The Orange Box (PC/PS3/360)

[Concept]

I disagree. Not all videogames use this type of 'obvious design' to this degree. Halo uses it a hell of a lot less, that's for sure. Halo works best with a huge area withloads of different types of forces fighting one another which can flow in hundreds of different ways. And this kind of open ended, unscripted, sandboxy design is becoming a lot more popular, which makes HL2's heavily scripted, checkpoint-centic design seem very old by comparison.

You mean the same Halo that has huge gaping holes in the Hunter's backs for you, interiors which endlessly reuse the same level design, repetitive backtracking to hit switches to open the door/bridge where you previously were, go here 'do this objective' design as marked by the HUD, scarabs with big blue buttons on their back you shoot to take down, or endless waves of mush-like enemies which act as little else but giant sponges? While I acknowledge that Halo's AI is superior to Half-Life 2's (and probably to most other shooters bar Fear), it's still a heavily scripted game. The triggers for a pair of Hunter's to drop down, a pack of brutes to appear or a scarab to burst on the scene very much exist.

Both games offer sandbox gameplay in different ways. In Halo it's about the way enemies use cover and react to your weapons' balance, in Half-Life 2 it's about how you use the environmental objects around you and what you want to do with them.

It is a criticism and by that I mean it feels like the whole game is a corridor that I am constantly pushed down. I haven't looked at HL2's maps, but if I did I imagine they would look just like a long strand of spaghetti rather than something more organic, more real.

Well, levels situated in canals are going to be spaghetti-esque. That's what canals are - long, thin stretches of water. It's probably going to break the suspension of disbelief if you're traversing one which has no structural consistency. As for interior settings like the sewers and Nova Prospekt - they feel real enough to me and make good use of varied space.

This is the disagreement I had about Goldeneye. GE's levels are actual buildings that link back on themselves like real buildings do. HL2's levels are mostly a funnel, save for the odd Lamda cache. I hate being pushed down a funnel in games like this, although it HL2 it feels worse because the game is trying to maintain a atmosphere of a bigger larger world, but fails imo.

It's a very selective criticism with regards to what you say on funneling. Of course Half-Life 2 is linear by its nature, but so is every first-person shooter outside of those clearly designed to be sandbox (i.e. Stalker). All it is is a question of how big the funnel happens to be, and where you personally choose to define the boundaries of locations within them, if you're going to consider the whole as being unrepresentative of what it's supposed to be depicting. If you look at the stretches of road, in Highway 17, then they have numerous buildings littered around that you can go in and out of which fit the design of the locale consistently - the same with Water Hazard. As for the interiors - sewers and apartment blocks are supposed to be naturally confined. Not only would it not fit the game for Valve to model them open-endedly, but it'd sag down the pacing in locations which aren't as aesthetically interesting as the canals and the highways. I could understand your criticisms if Valve were offering multiple paths and most of those paths didn't work except in favour of one, but they're not.

On the point of the illusion of a bigger world not being delivered detracting from the game's atmosphere - this is something which for me Half-Life 2 pretty much stands ahead of most other shooters on. In Halo 3 you have little to no connection to your surroundings. You're supposed to be fighting for humanity and saving the world but, apart from the crashed orbital elevator, you don't see any human impact that the covenant are having on anything other than the soldiers you're fighting with. There's no iconic attachment to your surroundings in the sense that you can identify being on Earth through. It's just random, devoid of personality, desert A.

In City 17, right from the outset there's an establishment of 'them' and 'us' in terms of both the way the civilians are creeping around the guards, and the various DNA-identifying suppression barriers which keep you hemmed in. The citadel constantly lingering in the background, the way the city has been destroyed, the subtle combine propaganda from the posters, Breen's videocasts and the combine overwatch announcer. There's more than enough information to establish a credible setting consistent with the narrative.

Does it matter that you're not given more free reign? Not particularly - you get to see enough of City 17 in what Valve show you to get a sense of it, and in terms of narrative, you're on the run - you're supposed to be escaping. It makes sense that you'd be using a route the resistence keep you on to leave. The boundaries are defined by the chain link fences and the force fields. What's Halo 3's execuse for keeping you inside it's levels? Invisible walls. An inelegant solution.

I mean if the criticism of Bioshock was that it was just a simple shooter beneath it all, that criticism applies double to HL2.

It's not a criticism I personally sign on to. In my opinion it's a complex shooter, both in terms of mechanics and level design.

Clearly I don't mean to rip off the use of plasmids per se, but something wouldn't go amiss. At the time, the gravity gun felt good, but now....not so much. It's just another gun that shoots stuff straight at the enemy and is just an alternative for the other weapons (until later on).

The Portal gun in Episode 3 is what we need.

I agree. I'd love to see it, but I find using the gravity gun as enjoyable as I did three years ago. There's something satisfying being able to quickly and directly play about with your environment. It probably indicates my OCD nature that I have to throw every wooden box and bench with free abandon at each wall I come across. :P

To me, games rely on their mechanics like films rely on a good script. You can have all the brilliant effects in the world, gorgeous camera work and amazing music, but without a great script a film will never be great. In films and games, atmosphere can only take you so far.

I see games more in line with books. It's all about structure and perspective, and in that sense Half-Life 2 works because it continually alters its rhythm and keeps you engaged.

But imo the atmosphere in HL2 is forever broken by 'oh so obvious' design and the dull gameplay i.e. a seesaw next to an high gap with some handy bricks lieing around - I can't fathom how anyone can say that is great level design. I'm surprised they didn't have an item hidden behind a waterfall.

I'm just wondering if you have the same criticisms of the 'pick up item A to use on object B' dungeon design in the Zelda series, the mechanics-derived exploration in God of War and the 'use item to get into environment' dynamics of Metroid? I can only reiterate - welcome to videogame design in general.

It's not something I particularly disagree with you in principle on - that we should try to escape overly obvious videogame logic if we can, but to single Half-Life 2 out for it as a shining example of this isn't entirely fair. You originally said it was the ultimate conclusion of the corridor shooter - hyperbolic and exaggerated language. There are better examples - Doom III and Call of Duty for example are far worse offenders and they're not even bad games. Which brings me back to my point. Am I disappointed that Half-Life 2 is like a rollercoaster ride? Hell no, because it's one of the best I've ever been on.

In my opinion, it doesn't pretend to be non-linear. If the 'oh so obviousness' of it is defined by its physics based puzzling or making sure you use your abilities to get to the next point, I don't see it as a bad thing. I'd prefer to be doing different things to get to the next point, than repeatedly opening a door or being stumped for hours because there's no clue what to do next. If Valve weren't mixing it up and giving you different things to do to get to the next point, they'd have another bunch of people claiming they were being repetitious. That's one of the things I love about it - that you're not straddled with clearly marked objectives in the sense that you have to 'go here' and 'do that' as marked by incessant characters telling you what to do or the options menu/HUD. You're simply working your way through the environment. Two Betrayals in Halo, as much as I love the level, is continually overlaying precisely where you have to go and what you have to do. You not only have Cortana jabbering in your ear where to go, but an arrow off to the screen listing how many meters you are from your objective. That, to my mind, is ever so slightly obvious design. :P

But again, it's not something I'd really wield an axe over Halo with because all games are susceptible to needing to relay to the player what they have to do next if they're linear by nature. It just depends how bluntly they choose to do it. Videogame logic is something you can fight, but it's also something the most smart developers learn to begrudgingly accept and use to their advantage.

OTOH Portal actually has a strong (if simple) core mechanic and doesn't outstay it's welcome. Which is probably why it's the part of this package that a lot of people seem to have enjoyed the most .

I think a lot of people liked it simply because first and foremost that it's new, and secondly that it;s offering a different slant on the first-person genre overall. It isn't indicative of Half-Life 2's quality, or alleged lack thereof. It also wouldn't suprise me that many people new to Half-Life haven't even bothered to try Episode 2 yet.

Anyway, I agree with Soi. This has turned into an excellent thread. Good debate.

[Wools]

How come Concept always writes the best posts?

Your post in my thread about game atmosphere was post of the year.

[Durham Red]

When it all comes down to it, I will forever love The Orange Box because it gave me Portal, and with that, the most wonderful time I've spent in a game in years. I can look back on those brief hours and say 'Yeah, that's really as good as gaming gets'. Wonderful concepts, great little puzzles, brilliant storytelling and the best character in a game I can honestly recall. I want to hug each and every person that worked on it.

That is all.

[jimtendo]

On the point of the illusion of a bigger world not being delivered detracting from the game's atmosphere - this is something which for me Half-Life 2 pretty much stands ahead of most other shooters on. In Halo 3 you have little to no connection to your surroundings. You're supposed to be fighting for humanity and saving the world but, apart from the crashed orbital elevator, you don't see any human impact that the covenant are having on anything other than the soldiers you're fighting with. There's no iconic attachment to your surroundings in the sense that you can identify being on Earth through. It's just random, devoid of personality, desert A.

In City 17, right from the outset there's an establishment of 'them' and 'us' in terms of both the way the civilians are creeping around the guards, and the various DNA-identifying suppression barriers which keep you hemmed in. The citadel constantly lingering in the background, the way the city has been destroyed, the subtle combine propaganda from the posters, Breen's videocasts and the combine overwatch announcer. There's more than enough information to establish a credible setting consistent with the narrative.

I've been trying to find in words to say about it, but you've pretty much summed up (in better words than i could have) as to why i feel immersed in the Half Life 2 setting, more so than i did with Halo 3.
Spot on there!

It's the feeling of Orwells 1984's paranoia, with the overwatch announcer constantly on the loud tannoy during 'Route Kanal'

The whole destroyed eastern bloc (chernobyl-esque even) setting is what i enjoy most about it

[stormbreak]

I've just completed Half Life 2. I wasn't blown away like many of you were when you first played it (I also don't see what is so great about Halo) but I found it very enjoyable. Suprisingly I actually played this game for long periods of time, usually I play a game for an hour then switch it off and never play it again (Like I did with Bioshock). There's something about Half Life 2, the pacing of the game rarely puts you in a position where you are content with stopping which is why I completed it so quickly. Hell I just received Metroid Prime 3 today which I wanted to play more than this, but after an hour of playing it I wanted to go and play this agian :S

The ending was bollocks in my opinion, but atleast I had Episode One right there for me to know what happens next

[Brats]

You mean the same Halo that has huge gaping holes in the Hunter's backs for you, interiors which endlessly reuse the same level design, repetitive backtracking to hit switches to open the door/bridge where you previously were, go here 'do this objective' design as marked by the HUD, scarabs with big blue buttons on their back you shoot to take down, or endless waves of mush-like enemies which act as little else but giant sponges?

Firstly you're talking about different things here.

Many of those are things such as the hunters weak spot 'toys' to play around with in the Halo universe, but whether the player uses them or not is optional. That's the beauty of Halo and games like it. Aside from two sections, it is completely possible to complete Halo 3 without ever getting in a vehicle. You cannot do that in Half Life 2. The vehicle sections are there to be used and woe betide you if you don't.

The points about Halo's repetitive level design are fair criticisms (although all but eradicated in Halo 3), but I'd rather play a game that has great gameplay with the odd section repeating than a linear funnel with average gameplay and no true experimentation available besides what was in the mind of the developer.

Did Bungie imagine I would drive a Warthog onto a Scarab? Possibly, but I'm damn glad the design allowed me to do it.

While I acknowledge that Halo's AI is superior to Half-Life 2's (and probably to most other shooters bar Fear), it's still a heavily scripted game. The triggers for a pair of Hunter's to drop down, a pack of brutes to appear or a scarab to burst on the scene very much exist.

It does have some triggers to start things, but we're talking leagues apart between HL2 and Halo here. As I said, drive though the Water Hazard section very slowly and the scripting falls apart. It's hilarious. In many parts the game was only designed to be played one way and it's that design element that I find shatters the atmosphere.

It might be a fun ride, but it is just a ride. Try and step outside the ride and you get your hand slapped. I don't just want a ride, I want some control - to feel like I did this, not that it couldn't have been done any other way.

Both games offer sandbox gameplay in different ways. In Halo it's about the way enemies use cover and react to your weapons' balance, in Half-Life 2 it's about how you use the environmental objects around you and what you want to do with them.

Picking up an explosive barrel that's been intentionally placed there and flinging it at enemies is not sandbox gameplay. And the sandbox gameplay in Halo is not about the enemies using cover, it's about the choices available. it's about doing wierd stuff like driving a warthog of a crane. That's sandbox.

Well, levels situated in canals are going to be spaghetti-esque. That's what canals are - long, thin stretches of water. It's probably going to break the suspension of disbelief if you're traversing one which has no structural consistency.

That's an argument? They didn't HAVE to set it in a canal, it could have been in say a logging lake with many varied ways to traverse a large open environment. Look at Crysis' level set on a lake for instance.

As for interior settings like the sewers and Nova Prospekt - they feel real enough to me and make good use of varied space.

The sewers in particular are awful. Again by there very nature, they are corridors, but they didn't have to set it in sewers. Why not set the first level in a disused shopping mall?

It's a very selective criticism with regards to what you say on funneling. Of course Half-Life 2 is linear by its nature, but so is every first-person shooter outside of those clearly designed to be sandbox (i.e. Stalker). All it is is a question of how big the funnel happens to be, and where you personally choose to define the boundaries of locations within them, if you're going to consider the whole as being unrepresentative of what it's supposed to be depicting.

I'm never said HL2 is alone, but it does seem immune to some criticism that other games get tarnished for.

I agree with your last sentence, but games (FPS in particular) have been getting more and more open. Far Cry is a hell of a lot more open than HL2 and they came out similar times (the crap bits of Far cry are the linear bits - the bits where the gameplay feels more like HL2).

The boundary fo me is way beyond what HL2 delivers. It's one of the most tightly scripted FPS I've played in recent years. It's not the biggest culprit (I hated Doom 3 for the same reasons) but there have been many more open games. COD2's later levels were excellent examples of open levels that alowed for experimentation and different approaches within a fairly tight game mechanic. COD3 on the otherhand was complete garbage partly because it was scripted all the way through (and many people on this forum agreed with me here).

On the point of the illusion of a bigger world not being delivered detracting from the game's atmosphere - this is something which for me Half-Life 2 pretty much stands ahead of most other shooters on. In Halo 3 you have little to no connection to your surroundings. You're supposed to be fighting for humanity and saving the world but, apart from the crashed orbital elevator, you don't see any human impact that the covenant are having on anything other than the soldiers you're fighting with. There's no iconic attachment to your surroundings in the sense that you can identify being on Earth through. It's just random, devoid of personality, desert A.

Can't disagree with you, but connection with surrounding is never something I have craved, I just need to to be believable. That creates the atmosphere. I don't believe Halo 3 would be any better if the battles took place around the Statue of Liberty. However it would be worse if the game stopped me trying things out that I wanted to do.

HL2's world feels too 'gamey' because of the design. I'm put into an environment that looks like it should have loads of exits, but there is always just one. I'd rather have a more natural feeling world in a place I don't have an affinity with.

In City 17, right from the outset there's an establishment of 'them' and 'us' in terms of both the way the civilians are creeping around the guards, and the various DNA-identifying suppression barriers which keep you hemmed in. The citadel constantly lingering in the background, the way the city has been destroyed, the subtle combine propaganda from the posters, Breen's videocasts and the combine overwatch announcer. There's more than enough information to establish a credible setting consistent with the narrative.

Completely agree, but then as I said the 'passive' elements are by far HL2's strongest asset.

Does it matter that you're not given more free reign? Not particularly - you get to see enough of City 17 in what Valve show you to get a sense of it, and in terms of narrative, you're on the run - you're supposed to be escaping. It makes sense that you'd be using a route the resistence keep you on to leave. The boundaries are defined by the chain link fences and the force fields. What's Halo 3's execuse for keeping you inside it's levels? Invisible walls. An inelegant solution.

Hold on a sec. Halo had invisible walls only when you took the Banshhe up to massive heights on certain levels. Even then you could do stuff that clearly wasn't intended for, so you're being a bit unfair here. The openness of Halo is way beyond HL2. Again I'd rather take that openness with the odd invisible wall rather than being hemmed in by real walls into a narrow funnel. I can never feel a game is truly epic (something HL2 clealry intends to be) if I feel constantly constricted. Epic to me is about how the game plays, nit just how it looks.

Therefore the lack of free reign is FUNDAMENTAL to why I don't enjoy the game. It's like they've given me this fab toy to play with, but I have to play it 'their way'. That sucks.

It's not a criticism I personally sign on to. In my opinion it's a complex shooter, both in terms of mechanics and level design.

It's definately a basic shooter. The options available to the player are limited. The mechanics are over ten years old. They were old in Half Life one, but it had the AI then (which was the best there was at the time) to see it through. Things have moved on a lot since then.

I see games more in line with books. It's all about structure and perspective, and in that sense Half-Life 2 works because it continually alters its rhythm and keeps you engaged.

But most important are the words. If Half Life 2 were a book, it'd be a Dan Brown novel.

I'm just wondering if you have the same criticisms of the 'pick up item A to use on object B' dungeon design in the Zelda series, the mechanics-derived exploration in God of War and the 'use item to get into environment' dynamics of Metroid? I can only reiterate - welcome to videogame design in general.

I'm not a fan of God of War for similar reasons. Zelda and Metroid I love because although they are linear, they work within a beautiful logic that works with the fantasy that they exist in. HL2 logic is all over the place. Why can I destroy this wooden panel, but I can't destroy this wooden panel? Why is this water lovely and clear but this water next to it is horribly toxic? Why can't I use the gravity gun to pull that switch rather than have to work my way over to it by some convulted means? Why are all the doors completely impassable despite my massive arsenal so I have to take this ladder to the rooftop?

It's not something I particularly disagree with you in principle on - that we should try to escape overly obvious videogame logic if we can, but to single Half-Life 2 out for it as a shining example of this isn't entirely fair. You originally said it was the ultimate conclusion of the corridor shooter - hyperbolic and exaggerated language.

There are better examples - Doom III and Call of Duty for example are far worse offenders and they're not even bad games. Which brings me back to my point. Am I disappointed that Half-Life 2 is like a rollercoaster ride? Hell no, because it's one of the best I've ever been on.

I think you've misunderstood me about the 'ultimate conclusion of the corridor shooter' line. What I meant was that it is incredibly linear but probably the best game that an incredibly linear shooter could be. It's miles better than Doom 3 (but that doesn't make it that good).

See above for COD2.

In my opinion, it doesn't pretend to be non-linear. If the 'oh so obviousness' of it is defined by its physics based puzzling or making sure you use your abilities to get to the next point, I don't see it as a bad thing. I'd prefer to be doing different things to get to the next point, than repeatedly opening a door or being stumped for hours because there's no clue what to do next.

But they could have done it much better. How many physics puzzles do we need that rely on a cantilever?

If Valve weren't mixing it up and giving you different things to do to get to the next point, they'd have another bunch of people claiming they were being repetitious. That's one of the things I love about it - that you're not straddled with clearly marked objectives in the sense that you have to 'go here' and 'do that' as marked by incessant characters telling you what to do or the options menu/HUD. You're simply working your way through the environment. Two Betrayals in Halo, as much as I love the level, is continually overlaying precisely where you have to go and what you have to do. You not only have Cortana jabbering in your ear where to go, but an arrow off to the screen listing how many meters you are from your objective. That, to my mind, is ever so slightly obvious design. :P

It's not obvious design at all, it's just simply using waypoints. It's showing you an ultimate goal and allowing the player the freedom to figure out his own way there. Two Betrayals is actually one of my less favourite levels in Halo because it is more scripted. The Halo level (level 2) is a great example of waypoints mixed with very open gameplay.

Half Life 2 doesn't need waypoints because there is only ever one way to go. I don't see that as a good thing.

But again, it's not something I'd really wield an axe over Halo with because all games are susceptible to needing to relay to the player what they have to do next if they're linear by nature. It just depends how bluntly they choose to do it. Videogame logic is something you can fight, but it's also something the most smart developers learn to begrudgingly accept and use to their advantage.

I'm not against videogame logic, but the game has to work within it's own logic. HL2 frequently doesn't and doesn't seem to care. Portal is the complete opposite.Which leads us onto:

I think a lot of people liked it simply because first and foremost that it's new, and secondly that it;s offering a different slant on the first-person genre overall. It isn't indicative of Half-Life 2's quality, or alleged lack thereof. It also wouldn't suprise me that many people new to Half-Life haven't even bothered to try Episode 2 yet.

many peopl on here have played HL and Episode 1 though as have many of the press and it's Portal that is getting the lion's share of the attention.

Anyway, I agree with Soi. This has turned into an excellent thread. Good debate.

I'll definately agree with you on that point.

[ascender]

Is there any way at all to restart a level within HL2? I'm knackered in Nova Prospekt, can't get any further, but the previous saves for some reason are levels (and hours) back from where I am now.

Any ideas or do I need to just write my time off and go back in the game?

[chosen_one666]

Pretty sure you can select different chapters from the New Game menu.

Not sure if you have to have completed them already, or just reached them, to make them accessible though.

[ascender]

Pretty sure you can select different chapters from the New Game menu.

Not sure if you have to have completed them already, or just reached them, to make them accessible though.

You sir are a genius! Thank you so much.



Can't believe I never thought of that....

[ascender]

Turns out it was a bug. Flew through the level and this time when I pulled the switch the doors opened. Previously the lights above them were green but the doors were shut. God knows how long I spent trying to get past that when there was no chance. Very annoying.

[SqueakyG]

I've come across my first real annoyance with HL2: it only seems to be allowing me 7 save game slots. It no longer offers a "new save" slot.

I always like to leave a save right before something interesting happens, like a plot-heavy scene or a cool scripted sequence, of which there are at least 15 or more in HL2. Grrr.

I'm sure it's a consoley restriction caused by the fact that the Xbox 360 can be played without a HDD (not that anybody I've ever heard of plays without the HDD...)

[mr_woo]

Excellent debate and i'm enjoying it immensely

I've never really understood people comparing Halo and Half Life 2 though as I consider them very different games which achieve different things.

Half Life 2 is my favourite FPS ever (and one of my favourite games full stop) but the reason I love it so much is because it's so tightly scripted and because of the way it achieves its atmosphere/story and completely sucks you in. I'll be completely honest in that it just feels right to me (how dumb does that sound!) and leaves me completely satisfied. If it wasn't so scripted I don't think it would be as successful as it is. However I can fully see how it wouldn't attract everyone, it's a very personal thing as to how much you get into it.

I always get very much into how you have to keep moving, the pace never lets up for me but that's because I always feel that I can never stop and have to reach the next place as quickly as possible to further the story/setpieces. Maybe that's why I really like the boat/driving levels as I'm following Valves designed pace so hence I love it to bits, I'm not one for really stopping and messing about in the game world.

Halo in the other hand is a game for constant fighting and skirmishes, and is at its heart an arcade shooter (not in a bad way). I love it but I see it as a completely different beast to Half Life 2 and not really comparable as they aim for different goals.

Anyway enough of my inane rambling, just trying to get my point across of why I love Half Life so much but I'm not a good writer!

[Jusatsushi]

I've never really understood people comparing Halo and Half Life 2 though as I consider them very different games which achieve different things.

Agreed. It's like comparing God of War and Ico just because they share the same perspective and both have combat.

[rmoxon]

Yeah it is pretty ridiculous.

FPS's are my favorite genre in gaming really, and even still I wouldnt relaly ever compare Halo and Half-Life from a gameplay perspective.

Trouble is not everyone plays every game ever made, so some people don't realise how varied even a genre where you shoot people in first person can be.

Its also about expectations I supose, Half-Life games are actualy as much an adventure as a shooter, but they are first person, so people think shooter.

Though it is worth pointing out that Ep2 is alot more shooting based and I love it immensley.

[Concept]

How come Concept always writes the best posts?

Your post in my thread about game atmosphere was post of the year.

Cheers. It's the longest post I've typed in a while, but Half-Life 2 is the kind of game where there's a lot to talk about.

It's the feeling of Orwells 1984's paranoia, with the overwatch announcer constantly on the loud tannoy during 'Route Kanal'

The whole destroyed eastern bloc (chernobyl-esque even) setting is what i enjoy most about it

The oppression you feel plays a large part in why the setting is as atmospherically effective as it is. The game wants you to feel constantly harassed at the beginning, hence the flying cameras which follow you about.

Firstly you're talking about different things here.

Many of those are things such as the hunters weak spot 'toys' to play around with in the Halo universe, but whether the player uses them or not is optional. That's the beauty of Halo and games like it. Aside from two sections, it is completely possible to complete Halo 3 without ever getting in a vehicle. You cannot do that in Half Life 2. The vehicle sections are there to be used and woe betide you if you don't.

Those sections are built around the vehicles, much like the end level of Halo is. That doesn't mean you can't frequently get out dispatch enemies in the general areas, explore and then pop back in to go on your way though. The game doesn't expect you to use the buggy to mow down tonnes of enemies.

As I said, drive though the Water Hazard section very slowly and the scripting falls apart. It's hilarious. In many parts the game was only designed to be played one way and it's that design element that I find shatters the atmosphere.

I have and I have no problem with it. I'd also disagree that you're supposed to drive through it at full speed without stopping. You have to drop off for combat at a disused barn/dock, crane yard, factory, numerous, three small abandoned intersections, a resistance outpost, and a dried up lakebed. Maybe my humour is off.

Picking up an explosive barrel that's been intentionally placed there and flinging it at enemies is not sandbox gameplay. And the sandbox gameplay in Halo is not about the enemies using cover, it's about the choices available. it's about doing wierd stuff like driving a warthog of a crane. That's sandbox.

The same sandbox where you can build structures out of numerous objects and screw about in the ways you want to choose to finish enemies? I may have already said it, but it's a different type of sandbox to Halo, but it's a sandbox all the same.

You can pick far more than a couple of barrels up. I've just been playing through Ravenholm where you can use mattress beds, mattresses, circular metal discs, wooden platforms, chairs, signs, tables, drawers, cupboards, radiators, washing machines, gas canisters, cars, spinning slicers, engines, table benches, stools, spanners, hooks, bricks, paint cans. Ravenholm is absolutely packed for destruction - it encourages you to play about with the environment and use the enemies as toys. This continues on into Highway 17 where there are dozens of other objects you can use.

That's an argument? They didn't HAVE to set it in a canal, it could have been in say a logging lake with many varied ways to traverse a large open environment. Look at Crysis' level set on a lake for instance.

I was replying to your criticism of the design existing in the game. If we're talking hypothetically, then yes, I wouldn't have been against to redesigning the canal. However, as things stands you can't expect it to be any different in terms of being spaghetti-based (I'm getting hungry).

The sewers in particular are awful. Again by there very nature, they are corridors, but they didn't have to set it in sewers. Why not set the first level in a disused shopping mall?

Because the sewers are there to convey the sense you're getting out of City 17. When you surface from them, you're more or less at the edge of the city and ready to hop on the water boat. A dissused shopping centre isn't going to be able to be used to convey the sense you're moving underneath the city to escape.

What the sewers do is convey the sense the combine are looking for you above - something emphasised by the helicopter which begins to hunt you down. It also introduces the manhacks and a couple of easy swimming sections so you can get used to the controls for when you have to use them quickly in the caves. Would you have been able to introduce the helicopter, swimming and the intimate narrow combat with the manhacks in a large open area such as a shopping centre? Unlikely.

I agree with your last sentence, but games (FPS in particular) have been getting more and more open. Far Cry is a hell of a lot more open than HL2 and they came out similar times (the crap bits of Far cry are the linear bits - the bits where the gameplay feels more like HL2).

If anything, Far Cry makes the argument for Half-Life 2's use of space. The AI is fairly mediocre, and in larger spaces that becomes more apparent (something which games that rely on tighter use of space do better at avoiding). On top of this, Far Cry also introduces the way in which scene setting can contribute to your sense of exploration in a way similar to Half-Life 2. The objectives in the game are fairly linear and much of the enjoyment is derived out of how you connect with your environment since a large proportion of it doesn't serve much functional value. Crysis may provide better AI and consequently a richer experience in an environment of that size. We'll see soon.

The boundary fo me is way beyond what HL2 delivers. It's one of the most tightly scripted FPS I've played in recent years. It's not the biggest culprit (I hated Doom 3 for the same reasons) but there have been many more open games. COD2's later levels were excellent examples of open levels that alowed for experimentation and different approaches within a fairly tight game mechanic. COD3 on the otherhand was complete garbage partly because it was scripted all the way through (and many people on this forum agreed with me here).

I have trouble returning to CoD because due to combat fatigue. Too loud, too dull. I am hoping CoD 4 will be more interesting in single-player.

Hold on a sec. Halo had invisible walls only when you took the Banshhe up to massive heights on certain levels. Even then you could do stuff that clearly wasn't intended for, so you're being a bit unfair here.

Not really. I said Halo 3 in the part of the post you quoted, where there are numerous invisible walls all over the place.

The openness of Halo is way beyond HL2. Again I'd rather take that openness with the odd invisible wall rather than being hemmed in by real walls into a narrow funnel. I can never feel a game is truly epic (something HL2 clealry intends to be) if I feel constantly constricted. Epic to me is about how the game plays, nit just how it looks.

Comparitively, I can't feel a connection to a game where you have no solid relationship with your environment. Halo worked very well in keeping you grounded in one consistent location, although it partly suffered due to the fact that half of the levels were re-used (albeit intelligently). Halo 2 and 3 attempt to be epic but you have no sense of place. You're just flinging about from environment - typically Halo, Earth, Library, Human Spaceship and Covenant Spaceship. You can look at those in one of two ways, there's interesting aesthetic variation, but outside of the flood spread, little of it seems to crisscross in a manner which isn't divided.

In Half-Life 2 you become accustomed to the same general area and the look it adheres to. City 17, Water Hazard, Eli's Scrapyard, Highway 17 and Nova Prospket all feel part of the same place to me.

It's definately a basic shooter. The options available to the player are limited. The mechanics are over ten years old. They were old in Half Life one, but it had the AI then (which was the best there was at the time) to see it through. Things have moved on a lot since then.

Yup. Certainly in physics, greater NPC interaction and vehicle integration.

I was referring to BioShock in that post though when we somehow got on to it. To my mind, it's a game which offers plenty of options.

Half-Life's success was down to it's level design and variation. Interestingly enough, level design not all too dissimilar to the Sewer and Nova Prospekt levels, which spatially to my mind contrast smartly with the ones of greater expanse. The original Half-Life's level design still stands up today to me, and I'm talking from a more modern day perspective having only played it back in 2004.

But most important are the words. If Half Life 2 were a book, it'd be a Dan Brown novel.

Still, it's better than being an Aliens rip-off, right? I'll take 1984 meets War of the Worlds and Brave New World any time. :P It's unfair to compare them because their aiming for different sci-fi audiences but all I can say is that I felt much more connected with the characters in Half-Life 2 than I ever did in Halo 3.

Why can I destroy this wooden panel, but I can't destroy this wooden panel? Why is this water lovely and clear but this water next to it is horribly toxic?

The rules are clearly defined for me. You can generally destroy any wooden panel that isn't clearly part of the level design, and back in 2004 the technologly really wasn't there to support a high-end, next-gen looking game allowing full destructability. It would have meant a complete re-design, and probably for the worse. Lucasarts and Dice seem to be working on games with terrain deformation, but I can't say I'm hungry for Red Faction. I'd rather take a focused game which doesn't get swamped in over ambition.

As for the water. It was consistent to me. In City 17 it's clear and at the beginning of Water Hazard where the sewer exit is, it predictability isn't. There's a distinction made on what your HEV suit voice tells you 'this water is hazardous' to give you plenty of indication as to what's traversable and what isn't (if the visual signs aren't enough). I had no less problem distinguishing this than I would in a lava or ice combined world.

Why can't I use the gravity gun to pull that switch rather than have to work my way over to it by some convulted means? Why are all the doors completely impassable despite my massive arsenal so I have to take this ladder to the rooftop?

I can't disagree further development of the gravity gun with the puzzles wouldn't have hurt Half-Life 2. Having said that, there are set-pieces which require use of it (sandtraps for example), and plenty of subtle uses in the ways you're encouraged to use it (turning over antlions, positioning portable turrets, locating batteries to pass through blockades, the seesaw puzzle you seem to want gone from the universe, using electrical balls, firing back grenades, using manhacks against enemies, moving cars out of the way to progress with your buggy, sucking in energy balls to bring down the surpression field using barrels to cross electrified water, using barrels to properl sunken platforms back up into the air etc.).

I think you've misunderstood me about the 'ultimate conclusion of the corridor shooter' line. What I meant was that it is incredibly linear but probably the best game that an incredibly linear shooter could be. It's miles better than Doom 3 (but that doesn't make it that good).

Well, when I quoted you appeared to be using it in a negative framework. It sounded as though you were slaming the game for being the definitive corridor shooter (not an entirely accurate term) and how it's flawed as a result. If that isn't the case, then I apologise.

It's not obvious design at all, it's just simply using waypoints. It's showing you an ultimate goal and allowing the player the freedom to figure out his own way there. Two Betrayals is actually one of my less favourite levels in Halo because it is more scripted. The Halo level (level 2) is a great example of waypoints mixed with very open gameplay.

Open being in that you can choose one of three places you need to pass through to complete the mission? That's a choice to order how you want to visit 1, 2 and 3 in any way you want. :P You still have to go to them all.

When you think about it, there really are only two levels which are open ended in the terms you seem to be describing (having multiple routes to tackle a single objective) - Halo and Silent Cartographer. Nearly all rest of the levels have a single route.

I'm not saying that Halo isn't more open with regards to it's structure (the first Halo level used in your example in particular offers plenty of room to approach the combat in different ways), but it's comparing apples and oranges specifically on this point. It vaguely reminds me when people compare Japanese and Western RPGs to each other. Honestly, I get combat fatigue playing Halo and Call of Duty - it can be needlessly relentless at times. I prefer first-person shooters to mix things up, and if a result of that mix up is a more tightly confined structure, then so be it. I agree with mr_woo though - doing side by side comparisons as much as we have probably hasn't been fair. They're both good games.

Half Life 2 doesn't need waypoints because there is only ever one way to go. I don't see that as a good thing.

This is the fundamental difference between us, I think. I don't see it as a bad thing.

I'm not against videogame logic, but the game has to work within it's own logic. HL2 frequently doesn't and doesn't seem to care. Portal is the complete opposite.Which leads us onto:

many peopl on here have played HL and Episode 1 though as have many of the press and it's Portal that is getting the lion's share of the attention.

Like I said earlier, that has no bearing on whether people think Half-Life 2 is poor or not at all. Team Fortress 2 isn't receiving as much attention as Portal either - it doesn't mean that it isn't an excellent game. With regards to Half-Life 2's logic being illogical - I simply can't agree on that. I didn't have any trouble understanding it's systems and the way they worked with one another.