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Half-Life 2

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Post Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:21 am

Half-Life 2

Another paper I wrote for my video game class. Didn't really like this game. :) But, I hope you enjoy the article!

Half-Life 2 is a first person shooter provided through Steam for the PC. You play as Gordan Freeman, a major in physics who worked in translocation teleporting devices. Unfortunately, the way the teleporting worked, it opened a rift through another dimension where demon-like creatures inhabit. Because of that, the creatures were able to come into our dimension, destroy things and take over the human race. This game focuses on and around you participating in the resistance.
Half-Life 2 takes place on Earth, in a city and the rural area outside of the city in the future. Many of the levels’ passages to the next level are hidden and hard to find, in my opinion. A friend of mine showed me how to get through many of the levels because the levels all seemed to merge together and looked the same. All around the city are thugs or soldiers that are part of the Combine army. The environment is very interactive and most things can be picked up and thrown around or used with other objects that are lying around. They can even be used to kill enemies. This mainly refers to the exploding barrels of flammable liquid. The objects are also used to solve simple puzzles.
The levels, in general, are very linear and there is no variation in the game or value in replaying the levels or game. The developers obviously put a lot of creativity into the levels, but did not want the player to venture off into areas that have no concern to the story-line of Half-Life 2. As opposed to many first person shooters that we see in our modern era, this game contains a lot of vertical-movement where the player either walks or climbs up or down a lot. The maps are all contained and feel smaller this way, and make the game seem more linear. It is unclear whether or not this was the intention of the developers.
Some game tries to make the player seem rushed and suppressed like the humans within the new and terrible world of Half-Life 2 by creating a common enemy, giving all the humans emotionally scripted dialogue, and taking a world as we know it and ruining it. One big section of the game that did this well was the abandoned playground that had rusted away near the beginning of the game.
Major gameplay elements are the same that you would find in the stereotypical and major FPS games that were out during HL2’s era. This includes shooting guns, exploring to find your way around, solving some simple puzzles to continue to the next area, navigating around obstacles… This game is not that great and is nothing out of the ordinary. The reason why it did well was because the developers gave the people what they knew they liked in a game because most gamers are too scared to try something new and those who aren’t afraid are too stubborn to like anything that they try.
To me, there is not a greater point to the game that anyone was trying to reach. Doing some research on the game allowed me to find that the game was originally going to be darker and grittier than it had been, but it was later changed. The designers put a lot of hard work into designing the game and I think they achieved what they were shooting for. As far as programming is concerned, HL2 was based off of the Source Engine, which for its time was phenomenal and received massive amounts of praise. They were definitely trying to ‘raise the bar’ on the standards of first person shooters and gaming as a whole.
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Post Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:46 pm

Re: Half-Life 2

I still can't believe they offer a video game class now. Hehe, so cool.
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Post Mon Feb 28, 2011 4:23 pm

Re: Half-Life 2

As I've said before, for the sake of anyone else wondering, video games show what we know about ourselves by showing how we portray ourselves and the world around us. It's an artform that contains every aspect of every other artfrom, except you can actually interact and change it, yourself! :D
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Post Mon Feb 28, 2011 8:17 pm

Re: Half-Life 2

That was the way I felt about Fallout 3 and the source engine, Anything you imagine, you can create it. It's like a giant endless interactive customizable 3D easel that you can distribute.
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Post Mon Feb 28, 2011 8:38 pm

Re: Half-Life 2

Diehard335 wrote:That was the way I felt about Fallout 3 and the source engine, Anything you imagine, you can create it. It's like a giant endless interactive customizable 3D easel that you can distribute.


My fallout 3 save probably says more about me than anyone wants to know >.<

Hint its like 8MB in size >.>
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Post Fri Jun 10, 2011 8:40 pm

Re: Half-Life 2

I personally think Half-Life 2 most definitely "Raised the bar". Everything about it was awesome. I had the same feeling when I first played the original three days after launch. I almost sh*t my pants! I remember those days. I was the only kid in my neighborhood who had a PC good enough to run it smoothly (Thanks to my pimptastic 3Dfx Voodoo card XD). When the guard told me to pick up that can I knew right away that my gaming perception was going to be changed forever.



EDIT: Just realized how old this thread is. How embarrassing :(

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