Boss fights

Boss fights: Yay or nay

  • Yes, boss fights are awesome - where were they in HL2?

    Votes: 19 23.2%

  • Nope, boss fights generally suck

    Votes: 10 12.2%

  • Yeah, but I think Hl2 was fine without them

    Votes: 12 14.6%

  • Depends on how well they are executed.

    Votes: 41 50.0%
  • Total voters
    82
A

Asknoone

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Boss fights, yay or nay? I'm wondering as to how many people were cursing that hl2 had little, to no boss fights. Or is it more of a blessing that it didn't?

More importantly, would you like to see Valve implement boss fights into future HL games, or Aftermath for that matter?

Any ideas on how boss fights could have been implemented into Hl2 and what parts, post it here :)

My thoughts....

Samon said:
I really don't mind bosses, in fact I'd go so far as to say I like them in games but unfortauntley the general execution of boss fights in games is rather poor.

(Ravenholm boss)

A Gonarch might have worked, yes. It would definatley have fit into the story well - Combine not only launch parasite rockets but a full blown Gonarch into the area to continue breeding. Perhaps in the mines.
Click to expand...


Leading on from this thread: http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=87998
 
I'm not opposed to the idea of boss fights in general, but I just don't think they fit into the Half Life world very well. In HL1 Gonarch was somewhat fun, but more of a mid-boss or slightly tougher one-off enemy than anything else. And who can say they actually enjoyed the fight with Nihilanth...? Personally I was overjoyed to find out that there was no final boss in HL2. The showdown made so much better sense that way.

The helicopter fight was quite cool, I suppose, but was it a boss? It was there for the whole level...

The Half Life series is more suited to having cool fixed scenarios to get out of, like burning out the tentacles in Blast bit, frying a garg, or the turret situations and territory-control shootouts in HL2. These just seem more wholesome and realistic than suddenly being warped into a magical chamber with a bald mutant donkey, where you have to shoot its glowing pink udders because for some reason that's the only place it can take any damage.

I can take gargs, choppers, antlion guards or whatever, but please no ridiculously tough one-time enemies that look stupid and don't make any sense.
 
I feel very much like you Samon, mostly bosses are poorly executed, and sometimes not, like the gargs in HL or the antlion guards in HL2, though they're more of mini-bosses.
 
I'd love to see one (or maybe more) in Aftermath, but like most people seem to feel, only if it's excuted well.

The mini bosses in Half-life really worked well and I loved them. Especially ol' garg. The way they made you think he was invincible made you have to think rather than shoot first, I always loved that in the original Half-life! More, more more!
 
That helicopter fight was the msot boring task I've had to do in a game since the Geneworm from OpFor and the Nihilanth from the original.

But I cheerished everytime I encountered an Antlion Guard. I just wish there could be more of them.
 
Boss fights like that jabber thing in the first game was a great way to break up the pace. No longer am I just focused on getting from A-B, kill, B-C, kill rinse repeat, I have to kill this big baddy that likes to kill me via some small challenges. It also provides short term pleasure. Even the worm in OF was fun to see die, more please.
 
i cant really choose something on this poll because i've never considered any fights in half life to be "boss fights," (except the nihilanth). half-life just flows together so well and the "bosses" just seem natural in the game, where other games will have big breaks and cut scenes that will signify a definite boss battle. It seems to me like HL2 had just as many "boss fights" as HL1. I think the way they have been doing it is perfect.
 
Laivasse said:
I'm not opposed to the idea of boss fights in general, but I just don't think they fit into the Half Life world very well. In HL1 Gonarch was somewhat fun, but more of a mid-boss or slightly tougher one-off enemy than anything else. And who can say they actually enjoyed the fight with Nihilanth...? Personally I was overjoyed to find out that there was no final boss in HL2. The showdown made so much better sense that way.

The helicopter fight was quite cool, I suppose, but was it a boss? It was there for the whole level...

The Half Life series is more suited to having cool fixed scenarios to get out of, like burning out the tentacles in Blast bit, frying a garg, or the turret situations and territory-control shootouts in HL2. These just seem more wholesome and realistic than suddenly being warped into a magical chamber with a bald mutant donkey, where you have to shoot its glowing pink udders because for some reason that's the only place it can take any damage.

I can take gargs, choppers, antlion guards or whatever, but please no ridiculously tough one-time enemies that look stupid and don't make any sense.
Click to expand...


I somewhat agree with you there, the mini bosses and intense situation of Hl2 seem to make up for the loss of bosses. But in all honesty, I just think it depends on how well they are executed.

I also do not like final bosses, for me, its everything just comes to a complete standstill and here you are fighting something that doesn't even move generally. The pace just goes wam out the window.

Games I feel let down by final bosses are things like Riddick - which was a big let down, facing those two crappy sentry bots (good job the rest of the game was awesome), Doom 3 - Wander around the circle shooting enemies and throwing the soul cube at it, Halo 2 - pretty boring fight.

And I'm sure there are countless others. I prefer the final missions to be more intense. The driving sequence at the end of Halo, or the end of Metal Gear...even Hl2, which has an awesome finale IMO.
 
Bosses - nay. Mini-bosses - yay.

And it also depends on the way they're implemented.
 
Bosses can work..and they were kind of in HL2. The battle agains the chopper felt like a boss battle. The final you-vs-two gunships felt like a boss battle.
 
The thing about boss fights is that I would like if it wasn't just some big round arena that you had to move around in. That is at generic as you can get.

The thing I loved about the Gonarch fight was that it would move around and you had to track it down.
 
Yes, but only if they would be like the bosses in Half-Life 1 (the Tentacle, Gargantua).
Otherwise, if they are just like any boss in any other game... No thanks.
 
I voted #1 because you know Valve will implement them well.
 
ríomhaire said:
I voted #1 because you know Valve will implement them well.
Click to expand...

Well riomhaire what parts of Hl2 did you see boss worthy? :p
 
i've never really been a fan of boss fights at all to be quite honest so it wouldn't bother me if there were none in aftermath
 
Sulkdodds said:
Bosses can work..and they were kind of in HL2. The battle agains the chopper felt like a boss battle. The final you-vs-two gunships felt like a boss battle.
Click to expand...
Did they? Gunships don't even fell like a threat anymore after encountering so many in the earlyer stages of the game.

And the game was definally missing some bosses...or mabye it was because they blend so well with the enviroment you don't even feel it...
 
I think that Antlion Guards, Striders and Synths at first were kind of mini-bosses untill they became a normal enemy again.
 
ríomhaire said:
I think that Antlion Guards, Striders and Synths at first were kind of mini-bosses untill they became a normal enemy again.
Click to expand...

I thought so too. 'Cause even in Half-Life the creatures you fought in Blast Pit are seen again in Surface Tension and on Xen. The Gargantua from Power up is also encountered again in the car park and once more on Xen.

The Gonarch is really the only enemy in Half-Life that is truely considered a boss because you only fight it once. The same could be said about the Helicopter in Half-Life 2. Even though you see it throughout the chapters leading up to Water Hazard, the final battle is unique in that you finally shoot one down. And once you did, the Combine stopped sending them out after you and switched to the gunships.

I don't mind having bosses throughout the game. In fact I usually find them to be the main highlights of the gaming experience. Battling the tentacle creatures in the first game as well as finally downing that pesky marine copter on the cliffside stick out as some of the best moments in the first game. Likewise in the sequel, the Helicopter attack on the water is perhaps the most memorable expiriences in Half-Life 2.

Bosses are fine, but it depends on how they are utilized. Bosses are either really tough to bring down with your conventional weapons, or you need to kill them with a new weapon or through a gimmick set-up. In the Painkiller demo, the boss you fight has a giant mallet that he uses to crush you and it is also the main source of his power. Destroy the mallet first and then attack the boss is the only way to kill it. In Half-Lie you needed to destroy the crystals in Nihalanth's chamber before you could do damage to it. When fighting the copter in Surface Tension, there was no way to destroy it until you found the RPG.

Many feel there was a lack of bosses in Half-Life 2, but I feel they are more effective when used sparingly.
 
A True Canadian said:
When fighting the copter in Surface Tension, there was no way to destroy it until you found the RPG.
Click to expand...

Actually, you can destroy the Apache's with the Gauss Gun.
 
Or any other gun if you shoot long enough. Apache simply has a lot of "health", so RPG is the easiest way.
 
iMMuNiTy said:
Or any other gun if you shoot long enough.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but it's not worth it. You are probably already dead before you even destroy it. :P
 
I saw a helicopter and I was like "Time to use my laser thingy"
 
the best boss fights are the ones that don't feel like boss fights.

However i sure as hell would like to see ole blobby cheeks
 
The best boss fights are the ones where the bosses are 10000ft tall.
 
bam23 said:
The best boss fights are the ones where the bosses are 10000ft tall.
Click to expand...
God of war...?

I agree with pretty much everybody in this thread... except for maybe that one guy who said he didn't like boss battles.
 
Que-Ever said:
God of war...?
Click to expand...

Serious Sam got some... serious bosses.

(Bad pic, couldn’t find any better)
June01_moments_10.jpg
 
A True Canadian said:
The Gonarch is really the only enemy in Half-Life that is truely considered a boss because you only fight it once. The same could be said about the Helicopter in Half-Life 2. Even though you see it throughout the chapters leading up to Water Hazard, the final battle is unique in that you finally shoot one down. And once you did, the Combine stopped sending them out after you and switched to the gunships.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's not quite true. If you hang around in the scrapyard in "Black Mesa East" long enough after the Combine attack, you'll see a helicopter fly down and shoot rockets into a large vent.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen more helicopters in the game. The gunships were fun, but killing gunship after gunship got repetitive. Another helicopter here or there would have been nice.
 
Spelling, Pes, you're not that tired?

I'd go for the small bosses, but some new ones, like a forest of those 'plant' arms on xen...
 
bam23 said:
The best boss fights are the ones where the bosses are 10000ft tall.
Click to expand...
that reminds me of the game thats coming out called "shadow of the collossus" by the people who made Ico a while back. In SotC, you fight these GIANT things that are so huge that you climb around on them and they basically are like giant moving structures. Looks like it's gonna be an amazing game, just like Ico was.

now about half-life bosses, i agree with that one guy who said the best boss fights are the ones that dont feel like boss fights, and thats why the "boss fights" in the half-life series are just perfect.
 
HL2 isnt really a boss based game..other than the giant antlion and the teleporty thing at the end..(and others i've probably forgotten) as long as they keep them like that...and not like the one at the end of HL1 :rolleyes: ...im fine with it.
 
I like boss fights. They give you a sense of achievement and make it seem like you're getting somewhere with the game. As for SOTC I'm not so sure, I mean a game with only boss fights. That's just going to the other extreme.
 
For me, Yes and No to Boss Fights. Yes to fight a big boss (like in Quake 2), but No to what I went threw to stop Breen (I HATE "Omg!! Stop him before he excapes, or it's Game Over!!!" situations).

The first time I went threw that...I just felt like I was truely trying to do "A battle you have no chance of winning!".
 
BeaverMon said:
For me, Yes and No to Boss Fights. Yes to fight a big boss (like in Quake 2), but No to what I went threw to stop Breen (I HATE "Omg!! Stop him before he excapes, or it's Game Over!!!" situations).

The first time I went threw that...I just felt like I was truely trying to do "A battle you have no chance of winning!".
Click to expand...
I felt exactly the same. But after I won it and without a second attempt, too, I really found out that I was overreacting to it.
 
I dont know if you have been living under a rock or if valve has just done a really good job of hiding bosses. What do you think the helicopter before BM:E, the 2 antlion guards, the battle at lighthouse point, the 2 gunships at Nova Prospekt, the snipers (albiet lame), the striders, and the gunships at the end were? Admittidly they are well integrated and much more natural "bosses." I really like the way Valve handled this, making logical battles with enemies that were encountered before and in settings where such a battle makes sense. DooM 3 style bosses are boring and really lack creativity. Rock on valve. (My favs were lighthouse point, nova prospekt gunships, and striders me thinks)
 
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