First, some background: I first became aware of PC gaming in 2012 (15yrs after HL1, 7yrs after HL2). I played both games back-to-back and then later replayed both separately.
There’s so much to be said about these two games, but I’ll sum up my feelings in a few bullet points:
- HL1 is more thematically unified. It plays true to its Sci-Fi & Die Hard roots up to the point of campiness, but that fits rather well for a game whose protagonist is effectively a nerdy Doom Marine – more a force-of-nature embodiment of survival than traditional hero.
- HL2, on the other hand, feels weighed-down by this legacy. It wants to tell a serious story about a charismatic freedom-fighter. That’s an aesthetic which clashes terribly with HL1’s mute, stoic survivalist.
- HL1 has a better core gameplay loop. It plays to its strengths: gunplay & level exploration. Exposition & puzzling are almost always delivered through these mediums wherever possible. Those few chapters which depart from this philosophy (On a Rail, Xen) are the weakest in the whole game as a result.
- HL2, by contrast, seems almost insecure. It only trusts the player to stick with the core gameplay-loop for a few chapters at most before pivoting into yet another gimmick – almost all of which (barring the gravity gun sequence) feel painfully drawn out:
- Water Hazard: Boating
- Highway 17: Driving
- Sandtraps: Physics “Puzzling” + “Platforming”
- Nova Prospekt: Wave-Based Point Defense
What do you guys think? There’s a lot worth unpacking here which I couldn’t quite articulate. What are your takeaways?
I think Valve learned a ton about game design between Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Half-Life 1 pulls a lot of “gotcha” moments that you just have to reload your save to get through, whereas Half-Life 2 actually make sure to have teachable moments so you know what to look out for, and here’s my favorite example. Half-Life 2 introduces you to a sniper enemy right after Ravenholm by having a traceable laser pointer that’s shooting escaped headcrab zombies. The sniper is concerned with them, not you, so you have time to be aware of the threat and know what it looks like. Half-Life 1 introduces the sniper enemy by having you round an ordinary looking corner and get shot in the back. After reloading your save, you can squint at the hole in the wall in that alley, knowing it’s there this time, and say to yourself, “Yeah, I guess that kind of looks like a sniper’s nest.”
The gimmicks that you refer to in Half-Life 2 are, I think, phenomenal examples of how to properly pace a video game and make the game memorable. While Gordon Freeman is a nothing character and more of a focal point for everyone else in the game to talk about, those characters are good, well-written characters.
I just love the sounds. They remind me of all the time I’ve spent playing CS 1.6 zombie modes.
Eh. I don’t really agree. I agree that they’re both excellent games and that they differ in the ways you’ve listed, but I just replayed both and I have to say, hl1 drags. There are long chunks that consist of seemingly endless corridor crouching jumping puzzles with headcrabs lurking predictably for jumpscares.
The things you call “gimmicks” in hl2 to me broke up that loop. They are still parts of the game and use the same mechanics, but they shake the loop up just enough that you don’t get sick of doing the same jumping puzzle–>crouch through narrow tunnel and hit headcrab with crowbars–>fight pattern, and it still includes enough of those to feel like an extension of the same game.
I do think it was a mistake to keep Gordon mute for hl2. He had a reason to not talk in hl1, there wasn’t really anyone to talk to. It makes way less sense in 2, and hamstrings them on further story aspects as they try to get serious with the plot.
It’s another thing that’s also become widely adopted by the industry as well: games that give the player different types of gameplay loops and don’t get stuck in an endless-enemies-all-the-time Serious Sam scenario. There’s a lot of reasons to hold Half-Life 2 up as a great game, especially with how widely influential literally every aspect of it became. It was doing a lot of things that were firsts at the time, and just because they don’t hold up well against a modern standard is an imperfect argument. It laid influential groundwork that other games these days follow because they were shown to be effective in Half-Life 2, especially in respect to less-repetitive gameplay loops.
I think this is an astute take-down. Half-Life 2 was very concerned with showing off all the “advancements” it made. While those advancements were certainly novel at the time, they seem less novel and less cohesive now that the entire industry has followed suit.
The physics in Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom make the physics in the Source engine look like a fucking joke. So it’s really hard to go back to a game like Half-Life 2 and have it stand on those merits because they’ve been overshadowed for so long. The character design and facial physics have similarly been left in the dust. Once again, it’s overshadowed by the entire industry following suit on these technological changes, and the story lacks the depth to make up for it, years down the line.
Half-Life had far fewer gimmicks and in many ways was a more traditional first-person shooter with an excellently put together story. The writing in Half-Life 2 was still strong, but Half-Life was much stronger (this is common for sequels, because you’re having to extend a story you already wrote an end for).
In fact, I think that’s part of why we never got a Half-Life 2: Part 3. They were entering a phase of what you might call “fiction-debt” where the past choices in the story were beginning to slow down the story and make it less intriguing. Sometimes the more you reveal about the mystery, the less interesting it is. Half-Life left years of mystique behind it because so many parts of the story were still open ended and unexplained. It can also be argued that this “fiction-debt” is why they had to go into the past and do a pre-sequel with Half-Life: Alyx.
Also, the choice to make it so you can’t kill major characters in a game breaking way is a loss, in my personal opinion. I don’t like games that prevent me from doing dumb things. Like at the beginning of Halo: Combat Evolved, I can shoot Captain Keyes right in the face, and every space marine around me will lose his shit and attack me until death. It’s actual consequences for negative actions instead of just making a character an unkillable bullet sponge. Similarly in Half-Life you can accidentally kill scientists and security guards that you need to be able to open certain doors.
They were entering a phase of what you might call “fiction-debt” where the past choices in the story were beginning to slow down the story and make it less intriguing. […] It can also be argued that this “fiction-debt” is why they had to go into the past and do a pre-sequel with Half-Life: Alyx.
That’s an interesting idea. I agree… though, I think that the choice to switch lead characters was more instrumental than the choice to go with a prequel. I wonder if Valve internally ever seriously considered ditching Gordon when they were making HL2? It’s funny to imagine what the fan reception to that might have looked like!
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