Valve didn't make quality levels though. There level design has always been far to linear and straight forward. 

-1 useless. 

Uh, yeah. Valve makes some of the best levels, gameplay wise, in the industry. To put them down is to show your ignorance. 

I heard the same complaint from a fair few sources - linear levels etc.

But you are playing an linear FPS - if you want Stalker then play that.

It's like complaining that there was only one gun in Portal. 

I love Half-Life. And its not really that muich more linear than say Crysis or FarCry1. Regardless the levels are fantastic - they are what they are - a story telling mechanism. A fairy imersive and cool one at that..... 

and bored by half life, I prefer to download and play the far better levels I get from you guys here in celephais 

i like half-life. dont mind the linearity because the levels are so damn fun.

anyway, has any one here played this yet? looks interesting, but its downloading to slow for me. reminds me a lot of riot act, except one didnt have a vorticon companion :)

http://uoz.multiplayer.it/ra/

damn this slow connection :( 

vorticons!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorticon

damn. i need lseep :) 

"bored by half life"

Now you're just trolling. Nobody who likes games could possibly be bored by Half-Life. 

I don't like videogames. I only love playing quake doom tiberian sun Homeworld Majesty Dune Emperor Sins of a Solar Empire Dune2000 Unreal1-ut99 (the other unreal games bore me sue me) and so on, and I love to follow the modding community of these and other games that I don't remember right now.

I really think that the "I love to follow the modding community" part shows my real love for videogames, and my "I'm bored by" shows that we have a different opinion. 

I found HL2 pretty damn boring so I did not play more than 2-3 hours. HL1 though was and is amazing. 

I think hl1 was better because of the engine. I liked how valve changed q1 to obtain an almost totally new engine, maintaining intact the good things of the q1 engine especially lights, brushwork and how the player and entities interact with the environment and each other (today we know this interaction as "physic engine").

There is one thing about hl2 that I'm interested in and it's the modding community. So thanks to DaZ for the post and to nakasuhito for the link. 

I found HL1 pretty damn overrated so I did not play more than 12-13 hours. HL2 though was and is amazing.

...fixed... 

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/8791/facepalmyy6.jpg 

with spirit :)

all you hl2 wankers suck! >_< 

The two maps were not bad. They fit well into the Nova Prospekt theme and prove that the author is capable of Source mapping. And that's pretty much all there is to them.

The yard in the second map is another case of a "how did these cars get here" situation that seems be typical of many custom HL2 maps. The prefabs are tempting.. 

Woot, a prison. 

Hl2 is fun becouse of the grafics and is not bad at all... but i didn�t play much becouse i dont have time for it... :\ so i will continue playing Quake that is my favorit game!

BUT HL2 is a nice game...

and the shoots of this look great! but i will not play it :( no time for nothing at home :( 

If you don't have time to play Half-Life 2, here is the short version:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7597745302270855580 

I'm with Willem on this one. Valve make levels with shitty gameplay do they? Point noted, now excuse me while I facepalm myself so hard the back of my head falls off.

Being 'linear' should not be an insult to a game like HL2. Not every game has to be a freeroaming sandbox bag of dicks. If you limit a player's options, then you can focus on the gameplay situations that really matter, and you can tie those situations to the narrative a lot tighter.

This is what valve do, they script a lot of sequences and they don't often give you 10 different ways of getting somewhere. The genius of their design is that often you can feel like you are choosing where to go with complete freedom, but in fact you are being led along the right track using subtle cues in the environment. Case in point, the rooftop escape sequence at the start of HL2, which is in my opinion, absolute genius. 

Case in point, the rooftop escape sequence at the start of HL2, which is in my opinion, absolute genius.


That's the example I first thought of as well. I have plenty of complaints about HL2, the gravity gun was overused (I mean the number of situation you needed it, not those where you could have popped zombies with bullets instead of saw blades), some of the vehicular sequences took way too damn long to complete, and many other things, but there is no denying that was some quality level design. Have to remember, they were not using a top line engine like Unreal or Crytek at the time to get those significant looking spaces functioning, they were essentially using a updated Quake engine with a ducttaped together editor. 

I hope to play it soon now.. 

Headthump

"Have to remember, they were not using a top line engine like Unreal or Crytek at the time to get those significant looking spaces functioning, they were essentially using a updated Quake engine with a ducttaped together editor."

To be fair, for HL2 they were using their Source engine which I imagine has only a tiny fraction of the original Quake source code left in it - if anything at all. 

well within their right to do what they want with an engine source they bought and paid for, but its worth noting that when I was involved with a machinima project years ago, I found the console commands to be the same as the ones that were being commonly adopted for Quake engine projects from that same time period. 

H2+ep1+ep2 were good, but did feel a bit tired somehow, going through the motions.

I really enjoyed playing through, but it seemed like I was locked into the beat the level format of games like Q1, when I should have been more interested in Alyx' plight are entertained by D0g or whatever.

I was, but I was still thinking 'where's the exit?'

Portal was an interesting mechanic and a ~trendy way of hacking render passes, but it was short for good reason. Left 4 Dead, the latest offering, is much more mainstream, but has suffered nothing for it, in my opinion at least.

Episode 3? Just let me know how many pints of blood they need to finish it faster.