Half-Life 2 = OVERRATED!!!

[Nexeus]

Hey here's another first person shooter that has just been released, it is called half life 2! You may have heard about it, people were jumping all ove rit... I call it OVERRRATED!

Just like Halo 2. Doom III isn't overrated because people didn't really expect a whole bunch from it... and wasn't as hyped as these two games....

All three are good games IMO... but still OVERRATED!!!

[Tarryk]

Half Life 2 IS along the same lines of hype as Doom 3 and Quake 4, I'll give you that. But I don't like putting the overrated tag on it.

Doom 3: For those who were waiting for that ultimate thrill ride, play-in-the-dark, get-the-crap-scared-out-of-you game, it definitely lived up to the hype.

Quake 4: For those looking for an open-air war-style version of Doom 3 with a bit more of a storyline, it's living up to the hype.

Half-Life 2: For those like me, who want the intensive storyline that Half-Life delivered, but with a million times more immersion and much more interactivity, it's DEFINITELY looking to live up to it's hype. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Overrated is in the eye of the beholder, and roughly in the words of the lovely editors at PC Gamer:

Whenever a game gets hype, most of the people who react to it either welcome the hype and love it, or have their expectations set to a mode where the game better cure cancer and show them the face of God or it will be slapped with the "overrated and sucks" label.

Granted, you DID say they were good games, but the point's validity isn't lost. It's only overrated in the eyes of one who expected something different than what the hype offered, and the points that have been hyped about Doom 3, for example, are exactly the points that they delivered and excelled at.

[Lauri]

*cradles her Halo 2 box in her arms and twitches*

[Nexeus]

See personally, i look at these games and the rest of the genre and I keep on seeing the same recycled over done stuff over and over again, like how many more times do I want to survive in Vietnam or WW1 or WW2.

People forget that the games the revolutionized this Genre was Quake, Doom, and Half Life, and when these came out they were great! Since then I haven't seen much more development into it. And games that have developed greatly (like Breakdown which I thing is underrated).

Now, I'm saying that they are overrated because I don't see these games changing the industry that they have once done, you know I would love to custom make weapons, have more weapons (opposed to the ones that I have already).

As for Halo 2 people also forget about some of the advancements of other first person shooters... on console... the name was Perfect Dark, and that was very revolutionary and good!

[Zephem]

Well, my only complaint is that previewers and marketing hype prop these games up to be revolutionary, and going to change how we play games forever.

The fact of the matter is, they're slightly improved versions of what's already been out. There's nothing really revolutionary about those three games, being Halo 2, Half-life 2, Quake 4 or Doom 3. They're all the same type of gameplay, using the same type of control devices that have existed for several years now.

Honestly, they are good games. I look at Halo 2 and now I see things that I thought should have been in Halo while I was playing it. I play Quake 4, and for the type of game that it is, it's top notch for what it does. Half-Life 2 has one of the best storylines in FPS games, and they're using some of the best physics engine code in the biz. They also have the AI, which other games slack on. Doom 3, well, I think they hit the notch with that game, and it delivered on what it said it was going to be.

The problem is, the information you get from the hype at times and the spin and excitement that reviewers and marketing puts on these games makes you think that it really is going to cure cancer. Mostly I don't give my hopes up, as I have fun playing anything. And I play a LOT of stuff.

Anyway, yah.

[Tarryk]

I think the word "revolutionize" is taking on the wrong meaning for some people. There are indeed two parts of the equation.

1. First-Gen Marketing: A brand new game type. Half-Life was released, introducing an interactive storyline embedded into a 3d shooter without the standard "quicktime" cut-scenes. And it rocked.

2. Second-Gen Marketing: What did you expect? Half-Life 2 to bring back the side-scroller? To come with a pair of 3d glasses? (okay, so that would have rocked, but still...) It's called Half-Life 2 for a reason. It IS the second part to Half-Life, and every ASPECT of Half-Life is improved on a "revolutionary" scale. And, from what I've seen on the previews and downloadables, it succeeded.

It all boils down to the original. The types of games exist as they are because of the first-gen games that came first, and this is the second-generation wave of those types of games. Of course they're not going to shake the earth like their predecessors did, because now we KNOW what to expect out of them.

And then they end up not showing us the face of God, and we slap them with the 1-point rating system. (it's either Godly or it Sucks).

Frankly, I expect exactly what I think anyone should expect out of Half Life 2. I expect Half Life 2.

[Zephem]

Revolutionize is a word that is taking on the wrong meaning. So is innovation. These are buzz words used by marketing types to hype up their products and it's being used everywhere. Over-hype it, people will buy it anyway. They return it? Write it off as a loss, no big deal, there's a few hundred thousand more that were satisfied.

First gen marketing was like that. Half-Life was a pretty interesting game, and had a lot of good features. To me it wasn't that much of a big movement in games. It borrowed elements that were already existing: the first person shooter (basicly defined by Doom/Quake/iD Games) and the roleplaying game storyline. Also, they brought an engine that was OLD (Quake 1 engine rebuilt when Quake 2 was released) and helped spark the modding community into the mainstream. Before, they weren't that big of a deal, but after Half-Life and counterstrike, everyone wants a piece of it.

Second gen, I don't expect the side-scroller or any of that. What I expected was an improvement over the existing game and a continuation of the existing storyline and lore from the original game. Yes, that's what we get. This also wasn't 'revolutionary.' Yesterday they activated the game, and people are playing it. What did I think of the new version of counter strike? Wow, better graphics, cool. I find it exciting that when I kick a garbage can and push a soda can off a table in a game, it now falls and sounds realistic. This isn't innovation, this isn't revolution. This is a gradual progression of improvements, which ends up having a prettier package so we have a reason to buy a new video card every couple of years.

Yes, compare Half-Life to Half-Life 2 and you're talking significant improvements. Hell, 5 years will do that to a game. I look at it, compared to a lot of other games from their competitors, and I'm seeing a lot of rehash across the board with all of them. Each one has it's own specific niche within the genre.

As an aspiring game designer, this is how I look at it.

Everything is a complicated rehash of pong.

There you go.

Half-Life 2 is going to get a 5 star rating from me. It is a great game, and what it's coming with is great as well. The Steam service is pretty unique and a good idea. I love the game so far, but I'm just arguing that the hype is the problem with the industry right now, and the assumptions created from this hype are not invalid. While some people blow it out of proportion on how much they think the games such because it doesn't match their god-like assumptions, I don't think it's completely invalid.

I like how Nintendo does it. You get a tiny piece of information, and you don't see anything about the game until just before it comes out. Even then, it's not a lot and they don't always hype up a lot of their good titles. Not exactly the best company to talk about revolutionary, though, but at least they don't hype everything up nor deny it.

[Lauri]

Indeed.

Innovation is almost expected out of every new game, these days. This reminds me about complaints I hear over new MMORPGs as well. How they aren't living up to their hype, or how they aren't being revolutionary.(and when MMORPGs start entering a second revolutionary stage, it's going to be painful but fun to watch)

However, due to the hype given some games, when they're out there and playable, some people are let down because they expected more. They expected "revolutionary".

I'm one of those gamers that is a-okay with a GOOD game, revolutionary or not. Even if it's a sequel. Maybe it comes from having played a LOT of Final Fantasy/Adventure Games(let's see, there were HOW many King's Quest games? lol). None of them were really that different than the next, but they were solid and most importantly: fun.

[Ashval]

*twitches and waits not-so-patiently for his copy of Vampire: Bloodlines to arrive*

[Gridfan]

(rant alert, or praise alert depending on your views)

Bloodlines uses the Source engine (The Half-Life 2 engine by Valve).

Doom-III was a total rewrite, it's not really related to the Quake engine nor Doom-II etc.
Doom-III is a ok shooter but most of all a great way for Id Software to present the new Doom-III game engine...

Other big game engines are Unreal (3.x or whatever) which is around the corner. (previous engine was presented in Unreal-II and Unreal Tournament 2004 etc).

Then there is Monolith (or rather Lithtech I forget what it's named these days), Monolith is the game house section of Lithtec and run/owned by Sierra. famous games using it is Alien vs Predator 2, No One Lives Forever 2, Tron 2.0 etc.
Lithtech never made a "game" to promo their game engine, instead the game house Monolith created several games using it:)

Valve Software created Half-Life way back. Not really intending to make a game engine "game" but instead a good game.
The story telling is awsome, no cutscenes, all pure ingame storytelling/iinteraction.
Now they are doing it again with Half-Life 2, but at the same time they are also using Half-Life 2 to intro their Source engine.
If HL2 is as good as HL1 but with souped up game engine then it'll match the Hype I think. In long term, the Source engine may supersede current hype. *shivers as he thinks of the hordes of Counter-Strike 2 players that'll crop out of the woodworks. (CS: Source isn't CS2)

I was surprised to learn that Bloodlines is using the Source engine,
esp when it's being released at the same time as Half-Life 2 even.
I can't recall games using Doom-III engine coming out at the same time as Doom-III, in fact. I haven't noticed a Doom-III engine game this side of xmas at all.

So allready Half-Life2 (or rather it's engine at least) is breaking grounds.
it usually takes months after a new game engine is out, before you start hearing of other games using the game engine...

(except in the case of Monolith, which develops Litchtech games in cooporation with the Lithtech engine makers, who don't make games at all.)

It's gonna be interesting to see if any MMO's pick up the Source engine as their MMO engine. Source should be quite suitable for this as it scales very well to various hardware. (more so than Doom-III)

Of the othe engines I mentioned above, only Unreal has trully been "popular" for MMO's etc.
afaik. the Unreal and Quake (Id Software (think of Doom-III as a Quake-5 engine) has been the most popular game engines, with Lithtech a strong third.

This may change now with the Source engine which has a revamp of CS, HL1 and some other stuff along with HL2. Plus at least one non Valve game (Bloodlines as I mentioned) and prolly more over newyear.

I'm pretty sure that Id is working on a Doom-IV engine to outperform Valve's Source engine.
And I'm not sure but a Unreal-III may be in the works.
And who knows what Lithtech (or whatever they are called) is working on,
we may see a new engine and games based on it coming from Monolith soon.

The Game Engine wars, yeah baby bring it on. But don't forget the content peeps.
Unreal-II wasn't all that hot. Doom-III lacked a bit storywise etc. but damn sweet looking eofcoz.
Only reason Lithtech hasn't screwed up is that they don't make games at all, Monolith does.

And Valve-software? Well, they started out making HL1, not a engine. (they used a heavily modified Quake-II engine).
I'm looking forward to HL2 and I truly hope the story is just as awsome as the Source engine looks.
If this is just anothr game engine promo game ala Unreal-II/UT2K4 and Doom-III etc. I'm gonna be so depressed.

But seeing that Bloodlines whih uses the Source engine is coming out know at same time as HL2.
That means the engine has been complete for quite a while (and only tweaked a bit while Valve made HL2) so there is still hope.

I love Valves crazy way of storytelling, and that is the primary reason I'll buy H2. (2nd being to get the Source mod tools whih I'm soo drooling for


(you can wake up now, I'm done

[Ichyro]

/shrug


I enjoy the use of the physics engine to promote new problems, as well as hostilities. The Crab zombies are a lot harder when they are throwing big drums of something.

You can never expect the sequel of a game to stray too far from the original. It would have been like Godfather II being a comedy or the two towers being shot 'tarintino style'.

A humdrum sequel is merely an addon to the original, bringing in greater graphics, improved AI, and other neat little features that should have belonged in the original, alongside some other kinks.

Examples being BF:V, Call of Duty United Front, and some others. Great sequels, however, try to surpass merely adding a few new quirks, and attempt to truly progress the story, not just sales.

It makes sense, doesn't it? Why would you change a sequel when everyone adored the original?