Why am I the only one who knows how to play Half-Life 2?!

[toblix]

I've watched two other people play the game now, and they play it all wrong. They miss all the cool scripted sequences because they're looking the wrong way, and they never look at people who're talking, and don't use the environmental traps that are set up.

AHH!

[Salka]

Jesus fucking Christ, watching my brother play Half Life 2 is like stabbing myself in the eyes repeatedly. It's like watching somebody with ADD. They're just looking at fucking EVERYTHING except what they're supposed to.

[lailoken]

yeah I think it's always hard to watch other people play FPS. for me at least it is. something about not being in control myself just gives me headaches... also i think you need the right attitude to fully enjoy a rich environment like HL2. you really need to feel like you're in that world and act accordingly, sometimes also acting out the part you're playing. games can be so much more fun that way. a lot of people miss the point of the journey being the goal... or something... gnaaaaaaarhlsflooooop.... that was fun... again...

[Wormsie]

That sounds like me.

[Erwin_Br]

A colleague of mine used cheats shortly after the Ravenholm part. I'm amazed, because I finished HL 2 without cheats and I only died once (fell off the deck in the very last battle in the game). Normally I have much more trouble finishing a game without without cheats. And I always die very much as well.

--Erwin

[lailoken]

yeah i used to cheat a lot too, but now i think it totally defeats the purpose. if you use cheats you could just as well watch someone else play the game or watch movies!

[Thrik]

You died once?

.....

Were you playing it on easy?

[MrHoatzin]

Snipers alone killed me a dozen times... not to mention the occasional freak death due to a havok conundrum that caused a radiator or some seemingly benign piece of rubble to bust out of a tight spot and take my head with its parabolically-traveling self.

[Spaff]

surely you fell off the bridge

[Erwin_Br]

I played it on the default difficulty, I think that's medium or something.

The snipers are difficult, I think I just got lucky there. I remember being shot once in the head in that building with Barney. I survived it, but it was a close one.

--Erwin

[Erkki]

  Spaff said:

surely you fell off the bridge

I didn't fall off, but then decided to jump.

[Thrik]

As I recall, the game was set to easy by default. I had to change it to medium.

[Redwall]

I played on medium and didn't have problems with the snipers. Were you playing on hard, Kingz?

I also didn't die much in HL2; I seemed to just barely survive each encounter, get some health in the next area, and then get into another encounter I just barely survived... etc. Apparently medium difficulty was designed for me.

I seem to remember the snipers being easy though. I just ran from cover to cover until I was able to chuck grenades at them. At the part with Barney there was an ammo box with unlimited grenades, too.

Really, the only parts I remember being hard (i.e. where I died a lot) was outside Nova Prospekt with the 2 or 3 gunships and most of "Follow Freeman".

On topic (), I watched a friend of mine play Half-Life 2 and I felt similar. I kept trying to get him to listen to Dr. Breen at the beginning, and he just ran around chucking luggage at guards for twenty minutes. He spent most of the sequence in Kleiner's lab crouched and checking out Alyx's ass. When Alyx stepped into the teleporter he was like, "What's that? Is she going to die?"

[Jake]

During the driving bit my brother drove past every single outpost except the ones he had to go to because the road was blocked. I didn't know that chapter could be completed in under 20 minutes.

[toblix]

This is incredible! It's like all the people here have some innate ability to play HL2 in the only proper way. What does this say about us as a group? That we're better than everybody else? It most certainly does!

[Huz]

  toblix said:

This is incredible! It's like all the people here have some innate ability to play HL2 in the only proper way. What does this say about us as a group? That we're better than everybody else? It most certainly does!

Or that we're used to an adventure game mentality of exploring every possible avenue before moving on, more likely. :~

I must admit that I take it to extremes - even if a hit a 'loading' point (which takes about a minute to complete on my computer) and I think I might have missed exploring an area, I'll go back through the map transition (cue another minute of waiting!) to check it out. Usually there's nothing more than a bit of health or maybe a random headcrab in there, but sometimes that extra bit of health has come in handy.

[Lechimp]

Holy crap, I can't watch people play ANY game. I end up becoming a backseat driver and telling them everything they're doing wrong and it's even worse when they've never played the game before, because not only do I tell them that they suck at the game, but I also tell them that I was able to learn the game faster than they could.

[MrHoatzin]

I didn't fall off the bridge the first time I played the game, but I did fall off the sucker the second time, several times...

[vimes]

  toblix said:

[...] and they never look at people who're talking,

Yeah, that looks like me in ravenholm... I was always trying to spot were the hell was Gregori when I heard him talking, the result was I tend to go the wrong way, couldn't spot the weird zombies coming from other buildings and ended up having heart attacks each time I heard his russian accent.

  toblix said:

and don't use the environmental traps that are set up. AHH!

MMmmmMm, in fact, I just entered Nova Prospekt and I'm a bit tired of seeing people die with only a push of a button, so I don't thoroughly search for environmental traps anymore.

[Thrik]

Haha, Huz is so right. I reckon that our predominant adventure influences have made us totally embelish and savour every last detail in games, which is why Half-Life 2 really shines to such people. I mean, it's a great FPS in its own right, but the sheer level of depth and detailing in every single area is astounding.

God damn, this game is so cool.

[baconian]

  www.bookofhook.com said:

there's an interesting phenomenon where you feel like you're wandering around aimlessly but always manage to end up where you're supposed to be.

this is really hard to do.

HL2 says a lot about interactive storytelling, explicitly and implicitly, and I'm left there gaping at the thing, and still wondering at it weeks after finishing it. gonna have to play it again soon.