Poll Question 152 – Have you played the HL games in release order?

27th December 2009

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

I was lucky, I waited until HL, OP and BS were released, so I could play them straight after each other, thereby living through each story in the right order.

These minor details are very important to me. As many readers may know I HATE spoilers, even the smallest detail is a spoiler to me. However, I do recognize that many people don’t really care that much.

I still believe that the order you see, read, watch or play anything affects your opinion of those things, especially if you are like me. Not just because games date due to graphics etc, but because some thing need to be experienced in the right order.

I suppose an obvious example would be Star Wars, although the gap between number 3 and number 4 was a long time, it made less difference. But it would have been nice to see them in the correct order, knowing certain character live or die is part of the interest.

Whilst HL, OP and BS are not directly related, with the same character, they do follow the same basic storyline and introducing characters at the right time is important.

I am interested to hear your comments.

The Poll

26 Comments

  1. Ok, I’m thick. What’s OP and BS?

    1. Opposing Force and Blue Shift

      1. Thanks and yes I did. Seems a long ago now!

  2. Billy

    I voted chaos since I did HL2 EP1 then EP2 then went and played Half Life 1.

  3. Gradius

    Ditto with Billy, only got HL1 after playing through the Orange Box.

  4. CrowbarSka

    I played them in the correct order. The main reason probably because I bought every single one of them as soon as I possibly could, but I am also really into the story and would have surely tried to play the original games first if I had heard of them later. Like you, Phillip, I hate things to be spoiled and I like to respect Valve’s well-crafted stories by experiencing them in the best order.

  5. I doesn’t played EP1 & 2 yet but all other in order.
    As yourself I think playing in the right order is important. I realised when I went through the Myst saga (games and books).

  6. zagles

    Ive played them all but not in order

  7. Kyouryuu

    I’ve played the HL2-era games in order, but while I had HL1 a long time ago, I was oddly never able to get into it. To this day, I still can’t. I perennially lose interest somewhere around the tentacle creature.

  8. Grey Acumen

    Missing an option, Phillip:

    I prefer to play in order, but I did get an episode or two out of place since I wasn’t able to obtain them all in order.

    Episode 1 was actually my first intro to the half life series, but from there I purchased Half Life, and then Opposing Force and Blue Shift together, however the order I played Blue Shift before Opposing Force, which worked out for Timeline order rather than release order, since Half Life is the main game, and Blue Shift runs parallel to the beginning of Half Life while Opposing Force runs parallel to the later half of Half Life.

    From there I bought Orange Box, played Portal, Half Life 2, Episode 1 again, and then Episode 2.

    1. No option missing, you either did or you didn’t. It’s not asking about whether you “wanted” to play them in order, just whether you did. Why weren’t you able to buy them all in order?

      1. As I said, I didn’t even know what Half Life was until a friend Gifted Episode 1 to me when they got Orange Box.

  9. Half life 1 Antology (Half life 1, Blue Shift , Opposing Force & Team Fortress classic on 1 cd for € 10,00 ) was actually the very first game I bought for pc, 2 days later I bought HL2 , but I played them in the correct order, when I finished the first part and installed and played HL 2 for the first time, I still remember the WOW moment, the huge inprovement for the graphics was a very pleasant surprise, the same characters looked so much better!

  10. wayfare

    I have played them in order as well. I wish I could explain how amazed I was with Half-Life 1 when I first played it many years ago, I am sure that many of you have similar memories though.
    I plan on playing them all in order again soon because I purchased the Half-Life 1 anthology a few days ago, which is $11.24 as part of Steams holiday sale if anyone is not aware (I do have my original Half-Life WON version, but I really wanted to have the whole series again)! I also caved in and bought Counter-Strike Source in order to play CSS Sci-Fi 3.. I am very glad that I did.

  11. Joe

    Not from Hl1 through to episode 2
    Simply because I played half life 2 before 1… also Im young and free and dont care much for a linear playout. Half life 1 and 2 are so different I dont think it matters. Especially scince you are in stasis between the two games. I dont see the benefit of playing them in a line other than just having a big-ol gaming marathon. Though if you played half life 1 first (probably when it came out) I expect its feels good to play it in order.

  12. I’ll admit it.I’m anal about following any episodic storyline.Regardless of whether it’s a TV series, novel series, or video game.I simply don’t want to know about a future character or story development without experiencing and understanding the conditions which led to the present storyline.It’s like cheating yourself.

    To me, practicing a little patience is worth having a deeper understanding so I can feel more engrossed in the story and have a much more satisfying overall experience.

  13. I played them in order, I believe, however haven’t played Opposing Force yet, and the time in between playing the ones I did was too long for it to matter. Not sure if OF is SP in its gameplay (don’t think so?). I don’t like games where added keys are necessary to give commands to others, or I depend on others.

    To me, chaos isn’t an applicable description if I didn’t follow playing each game one after the other.

    1. Opposing Force is single player, however it also has its own Multiplayer deathmatch thing (possibly team deatchmatch as well) the only multiplayer elements that are included in the single player campaign are the option of having other soldiers follow you around similar to how Barney and the other scientists could follow around gordon and open up specific doors for you, except the cap of how many you can have following you at a time is higher.

  14. MNM

    In order 🙂 Don’t have BS or OP though…

  15. Wolfen Vic.

    I said yes but I also put it as I haven’t played them all. I only knew about Half Life 2 because of all the G4 coverage so many years ago. I bought the Orange box two years ago and played from Half life 2 to episode 2 in order. Only afterwards did I find out about Half Life 1 and the two expansions. Then I found out about Black Mesa Source and decided I’d just play that when it came out instead of purchase HL1 which I wouldn’t be able to enjoy as much because of the graphics.

    I also remember seeing a post by the BMS team that BS and OP both have their own mod teams working on them but I have no idea where those mod teams are as if their as good as BMS looks then I am sure I will be getting my dose of more info on the Half Life universe soon.

  16. Gradius

    Wolfen Vic: So you had no idea Half Life TWO was a sequel? 😛
    If I remember correctly Blue Shift was the first I ever heard of a Half-Life game, way back when.

    1. Wolfen Vic

      No I didn’t. I had heard about it on G4 and it never crossed my mind it was a sequel. At the time I heard of it I was young and it was all the rage over it having been pirated. At the time, and still today, the number 2 means nothing unless you know more about the series.

  17. Gypsy_Jim

    I think all (or at least all games) software “marketing” people should read this and understand that while they might think that we all read every PC mag out there, or automatically subscribe to the various main game release websites and so on, we don’t….

    I got the HL1 (Uplink) demo on the cover of 2000AD and even though I didn’t have a PC back then, smuggled it on to one of the office’s machines and played it in my lunch break….I then got it on to my Dad’s lap top and managed to not only finish it but get addicted as well!

    When, some ten years later I eventually got a PC,HL1 was one of the first things I wanted, HL2 was a must-have when it came out, but I hadn’t even heard of OP or BS until then so I had no choice but to play them out of order. I played them as I found them, or they found me….but if I’d had the choice I would have opted to play them in order.

    What I’m saying is that I don’t think I’m unrepresentative by not going to gaming stores, or being (relatively) new to the internet…(When I bought HL2 one of the biggest controversies was that Steam seemed to require you to be logged on to it in order to play, and there were millions of us who simply didn’t have such ready access. (unlike our US cousins) Some will remember how many were going to give it a miss on those grounds alone…Seems almost unbelievable now though huh??

    The gaming audience is a very “broad church” as they say, and not all of us are involved in the PC world and it’s marketing strategies as closely as others, most simply pass me by to be honest, and when I log in to Steam I rarely pay any attention to their “Update” pop-up window, with the odd exception of “Dark Messiah” & “Sin Episodes”, which only served to reinforce my disdain of direct marketing…though I am still hoping that their modding fans might still pull something out of the fire…….(could be a long wait though!!)

    So much time passes though and the audience moves on, in their own lives and circumstances etc, well, some do, and the time lag on the next HL installment is a bit of a bug-bear as well…..To be fair they made such a mess of the HL2 Episodes thing that whatever comes next can only be an improvement!

    Happy Christmas one & all!

    James

  18. tymaxbeta

    I started playing HL2 the night my account was stolen, I didn’t finish but then played episode one, I loved it, so I then spent a weekend playing all the way through, it is all so of note that my first game on source was G mod, and I played about everything else on source, mods, games, ect, before I even started playing HL2, and then I started making games of my own due to the fact I then realized that games could be so story oriented…

  19. I haven’t played the Blue Shift yet, but I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. My play order was HL1, Opposing Force, Half Life 2, Ep1, Ep2. Wow, I guess Ive played them in the right order.

  20. Steak

    Wow, I can’t believe the amount of people that never heard of Half Life until number 2 came out. I mean, it’s only one of the most refrenced amd highly scoring games out there lol.
    But yeah, I enjoyed them all in their correct order, all within weeks of their respective release dates.
    When finishing number 2, when the G-man starts walking out again, I was shouting NOOOOOOO DONT FINISH YET.

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