site banner
PaperclipPerfector  20hr ago (text post)   694 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.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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?

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.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats