/vr/ - Retro Games

>>11044626
As a big fan of the Half-Life games, it's gotta be Half-Life 2. Loved it when i first played it (Still do desu), but over time it just gets so grating. Everything between the really drab and grey setting, okay gunplay and unskippable scripted sequences. I know that's a big part of Half-Life's identity, but the whole "It's like a cut scene but you can move around in it ooooo", gets old fast, especially when you just want to get a move on but you're forced through these long bouts of dialogue and exposition dumps. I find myself going back to Half-Life 1 more and more as time goes on, because everything I'm not a fan of in HL2 now is not really an issue in HL1, where weapons are more satisfying, the setting is more interesting and the scripted sequences don't take longer than 5 minutes. I guess the main issue really is that Half-Life 2 is just really boring, save for a few parts.

Half-Life 2 is a good game but the fans that like it are actually retarded. Like if you give any slight criticism they get super offended and talk about how it's the greatest game ever made and while it is very ahead of it's time, it's not the greatest fucking game ever made. Half-Life 2 has a lot of flaws but barely anyone talks about it because of the retarded fanbase. I know this can be applied to any game community but still. It's more noticeable with the Half-Life 2 community. These people also fail to acknowledge that other advanced games came out around that time too.

>>9450680
emphasis on needed since that ship has sailed

Abstained from playing pic related for over 15 years. I believed that it was overrated, judging by how rote the FPS genre became in its wake. I was very wrong. If only the genre was as inspired by HL2 as many claim it was. This is a foundational game that is entirely and effortlessly exactly what it sets out to be.

So is it still impossible to play this in a properly functional state without "pirating" the game?
The Mac update broke tons of things, and Steam doesn't even detect old retail installations anymore.

The best one can do is to just download some cracked copy from 2004, and everything just works.

Grenade someone in Half-Life 1 = They explode into huge meaty chunks and blood goes everywhere.
Grenade someone in Half-Life 2 = They ragdoll 3ft in the air pathetically. There's zero gibs in the game and you can't destroy bodies.

Seriously, who thought this was an improvement?

I'll start with this classic