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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   756 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 10, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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A Vtuber I watch who was born after HL1 played HL1 for the first time this year, and she liked it enough that she went right into HL2 and then the episodes, despite not being a big singleplayer FPS person. It's nice to see affirmation that the classics really are that good sometimes.

I'm surprised, since I would have held HL1 and HL2 as examples of a shooters that pushed the envelope at the time but aren't necessarily mechanically better than newer shooters. But if as you say she's not a big singleplayer FPS person, maybe it's a better intro to it than most since it's not expecting years of built up experience on other shooters.

What do you mean by mechanically better? And what newer shooters do you hold to be the best ones?

I mean that if I were fully unaware of any video games, and you put in front of me Half-Life 1 and almost any major developer's first person shooters since, I don't know, Far Cry 1? it would feel boring and simple­. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of Half-Life 1 and 2, because they were pushing the envelope at the time they came out, but those things they did that were groundbreaking are old-hat now, and when it comes to pure shooting mechanics of it, I feel like some older games aged better too (the Doom and Quake series, for instance).

As for better newer shooters, sadly single-player shooters are a stale genre nowadays, with pretty much nothing but Call of Duties. But some years back (oh god, ten years ago! I'm old!) my mind was was completely blown by the campaign on Titanfall 2; if you haven't played that I highly recommend it. It doesn't even lean on open world to differenciate itself, it does the same linear, spectacle as Half-Life does but it does it with everything pushed to the next level. Like Half-Life 2 did, there's so much creativity and skill at work here that they could create and discard gimmicks for single levels that lesser devs would make the entire game revolve around. If anything was able to push the envelope from that point after, I was not made aware of it.

It sounds like you're not experiencing what some people appreciate about these 'simple' games. The simplicity is part of the design.

And your answer to my other question is basically that there has not been anything great in the last 10 years. Titanfall 2 came out in 2016.

The simplicity is part of the design.

I would argue that at the time, it was not designed to be simple. It seems simple in retrospect and whether you find that endearing is up to you. I do like simple games too. But I'm not convinced I would be impressed if I were in a mirror universe where it had never existed yet everything else about the industry was somehow the same, and someone released Half-Life 1 today as an indie game.

And your answer to my other question is basically that there has not been anything great in the last 10 years.

I know, but in between Half-Life 2 and Titanfall 2, pretty much all major first person shooters did what Half-Life (1 and 2) did as a matter of routine, and often better than it did. All the Call of Duty games pretty much have it beat in the "run a mostly set route between spectacular set-pieces". Titanfall 2, to me, set a new bar that's high enough above everything else before that it hasn't been cleared in 10 years, but after Half-Life 2 and until Titanfall 2, I thought the bar was being regularly cleared. It helped that it was an era of first person shooters proeminence and now isn't (at least, not single player FPS).

Name the games that did what HL1 and HL2 did, better than they did, between 2004-2016.

Portal?

Doesn't really qualify. It's not a shooter, IS made by Valve, IS using the excellent engine that helped HL2 be a success.

Far Cry (1 is more analogous to HL, and from 2 onwards they go more open world, but they still sometimes funnel you through to segments that are more like Half-Life), the Crysis series, Singularity, Call of Duty 2 to... I don't remember which, FEAR, Wolfenstein 2009 and New Order...

I'm not saying these are better games in their context than HL1 and HL2, and they all owe a lot to what HL1 and HL2 did, but if all these games, and HL1 and HL2, released for the first time today, HL1 and HL2 would be to me at least some of the least interesting and impressive of that bunch. I feel like arena shooters and "boomer shooters" aged better because their appeal is more tied to addictive game mechanics and high skill ceilings than "being impressed by seeing what would have usually been a video cutscene done in-engine, in first person while being able to move for the first time" or "being impressed by seeing a physics puzzle for the first time in an FPS".

The Half-Life games, particularly HL1, had pretty good mechanics and were quite similar to those movement shooters/boomer shooters of yore... In fact I'd say one of the chief draws of the first game is that it does have a satisfying feel to it mechanics wise. You have lots of mobility, your movement carries weight, as do the effects of the weapons you wield. You dodge a variety of projectiles. You dart in and out with your shotgun. It's not as mobile as something like Quake, but for a solo campaign based game it ranks among the best in my experience.

Compare with Halo or CoD, where things are much more sluggish, weightless, etc., all in order to play better with a controller. Those games have their own merits, of course, but as far as the feel of movement shooters goes, which I'd say is their chief virtue, HL does a much better job.

Even Half-Life 2 does pretty well. The vehicles are clunky but, again, they carry momentum, they dispense and absorb shocks, get yoinked down by gravity. There's an enjoyable physics to everything.

Beyond that, and this goes beyond mechanics and simplicity, but their other key asset is their personality. Their mix of capital w Weird elements, hodge podges of relatively exotic sci-fi ideas, their departure from rote action genre fare (burritos getting blown up in microwaves; involved characterizations; crowbars), sets them apart narratively from most other offerings. There's maybe a Twin Peaks vibe to it if I'm not mistaken, a bit offbeat. Games like Halo do the full-on action game approach very well, and that's what most shooters aspire to, but Half-Life's got it's own little niche storywise, and so gives us something of variety.

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