The best shooter ever fucking made. The gunplay and weapon variation is amazing. It feels like there's about 75 different outcomes for each decision you make, and its so fun to replay because of that. To think this came out 20 years ago today and it looks/plays this good is a true achievement.
That video isn't exactly a fair case (and, knowing Marphy, is more likely to be intentionally played up for comedic effect). The game's enemy AI has a routine to not attack the player if the player's line of sight to the enemy's head is blocked, to make gunfights more fair to the player. The function is intentional, but is just being demonstrated in a way that the developers likely didn't anticipate.
I'll give you that it wasn't intended but it still speaks to the basic nature of the AI. All of the combines in this game act like suicidal kamikazes, never acting beyond charging towards the player.
But in contrast, that same single mindedness works great in Ravenholm where all the enemies are just zombies. That and the atmosphere and pacing in that area is unmatched anywhere else in the game.
The reception to this makes me feel like a crazy person with how much of a downgrade this is in comparison to Half-Life. The worse weapons, the immersive storytelling of the first has been sullied for basically cutscenes where all you do is sit and wait for the NPCs to finish yapping their gums, the enemy encounters arent particularly interesting. Atleast it has a better last area than HL1
it's so silly now to think about how my computer was not powerful enough to run this back when this came out, and how none of my friends could run it either
I remember asking for HL2 at launch for Christmas as a way to push my parents into buying a family desktop PC since we only had an aging Macintosh at the time.
They ended up getting a Sony Vaio installed with Windows XP: Media Edition which 1000% had no fucking chance of properly running it, and I still ended up trudging through the entire game literally at 10fps with frequent crashes whenever levels would load or save.
CP: 😱😭😭☠☠😱🤮
Nuff said
But in contrast, that same single mindedness works great in Ravenholm where all the enemies are just zombies. That and the atmosphere and pacing in that area is unmatched anywhere else in the game.
https://twitter.com/thevocpodcast/status/1773753900752941316
They ended up getting a Sony Vaio installed with Windows XP: Media Edition which 1000% had no fucking chance of properly running it, and I still ended up trudging through the entire game literally at 10fps with frequent crashes whenever levels would load or save.