I have just finished the Half-Life series. Prompted by the 20th anniversary of HL2, I decided to play HL1 (1997), then HL2 (2004), and both episodes. I’m currently playing through Black Mesa and it’s very enjoyable so far, it’s like they took everything from HL1 and removed the annoying parts, I’m excited to see what more changes they decided to make, and what other references are present.
HL1 aged badly imo, but I recognize the technical achievement that it was at the time it was released. It’s full of good ideas, and I’m amazed by what they’ve accomplished.
HL2 didn’t feel like a it has a technical leap as big as its predecessor, but the gameplay ideas in there feel more modern than most game 20 years later. The game has some long stretches that were a bit annoying but the whole journey felt worth it. During the last chapter where you get the upgraded gravity gun, I started seeing the seeds of Portal games, more so in Episode 1, it was like I suddenly understood Valve as game devs and their philosophy. Episode 2 was the most fun I had and despite being short it felt like a full fledged campaign.
Alyx was fun to watch on youtube 🤡
I’m really happy that I completed the games and can put them down (compared to grinding endlessly in live service games), I’m really glad that I now understand why the series is praised, why people are aching for the third Episode, why Valve backed themselves into a corner because of their technical ambitions.
But now, I want more of this, more of those one of a kind experiences that push the genre forward. More gameplay ideas. I’ll probably replay the Portal games, but what other games would you recommend?
Some times, Half Life reminded me of more modern immersive sims I played before (Dishonored, Prey, I’ll probably go back to them at some point), maybe Deux Ex, System Shock should be on my list?
The new System Shock remake is very cool and quite underappreciated. The original is far more dated than HL1, IMO. System Shock 2 is playable, though. You could also give the Thief games a whirl, if you played Dishonored. I think along that trajectory you could also go revisit the Hitman games. Hitman 1 and Thief are two takes on the same idea that were happening more or less at the same time. I was more of a Hitman guy at the time, and I think that first game, clunky as it is to control, was mind-blowing.
Are you looking for FPSs specifically? Blizzard is threatening to delist Warcraft 1 and 2 from GOG, so it’s a great time to revisit those. 2 holds up.
If you’re only looking into FPSs, I’d revisit Quake 2. It’s the missing link between HL1 and the arcadey Doom-style early FPSs, and if you have the hardware, the path-traced remake looks really nice.
A few hot takes here: 1) I know I’m in the minority, but I love HL1 and could never get through HL2. The vehicle levels suck, as do the more open areas. The more contained original with its interconnected “Aliens meets Die Hard” setup was so groundbreaking, HL2 is meandering and slow by comparison.
I know what you mean about the gravity gun, but also, the Portal devs weren’t there for that, but also the puzzle design in Portal is more Valve-y than the stuff in the original Narbacular Drop. I don’t know where that lands in reality.
I hate the name “immersive sim”. What is being “simmed”? Why is it immerisve? Isn’t Halo immersive? I was immersed AF. And it’s simming at least as much stuff as Dishonored, I assure you. It’s such a dumb name, just words mashed together. Ditto for “character action game”. Unless your action game features exclusively rocks, it’s “character action”, that means nothing.
Genre names also annoy me. But there’s no authority to define a taxonomy of gameplay styles, so the vocabulary is built informally. I likewise dislike MOBA, metroidvania, roguelike, and soulslike. In the end, we just need the right sequences of letters to accurately represent the gameplay.
In the case of immersive sim, I believe it came from Warren Spector trying to portray how Deus Ex was different from pure action, RPG, and stealth games.
Of those I only object to MOBA, which is another generic word salad thing. The rest at least tell you what games the game in question is like.
I never accepted “roguelite”, though. It’s good wordplay, but the pedantry underlying the term rubs me the wrong way.
I’m aware of the history, too, but the thing is, it doesn’t even make sense anymore. The term originates at a time where a game does one thing, or maybe one thing per level. Every game now does the things “immersive sims” are supposed to do. Immersive sims are just ARPGs that happen to model themselves mechanicaly or thematically after Deus Ex or Thief. By the numbers Deus Ex has more in common with Mass Effect than Dishonored, by far.