Half Life vs. Halo 2 Thus Far

[Top Gun]

As Vertigo said, about the whole Halo book issue, why are you bringing outside books into what the actual game offers? They're two separate entities, especially for something like an FPS. Judge the actual games out of the box, not some outside literature.

That being said, due to personal bias, I'm more than willing to include the Myst novels into the whole universe. But, at least in my opinion, a game like that fits the idea of supplementary novels much more than any shoot-'em-up game.

(Before I read your more recent posts, I was ready to do the same thing as Tyranny and start bitching at you over that LOTR comment. )

[[]V[]essenjah]

Ummmmm if you read the books.... the games have everything to do with the books actually.


I guess the LOTR movies had nothing to do with the books either?

[[]V[]essenjah]

Top Gun, you missed the point too....

My point is completely the opposite. I was using LOTR as an example.

I'm simply saying, the books had everything to do with the game. Just as the LOTR movies had everything to do with the films.

Dum dum... j/k

I was using that simply as an example to prove how stupid and biased that statement was.

Yeah you can play Half Life 2 mods but.... can you play Half Life 2 or their mods with three of your buds while sitting on a couch?? Can you play HL2 in co-op? No because they didn't take the time to implement it.

[[]V[]essenjah]

BTW, I'm not comparing the Halo books to LOTR books in any way.

I'm just saying that the Halo games follows the books in the same way that the LOTR films follow the movie.

Maybe not for Halo 1 but for Halo 2.

I'm not a big LOTR fan but I respect the work.

[Top Gun]

Messenger, you can't in any way compare the two situations. The LOTR movies were based on a well-loved trilogy of novels that had been around for a LONG time. They were an interpretation of the novels in cinematic form. The Halo books, and any books based on a video-game franchise, are just related to a video game.

[[]V[]essenjah]

And the LOTR movies are just related to the books....

[Top Gun]

Now I think you've missed MY point. The LOTR movies, as well as any movie based off a book, are an interpretation of that particular book to a cinematic format. In any of those cases, you can't judge the book by watching the movie; you have to actually read the book. Likewise, you can't judge the Halo games based on what is in the novels; if you're going to compare them to the Half-Life storyline, you have to stick to the games themselves.

[fliptw]

I'm simply saying, the books had everything to do with the game.

Yes the novels and game share the same common source material. So what?

Prove that the books have some bearing on gameplay. Does the reading of the books actually change the way you play Halo 2. Prove that they are required in order to play the game. If you can't. then you shouldn't use the novels as part of reviewing the game, if you can, then one should consider it what that says about the completeness of the package as its presented. Its like using Enterprise to declare all of the Trek Television series as lack-luster. You can't plug the novels into your Xbox as much as you could use the T-shirt that comes with the gold package of HL2 to improve your aim in Counterstrike.


Beyond that, we can't take what you say about any game seriously now, you went into reviewing half Life with a predetermined outcome, and pretty much told everyone that.

[Vertigo 99]

of course half life 2 is not a social game, mob. i'll never argue that otherwise. halo 2 is an awesome game to play with your buddies; that's why i own it.

however, to argue that:

1) halo 2's graphics are better than half life 2's
2) halo 2 has a better story because of the novels surrounding it
3) halo 2 is somehow "new" and "unique" and yet half life 2 is not
4) halo 2 is an allaround better game because of points 1 through 3

is insanity.

halo 2 is a very good game that obviously has its good aspects; i personally prefer half life 2 by a very large margin, as i thought it to be a much better experience to play through. however, i wont lie, playing halo 2 with my buddies is fun (although i personally think its less fun than if my buddies all had CSS and i could LAN with them, but i cant, so Halo 2 wins).

[Top Gun]

The only problem with your argument, fliptw, is that Enterprise is actually good. See this season for some good examples.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Well, think of it this way,


You can go watch the LOTR movies without reading the novels if you wish. You can get the general gist of the story, watch all the cool fights and explosions but you may not come out fully appreciating the story.... correct? I left the LOTR movies thinking that they were the dumbest most boring movies I've ever seen.

But as I understand, you won't fully appreciate the story unless you read the books. Thus I have plans to read the books as soon as I get done with the Halo novels and "The Taking," by Dean Koontz.

Now, Halo 2, was designed AS THE FOURTH BOOK. The three previouse books were leading up to Halo 2 and it was designed on the books. The books make the Halo game and the Halo game makes the books.

They were not designed as seperate peices from some articles I've read.

You can play Halo, appreciate all the free for all vehicle hogging, the team work in co-op, the really cool AI, the really great music score, the overall feeling of the game, the levels that years of peoples lives were spent developing. They well done in-game cinematics. You can enjoy the adventure and the story line. However, you can not fully understand or enjoy the story without reading the novels themselves. Halo 2 was a bit like an integrated way to be inside the books themselves only you're playing one that hasn't been written yet.

Now Halo is no LOTR, but it does have a 1400 page well written and very well thought out sci-fi story.

I do not see that for Half Life 2. I see a generic shoot 'em up story line. Which is fine for a game.

I never intended to insult Half Life. Thus I ask you not to insult the game that I enjoy.

I at least will take the effort to go through and play both games and read any fan fic that was written about it. If I will enjoy it or not, will be up to me. I just generally didn't care for it.

Thing is, there are only a certain ammount of plots you can write to make a good story for a game. You have to shoot something. If it's not the stupid silly looking aliens in Halo, it's the half retarded looking and acting zombies of Half Life 2, or the cartoony robots in Descent 3, or the nerdy robot men in black of Dues Ex. You do know that the aliens in Halo 1 and 2, were stupid looking and acting in order to form interesting characters don't you? Thus the stupid, yet conniving grunts who hate the upper class elites, the upper class elites who look at humans as animals that don't deserver to bear names yet they themselves are misstreated as cannon fodder for the prophets and if they fail, they are called heritics, hung by their entrails and peraided around a city, or they will be decapitated as one was in the second book.

I also wouldn't call Halo a kiddy game, since in the books, a man was melted from the waist down by a plasma bolt and he landed in a pile of his own intestines. So it's no kiddy novel at least. The game also has an M rating so it wasn't designed for younger crowds. However, it is a decent enough game that younger crowds can play it.

The two games are totally different so lets leave it at that. They sit on opposite sides of the feild on opposite consoles.

What I find funny is how people seem to feal threatened because of a console games success. They just can not let a console game win over a PC game. it's not like PC games are never going to get a win over a console game again. Console games are made by PC's, not the other way around. Consoles are not going anywhere as long as people have friends and scoial lives. PC's aren't either, they run nearly everything.The two are equal just as Halo 2 and Half Life 2 are equal in their own worlds.

BTW, what other Bungie games were made, I never knew of any other games.... this could be an interesting read.

[Sirius]

Just for the record, it's Deus Ex. Deus as in the Latin for 'God'.

What would the Halo 2 storyline look like if you hadn't read the novels? Any better than HL2s? And from what I've heard, HL2's plot is actually pretty good for an FPS.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Hmmmm also Vertigo, to address this, as I have said before, I will revise it later. I need to finish both games first though.

Actually Flip, I spent my $60 with itchy fingers. That's why I spent 5-6 hours trying to make it playable on my PC. That is why the night it came out, I hopped in my ugly little car and went on an hour long drive in order to buy the game. After looking at the videos, talking to my brothers about how much they liked it (they hate D3, and love Quake 1-3 and Doom 3), yes I had expected a really cool game. But when I finally had a chance to play it, my buddies left, and I was in my room alone uploading it, played it for a number of hours and got bored, went to bed, got up, played it again, was bored, went to bed.... I guss maybe it just didn't tickle me the way it did you guys. I felt dissapointed that I hadn't spent my money elsewhere.

Halo 2's environments I thought were much prettier. I also liked how the vehicles looked real. I knew they weren't yet I felt that they were. For an X-Box game they were fantastic. But they were limited by the consoles capabilities. Simple as that. It wasn't due to Bungie being too lazy to put in fancy graphics. It was stated that they coded the hell out of it. But consoles do only go so far.

Anyway, when I get my next review, I hope all of you will feel that my review is better and more fair.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Interesting Sirius, didnt' know that. I always wondered what Deus stood for.


I would say that the Halo 2 story would look about equal with it maybe slightly better (in my own opinion) considering how it really told the story of the covenent very well. I loved how it showed the story through the eyes of an Elite officer. It made the game much more compelling than the first. The novels and the games had some very good writers to back them up. I didn't really like the second book by William C. Deitz that much.

Halo 2, I really haven't felt it on a personal level.

In all truth, I thought they did a wonderfull job graphics wise. They pushed the X-Box probably to it's absolute limit from what I understand.

Look at it this way, The Pyro-GT and Eagle's GX were fantastic looking ships. Do they look as good as say, a fully detailed Star Destroyer 3D model rendered in 3DS Max's engine that is say, over a few hundred, thousand polys? No, but look at what their limits were. You can only go so far with the Fusion engine and press only so many really detailed models all at once.

Halo 2 probably pressed everything the X-Box has in it and it was pretty comparable to Half Lifes. I liked the bump-mapped textures on characters and vehicles. I could really only see it used on pipes and a few walls in HL2. Bump-mapping is a small extra you can do and it really isn't a hard effect to create in a decent texturing program. No, they shouldn't have used them on faces but the bump-mapped textures on the Hog were really awsome. I liked how well rounded the characters in HL-2 were accept for the zombies. I could see flat surfaces on a lot of those models. Not bad but could have been done better. I don't know if this is because they wanted to push the featherless spider-chickens they wear on their heads or because they didn't want to take the time to round them out. But, you can have the chicken and the character two seperate objects in most games so I don't see why not?

[Tetrad]

Having finished HL2 just recently, let me just say that you CANNOT compare the stories of Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 without beating it first. What you're actually doing in the game is not nearly as important as, say, "why".

[Vertigo 99]

mob; here's half life's plot, up until the beginning of HL2... i think you're missing out on a lot without having played the first:

Gordon Freeman, MIT graduate in theoretical physics, had landed himself a research job in a top-secret lab named Black Mesa, somewhere in the desert of Neveda.

Everything was normal that day as he went in for work, except maybe that Gordon was running a bit late. A long subway ride later, he finally came to the front security office to where he worked, making sure to say hello to his security friend at the desk, Barney. "Maybe we can get a beer later, gordon!" barney exclaims enthusiastically. A normal day. Except maybe for that weird looking guy in a blue suit... He's never been in this facility before: who is he? He looks like he's working for the government...

Gordon was told his basic procedure for today - suit up in his hazardous protection suit to aid in the execution of an experiment. Standard stuff - a highly pure sample of a bizarre, anomolous unknown material had been found, and it was to be introduced into a particle beam.

Eveything seemed to be going well - until, suddenly, the combination of both elements ripped a portal open through the time-space continium, opening a resonance cascade. Black Mesa now became a launching point for extraplanar travel - at first, only little things came through. Headcrabs, although a nuissance because of their parasitic capabilites were easily disposed of. But it wasn't long before a full scale invasion on Black Mesa started - alien troops began teleporting in to conquer a new world...

Meanwhile, Gordon Freeman is doing the best he can to simply survive. This proves to be relatively simple for the highly resourceful scientist - until human marines are sent in to "clean up" Black Mesa and erase all evidence of it ever occuring - this includes the annihilation of all witnesses. This brings up new questions - how exactly is the US government involved in all this? how did they manage to get so many highly trained troops to Black Mesa so quickly, and so effectively? Was this all planned? And, most importantly, why is the government worker, the "G-Man" in the blue suit, following you around, observing your every move, yet always JUST out of your reach?

But, as the Alien invasion picks up, eventually the marines are forced to retreat their forces - Black Mesa is abandoned, considered a lost cause. Gordon knows that to stop this invasion he will have to travel to the Alien homeworld, and kill their overmind - stopping the invasion once and for all. With the aid of some scientist friends, he teleports to the alien homeworld, and destroys the overmind.

And then, with the destruction of the overmind, Gordon Freeman is met with... blackness. He gets trapped in a seemingly non-existant place - it is here that he is met by the myserious "G-Man" in the blue suit.

"Excellent work, Mr. Freeman," says the G-man, "your destruction of the overmind has not stopped the invasion, but it has... drastically helped me and my employers control the alien menace. We are now able to control a large faction of their forces. Again, excellent work... As a matter of fact, it was such excellent work that I have a proposition for you: me and my employers would like to hire you for your services again in the future. It is a simple choice: you may either work for us... or die."

Faced with no other viable choice, Gordon chose to work for the mysterious man in the blue suit. He was put into a bizarre trance, from which he did not wake up until the beginning of the second game.

When Gordon awoke, the earth had drastically changed. He did not know how many years later he awoke, but he did know that by killing the Alien overmind, he had not stopped the alien invasion. He found out that earth surrendered to its new enemy. Earth was enslaved, and a puppet government was put into place. Conveniently, Black Mesa's former lead administrator was put in charge of the new government...

Gordon was given his first assignment - to liberate mankind.


That's only the story from HL1. HL1 also had two expansion packs. One of them, entitled "Blue Shift," detailed Barney's experience at black mesa, about how he and a group of scientists managed to survive and escape the facility. the second one, called "opposing force," showed the game through the eyes of Alan Shepard, one of the marines sent out to kill Gordon Freeman. One of the interesting things about opposing force is the fact that AFTER the marines pull out of Black Mesa (the guy you play gets left behind), it is revealed that a second wave of stealth assassins, unaffliated with the US government, were sent out to further destroy any survivng witness, including any marines that got left behind...

[Tyranny]

Sounds like a very cohesive movie plot. I'd wager Half-Life gets made into a movie before Halo does

[[]V[]essenjah]

Hmmm.... sounds like a pretty general and basic story but writen in a complex fashion. It sounds interesting. Glad I now understand that there IS a plot somewhere.

However, Halo's story with the game and books combined is a much more complex story still. I didn't even scratch the surface with what I said earlier.

But, you did give Half Life a slight rise in story.

Tet, you have a good point, I will post a second review after I finish both games.

[Gooberman]

The xbox will never completly take off without the ability to have user/created levels. I think it can sustain no mods.

I was hoping Halo2 would be the first game to allow it, I mean the xbox has a 10gig harddrive, I doubt that a level is bigger then 50mb.

[WarAdvocat]

Anyone who tries to assert that novels based on a video game somehow validate and enhance said video game is missing the point.

It is a clear case of tail wagging the dog. IMO it is at least as stupid as saying "Star Wars is a great movie because it had good action figures".

The merchandising of a video game is all well and good, but to allow those products to sway your preference is to become a consumer drone. Judge each product upon its actual merits, not by the fluff that surrounds it.

[Admiral Thrawn]

Some of you guys have missed the point when it comes to the Halo games and the novels. The game itself IS part of the story. The novels are merely there to illustrate what happened before and between the two games. The story in the games can obviously hold up on their own but the books provide information leading up to the points that the game illustrated.

I guess the best way of putting it is like this.

Fall of Reach (Book) = Star Wars I
First Halo Game = Star Wars II
First Strike (Book) = Star Wars IV
Halo 2 = Episode IV

The books are merely just the "links" in the story that is told by the Halo games. Just like the First III Episodes of Star wars tell of the backstory leading up to the events of the death stars, Vader, etc... I guess that's the best way of putting it.

Also, I found a pretty good Article on the AI behavior, etc.. on howthingswork.com. Here's the link

http://stuffo.howstuffworks.com/halo2-ai.htm

[Top Wop]

I got a chance to play both games over the weekend, and no matter how you put it, HL2 is way better than Halo 2. It wishes it was as good as HL2. Im not a fan of FPS, but it got me glued. Halo however was boring. Dumbed down for the console crowd as usual. Halo never got me the hook.

[{Hawk}Liquid]

Killzone > All the other games listen in this thread.

[[]V[]essenjah]

I guess that's just your preference to like Half Life 2. I personally thought it was pretty boring and I didn't really like the story. TW, you really need to read the books. Most people I know around here are fans of SW and ST (the good ones like First Contact, Nemesis), and I actually liked them better.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Bet you won't see 4-5 tanks, 7-8 ghosts, and three armies pouring out of variouse points shooting machine guns, plasma guns, and sniper rifles at each other in HL2. Just what I've been waiting for in a video game, a REAL battle.

Only reason I bought Unreal 2 was because of the cool battle it showed on the front.... I was dissapointed.

[Vertigo 99]

Bet you won't see 4-5 tanks, 7-8 ghosts, and three armies pouring out of variouse points shooting machine guns, plasma guns, and sniper rifles at each other in HL2. Just what I've been waiting for in a video game, a REAL battle.

Only reason I bought Unreal 2 was because of the cool battle it showed on the front.... I was dissapointed.

i beat halo2; i dont remember that.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Close to the end of the second Arbiter mission.

You can get in a human tank, go downhill, you see a Wraith, blow it up, a buttload of Ghosts come after you, a guy above you with a rocket launcher along with a bunch of (I won't say what they are, then you go farther down to see probably at least 2-3 more tanks fireing at each other, and from what I remember covenent, marines and something else I won't speak of are going at it. You know the snowy area. It may not be thousands of soldiers but it was a pretty decent sized battle. You don't get that in HL2.

Oh and you can see the huge structure in the distance (won't say what it is) in flames and having the snot blown out of it.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Close to the end of the second Arbiter mission.

You can get in a human tank, go downhill, you see a Wraith, blow it up, a buttload of Ghosts come after you, a guy above you with a rocket launcher along with a bunch of (I won't say what they are, then you go farther down to see probably at least 2-3 more tanks fireing at each other, and from what I remember covenent, marines and something else I won't speak of are going at it. You know the snowy area. It may not be thousands of soldiers but it was a pretty decent sized battle. You don't get that in HL2.

Oh and you can see the huge structure in the distance (won't say what it is) in flames and having the snot blown out of it.

Also, in the second level, another example, you go across a bridge in a human tank, the other marines take the warthog, you get a ghost after ghost sent after you, and a dropship comes after you. Once the bridge is nearly crossed a bunch of Banshees fly in and try to bomb you, then you fight two wraiths at the end.

There is also an area in the first Arbiter level where you have to fly a Banshee in a pretty cool little dogfight while protecting a dropship against waves of Banshees and quite a bit of groundfire.

[[DWL]Punk]

just wait till you get to the striders..

[Sirius]

I can perfectly understand people who aren't willing to buy two extra books just for a game...

[Gooberman]

I have never read either 2 books and still enjoyed Halo2's sp game quite a bit. They arn't required, just extra.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Actually, the only reason I keep playing it is to see what the Stryders have waiting for me. I'm actually looking forward to it. I saw those in the demo. Thing is I just haven't seen the AI perform much more than standard stuff yet. Perhapps going deeper into the game will help.

I haven't played it since I got to the dune buggy. I didn't really like it. I could run over the thing with a warthog np And the guass cannon on the back of that thing would shred it in a split second compared to that nerdy energy cannon they gave it. I wanted the machine gun I thought I saw strapped to it in the E3 video. It's not bad though. I just like real weapons still over energy weapons at times. Especially on a vehicle :\ It still is sort of fun to drive.... OH and I LOVE THE FRIGGEN CRANE!! Throwing those trialers around was a blast. Just wish some soldiers would stand in one and let me swing them around Also, I never could squish the guy below me by dropping the magnet on him. Tried dropping trialers but eventually I had to get out and shoot him.

[Sirius]

A review I saw indicated the AI was sometimes brilliant and sometimes pretty standard, but no real improvement over the first Half-Life overall. Apparently the game's real strengths lie in its physics engine and rather amusing gameplay. Oh, and graphics of course.

[Top Wop]

Messenger, I dont need to read a goddamn book in order to understand a game. It all should be there already.

[Nightshade]

Player survey: (www.rottentomatoes.com)

Halo 2: 90%

Half-Life 2: 100%

[[]V[]essenjah]

Heh, I guess you don't need to read a book to watch a movie either now do you?

Point is, the books were great. I would actually rather read those books than watch ST: Nemesis personally.

There is no way that Halo's full story could have possibly been displayed through a game. So they used the two parts that fit together the best. They can hold their own but they have a lot to back them up when all else fails.

I still don't think HL2 is much greater than RF.

I also wouldn't go by on-line polls. I haven't trusted them since the nTrap deal. People found ways to trick the poll counter. So you never know what the true tally is. That may very well be though for PC gamers but that may be a lot different on the console. Depends. There are a lot out there that couldn't play the game due to the fact that some people don't have the internet and some people prefer consoles.


However, Steam in itself is reason enough not to like the game. Keep in mind that Steam is just another good way to control what and how people play their own games on their own computers. They will continue to be in games as long as you support the games that Steam assists with.

I wouldn't complain about the RIAA if your going to support Steam.

The game is good but they need a different supporter and I found the install totally crappy. If you noticed, there were no long lines for HL2.... interesting. I was the ONLY ONE IN LINE IN FACT!!

One a good note about that, at least I didn't get stuck between some weird people again though.

It's a decent game thus far but in my opinion, still no Halo.

Point is, with Halo, you actually have to have a life beyond Halo to understand Halo. Yup, you have to go through some effort to fully take in the story by reading a really good book series. You have to go out and invite your friends over to play it for extra fun.

Now, if HL2 allowed split screen and the incredible size of the backside of a regular 19" monitor went down, I would say YAY for HL2!! Especially if they would allow me to at least punch guys and have 2 people able to ride in a vehicle.

Which reminds me, they really need to have a co-operative version of GTA in split-screen.

[Top Wop]

Heh, I guess you don't need to read a book to watch a movie either now do you?

Thats correct Messenger, you dont.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Not a LOTR fan are you TW

[Vertigo 99]

lolol mob's stupid

[Tyranny]

messenger.....you're teetering awfully close to putting your foot in your mouth again. The point people are trying to make is that as far as Halo is concerned, you shouldn't need to read the books to get the overall storyline of a video game those books are based on. The game should tell it, the books should just enhance it.

LOTR is completely different because the books are self sufficient. If you've already read the books you really don't have to see the movies. It's great and all, but it's just a bonus. If you've seen the movies however and haven't read the books, thats a whole different ballgame. Why? Because the movies aren't self sufficient, they don't tell the whole story, just the overall story. However they stand a lot better on their own then most other adaptations of other media.

I can't believe you're even comparing the two. You're talking about books based on a video game made in the last 3 years. Then you compare them to books that birthed a new genre of literature written a half century ago?

Really bad reference for comparisons if you ask me. It's like taking a wet noodle and comparing it to a stone wall.