I'm only now really starting to play HL2

How did Ravenholm not fit in? It was the perfect example of when things have gone REALLY bad. It was suppose to show us how the rest of the "world" was like in a way. These tons have become over run with the zombies and they have mutated into freakish forms, etc. Ravenholm fit exectly in the story line.

 

I'm with you, man. It reminded me of the kind of level design in Blood2 or Kingpin. It played like something the devs threw together to test the grav gun; then, ended up in the final game as filler, due to Valve trying to hit promised release deadlines with enough content in place. Anybody else think all these expansions were originally planned for the initial release? Half-Life² did not seem like a complete game to me.

 

i agree with you deviant

 

Yep, fills Gordon in on a lot of the sketchy details that he has missed while being in limbo. Not to mention it is a nice change of pace and introduction to the grav gun. HL2 had a lot of variety, people of various tastes seem to have strong opinions about what they liked and disliked. I liked it all

@ Albuquerque -- the zombies may be sending chills down your back when they scream because if you plan them backwards it is English and something like, "Please God, please kill me".

 

Ravenholm was originally 'Traptown' from the E3 videos, and if the Combine threat had been kept then I bet people wouldn't have found it so inconsistent with the rest of the game.

From a story perspective it certainly makes sense.

 

Regardless, source sure looks nice, even on a gf3. Plays pretty well too.

 

Might I recommend the Cinematic mod v3 for default HL2?
I got lots of improved textures, phong shading, trees are made with high polygon count, new music and slightly improved gameplay and more. Oh I almost forgot, Alyx remade model with 39000 polygons (default has 7500 polygons)!

Warning for the mod size, 1.44GB!
http://halflife2.filefront.com/file/HalfLife_2_FakeFactorys_Cinematic_Mod_V30;69829

 

Did they add physics/animation muscles?

 

No not anything different from what is used in vanilla HL2 unless I missed a setting. I watched in wireframe mode.

 

Ravenholm is 90% Gravity Gun, 10% shotgun, if you did it any other way, it must have been average at best, but with the Gravity Gun it's very fun.
I didn't realize that until my brother told me how he went through on the phone, using this tech since then, it's really good.

 

Ok so I probably used more than 10% shottie but shotgun/gravgun is clearly the way to do Ravenholm.
Still not that much fun though.

I had much more fun with the Citadel

 

There's something for everybody in HL2, personally I enjoyed the buggy driving and the water hazard (both high speed chases) the most.

Cheers

 

I'm with you, Gubbi. I enjoyed the boat and buggy sections the most...though a lot of people didn't seem to like them. I also enjoyed Ravenholm immensely my second time when I tried to get through using only the gravity gun.

 

Water Hazard and Highway 17 were fun.
Raveholm was ok.
The only level I really didn't like was the Citadel.