What would you have done differently in HL2?

[ríomhaire]

Rules:
No "everything from leak"
No "more weapons"
No "sex"
Points must be explained, if you wanted new weapons explain what weapons you would want. If you wanted the hydra explain how you would want the hydra to be implemented.

Here are mine:
Friendly fire. Can shoot allies and they would react and attack you back if it was obviously on purpose and if you killed loads of people word would get out that your a trator and you would fail.
Bugbait. The bugbait would work differently. Limited ammo and antlions will attack you if you don't use it. Nova Prospekt would be revamped so that instead of you using the antlions to kill everyone the antlions would be going crazy and killing everyone while you sneek past.
More soldiers. I would want overwatch to be a bitmore numerous to add a bit more of a chalange. Use grenades more and a bit more accuracy
Less medkits lying everywhere. I remember in HL1 when you would be walking around starved of supplies and then find a holy grail of 2 charges. In HL2 you are a little spoon-fed.
Resistance. Limited ammo to combat their trigger-happyness. They should have to pick up ammo along the way just like you. Medic shouldbe more like a proper medic and not just hand out medkits. They should stop who they're healing and work on them, possibly leaving bandages etc on them. They should also grasp the seriousness of the situaltion more
Put a helmet on the HEV suit model.
Some mines in the airboat section would be good, like hoppers but instead of hopping up when triggered they just explode and send the airboat flying.

 

[Feath]

More character building/interaction. The bits that were there were great, but you spent a lot of time on your own.

And I would've liked it to be longer. Not that it's too short, I just didn't want it to ever end.

 

[boglito]

1. Secondary fire for all weapons.
2. An option to increase number of opponents and ammo.
3. More variety of combine.
4. No cheap enemies. Example: no "snipers in dark window that can only be killed with explosives".
5. More explosives.
6. Shorter boatride.
7. Music should not be cut off between levels.
8. More dog.
9. Friendly Fire.
10. Less speech in battle, more (varied) speech out of battle.
11. At least one epic battle.
12. More aliens.
13. More.

.bog.

 

[Edcrab]

Definitely agree, unconditionally, with boglito's 7 and 8. If anything, 7 is a bug/design flaw- Valve couldn't possibly have done it intentionally. The level in Water Hazard that can be completed so quickly you miss half of the kick-ass music? Not good.

More variety in the weapons-loadouts of the Combine; turn snipers into actual enemies rather than static models with laser sights.

More setpieces- even though people are likely to go "WTF?" and beat me up for this one. HL1 had memorable- if ultra-linear- setpieces, very cinematic in style.

HL2's "cutscenes" are more like heavily scripted enemy plans-of-attack and aren't quite as impressive as specially animated events- like, to use a hackneyed example, the hydra struggle in the Tunnels Bink movie. But what they did have- moments like the citizen picking up a pipe to bash the manhacks and similar- was pretty damn cool. Let's have more!

Although that said, the way you couldn't get involved in Dog's APC/Combine battle- as brilliant as it was- certainly undermined the immersion. First time round I wasted several rockets on the APC

The issue is balancing it all of course, and considering it's impossible to please everyone Valve did the best job they could- I'm obviously not trying to belittle their fantastic achievements or anything.

 

[Murray_H]

The big thing lacking for me was variation in characters, weren't we told that the humans would be fat/thin, and the character voices were too similar, a few more weapons would have been cool (but probably affect gameplay), more music, FF

 

[Vorac1ous]

More chapters. 14, 3 of which are very boring isn't near enough. I would have atleast 23 or so.

HL2 needs more bosses. One helicopter battle isn't enough(unless you count Breen as a boss). HL2 is less challenging because of the one boss. All games should have atleast three bosses.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

I would have made the USP work pretty much exactly the same as the original HL1 glock.

Any other changes by me probably would have made the game worse though, or too similar to HL1.

 

[Darkside55]

The biggest thing I would change is the information given to the player. While it's Valve's "way" to be light on exposition, I would've loved hearing more about the world, what's been happening, the current situation, etc. Certainly you can piece together everything yourself, but I personally find it fun listening to what people have to say during games. And there were plans for scenes like this...in Raising the Bar, Eli is supposed to show the player a slideshow of what's been going on, and there was a mention of the Kleiner scene being much longer (but it was cut due to the fact that people thought it was boring).

I certainly would've liked more enemy variety. There are only Combine, headcrabs, zombies, the helicopter, scanners, manhacks, barnacles, antlions and antlion guards, the striders, and the gunships that I can recall fighting. I agree on the "more bosses" suggestion, as well. The antlion king could have been implemented in some way, and the hydra could have been altered to be easier to fight. In fact, in my personal opinion a level could've been centered around the hydra where you don't actually "fight" the thing; you'd be chased by it and you have to keep narrowly escaping. One of the things I liked about HL was the tension in running away from the garg; HL2 never had any moments where I was actually afraid an enemy was going to catch up to me.

Many more physics traps.

Rebel AI that obeyed your commands to stay put, no matter how much time has passed or how far you've walked away from them.

If I understand Edcrab's meaning correctly, I also think there should have been more memorable setpieces. When I think of HL there are a lot of places that really stand out in my mind, whereas HL2 runs together like a blur. There weren't a lot of memorable scenes, IMO.

 

[Chav]

Better intro, More guns, More vehicles, one HUGE fight, the ability to have more people on your squad than just 4.

 

[Beerdude26]

I agree with darkside about the physics traps, in HL you could press buttons to make eg a container slam to the ground and such. In HL2, there aren't a lot of those left, while the new engine makes it ideal for it :/

 

[ríomhaire]

Yeah, did anyone here play the night of a million zombies map? There are excelent uses of physics in that.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

More story info in the sense Darkside said. Much more character dialouge.
More clear game goals. First few parts were fine, get out of the city, escape from the combine, I buy it.. Then it becomes a bit fuzzy up until Alyx gets kidnapped. This links to points 1 and 2. Longer character introduction (I can't believe VALVe cut it cause they thought people would get bored! I was just getting into the atmosphere in Kleiner's lab when it ended.
The resistance uprising should've been portrayed as a bit more serious, more tension. Once the striders came into the picture it got better. The Citadel was perfect imo, but again a bit more portrayal of Breen as a bad guy before it. I didn't start to *really* hate him until he mocked me in the citadel. But once he began putting on that smug grin and insulting me from those monitors I *really*, *really* wanted to get to him!
The striders should've been handled better. I really wanted to be introduced to them like in the Strider Bink, a slow-paced fight. The first time you meet them in-game there was too much chaos. Would've made a better second encounter imho.

 

[Edcrab]

If I understand Edcrab's meaning correctly, I also think there should have been more memorable setpieces. When I think of HL there are a lot of places that really stand out in my mind, whereas HL2 runs together like a blur. There weren't a lot of memorable scenes, IMO.

Why the hell can people sum me up so well in about half as many words as I make original points with? Bah!

I agree on the idea of more "traps", especially as the physics are tailor made for such moments. It would've been nice to see collapsable scenary sending NPCs literally falling rather than the semi-scripted moments you do encounter (you can, for example, spawn troops on the early-game wooden barricade after it's "fallen"- they don't fall because of the lack of support or anything.)

Boss encounter wise, I'd have to agree- I was sort of hoping for a tentacle-esque showdown at some point, albiet not with the hub map layout and the backtracking. The Hunter Seeker choppers were woefully underused, especially as they have so much attack variety compared to the Gunships (don't they fire rockets at Black Mesa East if you stay outside long enough during the attack?).

As for Breen, I preffered him as he was- a subtle, more humanised villian. He's not a "bad guy" in the traditional sense, as he genuinely believes that what he's doing will benefit mankind- and some of the points he makes ("You've destroyed so much... but what have you actually created?") hit home very strongly and make the player think about his position. If he'd been a typical "MWAHAHAH I am BAD and I shall destroy you all" tyrant he just wouldn't have been so... so... well, Breen. He's a brilliant character- his appearance, his voice actor, his actions- and one of HL2's finest achievements.

 

[OvA]

More interaction with props. Like stacking things to block a doorway.

 

[Solver]

Rules:
Resistance. Limited ammo to combat their trigger-happyness. They should have to pick up ammo along the way just like you. Medic shouldbe more like a proper medic and not just hand out medkits. They should stop who they're healing and work on them, possibly leaving bandages etc on them. They should also grasp the seriousness of the situaltion more

While that does sound good... I'm pretty sure that it would worsen the resistance performance considerably. And no one really wants them. Imagine how annoying it would be to have all of your squadmembers run out of ammo and become useless. At least with their unlimited ammo, they can actually be quite useful. And, that's what I enjoyed so much about the street battle chapters - the fact that you finally had someone fighting in you that really helped, unlike in so many other games.

 

[hi_ted]

I think the Combine should use the grenade launcher on their assault rifle more. HL marines were an interesting enemy to fight because it was hard to take cover from them. They would chuck grenades, use the grenade launcher, surround you etc. That's what I would have liked to see.

 

[Greatgat]

I wouldn't have put all of those horrible things inside of me like I did the first time I played... Oh wait. What would I have changed about the GAME. Man, I should stop typing before assuming I know what the threads about.

 

[Kamex]

I didn't much care for the beginning of the game. Freeman should certainly be slower without his suit, but making his top speed a slightly faster than average walk was a bit too slow. I thought it was highly unrealistic how slow I was moving when the combine were after me.

I also did not like how I had to "die" to continue and cause Alex to come and save me. When I saw there was no way out, I load my state and tried to find another way. I couldn't believe it when I had discovered what I was supposed to do.

I also would have liked to see a way to rotate objects you're carrying. It's so frusterating when I accidentally knock an important barrel over and have to spent 20 minutes getting it upright again.

I also think that the Fast Weapon Switch option should have been made available in Half-life 2. If you're going to enable it in Counterstrike, Half-life 2: Deathmatch, AND Half-life source, you might as well go all the way an enable it for Half-life 2. Such breaks of consistancy should be accompanied by a reason of some sort. Why in HL:S and not HL2?

While the game has its problems like any other, I must say that I was overall very satisfied with it. It's the first time I've played a sequel to a game where I felt like I was playing the original again. I still was treated to an incredible amount of detail and realism, not to mention tons of new aspects, but at the same time, it still had the "feel" of Half-life 1. The only real loss in the gameplay was the removable of pushable boxes, but these were an aspect I disliked anyway, so I personally have no problems with it.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Just thought of another thing, a longer train ride! Not just the pull-in to the trainstation, a full trip through the suburbs of City 17.

 

[Milkman]

11. At least one epic battle.

I always considered the storming and securing of the Government building (Suppression field) as an epic battle.

 

[15357]

Combine victory.

all of the games i've ever played end in rebel victory. i want the GREAT goverment to win.