10 Video Games Consoles Couldn't Handle

3. Half-Life 1 & 2

Cyberpunk 2077
Valve

Valve's Half-Life and its sequel were two of the most beloved FPS titles ever produced across 1998 and 2004 respectively. Surely, it could boost its success to more players on other platforms? At first a version for the Dreamcast was planned but later cancelled.

To expand the popularity of the PC classic, Half-Life 1 and 2 were brought to the PS2 and Xbox respectively, only to be met with frame rate issues and blurred graphics. That wasn't all as due to the lacklustre aiming controls, the PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life had to have a lock-on mechanic bolted on. Sure, it came with the coop focused Half-Life: Decay, but the core experience was undeniably lacking.

The Xbox version of Half-Life 2 fared somewhat better, being the stronger console of the two, but even so, it couldn't match the original on PC. Much of the issues came from translating the source engine over and some cuts had to be made when it came to performance.

It's a shame two of the best shooters ever made fell short with their console debuts, but luckily with the arrival of The Orange Box in 2007, the PS3 and Xbox 360 were able to handle Half-Life much better.

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A tough but fair writer and critic broadly covering games, movies and just about every type of entertainment media. Spent a good part of the last seven years blogging and more recently, making amateur videos under "The Cainage Critique". You can follow my work on my website https://robc25.wixsite.com/thecainagecritique and my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftJ6WcozDaECFfjvORDk3w