>read reviews from release
>they say it played it safe and was not as revolutionary as the first game
Is this true?

no

Yes

Yes, HL1 might as well have invented story-driven FPS as a genre. Doom perfected the whole "get to the end of the level" genre of FPS and even they had to switch to a more narrative focused style with Doom 3 because of HL1's influence. In contrast, HL2 had the gravity gun and that's it pretty much. Physics didn't end up being central to the gameplay of every FPS game from that point onwards, it was just enough that they were present in some form. Hell, it's not even all that central to HL2. Like three seesaw puzzles and Ravenholm encouraging you to use physics props as weapons but not really if you don't want to.

Yes. HL1 is pretty on rails but HL2 is like being walked down a path being dragged by the hand

>>714816157
>HL1 might as well have invented story-driven FPS as a genre.
holy shit zoomers are retarded

>>714816157
I feel like most games couldnt hope to replicate what HL2 had done with its physics, and I also think physics are not as important for many games that do not give you ways to creatively interact with said environment putting the gravity gun into every game moving forward was obviously not going to happen

>>714816402
Name one other FPS, other than Goldeneye, that had more than a basic narrative to set the stage.

>>714814767 (OP)
Sort of, but the facial animation and graphics at the time made me basedface.

>>714814767 (OP)
It's not, physics was superior to everything else that was present at that time

You can see the influence of HL2's character animation in nearly every big game released now and since.

>>714816402
You can pretend that Quake II is that or whatever, it's infinitely closer to the Doom style of levels just being static self contained areas where all you do is push a few switches and collect keycards. Or are you being an obtuse moron on purpose and pretending Doom is story-driven because you get two paragraphs at the end of an entire episode telling you what you're going to be doing for the next three hours without anything further until the next one? Or Blake Stone is story driven because it came with a comic book? Nothing before comes close to HL1 in terms of the amount of dialogue, friendly NPCs you can interact with in meaningful ways, scripted sequences, environmental story telling and other kinds of exposition, and all that is right there in the game being shown to you through Gordon's eyes, not tucked away in a manual or in some text briefing. HL1 is the first proper story-driven FPS. But you're a dumbass and think story-driven simply means "has a story". Idiot.

>>714817347
Most games still don't have realistic lip syncing, facial animations, and eye animations during gameplay. Cutscenes, yeah, but rarely during normal gameplay like HL2 does.

Another day, another alf thread

>>714816402
Name 3 popular shooters that were story driven before HL

>>714816680
Marathon