What Games Are You Playing?
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CitizenGeek
Guild Member
I got Half Life 2 today and I've spent about 3 hours playing it. It's great so far - very clever and entertaining. I just hope it doesn't get ridiculously difficult like the original Half Life did :]
Gacha said:
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I love this clip so much.
CitizenGeek
Guild Member
I'm now making my way through Ravenholm in Half Life 2 and I'm starting to understand why everyone loves this game so much. The gravity gun is awesome! :]
MrChom
School Idol
Half-Life espouses an ethos on gaming that I really don't get along with. I dislike how it tells its story, I have no geniune interest in any of the characters, I don't particularly like the environments or enemies, and I generally think it has some truly lazy sections in there that make me want to grab the developer by the head and scream "WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AN HOLY WERE YOU THINKING?"
Most people seem to hail stuff like the Black Mesa Train Ride (the opening to the original Half-Life) as some kind of masterful stroke of genius scene setting...I just viewed it as five and a half minutes of non playable tedium with a really annoying voiceover. Similarly Half-Life 2 opened with scene setting that I just really didn't care for.
It is me, I know this. I prefer the Halo style of doing things where you're rarely locked in somewhere, free to move about and do as you will while someone explains something at you. It really really gets on my nerves....if my only choice is to stand somewhere and look at someone while they talk then make it a cutscene...that way you can at least have some nice camera moves and such without having the player wander round, miss half of it, and feel annoyed...or worse still have someone playing a second time and be there screaming "YES, GET ON WITH IT, I KNOW, JUST LET ME THROUGH THE DAMN MALFUNCTIONING TELEPORTER!!!".
The fact it lets you do that with dialogue is bad, but then it lets you miss out set pieces too....which just makes me ask WHY? I mean, if something is interesting and cool you want the player focussed there...if your first time player wanders in somewherethen back out, and misses a huge explosion that knocks out a wall and has troopers pouring in while buildings are on fire in the background, and the sun glints through a tower block....you want them to see it...at least once....not just miss out on it randomly.
The fact I actually used to map for Half-Life is somewhat ironic, but hey, such is life. I just really do not get where the developers were coming from, I don't mind other people enjoying it, but like I said....can't stand the art direction, storytelling, characters, etc. Ironically I'd probably be okay with the underlying gameplay if I could get past that superficial layer of muddy brown/beige/grey that coats everything in sight.
It's like Portal...half the Internet seems to dislike the opening and then say it brightens up once you get past the pit of burning fiery doom. Me, totally disagree, I loved the game up to that point and would quite happilly have seen you die in the pit of fire just because it would have been more interesting, and would have skipped the wholly DULL bit that came afterwards. As it was you just end up with some empty grimey offices and generic boss battle #12 in which you kill the boss with their own weaponry.
Enough ranting, I'm probably in for a good flaming for wholly unpopular opinions on what were, to my mind, not entirely fantastic games
Most people seem to hail stuff like the Black Mesa Train Ride (the opening to the original Half-Life) as some kind of masterful stroke of genius scene setting...I just viewed it as five and a half minutes of non playable tedium with a really annoying voiceover. Similarly Half-Life 2 opened with scene setting that I just really didn't care for.
It is me, I know this. I prefer the Halo style of doing things where you're rarely locked in somewhere, free to move about and do as you will while someone explains something at you. It really really gets on my nerves....if my only choice is to stand somewhere and look at someone while they talk then make it a cutscene...that way you can at least have some nice camera moves and such without having the player wander round, miss half of it, and feel annoyed...or worse still have someone playing a second time and be there screaming "YES, GET ON WITH IT, I KNOW, JUST LET ME THROUGH THE DAMN MALFUNCTIONING TELEPORTER!!!".
The fact it lets you do that with dialogue is bad, but then it lets you miss out set pieces too....which just makes me ask WHY? I mean, if something is interesting and cool you want the player focussed there...if your first time player wanders in somewherethen back out, and misses a huge explosion that knocks out a wall and has troopers pouring in while buildings are on fire in the background, and the sun glints through a tower block....you want them to see it...at least once....not just miss out on it randomly.
The fact I actually used to map for Half-Life is somewhat ironic, but hey, such is life. I just really do not get where the developers were coming from, I don't mind other people enjoying it, but like I said....can't stand the art direction, storytelling, characters, etc. Ironically I'd probably be okay with the underlying gameplay if I could get past that superficial layer of muddy brown/beige/grey that coats everything in sight.
It's like Portal...half the Internet seems to dislike the opening and then say it brightens up once you get past the pit of burning fiery doom. Me, totally disagree, I loved the game up to that point and would quite happilly have seen you die in the pit of fire just because it would have been more interesting, and would have skipped the wholly DULL bit that came afterwards. As it was you just end up with some empty grimey offices and generic boss battle #12 in which you kill the boss with their own weaponry.
Enough ranting, I'm probably in for a good flaming for wholly unpopular opinions on what were, to my mind, not entirely fantastic games
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MrChom said:
I stopped here... but carried on since it was like 1/3 of the post. Anyway, I'm shocked and appauled, MrChom, I generally believed you were some fairly intelligent person with good taste in gaming and such, it seems I was wrong, dead wrong. I knew you were a Halo fan, I could feel it. You dirty Halo fan. >:0
Oh well, can't win them all, also Portal was pretty awesome, I personally loved it, the escape part was a little dull though, I'll agree there, and the final boss wasn't much to be desired, but the way it ended, all open-ended... I WANTED MORE.
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MrChom
School Idol
Lupus Inu said:
Heh, most H-L fans do stop reading there to be honest. I just find that Halo's method of taking you into cutscenes, showing you what you need to see there, and dumping you back in to be a much more effective method of getting that kind of story across than anything Half-Life did for me. I'm not saying either is better or worse, both are at heart honed FPS engines with solid design principles...the separators being the art direction, story direction, and level design....and I just find Halo's better suits my gaming tastes...I love the fact it seems more physical (what with the slower crosshair, and the satisfying melee attacks, like you're actually moving rather than PC FPS games and their inevitably flighty controls) and I especially love the stirring score that leads you through it all.
Like I said, not saying Halo or Half-Life is better, just that one suits my gaming tastes more than the other.
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CitizenGeek
Guild Member
I'm approaching the end of HL2 now and I'm really, really enjoying it. I'm not a big fan of FPS games, but HL2 is doing a great job of winning me over. There are some really, really clever parts in the game, too.
Anyone played HL2: Ep One or Ep Two?
Anyone played HL2: Ep One or Ep Two?
Cloud Strife
Vampire Ninja
Played both Episode 1 & 2 and i can honestly say they are miles better than Half Life 2. Has been and will be for quite awhile the best games i've played so far. If there is any other FPS on the market that immerses you into the environment and the story, i would dearly like to know.
I prefered Episode 1 to Episode 2, personally, I felt I could trust Alex completely as an AI partner as opposed to some others... the whole race against time and rush about it. Episode 2 was great and opened up a lot of new things, but I still prefer Episode 1.
EDIT: Also, eight hours into Final Fantasy IV DS... I played it non-stop without a break, just beat Cagnazzo with barely any MP left. This game is just as great as I remembered it.
EDIT: Also, eight hours into Final Fantasy IV DS... I played it non-stop without a break, just beat Cagnazzo with barely any MP left. This game is just as great as I remembered it.
CitizenGeek
Guild Member
Just finished HL2 a few minutes ago. It really was an awesome game - more or less well deserving of it's reputation. I like that it never got ridiculously hard, too. Bravo, Valve! I'm looking forward to Ep One and Ep Two! :]
Nope, not yet! It was suggested to me that I ought to play Portal after Ep One and before Ep Two, so I think I'll do that. I might try TF2 out tomorrow, but I'm fairly awful at multiplaying so I doubt I'll spend too much time on it.
eggybob said:
Nope, not yet! It was suggested to me that I ought to play Portal after Ep One and before Ep Two, so I think I'll do that. I might try TF2 out tomorrow, but I'm fairly awful at multiplaying so I doubt I'll spend too much time on it.
CitizenGeek
Guild Member
And now I have completed the "Lost Coast" level of HL2, that I downloaded from Steam. It's basically a very short level that didn't make it into the final game. It was fun, but the whole point of it is to show of Valve's HDR stuff and my laptop is waaaay too weak for that, so I had to run it on the lowest options which more or less ruined the entire point of it. Still, it was fun! :]
Oh Yeah, I'm playing Spore whenever I can be bothered. Obviously, I'm taking my time, still on the creature stage.. My brother is much further, though. It looks.. interesting to say the least.
I doubt it'll take off like TS, but it'll do for a while. Probably better than TS3 will ever dream to be, anyway. Until TS3 can do anything other than make people walk out their houses, its a cash-in, it is.
I doubt it'll take off like TS, but it'll do for a while. Probably better than TS3 will ever dream to be, anyway. Until TS3 can do anything other than make people walk out their houses, its a cash-in, it is.