Half-Life 2: How much did they cut? (Spoilers)

Windows95 · Post by **Windows95** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 3:29 pm

After finishing the game I thought two things:

1) Great ride!
2) What happened to all the stuff in the preview movies?

The game was great, but I sure noticed lots of missing features, creatures and levels from what was show to us a year ago. I'm guessing Valve had to take the chopping axe to the game to get it out the door.

Stuff that I noticed:

Guns:
- Machine guns don't fire in zoom mode
- Combine gun alt's fire isn't a flare anymore
- There was a cool looking high power gun with a green scope

Creatures:
- Ant lion packs that you control are much smaller
- Can't create your own entraces for ant lions by shooting holes in the glass, etc.
- Blue tentacle monster is gone

- Never saw a Strider spear someone with it's legs

Levels:
- Take your pick, major layout changes on all that made the final game
- Kleiner's lab doesn't get attacked by a Strider
- Complete redesign of the Strider attack sequence level
- Dune buggy level looked like a dried up ocean bed with massive subs and ships lying everywhere

Anything else I'm missing? I'm not really upset, but just surprised by all the changes that took place to the game in the last year.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 3:58 pm

Haven't finished but I remember the Strider (or something) attacking the lab in the movies. I assumed I get back there at some point and that's when it would happen. Oh well.

My guess on some of the levels/events is that they were scripted for dramatic effect in the movies but were too breakable in the game. Or maybe they just took existing levels and changed them around a bit to make a good movie. They were never intended to play like the movie(s). Less spoilers that way too.

As for the weapons, maybe they were unbalanced. Or alternatively, maybe they were useless.

Two Sheds · Post by **Two Sheds** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:12 pm

I was wondering about this too. There's hardly anything from the preview movies that I remember in the final game. No Hydra in the sewers, no dried-up ocean. In a way, I guess, that's a good thing: the game almost an entirely new experience. Some of that stuff did look pretty cool, though, and I would have liked to have seen it in-game.

jonsauce · Post by **jonsauce** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:22 pm

The Gamespot article answers most of these.

As for anything in the movies that weren't in game: The movies were not taken from actual levels meant to be in the games. They were a tech demo put together to see if the engine was ready for the level designers to start their work.

The Hydra was worked on by a guy for 6 months but he couldn't make it fun for the player to actually fight so unfortunately for him it got yanked out.

I don't mind that Valve cut alot of stuff. No sense in leaving it in if they cannot make it fun for the player. Not everything a developer can put into a tech demo can be made fun for the singleplayer game.

Two Sheds · Post by **Two Sheds** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:28 pm

Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong, it's not that I mind. The game as it stands is, in my opinion, near-perfect. I'm just saying some of that stuff, like the dried-up ocean, was pretty cool conceptually and I would have liked to have seen it work out.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:39 pm

Two Sheds wrote:Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong, it's not that I mind. The game as it stands is, in my opinion, near-perfect. I'm just saying some of that stuff, like the dried-up ocean, was pretty cool conceptually and I would have liked to have seen it work out.

Dare I hope for multiplayer?

knob · Post by **knob** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:55 pm

- Never saw a Strider spear someone with it's legs

I did see that on multiple occasions, so that's definitely still in.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 5:42 pm

Yep, striders still spear people if they get close. While I didn't see it personally, my friends have.

What I did see was the aftermath of someone being speared, but the strider not shaking the corpse off its leg. So there was a kind of macabre trophy of a resistance fighter attached to its leg as it walked around.

Needless to say, I targeted that strider first.

Spock's Brain · Post by **Spock's Brain** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:06 am

I can buy that there were necessary cuts after the demo movies, but my inner cynic says wait for the expansion pack.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:31 am

I would love expansions for HL2. Never got any for HL1, but something about HL2 makes me want to buy and play some.

I'm also wondering if they're going to have Adrian Shepard from Opposing Force make an appearance.