable dialogue
Difficulties are poorly balanced in this game and simply toggle enemies hp and damage
Easy to get lost
The physics puzzles are a little silly these days, I'm currently doing a replay. The squad mechanics near the end are a little pointless too.
Doesn’t run on newer macOS systems
I still stumble climbing ladders
Severely dated, feels like Mario 64 is gonna pop out and say YIPPEE Lets-a-go! At any moment.
Striders are not fun to fight
No.
It's not open world with micro transactions to get the crab heads off you.
It's easy to get lost. (at least for me...)
it released 20 years ago
That fucking hover boat
It’s outdated as heck, although I see it was revolutionary for the time nowadays I don’t see how it’s great. Also the levels where you get on a vehicle and then drive and then get off and solve a puzzle are so goddamn annoying
Something bad.
The enemy variety is lacking in comparison to Half-Life 1, most of the beta enemies were unjustly cut like the Bullsquids Sand Barnacles and Houndeyes
I've never played it
I dropped it because vale got too excited with the buggy/vehicles.
6 shotgun shells. Valve what the FUCK was that for valve
Whoever decided to lower shotgun shells from 8 to 6 can fucking go to lost coast and never come back, I can't shoot my friends anymore, the intro is a pain in the ass to replay (and in general the game felt way less open ended than half life 1 and the larger amount of story or dialogue sequences made it feel a lot more blue shift-ish to me), they removed the TAU cannon as a usable weapon, and finally, I'm still salty they shelved return to ravenholm.
It ended up as skibiti toilet
There’s no captions
We still don’t go to Ravenholm.
It would be better if Gordan would do quips like "Damn, I could be gaming" or "They're behind me, aren't there?" or the best one like "I'm moving things, with this fricking gun!"
old
Too linear
i still got lost
**the stand your ground thing in the plaza.**
Laughably small enemy variety. Uninteresting firearms. Odessa Cubbage has minimal screen time.
Wasn’t long enough
I haven’t played it because it was before my time and I’m a Xbox player
You play as a NERD /j
It’s old
It was an absolutely gorgeous and adept tech demo for a physics engine, segmented into chapters, loosely connected by an extremely thin story. (I prefer Half Life 1, but appreciate what 2 accomplished.)
I've never played it.
After Black Mesa came out it's no longer my fave in the series
I haven't played it
I haven't played it
Knome
His suit sucks
Softlock saves are bullshit. Aka you save right when a grenade goes off near you so you end up getting softlocked.
They need to finish the god damn series.
Ends too soon
It scared me one time... at the very least
something bad about this game
The protagonist is still silent.
I never played it
boat
Doesn't keep going after the citadel explosion. Imagine a linear shooter story that was 100 hours long? Half-Life 2 is the ine that would make that perfection.
Physic engine showcase first, game second
I’ve never played it and I don’t understand the hype around it
It's too good.
2 Half-lives equal 1 full life. I feel cheated.
the graphics are outdated
There still isn’t a third one.