Newb Looking for a shooter

[frogbeastegg]

I must say I'm staggered by your comments. Did you play HL1 when it was released, or several years later?

I played it when I got sick of being told how badly I was missing out by everything PC gaming related. Don't recall exactly how long after release that was; the game wasn't old, by any means.

I don't play many FPS. It's not a genre I enjoy, and the ones I do play tend to be the story heavy types and/or ambitious in ways other than pretty graphics and shooting things with bigger guns. Games which 9 times out of ten sold badly. Half Life was pushed at me over and over again, everywhere I looked. Relentlessly. It had the best story, the best levels, the best weapons, the best atmosphere, the best bestest best ever! Each time I looked at the game I saw nothing special. But hey - there's got to be something about it, or there wouldn't be so much gushing about it, would there? So I got it, played it, and waited for the amazing to hit. And waited. And waited. And eventually quit out of tedium, uninstalled, and wondered why the game had earned so much adoration.

Then Half Life 2 came out. Same thing again, except I didn't buy it until the Orange Box. I brought that for Portal, and gave HL2 a go since there was no reason not to. I quit in some section with a fiddly, dull swamp bike thing because I couldn't take the mediocre any longer.

The mystery-nature of the storyline, with bits and pieces uncovered through overheard bits of conversation

Thief: The Dark Project. Released within weeks of Half Life and did the same thing - but far better. It also had a decent, unusual plot, not a rehash of the bog standard, tired "Oh noes! Aliens!". I certainly played that before HL1; I got Thief on release week thanks to the strength of the demo.

and numerous short-lived encounters with hapless scientists and Barneys

Numerous predictable encounters where you knew the character would die in seconds or otherwise remain out of reach. Characters I didn't care about, and who offered no interesting dialogue in their 5 second life span. I have hazy memories of a bunch of "Gordon, push that button! Oh No, I've been eaten!" and that's all. Clearly nothing made an impression on me.

I can't remember whether it was Jedi Knight or it's expansion pack, Mysteries of the Sith, which had NPC conversations you could overhear if you didn't run around scaring the civilians. Either way that predated HL by around a year.

the stupendous scripted events which made the world seem like it was reacting to you,

See, I heard that a lot at the time. I've heard it a lot since. The telling thing is that I do not recall a single one of those setpieces. Yet I remember many things about games far older.

the game was damn scary in parts

Very few games scare me, at all. I could count them on one hand, after many years of gaming.

The seamless environments were unique as well, with only brief pauses for loading the next section to keep the immersion factor going.

Seamless apart from when they were loading, and in my experience they loaded a lot. The individual sections were small. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II offered larger, more complex levels with less loading 1997! Thief had similarly incredible levels. It's hard to be impressed with small and boring maps which tile together to create the impression of a single building when you know you could have large, interesting maps which tile together to create a more engaging building with less loading.

The epic journey just to get back up to the surface, only to find it swarming with the military when you arrive, forcing you back down into the depths to survive.

It just didn't have anything to appeal to me. When you find the level design, combat and plot to be dull then having to turn around and head back isn't good news.

Not to mention the G-man.

A character I primarily remember as something people obsessed over and took copious screenshots of which filled the comments pages in magazines. In gameplay? Barely remember him at all.

It also has possibly one of the best game intros I've ever seen: no cutscenes, everything was done in-game.

Brace yourself: I found that famous intro to be quite boring. Yup, that word again. Granted this was the first intro I'd had to walk through. Pity that it was one I'd have hit the esc key midway through if I'd been given a choice. I'd have preferred a good intro which I watched or a boring one I could skip, to a boring one which I couldn't skip and had to keep pushing buttons for.

All in all, I do have to disagree with you heavily. I mark HL1 as one of the landmarks in FPS evolution. I put it up there with Wolf 3D, Quake 1, Thief, Descent, and Farcry.

And I have to disagree with you. Sorry. HL just didn't touch me at all - it offered nothing which I could like, and presented a weaker, cheaper versions of things I'd seen elsewhere. Where it did offer something new I preferred the old way, or wished that they had used it in a better fashion.

Hehe, from the amount of Thief related answers here maybe I should turn the question back, and ask when you played it? At the time few people played it. It was only years later that Thief started to get much notice.

[TinCow]

Hehe, from the amount of Thief related answers here maybe I should turn the question back, and ask when you played it? At the time few people played it. It was only years later that Thief started to get much notice.

Played it on release and loved it, though I don't consider it in the same category as most other shooters. It was the prototype (and still one of the best versions) of what we now call stealth shooters, which is really a separate thing. One should not compare Thief with Painkiller and such, the games have different purposes and should be judged based on what they are, not what they are not. For instance, if we judged Thief based on combat, it would be near the bottom of the list. (You will also note I did list Thief in my short list of revolutionary FPS games.)

I think our opinions differ so much on this that there's probably not any middle-ground to be found, but I'll try and explain my own views a bit more. I think of HL1 like I think of Citizen Kane: it is not the best ever made, but it is the first true representation of what we now know as FPS gaming (or modern narrative film in the case of CK). Sure, other games did bits and pieces of the various things that HL1 did before Hl1, but HL1 combined them all with other innovations on top. Other games have certainly topped it since then, but they all use the formula that HL1 first pioneered. It is, like Citizen Kane, the first true representation of the modern form of the art.

Prior to HL1, FPS games were essentially solitary levels with weapons and power-ups designed to cater to reflexes and little else. HL1 combined excellent level design (for the time) with full voice acting, a stupendous number of scripted events (if you've forgotten them, pretty much every time a monster of some kind busted through a ceiling, wall, etc., that was scripted), cutting-edge graphics, seamless (for the time!) gameplay, and more puzzles in single levels than in many complete games. Prior to HL1, most FPS games paid lip-service to plot or dished out the plot in cutscenese between levels. HL1 did it during the game, with no cutscenes of any kind. While the plot may be tame by modern standards, it was a massive leap forward from the games which came before it. Keep in mind, before HL1, the games we got were stuff like Doom, Quake 1, Descent, and Dark Forces. Plot was totally ancillary to all of those and was simply done as an excuse to shoot things. HL1 told a lengthy story throughout the entire game and rewarded patience and attentiveness with plot details and surprises. You simply did not find that in FPS game before 1998. If you're poo-pooing the plot, I really do think you didn't have the previous experience with FPS games to understand what a shift it was. At the time it was released, HL1 was considered a story-based game first and a shooter second. Considering the absurdly minimal amount of storyline in HL1 based on modern standards, that's a commentary in itself about just how non-existent plot line was in shooters prior to 1998.



I don't know what else to say. Thief worship is fine, it's been the love-child of FPS historians since the day of its release (a few weeks after HL1, incidentally), but I really do believe that HL1 has had more impact on FPS gaming as a whole than anything other than Wolf3D. It was a seminal game and it changed the whole notion of what was possible with the genre. Much of what has come since then was based on doors that were opened in the minds of developers by that game.

[Ja'chyra]

Well I got the orange box and have been playing HL2, seems quite good so far but then I've only got as far as the hover boat thing and had to have a break as it was making me feel travel sick, lol pathetic I know.

[Meneldil]

Bioshock is by far the best FPS ever created by man. All the other games are merely worth of being looked at as long as you don't have played Bioshock. Period.

Period.

[Hooahguy]

Bioshock is by far the best FPS ever created by man. All the other games are merely worth of being looked at as long as you don't have played Bioshock. Period.

Period.

having played Bioshock i respectfully disagree.

[Whacker]

Egads. I'm sorry to hear you didn't like HL1 FBE. Tincow's last (long) post did an excellent job of summing up what a lot of us "old school" guys feel. I also happened to play it when it was brand new, and I can't think of many games that had as great of an impact on my gaming career as HL1 did.

I will agree that HL2 was very dull and a huge letdown by comparison. It was moderately pretty, the physics gun was ok, and the setting was reasonably well done. On the other hand, the gameplay was very boring and predictable, levels completely uninspired, I found the atmosphere non-engaging and the storyline quite lacking. It was not a worthy successor to the 1st, IMO.

[Monk]

I will agree that HL2 was very dull and a huge letdown by comparison. It was moderately pretty, the physics gun was ok, and the setting was reasonably well done. On the other hand, the gameplay was very boring and predictable, levels completely uninspired, I found the atmosphere non-engaging and the storyline quite lacking. It was not a worthy successor to the 1st, IMO.

I couldn't disagree more, in fact I would use your entire argument against HL2, against HL1.

I found HL1 slow, boring, and just a hair short of tedious to play through. The concept is interesting, but its overall execution and presentation is lacking at best. it just wasn't very fun. In contrast I found HL2's gameplay, story and atmosphere much more compelling than the first.

I just realized the HL debate can be summed up as thus: What do you like more, jumping puzzles or physics puzzles?

[frogbeastegg]

I think our opinions differ so much on this that there's probably not any middle-ground to be found

Agreed. The reasons why I didn't like HL are subjective and a matter of what appeals. As I originally said, I found it dull to play, didn't like the level design, didn't like the weaponry, and didn't like the story. Everything in the previous post is aside from that or a minor contributory factor.

I think of HL1 like I think of Citizen Kane: it is not the best ever made, but it is the first true representation of what we now know as FPS gaming

To me that position will always be occupied by the Jedi Knight/Mysteries of the Sith combo. They had most of the things you mention for Half Life, and other things aside which I value, such as character customisation via a light RPG system. They were packed full of memorable gameplay experiences; I've not seen anything like the pair of levels set within crashing space ships in all the years since.

One should not compare Thief with Painkiller and such, the games have different purposes and should be judged based on what they are, not what they are not.

When it comes to critique I don't like chopping games up into genres and isolating them. It lets too many games off far too easily because "This genre doesn't do X". As a stealth section in Uber Death Kill XX should be compared to stealth in thief, so too should thief's sword fighting be compared to Amazing Swords 6. If a developer isn't trying to make an element as good as it can be then one must wonder why they are adding it. Aiming for mediocrity should not be encouraged. I am not interested in something that's good for the [X] genre; I'm interested in something which is good for what it is.

seamless (for the time!) gameplay

Seamless means no loading times anywhere, full stop, once you are out of the main menu. Any game with loading between areas is not seamless. To grab two examples, Zelda: Ocarina of Time was seamless because it never paused to load and never showed a loading screen once you reached the game world. Fallout 3 was not because it had loading screens between areas. A lot of older CD based games are not as the technology did not exist to make it possible. Even today it's a minor feat of design and technical ability. Half Life is not seamless; you would have to rewrite the engine to make it so. You could say that it had well optimised load times.

I really do think you didn't have the previous experience with FPS games to understand what a shift it was.

Before I tried HL I played - off the top of my head - Wolf 3D, doom, doom 2, duke nukem, dark forces, jedi knight: dark forces 2 and its expansion, outlaws, rise of the triad, some star trek FPS, hexen, heretic, hexen 2 plus expansion, quake's demo. I might have played Blood.

I didn't finish many of them because they weren't to my taste; it was a genre I dabbled with because I could borrow most of them from friends. Wolf 3D, hexen 2 and the star wars set were the only ones I did like. So yes, I do understand how the genre was. It's why I didn't like it, with the exception of a few games.

scripted events (if you've forgotten them, pretty much every time a monster of some kind busted through a ceiling, wall, etc., that was scripted)

Oh. That. Huh - I thought you were talking about bigger battles and scenes. Monsters coming out of the 'walls' is something I'd already seen in Dark Forces years before. Several years later the very first level of Mysteries of the Sith had stormtroopers blasting holes in the walls and running in to attack.