Halo 2 vs. Half-Life 2 (my opinion)

F

[Fate]Doom

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 16, 2002
Messages
425
Having completed both and replaying my favorite chapters today with both I just felt like listing my thoughts on two of the best FPS games ever made.

The game listed after the subject was my preference:

Graphics- Half-Life 2
Fun Factor- Halo 2
Multiplayer- Halo 2 (biggest desparity between the two)
Immersion- Half-Life 2
Music- Halo 2
Enemies- Tie
Physics- Half-Life 2
Vehicle Usage- Halo 2
AI- Halo 2
Weapons- Tie (Gravity Gun saved Half-Life 2 here...)
Best Battle Sequences- Halo 2 (more "epic" in scale and sheer size)
Better Single Player- Tie (Both very good, but different)
Small Details- Half-Life 2 (paint cans that splatter, fires, water, world design)

Favorite Levels From Each- Halo 2: Delta Halo, Metropolis, The Great Journey
Half-Life 2: Ravenholm, Benefactors, Entanglement

Favorite Moments From Each

Halo 2- Lots of the big battles were great and epic, but a single small moment that just shows Halo 2's brilliance was watching a Brute and a Grunt race for a Ghost in which the Brute lost, but he jacked the Grunt from it from behind before he could take off and as the Brute finally sped away the Grunt stuck him with a plasma grenade for the kill and did a little dance to celebrate.

Half-Life 2- Getting the gravity gun for the first time and playing catch with dog and fighting the Striders was great, but being creeped out by Ravenholm was brilliant and a great twist from the rest of the game.


The bad and the ugly:

Halo 2- Some bad texture popping at times, cliff hanger ending, a little on the short side for single player, some ugly cut-scenes, Jackal snipers are cheap on Heroic/Legendary.

Half-Life 2- Vehicle usage was too long, scripted, and linear. AI was not as good as expected,story didn't do much to tie up loose ends from the original, some sections just dragged on too much, performance issues like stuttering/crashing, and Counter Strike Source.

Overall both games are truly great and should not be missed by any gamer with the means to properly play both (5.1, High End PC, HDTV etc.). If I HAD to pick only one to call my choice it would be Halo 2 due to better action and multiplayer, but Half-Life 2 is awesome as well.

Halo 2- 9.5
Half-Life 2 9.4
Doom 3 7.5 (for comparsion)
 
[Fate]Doom, i'm glad to see that you seem to keep in perspective that halo 2 is amazing considering an xbox costs only $150, which alone could barely get a half decent vid card for a pc. i keep reminding myself of this with the whole graphic popping/loading thing. i wish it didn't happen or at least was less noticable, but considering it is on a ~733 pentium 3 iirc with 64 megs shared ram, it's pretty damn impressive. i haven't gotten half life 2, mainly because i haven't played half life 1, however, i would not be opposed to getting it, i just need some incentive, like maybe actually playing half life 1, i dunno.

i do have to agree, i really wish i didn't trade in all my n64 crap for that ripoff doom 3....
 
tim_m said:
[Fate]Doom, i'm glad to see that you seem to keep in perspective that halo 2 is amazing considering an xbox costs only $150, which alone could barely get a half decent vid card for a pc. i keep reminding myself of this with the whole graphic popping/loading thing. i wish it didn't happen or at least was less noticable, but considering it is on a ~733 pentium 3 iirc with 64 megs shared ram, it's pretty damn impressive. i haven't gotten half life 2, mainly because i haven't played half life 1, however, i would not be opposed to getting it, i just need some incentive, like maybe actually playing half life 1, i dunno.

i do have to agree, i really wish i didn't trade in all my n64 crap for that ripoff doom 3....
Click to expand...

Halo 2 would still be amazing ported in its current state to the PC right now. The system specs of the aging Xbox make it more impressive sure, but it holds its ground well in almost every aspect to the most demanding current PC games.
 
if you buy the "silver" pakage from valve you get half life on the source engine, this is something i will be looking forward to playing but no one has really said anything about. it is one, if not the, best games i have ever played but i hate when ppl at my school dissmiss on it cause its graphics are too old.
 
only good thing going for halo 2 is better multiplayer... single player sucks wang chung for halo 2 and they totally f'ed all the guns up in halo 2.... i wish halo 2 was ujst halo 1 with xbox live... i wish it sooo bad anyways half life 2 totally blows halo 2 out of water in every way... especially multiplayer (cs source dominates halo 2 smg sprayfests...)

-warsaw
 
I disagree with you on Music (the most), Fun Factor, Vehicles and SP. The others have their reasons.
 
Own both... Halo2 seems the same as Halo imo. Like HL2 much better.
 
Here is how it goes for me:

HALO - Super fun game (multiplayer and single gotta love those puny aliens)
HALF LIFE 2 - Fun game so far(still in boat part and damn it makes me hella dizzy this afternoon)
FAR CRY - Fun but not so great with story
DOOM 3 - hyped stupid environment but cannot play it all in glory stupid high requirements for that game nobody wants to play in low reso in a PC(I think I got 99% of it .... not completed)
HALO 2 - Shit plz release it on PC!!!!
 
That's a pretty damned good summary of everything, Fate. I'm glad to see there are still objective people on the boards who actually played both games before comparing them.

By the way, I'm not sure what we saw was the "ending" per se. Beating the game on Legendary shows a message that suggests there might be more campaign available over XBL in a few months.

I know for a fact that there are things that I saw in the gameplay demo they displayed a while back that didn't actually show up in the game. I refuse to believe that they would just end the game that way and let that slide until Halo 3. Hell, I was putting my drink down because I thought the action was about to start up again, then the credits rolled...

My exact words, spoken out loud: "You've gotta be fucking kiddin me."
 
CS:S is better multiplayer - numbers don't lie. Right now @ 3AM there are a massive 309 people playing Halo for the PC. 5,829 are playing CS:S. If Halo had such amazing MP these numbers would be a lot closer. The problem is... Halo has no compeition on the X-Box, so while being very much a mediocre game, it's exalted as the best thing ever. When it came to PC and it was up against real FPSs, it turned into a complete failure. You can blame it on the game running slower than it should or whatever... but ultimately those things could have been overlooked if the gameplay was that amazing - the game just sucked. This goes to show the quality of Halo MP.

Halo 2's MP is, I'm sure, better than that of Halo 1 and can't be directly compared to that of CS:S. However, if it were released right now on PC and it had to face real FPSs in competition it wouldn't stand a chance.
 
warsawtag said:
only good thing going for halo 2 is better multiplayer... single player sucks wang chung for halo 2 and they totally f'ed all the guns up in halo 2.... i wish halo 2 was ujst halo 1 with xbox live... i wish it sooo bad anyways half life 2 totally blows halo 2 out of water in every way... especially multiplayer (cs source dominates halo 2 smg sprayfests...)

-warsaw
Click to expand...

If it's an SMG spray fest your are playing with noobs
 
kick@ss said:
CS:S is better multiplayer - numbers don't lie. Right now @ 3AM there are a massive 309 people playing Halo for the PC. 5,829 are playing CS:S. If Halo had such amazing MP these numbers would be a lot closer. The problem is... Halo has no compeition on the X-Box, so while being very much a mediocre game, it's exalted as the best thing ever. When it came to PC and it was up against real FPSs, it turned into a complete failure. You can blame it on the game running slower than it should or whatever... but ultimately those things could have been overlooked if the gameplay was that amazing - the game just sucked. This goes to show the quality of Halo MP.

Halo 2's MP is, I'm sure, better than that of Halo 1 and can't be directly compared to that of CS:S. However, if it were released right now on PC and it had to face real FPSs in competition it wouldn't stand a chance.
Click to expand...

Halo 2 has more people playing on xbox live than all the steam games combined

as for Halo 1. The "real" problem was that it was released on PC how many years after?
At it's first release on xbox, it was graphically on par (if not better) with any pc FPS. The AI was far better, as were the other aspects of it.

I don't see why we even have to compare this shit. Can't we just play both and be happy.
 
]|[ Mar']['in ]|[ said:
Halo 2 has more people playing on xbox live than all the steam games combined

as for Halo 1. The "real" problem was that it was released on PC how many years after?
At it's first release on xbox, it was graphically on par (if not better) with any pc FPS. The AI was far better, as were the other aspects of it.

I don't see why we even have to compare this shit. Can't we just play both and be happy.
Click to expand...
Graphics don't make a game and is not an exucse for success/failure. Doom 3 and Counter-Strike are prime examples.
 
I don't own an Xbox, but played Halo 1 and 2 at friends house, LAN'd and all. Halo 2 sucks man sack.

I played Halo 2 for like an hour and a half and it seemed to be very repetitive. It was a kind of town down city. You run... kill a herd of those small shitty guys, and a few harder normal size bots. Then move into a new area, doing the same thing. I enjoyed Halo 1 a lot more.

HL2 just owns them both combined... hands down.
 
Apples to oranges, two great games for two great systems you really CAN'T compare them.
 
I love both games. No CO-op for HL2 is a sad fact of current pc games. :(

I love the "epic" feel of H2. I love the little details of HL2. Both tell pretty damn good stories, though for H2 it is much more immersive if you've read the books and took part in ILB.

both games are A+ games with D3 coming in at a solid B/B+. When you consider T:V, UT2k4, and It has been a fantastic, amazing year for gaming.
 
[Fate]Doom said:
Favorite Levels From Each- Halo 2: Delta Halo, Metropolis, The Great Journey
Half-Life 2: Ravenholm, Benefactors, Entanglement
Click to expand...
Oh man, I thought Highway 17 ranked right up there with Surface Tension from the first HL.
 
Halo 2 would suck on the PC now and it will suck on the PC when it actually comes out in 2-3 years when MS feels the xbox market is fully saturated. Why? Because the game is made for console controls. I'm not saying Halo 2 is a bad game. I'm saying Halo 2 is a bad PC game.
 
How can you compare an x-bawks game to HL2?

They're really different, CS:Source is incredibly successful and fun as I see it. HL2 has a replayable single player. It's a BIG game with tons of mod potential. Halo games would suck on the PC, they've already been done. That being said, if you're a console gamer I'm sure they're great.
 
CS:S is better multiplayer - numbers don't lie. Right now @ 3AM there are a massive 309 people playing Halo for the PC. 5,829 are playing CS:S.
Click to expand...

First off, who in the hell said we were talking about the original Halo, let alone the half-assed PC port of the original Halo? We're talking about Halo 2, which has had more people playing on XBL than all of the Steam games at launch. There were 80K people on XBL playing Halo 2 the FIRST NIGHT It has surpassed 100K several times.

If Halo had such amazing MP these numbers would be a lot closer.
Click to expand...

If Halo had had a decent port these numbers would be a lot closer. Unfortunately, nobody was is/was talking about the atrocious PC version of this excellent game.

The problem is... Halo has no compeition on the X-Box, so while being very much a mediocre game, it's exalted as the best thing ever.
Click to expand...

No competition on the Xbox? Riiiiiiight. You apparently have no idea what you're talking about, nor do you even seem to be beginning to grasp how many great games have XBL compatibility.

When it came to PC and it was up against real FPSs, it turned into a complete failure.
Click to expand...

Yet again, you're completely missed the point.

1. Halo for the PC came out three years after it was originally released. PC fans were comparing three year-old tech to the newest generation of games.

2. The port of Halo wasn't even as good as the original that had been released three years prior.

Your subjectivity really is pathetic. Save your opinions for the HL2 boards, because that's the only place they would ever be relevant. You're hanging by a noose from the bandwagon.
 
WickedAngel said:
Yet again, you're completely missed the point.

1. Halo for the PC came out three years after it was originally released. PC fans were comparing three year-old tech to the newest generation of games.

2. The port of Halo wasn't even as good as the original that had been released three years prior.

Your subjectivity really is pathetic. Save your opinions for the HL2 boards, because that's the only place they would ever be relevant. You're hanging by a noose from the bandwagon.
Click to expand...
No offense, but the PC port of Halo 1 would have been just as bad if it came out the same time as the console game. The biggest limiter to Halo was the controls. The floaty type of jumping and single speed movement is needed for a console game but it SUCKS on a pc. Even if Halo 2 was ported to PC today it would suck.

Also, the port of Halo 1 was pretty much exactly like the original...which is why it sucked on the PC. I'm sure the Halo series is a great console FPS, but even a great console FPS can't hold its weight against PC made FPS without a major overhaul to physics and controls.
 
:rolleyes:

PC elitism is so pathetic. In 2001, what was the biggest title for the PC? Anyone remember? Was the AI half as good as those of Halo? Were the controls of the vehicles fluid (If there were vehicles at all)? How did the graphics look? Was the music well orchestrated? What caliber was the voice acting?

I've yet to see any of you PC loyalists make this argument. You simply cry and bitch about how Halo "sucks", yet provide arguments against it that are vague at best.

The floaty type of jumping and single speed movement is needed for a console game but it SUCKS on a pc.
Click to expand...

So you would rather have the bunny-hopping speed manipulation of games like Half-Life 2 and Painkiller? That's basically what you're hinting at, right?

Also, the port of Halo 1 was pretty much exactly like the original...
Click to expand...

The design was, and that is EXACTLY my point. Halo was something special in 2001. By 2004, everyone and their mother had emulated everything that was excellent about the game.

As for performance, it wasn't even close. Halo for the Xbox barely ever stuttered (I still play it quite often and the only dip I've noticed comes in the final sequence where there are 10~20 enemies firing at once.

Have you even played Halo 2? I see you mentioning the physics, which are still head and shoulders above many PC games out there. It doesn't surpass that of HL2, but then again, it wasn't in development for seven years either.
 
WickedAngel said:
:rolleyes:

PC elitism is so pathetic.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty baffled myself. One of the main arguments against Halo 2 seems to be "OMG its a console shootr Pc is best and X-bawks is teh ghey." I fully admit that I prefer PC shooters, but Halo 2 is a truly excellent game. I don't understand why people need one game to "pwn" another.
 
Threads like this always bring out a ton of !!!!!!s.

I will say this. Halo2 will keep my attention a lot longer because I like the MP (play it all the time) where as I don't like CS.
 
Half Life 2 all the way, ok Halo 2 is pretty impressive..... but Half Life 2 is amazing
 
WickedAngel said:
:rolleyes:

PC elitism is so pathetic. In 2001, what was the biggest title for the PC? Anyone remember? Was the AI half as good as those of Halo? Were the controls of the vehicles fluid (If there were vehicles at all)? How did the graphics look? Was the music well orchestrated? What caliber was the voice acting?

I've yet to see any of you PC loyalists make this argument. You simply cry and bitch about how Halo "sucks", yet provide arguments against it that are vague at best.

So you would rather have the bunny-hopping speed manipulation of games like Half-Life 2 and Painkiller? That's basically what you're hinting at, right?

The design was, and that is EXACTLY my point. Halo was something special in 2001. By 2004, everyone and their mother had emulated everything that was excellent about the game.

As for performance, it wasn't even close. Halo for the Xbox barely ever stuttered (I still play it quite often and the only dip I've noticed comes in the final sequence where there are 10~20 enemies firing at once.

Have you even played Halo 2? I see you mentioning the physics, which are still head and shoulders above many PC games out there. It doesn't surpass that of HL2, but then again, it wasn't in development for seven years either.
Click to expand...
RtcW, Ghost Recon, Serious Sam, and Tribes 2 were all released in 2001. 2002 brought MOHAA. As far as movement goes, ANYTHING would be better than Halo. A sprint bar, hell even crouching would be nice. The one thing Halo did well was vehicles. Sorry, but I've played Halo 2 and the physics are not head and shoulder above most PC games. In fact, I have a hard time thinking of any recent game they are better than.

I'm not saying Halo 1 or 2 sucks. I am saying that on the PC, they are mediocre at best. The physics and controls just simply are not there. The same goes with console RTS games. Of course console have the advantage in many other styles of games like fighter games.
 
Dijonase said:
I'm pretty baffled myself. One of the main arguments against Halo 2 seems to be "OMG its a console shootr Pc is best and X-bawks is teh ghey." I fully admit that I prefer PC shooters, but Halo 2 is a truly excellent game. I don't understand why people need one game to "pwn" another.
Click to expand...

It's because they don't have an Xbox, or vice versa. Deep down, I'm sure they want to play certain games they aren't able to, so what's the next best thing? Bashing the games! :eek:

BTW, I love PC/Console/Portable gaming, so there. ;)
 
A lot of us are pissed off that MS bought bungie and made them suck as well. Halo/Halo 2 could've been 10x the games they are/were had they been developed and released on the PC. Not to mention the screwup that was myth 3.

The halo games are a disappointment because of all they originally promised. Screw the X-box and its watered down version of what could've been the next Tribes.
 
Oh comon ppl the guy was asking for opinion on the game(H2 & HL2) not how you guys hate xbox/pc game and some very deep explanation of whatever you guys talkin bout... I love halo but hate micro$oft
 
[Fate]Doom, great post. When I read Halo threads I always wonder what Halo 1 & 2 would have been if Bungie had not been bought by M$... I loved the PC version of Halo, despite it being horribly nerfed.
 
kick@ss said:
Graphics don't make a game and is not an exucse for success/failure. Doom 3 and Counter-Strike are prime examples.
Click to expand...

Well I know that. I'm just stating the fact because some other moron was arguing about it's shitty graphics.

It's also the reason I made mention to other aspects of the game :rolleyes:

and to [Fate]Doom. That was an excellent post. I wish more people could be as open minded and intelligent as you. :(
 
obs said:
RtcW, Ghost Recon, Serious Sam, and Tribes 2 were all released in 2001. 2002 brought MOHAA. As far as movement goes, ANYTHING would be better than Halo. A sprint bar, hell even crouching would be nice.
Click to expand...

You must be smoking something strong over there. Halo 1 for the Xbox did multiple movement speeds better than anything on the PC simply because of one thing, analog control. You could also crouch by pressing in the right analog stick. Besides, the games you listed for 2001 are niche games at best, and mediocre at worst. I am no !!!!!!, I just enjoy a good story and I don't care what medium it is brought to me through.
 
revan said:
You must be smoking something strong over there. Halo 1 for the Xbox did multiple movement speeds better than anything on the PC simply because of one thing, analog control. You could also crouch by pressing in the right analog stick. Besides, the games you listed for 2001 are niche games at best, and mediocre at worst. I am no !!!!!!, I just enjoy a good story and I don't care what medium it is brought to me through.
Click to expand...

Damnit you beat me to the post!

Yea anybody who has played Halo or Halo 2 can tell you that there are multiple speeds and a crouching ability in it. Appearantly somebody is trying to knock a game without even ever playing it (next time you try to knock a game make sure you've at least played it ;) ).

Also as for your list of PC fps games that year...yea like Revan said mediocre to just a bile of flaming shit! If Tribes 2 wasnt one of the biggest dissapointments in fps sequel history (in the eyes of its fan, mass majority) then i dunno what to say.
 
Staples said:
Threads like this always bring out a ton of !!!!!!s.

I will say this. Halo2 will keep my attention a lot longer because I like the MP (play it all the time) where as I don't like CS.
Click to expand...

This thread by Fate was an excellent post. Theres nothing !!!!!! iniative about it. This post set a very good tone for an intellectual non-baised disscussion about the two games but then a bounch of dumbass fanb0ys came on here and ruined this excellent thread. I just feel sorry for Fate b/c he started such a good thread and a few pathetic losers turned it into their PC Elitist Crusade. :mad:
 
Reven...DukeDiablo...stop doing my work :p

Basically, you guys went where I was going to go. Congratulations on playing the games before you judged them. It's more than I can say for some people.
 
I've played all the way through Halo2 with my brother in law in coop.
In some ways, it is a very good game. I think bungie succeeded in giving a greater variety of experiance in the campaign. You play in lots of settings, you have lots of vehicles. The graphics are not bad, considering the hardware they run on. The cutscenes IMO were especially good. The characters are very detailed, but the landscapes are only so-so. Understandable on the system, of course. The gameplay is better too. The ability to highjack the vehicles, and wield two weapons is cool.

I found the story to be miserable. It jumped around so much, and I never knew what was going on. It was fun running through the levels killing people, though.

The levels were not repetitive, but sometimes they were not logically laid out. For example, we often didn't know what we were doing (objective too vague) and it was hard to find an exit. " At least once a level, we would run around an area for 15 - 20 minutes looking for the exit into the next room. Often it went like this: "Is the right area?" "I don't think so..." "Oh, there are some bad guys, we've must have found the right spot."

Spolier alert***

When you play as covenant, it's often hard to know who to kill and not to, since you are covenant, have covenant team mates, and are fighting covenant.
/Spolier alert***

All in all a good game, better in some respects than the original, worse in others. The only part I shook my head at (maybe I am a PC elist, I don't know) was when we watched the making of Halo 2 video. Those bungie guys think they're gods... they actually say that the things they are doing have never been done before. Having been playing LANs and on the internet for years, I just had to laugh. Good game. Revolutionary? Hardly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top