I think, over the years, I’ve concluded the result of this is FPSs getting easier, letting you just crouch to get better. Obviously over the last decade we’ve seen the FPS switch from metered health and health packs to mystically recharging shallow pools. That’s perhaps the most striking difference, actually. In fact, the whole approach to combat feels bizarre ten years on, where your bullet sponge suit is intended to get shot at, you’re supposed to see your health go down. Weapons come without scopes, there’s no ironsights, and headshots absolutely do not offer instant kills. I’d forgotten how primitive the shooting feels. I’d forgotten that the teleporter that appears as soon as Gordon arrives at Dr Kleiner’s lab looks an enormous amount like GLaDOS: In fact, there’s a lot that I’d forgotten.
I remembered I could throw cans at the heads of the grumpy guards, but I’d forgotten this leads to hooting as I run away, trying to avoid the wrath of their sparky batons.
Of course I remembered the train station as Gordon arrives in City 17, but I’d completely forgotten I could (mutely) speak to the other people milling about. Enough time to make returning a swirling mix of nostalgia, and constant surprise at details I’d forgotten. I’ve replayed HL2 in the intervening decade, I think at least twice more, but I’d say it’s been about five years since. Returning to the game ten and a half years later, I feel that, if anything, I’ve gotten naughtier in this regard. Sure, we’d all balanced plant pots on people’s heads in Deus Ex a few years earlier, but HL2 made ignoring the urgency of your peril feel real. It’s weird to remember that Half-Life 2 was one of the first times such behaviour felt so realistic. “Okay, sure, but first let me see if I can balance this bin on your head.” “Quick, Sam Fists, you have to get to the roof to switch off the nuclear missle!” I’d love to see an action movie where the main character behaves like I do in FPS games. “Gordon Freeman? You mean the guy who came into our apartment carrying that creepy broken doll, then threw all our furniture out the windows? He’s your hero?” In an effort to learn whether Half-Life 2 is as great – nay, as perfect – as the version in my head, I’ve replayed it, and realised there’s so much I’d forgotten. Then wondered if I was talking out of my hat. The other day I found myself arguing that there still hadn’t been a first-person shooter released that was better. It’s over ten years since Half-Life 2 was released.
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