What was it like being alive in the HL2 era?
>>12069359It felt like the biggest leap in gaming since the Dreamcast.
>>12069359Magical. Greatest leap in graphics since 2D to 3D. HL2 was so well optimized that it looked and ran great even on low end computers.No other game made me think "wow, this looks just like real life". The physics and interactivity with the world added greatly to that feeling too.I can't blame Valve for not releasing HL3. Nothing they could try can come close to it.
HL2 liberated us from cutscenes and finally allowed us to be told the story in real time. You have no idea how revolutionary HL2 together with steam was
idk i was 4
>People born in 2007 are old enough to use 4chanHeartbreaking
>>12069642>HL2 liberated us from cutscenes and finally allowed us to be told the story in real timenot really hard to do when there is barely any story to begin with,i like half-life 2 but come on.
>>12069636>Valve for not releasing HL3Isn't HL3 that VR game?
>>12069359It was a good time
>>12069642But half life 1 already did that and steam was a massive piece of shit.
>>12069654In retrospect this site should not have made it past 2010.
spam thread
steam wuz green
I don't know, I was too old to be seriously interested in gaming in 2004But "it was revolutionary, it was the biggest leap ever" comments must be coming from zoomers who weren't there for Doom, Quake, HL1, Unreal
>>12069359So much better. There was actual, consequential innovation almost every year. Kids today have seen almost nothing of consequence, since the jump from PS3 graphics to the present is scarcely perceptible by comparison. Oh there's more pixels, there's HDR... whatever.
>>12069359Gay.But on a real note, once you had a capable computer at that time that could play it, it really was mind blowing What it brought with it was great too. Great single player campaign and multiplayer mods, fucking Counterstrike Source in its hey day was fuckin fantastic.I played the original Half-Life demo on a PS2 demo disc weirdly enough but never played the PC release until way later.I played 2 before 1.That being noted, it was great. I will admit for a while I was too addicted to CSS so I kind of burned out of games but in hindsight I think any game unchecked will do that to you. Bittersweet but to be fair it kept me from doing drugs at that time since my family's life was so fucked at that time with single parent family stuff and having to worry every day for so long on how to survive. Edgy game for an edgy time.I'm sure others have better more real opinions about this though than me.
>>12070858Agreed. The jumps made you appreciate everything since the experience was breath taking and wholesome.Going from 2D to 3D was fun, since there were still a lot of good games coming out as well. I think post Skyrim era gaming industry was grim in comparison since it set the precedence that slop is ok.You had your shovelware and bad sports games but the quality of actual truly good games wasn't difficult to find.Now you have to sift through mountains of shit or revisionist history / way too self aware "retro" themed games to maybe get a fucking taste of something okay.I would rather play some random ass rom hack than try to find something on Steam worthwhile these days.Fuck, even Steam was more reliable then in many ways.
>>12069359Here's one thing I can think of, games DID have a solid single player experience without having to have an online presence or multiplayer in mindNot Half-Life 2 in particular but it was OKAY for a game to be offline and have a single player campaign.Now it's way too in your face in comparison.
>>12069359such a better time to be alive it's impossible to explain in words. every other year there was a shocking technical advancement. creativity ruled. people's brains were not fried by social media. everything was interesting and everyone you knew liked to talk about itthe modern era is a literal horror show
>>12069359I went to cyber cafes just to play it
>>12069359I built a new computer to play Doom 3, the game that actually had a big leap in graphics.HL2 didn't do anything impressive other than the physics engine. Early steam was a clusterfuck and you had to wait 15-30 minutes to download an update every time you wanted to launch HL2 for like the first 6 months it was out. The game starts out as more impressive than HL1 and Doom 3, but by a few hours in it's very clearly a corridor shooter with bad vehicle and squad combat segments that make the whole package tedious and unfun. The engine fundamentally can't do big open outdoor areas or complex lighting. People who tell you it was a big jump in graphics must have not been playing Doom 3 or GTA3 on console, because the per pixel dynamic lighting in Doom 3 and the open areas in GTA3 just make HL2 feel like its being limited by the Source engine.It could have been a good game if they actually finished all the stuff they had planned during development, but instead we got a rushed game with bad levels and shitty unskippable cutscenes that make the game unreplayable. Also invented the concept of a "reddit game," ie. A game which has high school science class humor which redditors will pretend you need a science degree to understand, this genre was later solidified by Portal.The only part of the game I actually appreciate in retrospect was all the physics stuff in Ravenholdm. It made that part almost as good as Doom 3, but the rest of the gameplay sucks.
Don’t know, I was too busy playing MGS3 and GTA San Andreas.Reality is: back then only PCfags cared about HL.Consolechads simply didn’t care about some random fps, and anyone denying it is just a zoomer who wasn’t there.FACT!!!!
>>12070959>back then only PCfags cared about HLI wonder why... I like how Don Draper on your picture captures the state of mind of an average PC player back then.
>>12070959Pretty much. HL2 was still in Source which means it can't do streaming terrain because it's basically just an upgraded Quake engine that works on discrete levels. Later revisions of source finally get level of detail and visblocks but they still can't do streaming terrain. Making levels the size of a GTA game or even Spyro on PS1 is literally impossible in the engine.I'll disagree though that console players did actually want HL1, and a lot of us played the ports on console before we played HL1 or 2 on PC.
Being bundled with Steam the real gamers understood it will be the eventual downfall of gaming. It paved the way for more restrictions of what people could do with their games and we now at a point we pay to own nothing. It killed the joy of holding the games you love in your hands.
>>12070992Also the launch of steam with the game was a major fuck up, it took like 2 years to get that shit working stable. I mean Epic Games launch was bad but if Epic Games Store launched side by side with Steam in 2004 it would have been the gold standard and Steam would have died within a year.
>>12070948Same. Games were so much more fun in Internet cafes than your own home. The experience felt so much more special.
>>12070942What the fuck is this shit?
>>12069359The hype was realThe E3 demo was awesome, although faked in some partsThe last minute delay suckedThe beta leak spoiled a bit of the experienceThe modding scene was basically non existent compared to the goldmine that was goldsrcThe preload unlock fiasco was stupidSteam generally sucked ass during that year because it was half workingThank god Half-Life 2 came bundled with Counter-Strike Source
>>12071026>>12070970Good thing I was playing the pirated version, I guess
>>12069359I remember people flocking to this gaming cafe to play it or just stand next to their buddies and wow at the physics. That shit and Doom 3 were stunning for the time
>>12070959Bullshit. I only had a PS2 and a GC and even I was excited for HL2.
>>12069359Turned me off from Valve completely with the complete joke at the time of forcing a mandatory online activation for installation. Fuck them. Never forgive, never forget. Start of the cancer of modern gaming had a patient zero in HL2. >>12069642>You have no idea how revolutionary HL2 together with steam wasYou were not playing at launch. People hated the shit out of steam until the early 2010s. It was a a shitty matchmaking service at best, before they made it a mandatory DRM.
>>12070992>>12071000Only nigga in this thread that was sentient at the time HL2 launched.
>>12069359It was the video game version of Lost (the TV show). There were so many mysterious questions raised and you wanted desperately to know the answers of them. You figure that they wouldn’t put that much effort into pushing the state of computer graphics and physics forward without a seriously fleshed-out story so you thought the answers would be epic. There were no answers, just more questions, always more questions, just like Lost.
>>12071051>There were no answers, just more questionsThis is a form of creative cowardice and I despise it.
>>12069359Like Halo, Half-Life 2 only became relevant due to the insane amount of marketing and online overhype.In reality, it's a boring and shalow game compared to Deus Ex and Doom / DN 3D.
>>12069665Baste rememberer
>>12071072>Doom / DN 3DWhat a retarded comparison. You might as well compare it to Mario or Pong.
>>12071072It subsisted on PC gamer contrarianism mostly
>>12069642fucking _everyone_ hated steam when it launched, why are you larping
>>12071051>There were no answers, just more questions, always more questions, just like Lost."And that's a good thing."
>>12071104Mario, Pong, Doom, and DN3D are fun. HL2 on the other hand... At least you can stare at Alyx's butt while crouched until she shuts up her dialogue you've heard 50 times before.
>>12069359It was full of anger and disappointment. Unreal 2 was a massive flop, Doom 3 was mocked for its clay monsters, tiny corridors, and slow gameplay, Half-Life 2 and STALKER were both delayed endlessly. Thankfully, there was one shining light in the darkness...
>>12071305Crysis???
>>12073015No, that's Serious Sam.
>>12070942>things were better before I became old, bitter and jadedyou and every other human ever born
I was having a great time playing 6th gen consoles with my friends because I wasnt a PC virgin. later tried it out on orange box and found it incredibly boring and continued laughing at the valvecels who thought this was revolutionary.
Was 16, had just gotten my first non-shared pc (it had a real GPU) and the store I worked in mis-priced the collectors edition box at $20 on release day, I've still got the included t-shirt and booklets.It blew my fucking face off with the graphics. The shadows and graffiti, the detail and grit.I still played WoW much more but HL2 was special then. Steam didn't bother me because I was new to (non-80s) PC gaming and just figured that was how PC gaming was.
>pick up that canKinoi played the demo at the time, it had a night section that was spooky. I never got too far in the game i usually stop at the boat vs chopper fight so the demo is my experience of hl2
