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?
Quarter-Life.
I’ve been getting into boomer shooters and some more “retro” styled games.
Selaco and Hedon: Bloodrite are imo more immersive sim than boomer shooters, but they can still fit that description as well.
I would suggest Bioshock 1 and 2.
Bioshock: Infinite is verry meh, and hops that it’s meh gameplay will be overlooked due to it’s story, but to me the story was just annoyingly confusing.
But the soundtrack is 🤌
I don’t remember much about the Bioshock: Infinite soundtrack, apart from that it had a cool barbershop performance
It’s mostly covers of pop songs from the last 50-60 years in a bunch of different styles. The stand outs for me are Fortunate Son, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Everybody Wants To Rule The World.
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.
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.
-
Golden eye 007 for the N64 was pretty revolutionary. As was perfect dark and perfect dark 0, if you don’t mind going back to half-life 1 times those are worth a playthrough.
Perfect dark was my JAM back in the day.
I still have my original cartridge, but unfortunately my n64 is either in a box in someone’s basement, or a landfill, as the friend I let borrow it (and my star wars games) left it at a friend’s house and the friend moved states.
PD was the first video game my sister and I played together. We never managed to finish it when we were young.
I relatively recently tried to replay Goldeneye. It was shocking—controller and FPS mechanics have evolved so much since then it was honestly not fun to play. While it was breakthrough tech at the time it just did not age well.
So many hours of fun into that game though; I’ll never not hold a special place in my heart for it even if it’s unplayable nostalgia now.
FPS keyboard+mouse shooters of that era have aged much better. I can still play Marathon (+2 + Infinity) (Bungie’s precursors to Halo) and have an enjoyable gaming session.
Should have played Black Mesa instead of HL. It’s everything HL is but better. It was incredible even having played HL back in 1998. I recommend people who’ve never played HL to just do BM.
As a lifelong Half-Life fan, I really liked some of Frictional Games’ titles. I liked Penumbra a lot and I think Soma was an absolute masterpiece. It’s at a level similar to Half-Life for me. If you don’t know anything about it, don’t read, don’t watch. Install and play.
OP wrote he is playing both. I agree if you want to play the story once, Black Mesa is better, but if OP wants to play both, then nothing wrong with that.
More action and environmental storytelling:
- If you want to play more Portal, try community-made campaigns! I recommend in particular Portal: Revolution, a prequel to Portal 2 that features a few new mechanics, and Portal Stories: Mel, which has basically no new mechanics but turns up the difficulty by making you combine mechanics in clever ways.
- Bastion — Action RPG with a rich story and lush art. A humble narrator tells the story of a place literally torn apart by war, and you play the kid trying to rebuild. This was the debut game from Supergiant Games, which later made Hades.
- Tunic — Mysterious, exploration-focused adventure. A little guy in a green tunic picks up a sword and goes on an adventure, but the game is in an unknown language and you only have a few pages of the manual. It’s like a metroidvania but your progress is based on knowledge.
More “genre pushers”:
- Puzzle games
- Mosa Lina — It calls itself “a hostile interpretation of the immersive sim”. It’s an aggressively random puzzle platformer where the levels are random and the tools you have to solve them are also random. Mosa Lina is a puzzle game that wants you to be clever, not smart.
- Viewfinder — First-person “photography” puzzles. The featured mechanic has a “wow” factor that rivals Portal’s: Take a picture of the level, then hold up the photo and click to copy the photo back into the level. The plot is pretty meh, but like the original Portal, it’s pretty damn short.
- Baba is You — Push blocks and break rules. Blocks with words written on them define the rules of the game: Baba is you, wall is stop, flag is win. The rules themselves are puzzle pieces. If you can’t solve the puzzle, change the rules!
- Inscryption — You find an old, abandoned video game and load it up. It’s an atmospheric, spooky card game, hiding layers of secrets for you to discover. The less you know before starting the game, the better your experience will be. You want one-of-a-kind experiences? This is one of them.
- The Stanley Parable — Comedy walking simulator. You enter a room with two doors in front of you. The narrator says, “Stanley entered the door on his left.” What will you do? The Stanley Parable has many endings and it questions what video game narratives are really for.
Puzzle Games:
The Talos Principal 1 & 2
100% yes on Talos principle, and I will openly simp for Antichamber. I have never had my brain so full of fuck as that game, simply sublime progression and variety of puzzles👌
In the years since I finished Antichamber, my opinion of it has cooled somewhat with hindsight. The early game and some of the mid-game are full of dazzling, logic-defying spectacles, which is what draws you in, but the magic fades later on and you get a lot of puzzles with the block gun until the ending. The teaching style mostly works.
- Mirror’s Edge: wholly unique, meh story but fun gameplay. More accessible than Kreedzmod but similar vibe of first person platforming and emphasis on ‘flow’ like you’d perform irl in parkour. Get it on sale, under $10/€10 it’s worth it
- Knights of the Old Republic: D20 based RPG set in pre-BBY Star Wars universe. Excellent story and characterization, great gameplay and progression - I’ve replayed it at least six times. If you like Mass Effect at all you should enjoy this. The sequel is worthy but not the same gem that moved the genre, but a worthy title
- Deus Ex 1: Unmissable. Accept the inventory management jank, it’s a product of its time. Absolutely worth buying
- Fallout 1 (and 2): Revolutionized the top down RPGs of the time, but will feel dated in retrospect. Make sure you save manually and make choices carefully, you can dead-end your play through or loose hours of progress because there’s no auto save
- STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl: Diceroll on this title, you’ll either hate it or love it if you enjoyed Fallout 3, 4, NV, etc. Great mood and atmosphere, solid progression once you get out of the starter areas, and understand the monster’s behavior. Dont you dare join Duty tho
- Freespace 2: Personal recommendation but nieche. “Flight sim space combat” is too simplistic yet accurate, but has excellent gameplay and story tone. Technically Descent 1 & 2 were the revolutionary games, but those have zero plot beyond arcade shooter ‘kill aliens for highscore’. Went open source years ago, and has a dedicated mod team keeping it alive and adding features.
- Command and Conquer Red Alert: The daddy of almost all RTS games, but you’ll have more fun with Red Alert 2 imo. Story is meh, but if you go online be ready to get smurfed hard by veterans.
Excellent listw thank you for the links!!
Very much free space 2 here. 99 was a fine year for games.
Knights of the Old Republic: D20 based RPG set in pre-BBY Star Wars universe. Excellent story and characterization, great gameplay and progression - I’ve replayed it at least six times. If you like Mass Effect at all you should enjoy this. The sequel is worthy but not the same gem that moved the genre, but a worthy title
The sequel has Sara Kestelman as Kreia, that alone makes it worth playing IMHO.
Maybe I was a little jilted coming into Kotor 2 directly after Kotor 1 - I really enjoyed the sequel, but you can feel the cut content in some areas, whereas the first game feels ‘complete’.
I might owe it another play through, it has been a while
It’s a shame they forced them to release it unfinished. If you decide to play it, install the Restored Content Mod from the Steam Workshop. It restores a lot of cut content, making the game a bit more complete.
As for the last, OpenRA is good too if you played RA(2)
The team for black mesa is working on Black Mesa Blue Shift, where you play out half life 1 through the eyes of Barney! I have been meaning to go through the latest chapter that was released. It is on the steam workshop for black mesa.
Half Life 3 should be out any day now.
Project Borealis is a fan led spiritual successor. Unfortunately it’s been a slow moving thing for a while. Suppose if this is about patient gaming, might as well be patient about it in case it ever comes out.
It is already out as far as I’m concerned.
“The outline of a potential story” being out is different from an actual game being out though.
Yeah, but I realised this is closure enough for me. Don’t need an actual game, just an end to the story.
Anyyy day now anyyy day now
See Half 3!
No wait that’s half life alyx
It’ll be out before Silksong, anyhow.
Imagine they surprise drop on the same day
FYI, there’s an No-VR mod for Alyx in case you want to play it, and lack of a headset is what’s stopping you.
Deus ex and system shock 2 should definitely be on a retro shooter/rpg list. Shock 1, you’d probably be better off playing night dives shock remake from last year… or perhaps a modified remaster of the OG. The controls from shock1 are outright painful
Deus Ex and System Shock should definitely be on your list, just skip Deus Ex: Invisible War.
Also, as I don’t see them listed, did you check out Blue Shift and Opposing Forces? They’re 2 Half-Life expansions made by Gearbox, back in the day, that show the events of HL1 from different points of view.
Hey I liked invisible war :/
Then add Thief 1&2 to the list so that you really get where those two came from. They both still hold up surprisingly well due to fan support.
I can’t believe I forgot the Thief games! Absolute classics. I need to get around to replaying them sometime soon.
I’d love to see a System Shock remake type project for them. It’s not as necessary due to NewDark but would still be nice.
Thanks! I knew of their existence but didn’t know if they were worth it, I think I’ll play them a bit later because at some point I was really struggling with the pacing of HL1
Like others keep saying, check out the System Shock remake. It’s fantastic.
But also with Black Mesa, another team is remaking Blue Shift within that game, and you can get it as a workshop addon for free. They actually just came out with the next level they’ve been working on a couple weeks ago. So far, it’s pretty damn great imo.
Opposing Forces is the better of the two, but if you enjoyed the general story/feel of Half-Life, they’re definitely worth at least giving a shot.
there is an ongoing project to remake them for black mesa, so if you wait you’ll probably get a better experience.
The System Shock remake was amazing, definitely give it a shot!
I’ve noticed that no one has mentioned Decay yet. It’s a two player coop expansion campaign also made by Gearbox for the Half Life 1 release for PS2. There’s a PC port with a singleplayer mode.
Invisible War is fine. It doesn’t live up to the orginal but it’s still a good game.
I’m really happy that I completed the games and can put them down
Good luck. I’ve played them countless times and they are installed permanently on my drive. 🙂
Hahaha well I have all of HL2’s achievements to complete
Alyx was really fun. The first time a soldier reacted to my reaching out and touching them with my controller scared the bejeezus out of me!
The audio in the game is bonkers. Distant footsteps or floor creaking can really get you.
It’s the only really compelling VR application I have yet tried.
I’ll suggest Vertigo 2 as a worthy followup.
It really impressed me with its detail and scope as a mainly solo effort, by a developer who worked at Valve for a while. It’s a big, cinematic shooting adventure, like Half-Life, so the game calls itself a half-like! There are cool bosses, memorable characters, and wildly varied environments. The story is pretty much a flipped Half-Life: you’re the alien who got teleported in after a big science disaster and you’re fighting your way back home. Compared to Alyx, which takes places around a handful of city blocks, Vertigo 2 throws you around a much larger-scale setting, so it’s more like the Half-Life 2 kind of linear gallery of wild shit.
That DOES look good! I really appreciate you telling me about it.
