There was so much other controversy with that game that I didn’t even hear about the AI. Gross.

People say Breen is sympathetic? That’s more of a hot take to me lol. He’s actively helping them destroy the human race (suppression field/other war crimes).

And I like the boat/car sections, I just love HL1 and how it mixes gunfights and platforming challenges. The only part of 2 that hit that high for me was the underside of the bridge, which is an inspired sequence in an already brilliant game. They both deserve the praise they get and will go down as some of the best games of all time.

I suppose my hottest take is that I refuse to believe in anything HL3, even if they announce it, until it’s actually released. I thought for sure that Alyx meant it was around the corner and it’s been five years… at this point I think it will never happen (I’d love to be wrong though).

That makes sense to me. I think 1 vs 2 comes down to personal preference, they both excel in different ways. I prefer the focused gameplay loop of 1, but I can imagine how groundbreaking the NPCs and the physics of the boat and car sections were back in the day. My main gripe with BM’s weapon balancing is limiting machine gun grenades to three, but I understand that ten was overkill and fed into my “I’ll save five in case I really need them” hoarder mentality lol.

Wild that you got banned for saying that given TF2 pioneered the practice.

What, like Blue Shift > Opposing Force or HL1 > HL2? Or lore-related stuff?

I suppose it looks fun, but I always preferred games that didn’t lock you into official servers like DRG and TF2. Hopefully this isn’t too much of a derail from the question being asked :).

If you found HL1 dated, there’s a good remake in source: https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/

Even as a purist (HL1 is my favorite FPS period), I love how Black Mesa handles the source material. It’s on sale for $5 right now too. Besides Valve’s other games, check out F.E.A.R (2005), Doom series and the Bungie Halo games.