Wolfire Games Forums

Ha ha, actually I haven't played HL2. I just hear how awesome it is. Especially Episode 1.

The case of Prey proves an interesting point. 3D realms had buckets of money to throw around and after ten years their game still hasn't made it to market. At the end of the day, it always comes down to the people.

Jeff wrote:Am I the only one who wasn't really impressed with Half Life 2? It was more like a movie than a video game. Episode one especially.

Ya, that's what I was thinking. Since the makers would rather give you quality over actual gameplay, everything turns out extremely plot-oriented. Not only that but, Episode 1 is pretty short and has crap-loads of puzzles and watching the chick fight instead of you (but it's actually more refreshing to have an invicible buddy, than to go solo. I hated those old Medal of Honor games). And hey, at least it's a good interactive movie, cheap too.

Did you guys hear that at the end of these episodes you turn evil? I forgot if it was Valve that mentioned it, but it's a good deja-vu feeling of Starwars.

Zantalos wrote:

Jeff wrote:Am I the only one who wasn't really impressed with Half Life 2? It was more like a movie than a video game. Episode one especially.

Ya, that's what I was thinking. Since the makers would rather give you quality over actual gameplay, everything turns out extremely plot-oriented. Not only that but, Episode 1 is pretty short and has crap-loads of puzzles and watching the chick fight instead of you (but it's actually more refreshing to have an invicible buddy, than to go solo. I hated those old Medal of Honor games). And hey, at least it's a good interactive movie, cheap too.

Did you guys hear that at the end of these episodes you turn evil? I forgot if it was Valve that mentioned it, but it's a good deja-vu feeling of Starwars.

1. If you're letting her do all the fighting, you're lazy and are not playing the game properly.
2. Alyx is not invincible. She can die.
3. Half Life 2 had plenty of action in it. How were they not focusing on gameplay? The whole gravity gun feature made the game about twice as fun, and that was a feature of gameplay. I don't understand how you think it was more of an interactive movie. There weren't even any cinematic cutscenes (I hate cinematic cutscenes), and the interactive cutscenes that were in the game were very short. So what's your point?
4. To reiterate Ninjas' point, what the hell would be the point in just shoving in loads and loads of shitty content, rather than making the game play the best that it can? That's why I hate Oblivion and all those other games. Hours and hours of repetitive drawl. Snore.

I guess most of the FF games were made in one year's time. They have really started to hammer them out quick recently.

I remember back in the day when Fallout 2 came out them saying that they got rid of the 3D animated heads from the first game because they just took too long to make. It's pretty awesome that everything in games now are up to that level of quality.

I'm going to agree with Mr. Renegade here..

I have played through both Half-Life 1 and 2, and i'm going to get Ep One
soon, and compared to my experience Jeff and Zantalos is talking about
something completly different.

Renegade_Turner Wrote: Though I really hate doing these triple quoting things. Takes up way too much space, but, it's hard to type without seeing the quotes. wait for it... wrote:

Zantalos wrote:

Jeff wrote:Am I the only one who wasn't really impressed with Half Life 2? It was more like a movie than a video game. Episode one especially.

Ya, that's what I was thinking. Since the makers would rather give you quality over actual gameplay, everything turns out extremely plot-oriented. Not only that but, Episode 1 is pretty short and has crap-loads of puzzles and watching the chick fight instead of you (but it's actually more refreshing to have an invincible buddy, than to go solo. I hated those old Medal of Honor games). And hey, at least it's a good interactive movie, cheap too.

Did you guys hear that at the end of these episodes you turn evil? I forgot if it was Valve that mentioned it, but it's a good deja-vu feeling of Starwars.

1. If you're letting her do all the fighting, you're lazy and are not playing the game properly.
2. Alyx is not invincible. She can die.
3. Half Life 2 had plenty of action in it. How were they not focusing on gameplay? The whole gravity gun feature made the game about twice as fun, and that was a feature of gameplay. I don't understand how you think it was more of an interactive movie. There weren't even any cinematic cutscenes (I hate cinematic cutscenes), and the interactive cutscenes that were in the game were very short. So what's your point?
4. To reiterate Ninjas' point, what the hell would be the point in just shoving in loads and loads of shitty content, rather than making the game play the best that it can? That's why I hate Oblivion and all those other games. Hours and hours of repetitive drawl. Snore.

Ok, my paragraph really wasn't supposed to be surported on its own.
~Yes, I know letting her do all the fighting is lazy and boring (she's so good at it though!) however, alot of spots (they aren't like boring spots, they're pretty fun) had a bunch of puzzle based fighting. You are given a gravity gun and basically have to do these puzzles while she watches your back. Things like shining your flashlight on mosters so she can get in some shots. Removing the steel plates so she can kill snipers, luring enemies into her field of vision, and clogging up antlion holes with cars, all while she gets to shoot every one for you. This ain't boring stuff, it just seems like a good interactive story when I'm playing it.
~ hmm, I'll have to play that episode again. Jeeze, I swore she was invincible, maybe not then.
~I must have confused gameplay with content my bad. Yes quality gameplay, instead of a longer game. This could really easily be viewed as a good thing (which it is), I just find it boring though (my opinion). I would rather have them create funner shooting mechanics (which FPSs normally don't do ) and things like that, but yeah, everything in that game was fun because you got into fun situations. The gravity gun is fun, not sure how crazy that idea was though. I mean smaller games like eclipse or bigger games like Cellfactor could create more crazy stuff to do with gravity. It's basically every games's pick up button, with the added magnet and heavy-throw built into it. Also I didn't really mention those cutscenes but, man, those got pretty old pretty quick. They'd all be talking to each other (ocasionally looking at you from time to time), and you basically stand there like an idiot and mess up all their crap while they talk (usually involves a bunch of bunny hopping). But nevermind that, it can actually be fun to some people who don't want to just skip the scene all together, it's a pretty neat thing they're doing.
~But it's like, Fallout 2 didn't have crappy content. There was a bunch of stuff that they just threw-in to let you do whatever you wanted. Saving a nuclear powerplant, overthrowing the Reno gangs after being a made man, finding a cure for jet, becoming a highly notified boxer, shutting down a cult, just doing all these things that you could tackle a whole bunch of ways (not always though). They weren't even necessary to do either, you just sort of stumbled across them so frequently. I do agree that Oblivion was boring, that content was pretty stale and repetative. No witty dialogues or anything just kill people (or steal something), it would have actually worked out if gameplay wasn't so bland too. You often had to horseride to all these random places, and suffer through their slow movement and getting hitched up in the terrain. Fighting was pretty broken too, the power attacks are just so redicules after a while. It shifts the camera at wierd angles and makes you miss targets a whole lot more than you should. That running attack was especially lame, you'd either run right pass your targets, or end up running into them while you did your slow ass execution. But I'd rather call Half-life 2 with having great level designs and quality content, not a ton of content. And not gameplay either, the reason Half-life is so fun is because of the quality of the content, the excessive amounts of time they spend correcting their levels. Because I still wouldn't say that that game has tried a whole lot of things to First Person Shooters. You have all of the core gameplay mechanics in pretty much all FPSs. Since Half-Life is fun because of the short quality levels, I don't play it so much, and the replay value is all in multiplayer games like The Battlegrounds and Counter-Strike mods (I personally don't play these so much, you have to be good at CS for it to have some fun).

And likewise, games such as Blackshades and Lugaru actually have a fun game you can play. You can play pretty much anytype of level and it will be fun. Smaller games like this that can be applied to the market pretty quick (well, quicker than 5 or 10 years), and they're are made so well that any content is great content. It actually makes sense why you play them. It's why Lugaru would be able to shove in any content they wanted too, and that game would just be even more amazing (the main thing is that it's not just scripted fun, it really is fun to kill bunnies). And with the time it takes it's crazy how good it is, fluid movements, realistic water, oh my gosh!

But totally, if you haven't played Half-Life 2: Episode one, go out and buy it if you really liked half-life 2. The game isn't bad at all, it just keeps me awake at night trying to ponder why companies spend so much time on things like this.

Edit: and how well the new editor is going, does that mean that David doesn't have to do all the levels by himself? Will pretty much everybody on the team help make the levels? Seems like it, that is just too awesome. Knowing that whatever you make, it will not only look great, but will automatically be extremely fun too!

And what is it about Lugaru that gives it replay value Half Life 2 doesn't have? I think Half Life 2 has lots of replay value. I've already completed it four times and I'm going through it again.

And who said that innovation = quality? Alright, it doesn't do too many outrageous and innovative things, but that's not the point. it does everything RIGHT, so it's fun.

The only thing that annoyed me slightly about the game was the the rebels running around, getting in your way, shouting "FOLLOW FREEMAN!" and then running out in front of a sniper and getting killed. That was the only tiny thing that irked me about the game. The rest is flawless.

Alright, you mightn't want to sit through cutscenes, maybe you never liked them to begin with, but I think that's being picky. None of them even lasted that long. Anyway, part of the presence of cutscenes allows you a break between action. I like a break from time to time between action sequences, kind of like Shakespeare. In almost all his plays, Shakespeare would have lesser scenes to give the audience a break from the tension.

Another thing, do you not remember things in Half Life 2 like where you had to go and set up the three turrets wherever you wished, and then you were swarmed by about 50-60 combine soldiers, along with about 10-20 manhacks, who constantly knocked your turrets over with grenades, causing you to have to rush over, set it up again and continue fighting?
That was some of the most intense action I've ever went through in a game, and it's little sequences like that which make Half Life 2 so great. They don't just throw loads of enemies wherever, they think out how it's going to affect the gamer when they come up against them. I don't understand how people don't see how great the game does everything.

You might not think it has replay value, but loads of other people do. I think it's the best game I've ever played.

Ok, I'll take your word for it.

But yes, I'm saying that the fun new things that Lugaru is doing = quality
But that doesn't mean what Half-life 2 is doing is bad quality. I think you made me switch sides all the time while I was writing it up so I think I kind of missed my whole point.

Ok revision! Innovative ideas contribute to great gameplay but also through games focused on perfection and doing things right... well crap, they're fun too!

Yeah, I remembered that part with the turrets but, I think I was just too flustered with setting the damn things up, I forget if it was easy to do or.. I think I kept messing up on the balancing issues because they wouldn't drop straight down when I grabbed them. I'll have to play that part again.

The parts in that game that I liked the most was the beggining of the story since it was all interactive and stuff. Too bad there wasn't any unarmed attack, I so would have screwed up that whole time-line. And what about throwing things, I wish they had a part to just drop something on them, without the grav gun.

It's kind of pointless trying to tell people what they should and shouldn't like. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Here's my opinion on Half Life 2 / Episode 1.

- It was incredibly easy. You seriously could just stand still and gun down your enemies. The danger was an illusion. Not to mention Alyx had a machine-gun pistol and was (almost) invincible.

- It was incredibly formulaic. "Oh no, there is yet another fulcrum here! Luckily there is a lot of random heavy shit laying around" or "Oh no! There are 6 ant lion holes! Luckily there are exactly 6 cars right over here!" This happens ad nauseum.

- It was a rail shooter, no different from Time Crisis or those other games at the arcade. Ever notice how virtually the entire game is "Gordon, we're stuck! Any ideas? No? Oh, look, I'll wave my magic hacking device and this door will now open!" Kill a few more of the ~five different types of baddies, maybe solve one of the three different kinds of "puzzles" with the gravity gun, and repeat.

How could you possibly replay Half Life 2? Doing these intelligence insulting puzzles once was bad enough. The whole reason why Lugaru can be played over and over is because of its combat system. Half Life's combat consists of you standing still with your virtually impermeable combat suit shooting weak baddies with a machine gun while Alyx backs you up with her machine pistol.

OK screw what I said, Jeff has a point! I'm going back to my old idea that Half Life 2 has no replay value, and stale!
Yeah, even though it's pointless to persuade people, I just got persuaded into not liking that game again. Booyah, I'm such a dolt*.

I just got reminded to what exactly made Lugaru fun and half-Life a... what's the word? Whatever I don't care!


2. Dolt (urban dictionary)
One who lacks knowledge of any and all things around him/her. An individual who has a severe mental retardation, and paints their (racing car)interior red and yellow.

The guy who is selling his (racing car) on Ebay is a fucking dolt.

What is this guy on?

Renegade_Turner wrote:What is this guy on?

Oh you don't know how funny that is!
(totally jacked that from someone else's post)

Jeff wrote:It's kind of pointless trying to tell people what they should and shouldn't like. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Here's my opinion on Half Life 2 / Episode 1.

- It was incredibly easy. You seriously could just stand still and gun down your enemies. The danger was an illusion. Not to mention Alyx had a machine-gun pistol and was (almost) invincible.

- It was incredibly formulaic. "Oh no, there is yet another fulcrum here! Luckily there is a lot of random heavy shit laying around" or "Oh no! There are 6 ant lion holes! Luckily there are exactly 6 cars right over here!" This happens ad nauseum.

- It was a rail shooter, no different from Time Crisis or those other games at the arcade. Ever notice how virtually the entire game is "Gordon, we're stuck! Any ideas? No? Oh, look, I'll wave my magic hacking device and this door will now open!" Kill a few more of the ~five different types of baddies, maybe solve one of the three different kinds of "puzzles" with the gravity gun, and repeat.

How could you possibly replay Half Life 2? Doing these intelligence insulting puzzles once was bad enough. The whole reason why Lugaru can be played over and over is because of its combat system. Half Life's combat consists of you standing still with your virtually impermeable combat suit shooting weak baddies with a machine gun while Alyx backs you up with her machine pistol.

Play it on Hard mode. That solves most of the combat issues you speak of. Or, better yet, change the config file to make it even harder. I thought Half-Life 2 was a lot of fun, one of the best games I've ever played. And while some of the "wow" moments die down the second time you play, you can't deny that the game is sheer quality. [/offtopic]

Back on topic, please.

You can't just change the difficulty up!

If you do that then you're really playing Time Crises, except it's broken. Hiding behind cover is basically useless because they somehow hit whatever part of your body that's sticking out. Combines have virtually no reload time whatsoever so anything tactical like that wouldn't work either, it's like a constant flow of bursts. Your main plan is to just shoot them when you see them, you don't get any penalties fo doing so. And if you are overwelmed it doesn't even matter, no regeneration means you basically have to hang back and let Alyx finish the job till you get one inside a damn crate or something.

You probably shouldn't be taking all that into consideration, I haven't played that game in a while. In fact, I don't even know if half the stuff I said was true...

But Albab, give us topic! Anything besides just saying get back on topic.
Ok, since it's up to me (which it isn't)... I think something really open ended would be- Wait a, how exactly do you aim a bow in first person? Without a crosshair isn't that impposible to do? I mean, I've seen people shoot a bow before (carnivals count, so does middle school archery lessons) and you can't to see anything precise other than where they guy is sorta aiming at. How does that work again?