What made Nova Prospekt such an amazing level?

What made Nova Prospekt such an amazing level?

Nova Prospekt was shit.

it had a cool name

Your opinion is shit

It was a boring level, eat me

Entanglement is better gameplay-wise.

I don't eat shit

I thought Nova Prospekt was boring, literal hallway after hallway of shooting. Highway 17 was better.

The entire game is just hallway after hallway of shooting, some are just dressed up "highways"

Nothing really. It wasn't that great. None of the level design in HL was really "great". It was mostly just good atmosphere.

I know but Nova Prospect wasn't even trying anymore.

Antlions I guess

>None of the level design in HL was really "great"

wat

ravenholm was a conceptually great level design, because it blended hords of zombies, classic HL corridor crawling and forced you to use physics because you were always low on ammo.

Yeah Highway 17 is probably my favourite level as well. Seeing the aftermath of Combine occupation and Xen creatures wreck the global environment was pretty epic. Also all the crumbling human infrastructure and the more open world progression was refreshing after nothing but tunnels and headcrabs.

>you were always low on ammo.
Maybe if you sucked at shooting.

This was one of my less liked levels desu.

i too liked the wide open air and the abandoned houses along the road
i liked exploring them even though they werent super duper in-depth to explore but it felt natural and i liked it
never again i guess

I actually hated nova prospekt. I much rather play on the fucking bridge against the flying maggots or whatever they are called

Pretty much the only redeeming part of the level

I always liked this map. I can't find a good picture of the map itself right now but I always thought this one staircase approaching it was pretty memorable. It's the one where the Breencast is chastising the Overwatch in the background.

i didnt like nova prospekt, the first half sucked, the antlion herding sucked, the choke points sucked, waiting for alyx sucked, the waiting for her some more sucked, the boxed in fight sucked and showcased just how badly the ai sucked, i did like the tiny exposition breen had with the combine overwatch, i did like the quazi opressive atmosphere it had, but everything felt really bland and samey, the level feels like a blur or a water color pallet of turret guns and ant lion screaming, just an incoherent mess showcasing just how incompetent the combine and the ai of the game really was.

I liked the beach segment where it's dark and there are bunkers you can raid with antlions. The outside of the compound was also kinda cool as you work your way in. But yeah, once inside it was all kinda the same, like the citadel but without the cool sights and events.

I'm not a shit you're a shit

I don't think I ever bothered finishing Nova Prospekt.

Battle for city 17 with the bunch of striders was simply one of the best parts.

I didn't like it. Striders are fucking awful enemies and ally AI is dumb.

Half-Life 2 got good only with the episodes. The basement fight in 1 was fucking amazing, highlight of the series. Then they nerfed it into shit because the target audiences said that it was "tooo haaard! ;_;"

>Nova Prospekt gets painted as this super dark place where people disappear into and Combine does whatever horrors unimaginable
>getting actually there, it's just a regular slav prison

>current year
>people are ACTUALLY pretending to think HL2 was bad for le contrarian 4chins badboy points

jesus christ

The Combine were the good guys all along.

honestly the ""physics"" aspect of ravenholm was my least favourite part of it

It just turns the Gravgun into a single-load ohk with infinitely reusable ammo, basically how any other game uses bows (though that might have become a trope /after/ hl2, don't really have a clear perspective)
the traps could have been laid out much more interestingly too, have the player collect parts before a horde of enemies comes in or whatever, as is it was just some click-to-use EZmode shit that heavily encouraged passive gameplay
I didn't like the citadel's gravgun part either, it was the same shit except you didn't even need to collect 'ammo' at all anymore

Questionable Ethics
Friendly Fire
Captive Freight
Route Kanal
Urban Flight
Riding Shotgun

>Nova prospekt is the same as any other prison
Woah man...what if it's trying to say that...like...WE are the bad guys?

hl2 didn't really have any remarkable levels except maybe ravenholm and the citadel. the rest are forgettable corridors.

It wasn't bad, just highly overrated. It was basically an advertisement for the Source engine.

ep2 was pretty great tho

>super dark place where people disappear
>just a regular slav prison

Yes, and? Seems right to me.

It's not bad, but it's just really really mediocre. Pretty much every high profile shooter at the time is at least as good.

bows became the hot new gimmick some time around 2012-2013

Compared to Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Call of Duty 1, Halo, Far Cry and Doom 3... yes it was shit.

>The Orange Box is 10 years old

People, especially on this site, tend to hate on things that other people like too much purely to balance it out. It's impossible to call half-life 2 a *bad* game. But so many people consider it the best game ever when it's really just quite good, so certain people feel obliged to hate it purely because others like it too much

It's like how people give things a 0 out of 10 on metacritic. Nobody actually thinks these games are literally 0's out of 10, but giving it a 0 will move a game closer to the 6 or 7 out of 10 that you think it truly is.

HL2 isn't the best thing ever but it's miles above bland WW2 shooters.

It's also better than D3.

City 17 was great to experience in the beginning.
Water hazard was kinda dull until you could fight back - I really didn't like stopping to throw a switch every now and then but I guess the constant driving would have gotten boring too.
Ravenholm was a great change of pace and is probably the most unique place in the game.
Highway 17 was fun, I liked the dune buggy and the lighthouse village fight on the cliffside was rad.
I remember Sandtraps being a bit of a slog, but it had a new gimmick and the antlion guard so I don't think too poorly of it. The pheremone thing with antlions was ok.
The actual assault on Nova Prospekt was great, travelling along the beach at night dealing with bunkers, followed by the gunship fight inside the compound but still outdoors. The interior was fairly dull though.
The full streetwar back in City 17 was fantastic and had a lot of great moments like the strider battle and taking the building with the suppression cannon on top of it.
And finally working your way up the citadel was great too, like that strider fight down the long corridor with the supercharged gravity gun.
I haven't done a playthrough in years, so why haven't I forgotten all of those levels if they're so dull?

>ever but it's miles above bland WW2 shooters.

MoH:AA and CoD1 were a milestone of the FPS genre. HL2 were just a milestone of bad marketing and paid journalism.

I always disliked Nova Prospekt the most. Mainly because it's just a prison, and not a cool Combine research facility. What are they defending? It's just empty cells and a whole single torture room for vorts. I know about the combine depot built on it, but the prison itself was supposed to be a set of labs and research facilities, full of machinery and stuff. Same with the Overwatch Nexus. It's just an empty government buildings with one strange room full of metal shit and two energy balls. Woah.

My favorite levels are route canal and water hazard. I love those old city sewers meeting modern city sewers and canals.

Putting DOA girls in the cells in Gmod.

>I really didn't like stopping to throw a switch every now and then
Those were the only good moments of Water Hazard and I still maintain that revolver battle is the best designed combat encounter in HL2.

Call of Duty 2 was more of a milestone, but at what cost?

can you expand on that a bit?

It wasn't supposed to be a regular prison.

It was supposed to be the center of research for the combine, where they researched and developed Stalkers and Overwatch soldiers. Not a broken down prison.

...

>beginning is a familiar human environment
>gradually more alien touches appear
Sounds exactly like Nova Prospect -> Entanglement progression, though I'd like even more alien stuff as well.

>gradually
>go through a completely empty prison without any hint of it being the main R&D center on Earth for trans-humanism
>jump into a hole
>suddenly in the depot

Did you miss the part where they stored thousands of dissidents in Stasis?

Not only that, the prison is run down and super busted, clearly even before the Antlion attack, unfit to function as a detainment facility or a serious base of any description.
>inb4 the Combine wall and the pods were the actual prison
Then why did the Combine have guards and security devices posted all over the old parts as well?

I missed the part where I saw all the labs and the staff that experimented on them in the actual buildings of the prison.

Buffer zone

/devil's advocate

>better than D3
It sure as hell isn't better than Doom 3.

>Then why did the Combine have guards and security devices posted all over the old parts as well
They only really had mobile turrets and haphazardly installed energy wall screens/barricades which they installed to keep Freeman from reaching Entanglement, outside of guarding the walls that is.

It really is in most respects. Doom 3 has the stronger last third though, I'd say.

You mean the one where you're waiting for the elevator? That was tense as fuck.

it was awful

t. never played the game

it astounds me how people constantly bitch about Highway 17, saying it was just a boring vehicle round. Nigga there was a new gimmick around every corner.

natepack

from what i remember it was the most bare and empty genetic prison design, so it's interesting to hear it was supposed to have all that combine tech and shit. did they just not take time to simply stick some greebles around and flavor it up a bit or did they drop that idea?

They were just more shit in the ww2 winter of the early 2000s and HL2 was a huge step up from the Quake 3 and Gamebryo engines they were all using.

The game itself lost me mid way through but that's much better retention than another fucking ww2 game.

/thread

>I didn't like the citadel's gravgun part either
Really? I always thought that to be my favourite part of the game just for going fucking crazy on the Combine after your struggle the whole game.

Nova Prospekt is right when the game begins to drag on

The only real bad part of this game is when you go through the sewers/waterways and they keep throwing manhacks at you.

The best and most comfy part if when you get to ride along the coast in your car.

>mfw MANHACKS ATTACK all over again

I hated NP on repeated playthroughs. Herding antlions felt like a chore and that one bit with wave fights is easily my least favourite part in all of HL, bar maybe Xen in HL1 or the hostage rescue in EP1.

The sewers are absolutely the best part of the game.

>said nobody about any game ever

What is it like to live without taste?

I can't think of one game where the sewer level is the best part.

>after your struggle the whole game
HL2 is easy enough as it is...

>that one bit with wave fights
It's the best part of HL2!

I wouldn't even consider replaying HL2
Too many terrible slogging sections

Incoming, THE HAXXXX

On your first playthrough the Manhacks are awesome because they're actually terrifying and cause pandemonium.
Once you get the Zero-G Manipulator, or whenever you realize to bravely confront them with the crowbar they become merely a chore.

can you describe this level I can't remember it. is this the one where you're driving the car and at some point gunships start chasing you?

Yeah. There's a ton of other stuff that goes on, like the tunnel filled with Zombies, the house filled with rollermines, crossing underneath the bridge etc. Honestly it has the most varied and exciting level design in the whole game, and it really feels like you're covering ground while the Combine gradually start to set up traps against you.

Not literal difficulty but Gordons struggle to reach the Citadel.

Does somebody have the layout pic for the "series reaction" meme. You know the one with the stick guy and going
>Our God is an awesome God
And such. I'd like to make one for hl2 chapters

alright I remember now, I'll give you that this level was pretty awesome, crossing the bridge and the gunship fight were top tier vidya moments

I didn't like Nova Prospekt because I got lost in it.

I have honestly no idea how it even happened looking back but there was a door I literally couldn't find, I circled around the place for hours and found out where I was supposed to go.

I went on to play Episode 1 afterwards.

I'm honestly ashamed at how retarded my 12 years old self was.

...

Nova Prospekt was fucking awful, hail to the real king baby

VTM

Thank you

the only god tier part of hl2 was ravenholm. rest was varying from good to a bit tedious

just bought vr headset, i'm going to replay hl2 and its episodes and i'm going to have loads of fun

nostalgia.

Crash team racing
Oblivion

There are a lot of pretty nice set pieces in Highway 17 (needing to stop and fight off the combine and find the car batteries to lift the gate so you can keep driving. That one house were you can stop to get supplies and the combine park out front and start shooting at you, that train bridge part and the small town like section before it, that dark tunnel with zombies. that ending shootout with the combine near the lighthouse, that hidden resistance fighter that killed himself with a revolver. The real issues with it are that the car is just not fun to drive at all, it feels bad in comparison to the muscle car you can drive in episode 2.

The boat section has a lot less going on, you only really stop to find a small thing of supplies or to solve a physics puzzle, outisde of that part where you open the dam up. Beyond that it's dodging that choppers bombs and you eventually fight.

Outside of the slow start, the boat section, and the survivor AI HL2 is a pretty damn fun game. I know it's hip to shit on because it's one of the most overpraised games ever made but it still does a lot right. The atmosphere, the overall pacing, and the fact that you travel pretty far without ever losing control of Gordon is pretty goddamn neat. Shame half the game's guns just aren't fun to shoot shit with and the games weapon and enemy variety are sparse as shit. Also fuck being unable to shoot those snipers back, shit sucks.

>le spoopy corridor shooter with like 1 actual level in Hell
Eat my ass you contrarian shit.

>Better graphics
>Better handled physics, no spaz ragdolls and shit
>God tier atmosphere
>Doesn't have a pacing problem like HL2 has
>Isn't just a large tech demo made into a game
Aside from the story, and the gunplay feeling a bit weak, Doom 3 is a much better game overall. Half Life 2 has too many pacing issues, shows off it's gimmicks way too much, and the gunplay is not great. Plus the argument of Doom 3 being a corridor shooter applies to HL2 as well, it's just that the two games dress the corridor differently. I played both, and i like both, but as far as favorites go, Doom 3 is way above Half life 2.

Are there any mods that keep the game the same but just improve the textures and so on? I haven't played HL2 in probably a decade and I reckon now is as good a time as any.

no worst part of the game is the first city portion
You're moving through cramped alleyways and apartments with retarded followers. Literally the only legit bad part of the game, every other "bad" part is overblown.

i can think of one certain title that features various fully modelled pieces of anatomy

except raping all of characters, fakefactory rendering enchancements and textures can look great

>God tier

stop using this phrase god's not real WUBBALUBBA DUB DUB shit on the floor

Half Life 2 Update touches up the lighting and not much else. It's graet.

doom 3 is literally a poorman's half-life 2