its a mysterious puzzle action FPS and they do all parts extremely well over both games.

The story certainly follows through from HL1 to HL2. But you have to pay attention to details to see how it does. There are mentions throughout the game of what happened here and there but they do it in such a way to make you not want to care about what happened then and more about what the freck is happening right now with all these aliens suddenly invading earth.

Thw vortagaunts were you're "enemies" in HL1 but during a small section sometime later in the game you find out that they are really just slaves and workers that happen to be able to fight rather well and thus are sent out to deal with you sometimes. In HL2 they, or most of them, have been set free by you when you killed the giant floating brain baby alien thing. And because of this you are their savior.

None of the story is really all that straight forward, which is awesome. Because it keeps you thinking long after you play the game. And it'll convince you to pick it back up just to try to find out a bit more.

I do think the mystery in the story is what Half-Life is about. It's not a book, and if it were you might be disappointed. The story is told through the environment - such as the poster of ape -> man -> combine soldier evolution.

The story isn't exactly deep, there aren't profound new ideas, it's just classic sci-fi done with atmosphere and that it becomes archetypical. You end up not caring that they ripped the striders straight out of War of the Worlds just because they're so well done. I suppose if you didn't have the cultural reference to piece together the story then perhaps it would just be nonsense, but I think so many people have done those sort of themes now that it probably screams of Orwellian dystopia, even to people who don't know what that means.

Well i got to agree that the HL2 story was harder to follow since it was pretty easy to miss all the little clues. While in HL1 you only had to listen to the dialoges.

Also HL1 was a kind of more groundbreaking back then...but thats harder to to today anyway.

I actually played both games not long ago and HL2 seems to be a way more polished(i ran into a gamebreaking bug in HL1 which made me cheat) and all the faceless people in HL1 makes the game look more ancient than it is.

In the end HL2 hasnt got any weakpoints compared to HL1 except that they could have been a bit more generous with the hints about what happened.

Note: Most players don't consider the expansions, Opposing Force and Blue Shift, canon. That is, they don't actually fit into the story, since they were developed by Gearbox.That part out of the way..

Story in a nutshell:

No player has a confirmed amount of time between Half-Life, and Half-Life 2, however, it is suggested that it has been 20 years by an old Episode One site. In the actual game, Episode One, Dr.Kleiner offers another hint at how long it has been, but it is far more vague, suggesting a decade or decades, I can't find a transcript of Kleiner's breencast at the moment. As to how exactly the Combine come into play, it's a retcon on the original story, although it may have been laid out from the beginning, I'm not sure, but, apparently the Vortigaunts (the aliens you were just fighting 2 seconds ago) and their "master" the Nihilanth (the giant floating brain baby alien thing) were being chased by the Combine. They managed to escape to Xen, the place Black Mesa managed to get into and had been in for some time conducting research it would appear.

Anyway, whenever the Resonance Cascade happened, which was actually *spoilercausedbythegmanspoiler*, it became easier for the Nihilanth to rip through into Earth's dimension, which it took advantage of as another escape route. You see, the Nihilanth and the Vortigaunts were stuck against a wall in Xen, they could find nowhere else to run, so the Resonance Cascade finally opened up another path to get further away from the Combine. It wasn't in the Nihilanth's plans to rule Earth or to cause such a panic, as it was as uncertain as the humans who first entered Xen whenever it came to what to expect. It did what anyone would do if it could, whenever it comes to exploring unknown territory, it sent military troops in, so that in the event any inhabitants were hostile, they'd be able to react in kind.

Unfortunately, this led to your attempts to halt them, and to the Nihilanth itself, and to killing it. Which, while good for the Vortigaunts, and supposedly to you as a player and humanity in general, it was the complete opposite. It would seem the Nihilanth's death released its control on the gateways to Xen, or released a large amount of energy, the latter attracting the Combine's attention, the former just letting them gain access to Xen, which then led to the Combine's access to Earth. Whatever the case, they were drawn to Earth after the Nihilanth's death, and, being a military superpower, quickly overwhelmed Earth's armies, albeit I'd say with the inadvertent help of the Portal Storms caused by the portals they opened up to gain access to Earth in the first place.

Interestingly though, after the events of Half-Life 2, it would appear you weren't even meant to proceed, at least at that time. The G-Man was keeping you in holding again, much like at the end of Half-Life, and the only reason you did even proceed was due to the Vortigaunts' interference. Hope that helps your understanding of it a bit.

See, those are two parts that separate those who really, really like the Half-Life series, and those who just like it. For people who are into fast-paced action and blowing stuff up, it's definitely not the best game, but that's not really what it aims for in the first place, I'd say. It's more about the story than fast-paced, heart pounding, adrenaline rush on edge action and explosions.

While I enjoyed Half-Life 2 more than the first one, they're both fantastic games. They really tied the story into the world much more so than other games before them - and although they crafted almost entirely linear game they still managed to be a blast to play. The story provides a great setting and some interesting encounters, but it's certainly not the highest calibre writing - what I do like, however, is that the story is told through other means than just loads and loads and loads of dialogue like in the Final Fantasy games. What I think really sets the Half-Life games above the rest is their level of polish and production values. They really are brilliantly constructed games and prove that Valve wield master levels of competency in their craft.

I'd call Deus Ex a FPS RPG, in league with titles such as Oblivion or Fallout 3.

I'd say Half-Life 2 beats the original. The rocketlauncher rockets that follow your aim are wonderful!   There were more character interaction as well, like when Alix (or whatever her name is) talks about Ravenholm and plays with the "dog".

I say as John Carmack when it comes to story though: "Story in a videogame is like a story in a pornflick, it's not necessary but it's expected to be there".

That explains why Doom3 turned out as it did, instead of how it was originally planned (IIRC D3 and RoE were a single story, also featuring exploration of Mars on a 18-wheeled buggy), instead we got an run and gun shooter, that is too narrow to run, and too dark to gun

And HL1 missiles tracked your aim too, you had to toggle that mode on with the secondary fire button.

Ugh. I can't stomach Unreal. It is truly, unreal. Istic. When it comes to my shooters, I like them even-paced and deadly. As in, peek around every corner, stalk your enemy, drop them with one shot... NO bunnyhopping! Make a mistake and get a fast ticket to wherever was your last save. I'm talking Red Orchestra here, or Fallout 3 with lotsa customization going on.

Half Life, both 1 and 2 were relatively ok when it comes to gunplay realism but what really saved them was the story. Those were probably the only two FPS titles I finished because I wanted to see how it would all end. And when it comes down to weapons, I prefer realistic weaponry. I don't know... there's something in the good old fashioned kinetic weapons which packs a lot more "oomph" than some laser or plasma contraption.