S1E12 - Half-Life 2

[00:00:11] Hello, it is another week and that means that it is time for another episode of Video Games Analyzed. I am your host, Tommy, and I will be discussing the art form that is video games, classic and retro video games, and telling you whether those games are worth playing today or not worth playing today. And I have a guest every week, and this week's guest is Aaron. Hello, Aaron. Thank you for joining. Yeah, you're welcome, man. Yeah.

[00:00:42] Yeah, we're here to talk about video games, so let's just get right down to it. Today's video game is Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 from Valve came out in the year 2004. I'm pretty sure it's pronounced Valve, like the cars. Oh, shoot. I'm sorry. Okay. Sorry, Volvo. Oh, fuck. I mean, oh, gosh. Oh, so, Half-Life 2 by Volvo. It is the sequel to Half-Life and it is a first-person shooter where you...

[00:01:12] It is if you are viewing the game as it's happening from the protagonist, which is a fancy word for the main character, from his perspective. So it's like you're seeing things through Gordon... Gordon Freeman is the name of the protagonist. Gordon Ramsey. No, Gordon Freeman. Wait. I played the wrong game. Morgan? Morgan Freeman? Is it... Now I'm confused. Is it Morgan? Morgan Freeman? Gordon Joseph Levitt?

[00:01:41] Oh, I might have played the wrong game. Gordon... Commissioner Gordon? No, you played Half-Life 2. I saw it on your little Steam notification. Okay, okay. Half-Life 2. It's a first-person shooter game and I'm not a fan. I'm going to be honest. It really didn't really do much for me. I didn't really enjoy... Sorry, Tom. I need to interrupt you for a second. It's not Gordon Joseph Levitt.

[00:02:10] It's Joseph Gordon Levitt. Levitt. Oh! Okay, okay. Yes, I needed to correct that. Sure. Sorry. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for setting the record straight. As I was saying, I just didn't... Nothing really clicked with me with the shooting and the story. I just... Nothing stood out to me as being anything better than bad, honestly. How did you feel about it, Aaron?

[00:02:37] I mean, I can't help but feel like this game copied a lot of what Doom did. Yeah. Or even Metroid Prime. Vastly superior games to this. It's... The gravity gun? What even is the gravity gun? You don't shoot gravity. You can't... It's an intangible force. I... I just... I didn't get it, man. I didn't get this game.

[00:03:07] Um, Gordon... Joseph Gordon Levitt, whatever his name is. Him and, uh... Morgan Freeman. Yes, thank you. And, uh... Gosh, what's her name? Alex? I... It wasn't even on the Wikipedia page, so I don't even... I have no idea. Okay. Um, yeah. Uh, the characters were very... I mean, they're as one-sided as a character from Paper Mario. Hi-oh! I mean, I guess they're two-sided, but hi-oh!

[00:03:36] Um, yeah. Did not, uh... Did not... This game did not ding my dong, so to speak. I think you're... I think you're onto something where you say that other games... Because other games were first-person shooters before. Yep. Other games had guns. Other games had characters. Other games had stories. Did this game do anything unique? Anything new? Uh, again, maybe the gravity gun, but you... I just... It's cool, but... I don't know. Even that, it's like...

[00:04:06] It doesn't really add anything to the game. Like, there's no... It doesn't really... It's just kind of there, you know? The headcrabs were kind of cool. That was... I mean, no, because other games have existed for... Crabs have existed for millions of years. That's true. And there's been... There's plenty of zombies as well. There's crowbars. Zombies have existed for millions of years. Just like crowbars, too. Crowbars have existed for millions of years. Yes. I can't think of this. It was just a big disappointment for me. Yeah.

[00:04:34] I, uh... It did not resonate with me at all. And for those who don't know, resonate means, like, vibrate. Yep. Yeah, this is a shorter one. I'm sorry about that, but I just... I just feel icky even talking about it. I wanted the show to be where we celebrate video games, but I just... Half-Life 2 didn't... This wasn't... Yeah. It wasn't it. Um, so, let's just give the review scores quick.

[00:05:01] Uh, I'm gonna give it the lowest score possible on the scale, unfortunately, so three stars. Well, I'm gonna have to disagree. I'm gonna go... I don't... Okay, I'm gonna give it one star. Like, one star, and then, uh, four piles of puke, which all equates to, uh, to negative ten stars. So, ultimately, we're looking at, uh... I don't know.

[00:05:27] A bunch of negative stars, because this game was just, uh... Just not good. Yeah, usually I disagree with you and fight this, but I'm not even gonna fight on this. I agree with you. That's probably a better review. I copy that review score. Okay, okay, thank you. Uh... Yeah. I have nothing else to say about this. No, I would rather... Honestly, I wanna... I need to take a shower after this, just to get this ick, ick feeling off of me.

[00:05:53] I would rather be hit by a car, and then dumped into a burning ditch, than play this game again. Yeah, yeah. I agree 100%. Let's just get this over with. Uh, thanks for listening. Check us out next week, where we talk about an actual good video game. Uh, keep on gaming! I'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Bye.