Do I need any new games now

[Mischief Maker]

Half Life ruined videogames.

Yes, I said it.

Useless point because anything else could have ruined videogames.

Half-Life opened the door to videogames being interactive movies instead of challenges.

I don't even understand your retort. What difference does it make if a different developer COULD have opened that door? Valve DID, and now gaming is being strangled between two letterbox bars, hammering X just to stay alive.

[louisg]

Half Life ruined videogames.

Yes, I said it.

Useless point because anything else could have ruined videogames.

Half-Life opened the door to videogames being interactive movies instead of challenges.

I don't even understand your retort. What difference does it make if a different developer COULD have opened that door? Valve DID, and now gaming is being strangled between two letterbox bars, hammering X just to stay alive.

I think it only really did that on the PC. Console games had already been there on the PSX, and I always look at Half Life as in many respects playing catch-up to what was already happening on other systems, but doing it in a PC-specific way (FPS game).

[Ed Oscuro]

Half-Life opened the door to videogames being interactive movies instead of challenges.

I don't even understand your retort. What difference does it make if a different developer COULD have opened that door? Valve DID, and now gaming is being strangled between two letterbox bars, hammering X just to stay alive.

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me. Valve did their part to streamline the game type as much as possible - storytelling is not only all in-engine, but with a silent protagonist and - always - as seen from his perspective. There have been only a very few "mash the button" type sequences in the series (fallen Stalker pod at the train derailment in one of the episodes) but even these are just as variety from crate-smashing, barrel-carrying monotony, and don't feel like QTEs at all (because, again, there is still some underlying physical mechanic to grasp, with an intuitive control interface to match). It's more common to be spinning a wheel to get through a gate or something (not that I'm a fan of that, but it does force you to take more awareness in of what's happening). HL is basically Quake with almost the bare minimum added to tell a good story.

I have been quite unhappy every time Valve shifts from this formula, such as in adding extended "lol you're stuck" cutscenes from HL2 onwards, and I think other people are too. Hopefully Valve themselves realize such things are to be avoided.

But what has Valve done with this formula? The Portal games, for one, which are almost as pure puzzle as you can get (while having a story). There's a real incentive to have things as functional as possible (steps and portals taken can be counted for challenges) and that certainly seems like opposition to needless button mashing. Valve's newest entry in the modern shooter genre is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which again is about as pared down as gaming gets. Ditto L4D for the zombie shooter. Or TF2. Don't know about DOTA 2. I don't where these letterboxed, QTE-ridden games you speak of are lurking in Valve's back catalog.

Games with QTEs and context buttons (which can be fine, actually, as they are in RE4) seem to have evolved separately from Valve's stable.
What's next, shall we hammer the *original* Fallout for "opening the door" to cinematic games? It's got talking heads, even. Horrors!

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm jolly sure the most cinematic action adventure game with most, er, "contextual" interaction of the last century's last decade was Another World. Some people claim to have beaten it without ANY external hints, but I doubt anybody could be bothered these days (same goes for Super Metroid actually, which wasn't massively popular in Japan, where it came out without any bundled guide).
By the way, I thought Portal was a remake of some older FPP game (something of a H-L2 port, "jacked" by Valve fatherly).

[Ed Oscuro]

Another World was influential among some game developers, but how much lasting power did it have for the current gen of developers? I'd bet people are just as likely to hear of Mechner's The Last Express. Or King's Quest, certainly (talk about a malign influence ). Anyway, kind of minor points. Who is really responsible for the QTE, cinema-ridden space? Probably RPGs too. There are so many contributors to that trend we could bring up - all of them making much more sense than Valve Software.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Another World was influential among some game developers, but how much lasting power did it have for the current gen of developers?

Ico says hello (last gen, to be fair), which is a better game for my money. Finished both, but Another World without a guide would be... eurgh. Flashback has aged better if you ask me.
A Shadow's Tale/Lost in Shadow this gen for sure. Of course the genre's rooted in the days of Karateka and PoP.
Also, I doubt MGS3 would be what it is without Another World (and I DON'T mean the cutscenes; MGS3 is perfectly playable if you skip all of the storytelling).
Then there go Tomb Raider, Uncharted...
As for H-L2, I enjoyed the boat level and BOSSFIGHT, which felt a lot like Jak & Daxter games I played around that time (especially Jak II).