What innovative & original elements did HL contribute to the FPS genre? - Games

[QUOTE=Rad McCool;33985323]Yeah sure. But that's not what were discussing here. I'm talking about original ideas. If we look at the most modern and popular fps-games today: What features are present that dates back to Half Life instead of an earlier game? Being innovative means you are contributing to the scene with ideas that other people can later use/steal/exploit.[/QUOTE] Half-Life was the first game to incorporate all of those ideas you mentioned. That's pretty innovative. Sure, many games have had 4 or 5 cool original ideas, but never as much as Half-Life had, even though they've been done before.

It was the first FPS game to have a proper well-told story

All right this thread has already exist: [url]http://www.facepunch.com/threads/793431[/url] [url]http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1832/the_gamasutra_quantum_leap_awards_.php?page=9[/url]

[QUOTE=Rad McCool;33985323]Yeah sure. But that's not what were discussing here. I'm talking about original ideas. If we look at the most modern and popular fps-games today: What features are present that dates back to Half Life instead of an earlier game? Being innovative means you are contributing to the scene with ideas that other people can later use/steal/exploit.[/QUOTE] Well I think HL was (possibly) the first game with really impressive enemy AI and I think it was the first game with level transitions where you could shoot and move between maps

[QUOTE=glitchvid;33984576]Half life had a non-hostile intro and it was 1996. Half life: non cutscene story. Fully intractable environments. (Although this goes better with Red Faction) Vent crawling. Crossbow. Snarks. laser-trip-mines. Saved decal system (Go back and decals / bullet holes are still there) Action based puzzle solving. Many different environments. NPC buddies / helpers.[/QUOTE] Half-Life is 1998.

That list is fairly misleading as it only attempts to list the very, [i]very[/i] firsts of the first person shooter genre. It's not surprising that Half-Life, a game released very late in 1998, doesn't make a single appearance. However, what Half-Life did was implement many of these ideas all into one title and implement them well. I was about ten years old when I first played the leak of Half-Life: Day One and I can speak from firsthand experience that Half-Life was a completely mindblowing innovation in every way. It's hard to imagine the general mind set thirteen years ago (has it been that long already?), but you honestly don't have to look hard to see why Half-Life is remembered the way it is today. Just because some technicalities write it off as being the true first in the genre to possess some particular feature doesn't mean the product as a whole didn't have what it took to be a massive landmark in gaming and a defining influence to the FPS genre for years to come. Also, that list is simply wrong as well. I happen to have a keen interest in [url=http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2BBA1AB1CF53EEAC]obscure first person shooters[/url] and I can tell you right now there several titles that should be named there but aren't. However, me saying "[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Y4mkwIA9Q]Operation: Body Count[/url] in 1994 had a fully supported squad system with independent AI teammates that you can give orders to" probably doesn't mean much to many people compared to "Hexen in 1995 has friendly Minotaurs you can summon with the Dark Servant artifact." Alas, such is consequence of obscure games being obscure.

[QUOTE=Randdalf;33985534]It was the first FPS game to have a proper well-told story[/QUOTE] *cough* System Shock *cough*

[QUOTE=A big fat ass;33985613]Half-Life is 1998.[/QUOTE] The way you worded that was great. Not "Half-Life was made in 1998" or anything, just "Half-Life is 1998".

Anything that says 1999 is wrong, Half-Life was released in 1998.

[QUOTE=TCB;33985913]The way you worded that was great. Not "Half-Life was made in 1998" or anything, just "Half-Life is 1998".[/QUOTE] yeah was the nitpicking necessary much

[QUOTE=A B.A. Survivor;33985131]There's always someone who comes into the Valve Games and Mods section and tries to tell everyone why Half-Life is unimportant. I'm sick of those kinds of people.[/QUOTE] And then there're those fanboys that would sell their soul to defend Half-Life, and I hate those people as well. Mind you, I actually like half-life, and it's one of my favorite games, but fanboyism is never good. And the fact is, Half-Life wasn't as innovative as a lot of people thought when it was released, as many games have done similar things before.

Valve gave us Half-Life. Half-Life was a success. Thanks to Half-Life's success, we still have Valve. Does that count?

Who cares if it didn't have original elements, there's only so many you can have. What matters is successfully incorporating them to create great gameplay

[QUOTE=Aurora93;33986163]yeah was the nitpicking necessary much[/QUOTE] I'm sorry, what? Half-life had all the things that the list said were done 'first' by other people later. I was proving it wasn't entirely accurate.

[quote]Half-Life 2 was selected by readers of The Guardian as the best game of the decade, with praise given especially to the environment design throughout the game. According to the newspaper, it "pushed the envelope for the genre, and set a new high watermark for FPS narrative". One author commented: "Half Life 2 always felt like the European arthouse answer to the Hollywood bluster of Halo and Call of Duty".[/quote] [quote]Half-Life 2 earned 39 Game of the Year awards, including Overall Game of the Year at IGN, GameSpot's Award for Best Shooter, GameSpot's Reader's Choice — PC Game of the Year Award, Game of the Year from The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, and "Best Game" with the Game Developers Choice Awards, where it was also given various awards for technology, characters, and writing. Edge magazine awarded Half Life 2 with its top honor of the year with the award for Best Game, as well as awards for Innovation and Visual Design. The game also had a strong showing at the 2004 British Academy Video Games Awards, picking up six awards, more than any other game that night, with awards including "Best Game" and "Best Online and Multiplayer."[/quote] I think this sums it up nicely. Its not that it was new and unique, its that they put so much effort into every aspect of the game...The Source engine when it first came out was amazing compared to most other stuff released at the time, and it has aged really well (Especially with the constant updated by Valve)

It was the innovator for off-the-face expressions (meaning it wasn't just distortion of a skin). All of the NPC's with faces are perfect examples of that, you can give them any expression you want [URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eAx4X7UtLoE[/URL]

To the last two people who posted, the thread is about HL1 :v: Though what Liolia said is true of HL1 as well. [editline]31st December 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Rad McCool;33981699]I found [url="https://www.flashback.org/p3958857#p3958857]this thread[/url] on this other forum. The guy has listed innovative aspects throughout the history of FPS games. He also makes note that Half Life wasn't really the first game to do anything - despite[B] its status as the most innovative/revolutionary FPS game ever[/B][/QUOTE] I don't think anyone considers Half-life more innovative than Doom.

[QUOTE=Lilolia;33986941]I think this sums it up nicely. Its not that it was new and unique, its that they put so much effort into every aspect of the game...The Source engine when it first came out was amazing compared to most other stuff released at the time, and it has aged really well (Especially with the constant updated by Valve)[/QUOTE] You mean Goldsrc? [editline]31st December 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=ewitwins;33987069]It was the innovator for off-the-face expressions (meaning it wasn't just distortion of a skin). All of the NPC's with faces are perfect examples of that, you can give them any expression you want [URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eAx4X7UtLoE[/URL][/QUOTE] That's HL2

[QUOTE=Tacosheller;33986929]I'm sorry, what? Half-life had all the things that the list said were done 'first' by other people later. I was proving it wasn't entirely accurate.[/QUOTE] the grammatical nitpicking, i meant

Ok shit I was wrong I guess. Thanks for the input everybody!! :D And Happy 2012!! :) Btw: Bad Toys 3D was like the most innovative fps ever. [img]http://i1-games.softpedia-static.com/screenshots/2-729_3.jpg[/img] Haha nah but seriously, it was an all right Wolfenstein clone. Not as good as Nitemare 3D, but good regardless!

Besides a shit load of awards, HL "revolutionized the FPS genre". Doesn't mean it has to be it's technology. There really isn't to many games that were singleplayer, had that well of a storyline, and was fast-paced. Alot of games had a "clunky" feel to them. Maybe Quake, but the story telling elements in HL were alot better. Technology wise, it was only praised for it's AI. The game itself took all the best elements of a FPS, put it together with a good story.

Also, it's only very recently that games have been hitting the mainstream with the same incredible quality of facial animation that Half Life 2 had.

[QUOTE=TCB;33985913]The way you worded that was great. Not "Half-Life was made in 1998" or anything, just "Half-Life is 1998".[/QUOTE] Half-Life is the entire year 1998.

May have not been the first one to innovate with those things, but Valve put those together in a game which worked pretty well, which brings the "innovation".

NPC's that weren't pure cannonfodder.

[QUOTE=Aurora93;33983848]also, while DNF3D had colored lightmaps, i don't think they were additive like GoldSrc's[/QUOTE] Quake 2 had additive/coloured lightmaps, and so did shitload of games before that. Additive lighting makes way more sense than normal blending. Normal blending doesn't look anything like lighting at all, more like shadows. You can't really do coloured lights without additive blending in the first place or else it'd look like tits. I'd also like to note that I haven't seen a game with better facial animation than any of the HL2 games to date, and L.A. Noire was way hyped for it's facial animations, but they also looked incredibly stiff like most modern games.. Seriously, they don't look that great in the videos I've seen.

L.A. Noire's thing is really good, except the face textures are really fucking blurry and look like shit.

If I remember correctly Source has such good facial animation because they used a simple system that didn't require expensive equipment, while LA Noire used an extremely complicated setup where they used 32 seperate cameras to capture facial expressions from mutiple angles

Weapons that were alive and would kill you if you let them?

[QUOTE=Drak_Thing;33988526]Besides a shit load of awards, HL "revolutionized the FPS genre". Doesn't mean it has to be it's technology. There really isn't to many games that were singleplayer, had that well of a storyline, and was fast-paced. Alot of games had a "clunky" feel to them. Maybe Quake, but the story telling elements in HL were alot better. Technology wise, it was only praised for it's AI. The game itself took all the best elements of a FPS, put it together with a good story.[/QUOTE] Not to mention back then games weren't really all that long. Even back then lastability was an issue and honestly, back then Half-Life was a fucking huge game. I took like a month to play it through because it was pretty lenghty and challengine Even if you finished it, you'd want to try it again to see if you missed anything like secrets and/or could you do better this time or maybe less deaths. Maybe you'd want to play it again just to get the plot properly, although very few didn't get it the first time. Half-Life 1 was relatively long for it's time. DOOM had three chapters, Final Doom four. Half-Life had [B][U]17[/U][/B] chapters, all of which were about as long as DOOM if not longer. Back then I doubt anyone made such a long game that you really just could not finish in one sitting as a new player. Nowadays that people have played through it, it's a lot easier and faster to play through, taking easily just three to five hours to complete. Back then, though, you were lucky if you got through in a week. DOOM took me about a day at the most to complete. Longevity and lastability is frigging superb and unlike anything I've ever seen before in a video game, that is if you keep in mind when it was released. Today there are long-ass games out there, but as a sidenote I'd also like to note that games are falling back to that "finish it one sitting"-mentality. Frankly, I don't like the direction it's going.