Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)
People have said that Half-Life: Source isn't much of an improvement from
the original Half-Life. They say that it uses the new engine but doesn't
make as much use of it as HL2 does. Sure, that's true, but there is one very
defining thing about HL:S compared to the original: it's a heck of a lot
harder.
I've made some observations between the two games in terms of what makes
HL:S more difficult to beat. For the purpose of comparison note that I
always play the original HL on Difficult and HL:S on Hard to make the
comparison fair, so any small gameplay differences that are seen by easier
skill levels are not mentioned:
* In the original Half-Life, the two hand-guns (Glock pistol and Magnum
revolver) had shorter reloading delays relative to their reloading
animations. In other words, when reloading either weapon, the gun would be
considered fully loaded and ready for firing BEFORE the gun animation had
completed. For example, the moment the new magazine begins to enter the
Glock the gun can be fired again, even though the animation hasn't finished.
In HL:Source, the game waits until the animation has finished before
allowing the gun to be fired. Hence, for someone who's played the original a
lot, this might catch them off-guard when timing their combat strategies.
* The crossbow in the original Half-Life fired bolts that technically went
to infinite range. In contrast, the crossbow in HL:S suffers from the effect
of gravity in much the same way as the crossbow from Half-Life 2. Hence, the
range is limited and the player has to take this into account. Long-range
sniping is not as achievable as it was in the original.
* The MP5 (i.e. the silver submachine gun) has a nasty case of the shakes in
HL:S. In the original Half-Life it would fire somewhat inaccurately but the
recoil was insignificant. In HL:S, the recoil results in the gun spraying in
a vertical strip causing head-shots to miss a lot and hence harder to aim.
Burst fire does not seem to compensate for this.
* The Marines are a real bitch here, mainly because they have more control
over their weapons and seem to do a few extra points of damage with each
bullet.
* Finally, the aliens. Most are the same, but some are downright bastards.
The primary difference is in speed of attack, specifically with regards to
the mind-controllers (i.e. the flying/hovering guys in Xen which lob orange
energy balls at you). They fire those things SO FAST in Xen that they can
easily wear you down in HL:S. At least in the original HL you could dodge
them with reasonable success, but here the balls travel much too quickly.
They really test my patience.
So there you go. There may be some other differences I haven't mentioned,
but my point was to illustrate that HL:S has worthy qualites if you're
looking for a hardish single-player experience, even if it doesn't have all
the nice new textures/models.
People have said that Half-Life: Source isn't much of an improvement from
the original Half-Life. They say that it uses the new engine but doesn't
make as much use of it as HL2 does. Sure, that's true, but there is one very
defining thing about HL:S compared to the original: it's a heck of a lot
harder.
I've made some observations between the two games in terms of what makes
HL:S more difficult to beat. For the purpose of comparison note that I
always play the original HL on Difficult and HL:S on Hard to make the
comparison fair, so any small gameplay differences that are seen by easier
skill levels are not mentioned:
* In the original Half-Life, the two hand-guns (Glock pistol and Magnum
revolver) had shorter reloading delays relative to their reloading
animations. In other words, when reloading either weapon, the gun would be
considered fully loaded and ready for firing BEFORE the gun animation had
completed. For example, the moment the new magazine begins to enter the
Glock the gun can be fired again, even though the animation hasn't finished.
In HL:Source, the game waits until the animation has finished before
allowing the gun to be fired. Hence, for someone who's played the original a
lot, this might catch them off-guard when timing their combat strategies.
* The crossbow in the original Half-Life fired bolts that technically went
to infinite range. In contrast, the crossbow in HL:S suffers from the effect
of gravity in much the same way as the crossbow from Half-Life 2. Hence, the
range is limited and the player has to take this into account. Long-range
sniping is not as achievable as it was in the original.
* The MP5 (i.e. the silver submachine gun) has a nasty case of the shakes in
HL:S. In the original Half-Life it would fire somewhat inaccurately but the
recoil was insignificant. In HL:S, the recoil results in the gun spraying in
a vertical strip causing head-shots to miss a lot and hence harder to aim.
Burst fire does not seem to compensate for this.
* The Marines are a real bitch here, mainly because they have more control
over their weapons and seem to do a few extra points of damage with each
bullet.
* Finally, the aliens. Most are the same, but some are downright bastards.
The primary difference is in speed of attack, specifically with regards to
the mind-controllers (i.e. the flying/hovering guys in Xen which lob orange
energy balls at you). They fire those things SO FAST in Xen that they can
easily wear you down in HL:S. At least in the original HL you could dodge
them with reasonable success, but here the balls travel much too quickly.
They really test my patience.
So there you go. There may be some other differences I haven't mentioned,
but my point was to illustrate that HL:S has worthy qualites if you're
looking for a hardish single-player experience, even if it doesn't have all
the nice new textures/models.
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