Who liked or disliked Xen in HL?

[Titar]

In the interview with Gabe, he mentioned that many people didn't like Freemany going to Xen. I myself rather liked it (sure, over the top, but short enough and different enough to be a little treat at the end) but it looks like I may be in the minority. If you played HL, did you like or dislike Xen and why? (my only complaint is I wished they had given you the super jump pack earlier to play with, it seemed a little contrived to get it when you did)

[Lanthanide]

I liked Xen. Not so much the levels (particularly the jumping puzzles - lame, Gonarch was a bitch too) but that you get to see where the aliens come from and it's all weird and strange. It worked perfectly in the storyline for HL1, but it may not be appropriate for HL2 (it does seem that the Xenian monsters are less of an issue, being over taken by the combine and the ant lions etc).

I agree with you about the long-jump module too, I thought it was pretty stupid that you're given one in the Hazard Course, and then you don't actually get one until you're ~90% of the way through the game. Especially since there is low gravity in Xen anyway, so you never really get the feel of actually having a special 'long jump' ability that you sometimes want to use during a battle or whatever.

[Polykarbon]

I loved everything except HL1 except for the jumping puzzles on Xen. They were very lame...

I loved the actual level design though...

[disruptioN_]

Xen was alright. I just didn't like the jumping that much.

[burnzie]

it was frustrating, but i didnt mind it so much

[Shuzer]

I don't remember Xen too well.. it's all kind of a blur, with alot of jumping puzzles and elevators

Reminded me of some really old game that I can't quite put my finger on

[Gordon'sFreeman]

Xen was the worst part of HL, i mean... come on, sif go in there, just throw in a couple nukes and call it a day.

[burnzie]

I don't remember Xen too well.. it's all kind of a blur, with alot of jumping puzzles and elevators

Reminded me of some really old game that I can't quite put my finger on


http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/mario.php

mmmm

[urseus]

I didnt mind it, except the jumping puzzles. But as has been said before, the massive community outcry ruined it or any alien world level being in half life 2.

Which really sucks ass, because an alien planet in the source engine would have been mindblowing. Alien orgainic walls, physics orientated particals and tenticals ect. Its a real shame that nothing like it will be used, hopefully Natural Selection will be able to show us some really good effects.

[Titar]

Speaking of jumping puzzles, for me the all time prize for lamest jumping puzzle in HL has to go to the three giant pistons. Even the first time it was pretty silly.

By the end the Xen's jumping puzzles were tiresome, but at very first they provided a great change of pace. Also I liked Gonarch a lot more than Nilanth.

[MultiVaC]

Jumping puzzles were a breeze for the most part. It was just a short while anyway, and filled with interesting sights and sounds. I hope there's a place that looks totally alien in HL2 like a Xenified cave or something, to experience it on the Source engine.

[Shuzer]

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/mario.php

mmmm

oldskool! lol, the jumping moreso reminded me of something of a mix of Donkey Kong Country and Metroid

[Lanthanide]

Hopefully there will be; Xen was creeping into Earth in HL1, 10 years later I'd imagine that, things going the same way that they were, there'd be some Xenified areas somewhere. I hope so anyway. I loved the plants with the glowing lights on the sticks that shrank when you got near them.

[Cutey_Kaite]

i found xen bland and boring, it kinda detached from the "half life" formula,
if u know what i mean

[Citizen 1150421]

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/mario.php

mmmm


dude .. wicked stuff.. :thumbs:

xen was cool interms of how it looked and sounded, with that voice every once in a while dropping a clue about the whole thing nihilithsomthing, the level design for it was amaturish.

[iamaelephant]

I quite liked Xen, particularly the cool little light plants (thanks Lanthanide, I'd almost forgotten about them ;)) and the big ball sack guy was pretty cool.

[Jackal hit]

i thought the jumping puzzles were an easy/fun part. didn't really feel like a totally different game to me at all, because you had similar jumping puzzles near the end of the black mesa areas, with all the portal things. didn't really feel like a huge step back in xen, thought it fit, but in different surroundings. no biggie :bounce:

[NeLi]

I liked Xen

[Mechagodzilla]

Xen had great design to it, and there weren't that many jumping puzzles. I only remember there being 3 of them. Still, the design worked better as a concept than it did as a level in a game. I'd like to see Xen remix 2004.

[Dr. Freeman]

Xen was okay :)
i didn't like the jumping puzzles much but enjoyed the part with the elevators leading to Nihny :)

[burnzie]

and the big ball sack guy was pretty cool.

ohh, you mean gonad

[Apos]

I liked the design of Xen too, and I hope they include those "shy lights" in HL2 in the sections where Xen has come to earth (they DID say that there would be areas like that, I remmber that much). The gameplay was okay. Frankly, I enjoyed fighting the marines a lot more than the alien troopers or vortigaunts or floaty bubblehead things with too many HitPoints. But it wasn't that bad, and there were only one or two really hard jumping puzzle sections. I liked fighting Nil and Big Momma, though Nil's habit of warping you into annoying jumping puzzles was a bit much. :)

[Lanthanide]

Once you learnt how to avoid it though, it was easy. Or in my case, my friend told me how to avoid them before I even got up to that part of the game, so I only ever got warped once. I'm glad, too, because the other couple of areas that you got warped to really sucked. Interestingly, there were some dead HEV suited people in a couple of those areas - so it seems others had already come after Nihilanth before, but failed?

[egon]

xen was good. really scary if you played with proper sounds n stuff.

particularly the part where the alien slaves do not hurt you until you bother them. and the encounter with the gargantua.

gonarch's lair was cool too. by the way did anyone catch the referencde to tolkiens's shelob's lair with a giant spider? gonarch was scary, when u start u see some ammo n run towards it, when u turn around there is this huge spider thing.

the jumping puzzles werent great.

and yes the game did peak to early, after surface tension somehow aliens werent so much fun anymore.

liked those little light plants too :)

[FoB_Ed]

I thought going to Xen in HL1 was a nice twist. I actually enjoyed the Xen levels because it felt like you were actually in an alien land and you didn't know what was going to happen next





oh BTW: how you do pronounce Xen? Do you say it like Zen or what?

[burnzie]

zen... like xena

[TsuNamI]

more like gzen imo, sounds better :p. I liked the Xen levels a lot, atmosphere was present and just the fact that you were ón their homeworld was uber. It's a shame that HL2 won't contain those Xen levels, I sure would have liked to experience the organic feel in the source engine.

[Harryz]

I liked the jumping puzzles, which gave it a bit of diversity. But, I hated Xen overall - badly design and the textures were horrible. i don't mind it as much now, since I'm used to it.

[burnzie]

yeah, it did kinda seemed like it was slaped together.

[Darkside55]

The scientist in the Lambda complex actually tells you how to pronounce it. It's, "Zen." Not like Xena though...that's not zen, that's more like zeen. :p Zen like meditating.

And I love Xen. Anytime I hear that people hate it I just can't fathom it. It was beautiful there, very strange architecture and that organic feel to it, those nebula skies with the greens and blues, the whole thing was just awesome. I didn't mind the jumping puzzles either; that was easy stuff. If you grew up playing Mario Bros. and Megaman (especially Megaman 2, Air Man's stage), that was an absolute cake walk. Especially when you first reach Xen. Aside from that one vortigaunt and houndeye, I was thinking to myself, "Finally, a nice relaxing break from the action."
Personally though I disliked the Gonarch level, and the fighting in the factory level. Didn't care for either of those places; not because of the design but because of the inhabitants. The design was awesome though, like how the factory blended in tech with organics.

Hopefully things like that will be in HL2. I hope the Xen sky will appear at some point.

[burnzie]

i just ment how the x is used for z, i can see the flaw in my theroy now

[Darkside55]

Heh, no worries. :cheers:

Not to get off topic, but that was actually an OK show, until it started dragging out too long.

[burnzie]

yeah, then the whole lezbian thing

[marksmanHL2 :)]

I liked Xen to an extent. But I found the jumping puzels tedious and out of character with the rest of the HL world.
I did like how errie it was though, and I love exploring any part of the HL universe just for the hell of it :)

[Darkside55]

Yeah. HL's a big universe, the fact that there will be NO alien worlds, Xen or otherwise, saddens me a little bit.

[Mountain Man]

I actually liked the Xen parts. The alien factory levels were beautiful, and I loved the concept of traveling to an alternate dimension. It felt so alien and surreal. I wasn't too jazzed about the final boss battle, but I really dug the last encounter with the G-Man.

[thenerdguy]

I didnt like xen in Hl or OF. I mean it was fun blasting the gonad, in hl. Blue Shift's version of xen I liked the best!

[Thorn of Death]

Stupid of who ever suggested removing it.....

Instead of removing stupid jumping puzzle they'd remove the idea of going to an alien world.

[AzzMan]

I liked the concept of Xen, just not the fact that it was just a whole bunch of floating platforms. Didn't the original concept of xen have an actual surface, with all those platforms just floating above it?

[Farrowlesparrow]

I thought Xen would have been good if they had had time to expand on it. Its a shame we wont get to go there again. I think that a lot of feedback Valve got has been misleading. Many people didnt like Xen because of the repetative jumping puzzles, not the idea of xen.

[Frank]

I didn't like Xen, but I hope it'll return so they can show us more of it...

[Farrowlesparrow]

Well they said they will have "vits of xen on earth" or something like that. Perhaps in Hl3 we will go off world.

[Shippi]

I didn't mind Xen at all. It was a nice change from Black Mesa.

And I don't remember ever being teleported by Nihilanth. Whenever he launched a portal at me I hid behind one of those spiky things and he always missed...

[Phraxtion]

I liked Xen overall, but that dreaded factory level with all those bubble head guys floating around and the elevators ugh.. :frown:

[Kon]

perhaps there is enough xen envirement seeping through to our dimension in HL2 that there is no need to have a seperate dimension for Xen to travel to..