Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

My claim to fame on the 20th anniversary (84 views thus far) is to have completed Ravenholm without inflicting any deaths or receiving any injury:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_XN_RwjnqM

I watched the whole thing. Impressive!

Thank you. There was a lot of repetition and problem-solving. The headcrabs were the worst. Well, and the fast headcrabs/spiders. The final segment from the exit of the mine to the end of the level is also done however that posting is waiting for a rainy day.

I've played through HL2 and its expansions so many times as a kind of meditative relaxation thing I couldn't tell you how many times.

I could never get used to Ravenholm though. Thinking about it even now years later stresses me out a tad.

Heh I like the 'pascifist' angle.

For whatever reason, Ravenholm didn't particularly unsettle me. I don't know what it is, maybe expectation from the praise it receives left me underwhelmed, or maybe it's the fact that I was quite literally a toddler when the game came out and only first played it in 2019?

To be fair, I did enjoy it and could feel the intent of it being the horror section. I could see it usettling me if I played it at the time, but I see a lot of people saying it holds up really well so I still feel I've missed out on something.

It holds up well in gameplay because the gravity gun is still fun. But I think most of the hype was multiplied by HL2 being such a massive step up in graphics. Nobody in my friend group played Doom 3, so for us it was going straight from HL1 and CS 1.6 to HL2. Compare the 2 games side by side and HL2 literally looked futuristic, like it shouldn't even be possible with the hardware at the time. (And to be fair my graphics card burst into flames trying to push 15 fps in the canals section so maybe it wasn't).

8:54 Holy shit I don't even know one could do something like that, jumping back to the room and hide in complete safety, very smart.

Also, at 0:30, turning off that living place hazard is very kind of you. And you also saved Bob and Jim from being cut in half by doing that. Father Grigori might not like it, but he's crazy too.

I think an important aspect that's kinda faded away here is the visceral detail of the zombies, which were unusual at the time, mixed with the fact that you need to utilize the physics engine to get around, which created a unique kind of "panic" since at a glance there often seemed like there was no escape from certain circumstances.

If you want a similar feeling from a more modern game I recommend trying Prey (the new one). Terrible name that doesn't fit the title imo, but playing it felt similar to when I first played half life years ago, more than any other game I've played since then at least (except Half Life: Alyx).

I think I went off to make a cup of coffee IRL which is why I stayed in that room longer than needed ('Now brother step into the cart!')

I played HL2 after playing STALKER. I've had to go into abandoned underground lab to get paper so many times that Ravenholm didn't phase me.

Wait, this was all one take? Not spliced together? Some of those falls looked like you had a mm to spare before you would have taken falling damage.

I too was wondering how to survive the standoff on top of the building when you get the shotgun. Was a brilliant solution.

Yes, all one take :-) However there were many trials to get there with less than 20% chance of overall success I would estimate.

e.g. the bit where I hide behind behind a headstone in the graveyard is by no means reliable (maybe 80%?)

Thanks to HN the view count on YouTube has increased dramatically! If it gets past 1000 I'm going to have to record and upload the final section with the combine troops.

EDIT: assuming that is still possible: Valve have made some changes for the twentieth birthday which I noticed today.

e.g. there's more grass and bizarrely the lift button has switched to the other side of the elevator

While you sipping on that coffee, I was crouched down on the same roof surrounded by the awful sound of the incoming sporty zombies. I hate those things, I still do.

Trying to think about it, I think it was the dynamics of the "fast zombies". I think if you plunked me in a crude pixelated FPS with abstract enemies, but with the same sudden accelerating approach dynamics I probably would have a similar stress reaction. I've always preferred FPS gameplay that's more focused on problem-solving without time limits, or where there's more of a strategic dynamic, like Portal (reading about HL2 has actually if anything made me want to play Portal 2 again, although HL2 as well).

I definitely think the atmosphere of Ravenholm contributed to my feelings about it, but I suspect if it was just the slow zombies or was all puzzles or something I would actually really enjoy it. There was something about the atmosphere + claustrophobic spaces + fast zombies in places I didn't like. Or rather, I did like it but not as much as the rest of it.