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Phoenix
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I just finished Episode 1. Very well done, though I had to turn off HDR (except for bloom) as it seems to like to eat framerate to an absurd degree, and I really didn't see any benefit from it. I like it even though it was fairly short. I did want to shoot Alyx in the head a few times though. Other than having an infinite ammo automatic pistol and the miraculous ability to ninja-kick the headcrabs off of zombies, anyone else find her annoying?
And I think I've pinned down why HL2 feels so different from the first Half-Life. In the first game you had to rely completely on yourself to solve everything, with the exception of the occasional scientist or Barney to get you through a locked door (finding them or keeping them alive was part of the solving things for yourself). In HL2 you have people who actually do things and sometimes you have to sit back while they take care of something your theoretical scientific ass can't seem to be able to do - like work a control station. You don't feel as isolated. I think it's that feeling of pseudo-dependency that made the game feel so different to me. There's a few points, and one specific section in Ep1 where you get put in a rather, shall we say, explosive or electrifying situations where you have to think and carefully plan your moves. That feels more like what I'm used to and it was a nice break from house-to-house shootouts with grunts. I also think they pulled off some "creepy darkness" more effectively than Doom 3, especially when that flashlight has so little battery power.
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« Last Edit: 2007-07-04, 21:41 by Phoenix »
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Lordbane2110
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yeah i finished ep1 and hl2 reasonable quickly, sin episodes tho was fun
regarding alyx i kinda like her, she makes a change to the usual female helpers
still can't beat system shock 2 though, shodan forever
but which game do i like better hl2 or d3 hmmm
actually neither, hl2 does have stunning graphics and the physics engine is great bouncing crates around or using a manhack as a melee weapon is good fun
however there's no enough ammo ever and once you have the gravity gun, that's all you'll use ( i recommend playing hl2 with the substance mod gives more ammo and weapons)
d3 however has the familar doom charm, chainsaws, shotty's except they all seem nerfed. ever weapon in d3 is a lot weaker i had to double the values in most cases especially as the d3 bfg 9000 is weaker than most of the original weapons
d3 has a better story, and in my opinion a better atmosphere
where as hl2 doesn't really hava story and you are treated as an idiot at times
they both change when you add the expansions though d3roe has the ion grabber cough.. cough gravity gun cough... cough which gives you more scope in blowing up stuff and also comes in handy for the puzzles like hl2
and epi1 yes alyx can be annoying at times, but she's sweeter than most partners in fps games what i would have liked from epi 1 is more weapons and better puzzles which on this it doesn't deliver
the game i like best is SIn Episodes, it has a decent story the weapons are feel meaty and jessica cannon is a more of a distraction than a partner it's only a pity that it may be the only episode they release of it as it's far too short 4 - 6 and your done
q4, well i like q4. there i said it, i don't know why but most people don't like it, ok it has it's faults like the vehicles sections and the tram ride (seriously how easy is it for your squad to die over and over again especially on hard) the guns were not impressive the lightning gun mehhhh, the nailgun yawn, and the dark matter gun is the biggest pile of poop ever
however the blaster is oldschool q2 (yay), the machine gun and shotgun are better than there d3 incarnations.
stalker wise though haven't played it yet
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« Last Edit: 2007-07-06, 14:03 by Lordbane2110 »
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Kajet
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On the HL2 vs Doom 3 debate I'm just gonna say Gary's mod, HL2 players should know what I'm talking about, if not check it out, Here It's pretty entertaining. |
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Phoenix
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The "Grabber" from RoE technically predates the HL2 gravity gun in a sense. It exists in Doom 3 as a diagnostic tool. RoE just weaponized it and made it a non-devetool item. Besides... ANYONE with a physics engine is going to come up with a "find way to throw stuff around/bounce stuff" gimmick. The exception would be Trespasser, which was the first physics-driven FPS to my knowledge. You could throw stuff and sometimes you had to, but the throwing was more literal and certainly did not decimate enemies, though sometimes elements in the environment could be used to that purpose by knocking something heavy over so it fell on something chasing you.
The Doom 3 weapons I think are geared more for balance against the enemies you're up against. You don't fight as many simultaneous enemies as in the original games, they move slower, and the fighting is more close in. The shotgun was my biggest complaint because at 10 feet it spreads out 5 feet across a wall with the pellets. You'd need a multi-barreled gun to do that - a real shotgun at 10 feet pretty much just blows a big hole in whatever you hit. It takes distance for the shot to spread out. It was useless for all but camping doors and headshooting things that came through, or running point blank to imps and wraiths teleporting in and blasting them in the face before they can attack you. Medium range and out comes the machinegun or the plasma rifle. I wanted my Doom shotgun back hence my modification.
I've been playing through Quake 4, and so far that game is alright. I'm not done playing through yet. The nailgun, once it's upgraded, actually becomes VERY useful for being sneaky or pounding on a dangerous enemy from behind cover. I do agree most of the weapons can be a bit unfriendly and I dislike the gun models a lot. You must learn to rely on the machinegun and snipe with it a lot, and early on you learn that blaster guards can easily kill you if you stand still and get hit by them while shooting. Every enemy has a trick you can learn to beat them, and some guns are overall more useful than others. The railgun to me seems woefully underpowered compared to the Q2 railgun. Even after getting the penetration mod it still takes a lot of hits to hurt the bigger Strogg, and the tactical Strogg seem to always take two slugs before going down. Now as for the Dark Matter gun... It seems fairly useful when swarmed by weaker Strogg and want to wipe them out with one shot. Just line them up as best as possible, fire, and watch them go bye-bye. I've not tried it on the bigger foes yet. I will say that getting shot by one is not a happy experience.
The vehicles sections didn't really bother me except not finding out the walkers are not even a tenth as tough as the hover tank until getting shot while in the thing. A numeric readout on the shields and armor would have helped give a better idea of the toughness of each vehicle. They could have taken a clue from Wing Commander there - you find out the Scimitar is tougher than the Hornet by seeing it has 6cm of durasteel armor as opposed to 3cm, and you fly the weaker ship first. Q4 does it the other way around - you're godlike and fast in the tank and a slow-poke wimp in the walker. I know that may seem spoiler, but anyone who hasn't played Quake 4 yet, believe me, you'll thank me for this tidbit of info later.
As for Q4 enemies, there are two I dislike so far. The first is the Berserker because it's nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get away from one. If they get close you're going to hit the quickload key because you cannot avoid their attacks. The second is the flying sentry things in the Nexus because they chew the hell out of you with their machineguns, do not miss, do not go into a "pain" mode while getting shot (they just keep shooting) and take a severe beating. So far those are the only ones who have proven problematic. For Berserkers the only thing I can recommend is keep them in your sights, back away while shooting, and rocket their feet if you can, otherwise don't let off the trigger until it's dead. if you have to keep a squad member alive around one.... good luck. Draw its attention, try to sidestep his mace attack, and hope there's a medic nearby. The sentries, if you can get them to come a door, shotgun peekaboo at point blank range seems to work best on avoiding damage. I will also give a hint on another enemy with a melee attack. If you play it right I've found that you can take advantage of an AI quirk actually kill them with the blaster pistol and save much needed ammo for other things. I won't say which one so you all figure that out. 
Overall Quake 2 is a lot more fun than Quake 4, I don't think Q4 is a bad game but it does not carry the charm and personality that the original Strogg had. The first Strogg were cool, and the hyperindustrial look to their tech was more interesting than the excessive "Doom 3 steel-gray" plating of the new Stroggos. These new Strogg are just nasty. They're also pretty disgusting. More on that I will not say, just see for yourself.
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Lopson
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Still Going In Circles
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SPOILERS BELOW IN BLACK:
The transformation scene was pretty gruesome.
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
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Mostly in agreement with Pho here. I would like to add to the downside-list the ugliness of the game. It looks like its designers didn't understand much about limited use of primary colours, coloured lighting and any kind of subtlety (that's exactly what ID got right with Quake2, and even to some extent for Doom3). The human armors look pretty good allround and enemy models don't look bad, but their skins are horrible. I'm replaying it off and on, but I find that I still can't precisely put my finger on why the whole Q4 world just feels wrong, though..
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« Last Edit: 2007-07-06, 19:26 by Tabun »
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?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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scalliano
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Yup, that's me
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Haven't finished Q4 yet, but for so far I'm with the general consensus.
Q4 is a decent game, but it ain't Quake. Woodsman was right - Raven would have done better to use the D3 engine for a new Hexen game and for id to handle Q4 themselves.
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PSN ID: scalliano
The Arena knows no gender, colour or creed, only skill.
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Kajet
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After (re)installing stuff I have this to say,
Half Life 2
First: I fekking HATE headcrabs, specifically the black and fast kinds, they're like huge assed spiders, I hate spiders... and zombies... so of course I'll hate them,
Secondly: Outside of what you see in game HL has no story progression, hell in the first one I didn't even know the name of some of the enemies like the vortigaunt or barnacles.
Second point five: just what the hell is the relationship between the combine, the vortigaunt, headcrabs and, whatever the hell was the last thing you killed in HL1? maybe I'm not thinking it through enough but I don't quite get it.
Third: ANTLIONS! best freaking part is when you're kicking combine/zombie ass with these things, how many FPS games have you take command of a group of your enemies?
DooM 3
First: How many different storylines will ID make around DooM? I might be able to understand somehow retconning all the games before D3 and Doom RPG, but I doubt there is a way to do that, Nerds demand continuity dammit.
Second: I think maybe D3 has the right amount of story, not too much exposition and you can tell what's been happening through PDAs or ignore them.
RoE: Haven't finished it yet but...
First: Can you say revanant? can you say way to frikking many revanants?
Second: Game starts after the shit hits the fan, I'm not sure if I like that...
Third: It just isn't as freaky as D3... I didn't feel as paranoid or frightened... untill a certain point, then the freaky-ness that's been brewing just blows up in your face.
Fourth: Grabber? the Artifact? Anyone else think ID took these concepts from HL2 and FEAR?
Also I love the effect on all the floors ceiling and walls that you see when things first go to hell in D3
I'll probably have more to bitch about after I beat RoE and if I get Episode 1
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
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Remember, the release date of Episode Two is nigh.. :]
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Phoenix
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just what the hell is the relationship between the combine, the vortigaunt, headcrabs and, whatever the hell was the last thing you killed in HL1? maybe I'm not thinking it through enough but I don't quite get it. The relationship is like this. The Vortigaunts were enslaved by the Nihilanth. The Nihilanth, while its origins are unknown, appears to be the last of a dying race. It took residence on the border world of Xen, possibly fleeing the Combine aliens, and it is possible that Nihilanth's ability to control portals made it impossible for the Combine to follow it there, or perhaps they were unaware of Xen's existence. When the incident at Black Mesa occurred, it caused portal storms between Xen and Earth and possibly elsewhere, as the fabric of space between the two dimensions was thrown out of balance. This attracted the attention of the Combine. The destruction of Nihilanth by Gordon Freeman also attracted the attention of the Combine, and it caused two things to happen. First, it ended the Nihilanth's control over Xen. This liberated the Vortigaunts who had until then been slaves of the Nihilanth. Second, it opened Xen up to the Combine for exploitation. This may explain why when, after killing the Nihilanth, the G-Man tells Gorden that "The Border World Xen is under our control, for the time being, thanks to you." It is possible the G-Man fully understood the Combine would take over that world after the Nihilanth was killed.
The headcrabs are simply a kind of fauna native to Xen. How and why they developed their zombification behavior nobody knows - or at least Valve hasn't presented a definitive explanation yet. What is known is the apparent life cycle of the normal headcrab is to go from crab to zombie to gonome (only seen in Opposing Force) to (eventually) gonarch. Of course, very few headcrabs ever reach this final stage, and the fact that gonomes build a kind of "lair", which the gonarch also is known to construct a lair, it may be that the gonome, after gathering sufficient biomass to feed it, undergoes a metamorphosis, implying that the headcrab-zombie-gonome sequence are all forms analagous to a larval stage of insect. How headcrabs reproduce is entirely unknown, though the gonarch appears to be the parent creature and it may be surmised that the process is entirely asexual and that baby headcrabs are simply genetic clones of the parent. It may also be possible that headcrabs acquire and cross their dna with that of the host creature in the zombification process, initially only altering the physiology of the host creature during the larval stage. Once entering metamorphosis (if surviving long enough) the crab would then be participatory in genetic reciprocation. In this sense every crab zombie would be the unwilling "father". Perhaps this explains why there is a conspicuous absense of female zombies?
The "fast" and "poison" crabs are more difficult to determine as to their life cycle. Fast crabs seem to reduce the zombified human into nothing but muscle and bone, as though the metabolic rate is elevated to the point of consuming the internal organs of the host. Unlike the "mawmen" zombies of Half-Life 1, there's no apparent method for these zombies to consume anything. It is possible that all three forms of headcrab are produced by the same gonarch. Since headcrabs and headcrab zombies of differeing origin do not fight each other this seems plausible. In this case the various crabs would fill differing roles, much as there are soldier, worker, and queen ants in an ant colony, so there are fast (soldier) crabs, venemous (guard) crabs, and the standard (breeder) crabs. This would lead one to wonder why Freeman never encountered the other types of crabs at Black Mesa, but two things need to be considered.
First, the role of Nihilanth in governing and controlling the headcrab population is unknown. It may be that during the time it was in control of Xen, the life cycle of the various gonarchs on Xen was manipulated and so only breeder crabs were produced. Once its control was released, the normal life cycle was able to be resumed. Second, it is also possible that gonarchs produce different crabs at different times, and that the portal storms only involved crabs from a gonarch that was producing only breeders at the time.
Lastly, one might note that the "mawmen" of Half-Life 1 appeared to have mouths running vertically in their midsection while in Half-Life 2 there only seems to be a hole in the chest cavity exposing the internal organs. It may also be noted that mawmen of Half-Life 1 could be seen "feeding" on dead scientists and security guards, while in Half-Life 2 they simply mill about or are found slumped over. I would say the most obvious reason for this is the Combine's control and influence over the crabs. The Combine, after taking over Xen, did what the Combine always does - adapts creatures it ensnares to fill roles in its expansionist conquest of other worlds. Having crabs breeding into gonarchs wherever they want would be contrary to the Combine's plans so it seems fairly obvious that they have simply weaponized the crabs, and in doing so removed their ability to completely mesh with the human hosts. This would explain why the crabs can jump off their hosts if the host is killed whereas they could not before, and also would explain the inability of the hosts to develop a mouth and become proper "mawmen". Eventually the zombified host would die and the crab would find a new host or eventually starve to death. This would in effect make the head crab shells a very effective smart bioweapon. The crabs are self-guiding, stealthy, and once they zombify someone they continue to be a weapon in the form of the zombie.One may also note that the Combine itself does not seem to be "crabable", at least, not at first. When the Combine's order is disrupted after Freeman teleports out with Alyx, the Combine begins having trouble with the crabs and zombies. After the teleporter is destroyed at the end of the game, the Combine soldiers become crabable in Episode 1. It may be that the reproductive suppression field that keeps humans from breeding is the same mechanism by which the crabs have been unable to crab Combine soldiers. As to its effect on regular zombies, we'll have to wait until Episode 2 to see what Valve has planned for crabs I suppose.
There are a few other unanswered questions. One is, where are the other Xen creatures? We've seen crabs, barnacles, zombies, and (briefly) an Ichthyosaur, leeches if you're unlucky enough to fall into the ocean, but no bullsquid. We've also not seen any of the X-race aliens from Opposing Force. Their fate and presence is a complete mystery at this point. Perhaps these questions will be answered later.
I hope that helps. I just wonder if Valve really has gone this deep into all of this or if they just make it up as they go.  |
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« Last Edit: 2007-07-22, 19:02 by Phoenix »
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Tabun
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Woah. Great read. :] When playing HL2, I always just assumed the Combine know how to make proper helmets/masks that were crab-proof. I've also had a bit of fun with this: |
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
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Yeah, I'm afraid I couldn't be arsed to find some decent shots of the correctly-coloured grav gun, or spend much time tweaking it. That would have been more appropriate. Just think of how launching crates and barrels into them (Why on earth weren't there any bowling balls in C17's appartments?! What was Valve (not) thinking?) is also bowling. :]
I have played Episode One, but I remember fairly little of it somehow -- I do remember the indoors shootout with the Strider.. Time to play it again, with better graphics.
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Lopson
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Still Going In Circles
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The elevator scene in Ep1 was particularly intense. Apparently, they even released a patch to reduce the number of respawning zombies in that section.
The entire game felt odd. half of the game, the only guns you carry around are the GravGun, the 9mm, the Spas and a few grenades. Then, all of a sudden, you gain access to the rest of the weapons. Can't complain though, Ep1 rocked like hell! |
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Kajet
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Wow... that's a long assed read there Phoenix, but informative and kinda entertaining. Maybe the reason you don't see any ichthyosaurs (outside of the first teleportation sequence) is because all the water is either too shallow or is like... sewers, places too cramped for one to live?
And G man... seriously anyone know WTF he is or does? or how/why you see him watching you every now and then?
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ReBoOt
Mean ol Swede
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Welll doom 3 owzn hl 2 imo sure hl2 has some real cool moments but after a couple of lvls i found my self just running towards the end so i could finaly place the game on the shelf.
Regarding Quake 4 well sadly that game is not good at all..not even close to doom 3 if u should compare those games.
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Gnam
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I agree with Pho on most points. Doom 3 was fun, the presentation was impressive, and the darkness didn't bother me, but I was annoyed by the imp-in-a-box level designs and the inability of the AI to do anything besides walk without a script. Also, I was very bothered by the level progression, and the fact that you spend the majority of the game in science labs instead of in hell. I go into more detail into these issues here: http://juliangnam.wordpress.com/2007/06/27/future-of-fps-ai/http://juliangnam.wordpress.com/2007/06/30/future-of-fps-environments/I had fun with the game, but I wish it had been more ambitious. It was impressive at the time, but Id were to make the same game with a Rage level of graphical detail today, it would still fail as a next gen game due to the simplistic gameplay. As for HL2, I was really underwhelmed by the game's structure. Rather than giving you a full environment to freely explore, they essentially just chased you through confined set pieces for the whole game. It felt too linear and scripted to me; I didn't really feel like I was running around in a city or roaming through the countryside, I felt like I was just stuck moving through a constricted level. I also felt like the game didn't have much else going for it...the firefights felt mundane as the weapons and enemies involved were not terribly interesting. The jump puzzles and crate puzzles were more annoying than compelling...all in all a good looking game with an ambitious story but weak gameplay. I wasn't gripped enough to play all the way through the game and just abandoned it part way through. |
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Phoenix
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You know that was one thing that some of the older games had going for them. Sure, you had specific barriers - red key, special door switch, etc, but how you fought was entirely up to you, and a lot of times you could go to various rooms before other rooms before encountering a specific "hard" barrier like a locked door. You didn't have to follow a narrow, cramped hallway. I think games like Quake IV and HL2 made it worse when they saddle you with an idiotic squad to get in your way in the already confined spaces you're having to fight in. I don't mind "find key/open door", or an overall linear progression in a game, but having some more freedom within that progression is kind of nice.
One thing I liked about the original Wolfenstein and Doom games was you could fight monsters one-on-one by luring them around if you wanted, or just charge in, guns blazing, and mow everything down in sight. Quake 1 and Quake 2 you could still do this to a large degree, and even in Half-Life. You also didn't have to kill everything to finish a level if you didn't want to. I can't think of a single place in Doom 3 where you can get away with not killing just about every monster you come across, and in Half-Life 2 it's even more important that you kill absolutely everything - except of course in the places early on where you have endless soldiers potshotting at you and you have to move. It seems to me that statically placed monsters has been replaced a lot with "wave rushing", like the Combine Overwatch assaults in HL2 and the scripted monster teleports in Doom 3. Waves work in Serious Sam because Serious Sam is extremely open. The parts of Doom 3 that seemed to "work" the best were when you'd open a door and round a corner, and there's some zombie roaming around and you're not entirely sure where they are and what they might be behind or what they might be doing. Unpredictability is what I think is lacking most in some of the newer games. I want monsters to get pissed off and fight each other, too.
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