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Just Completed Half-Life 2
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 Re: Just Completed Half-Life 2
Posted by hl_world on Sat Aug 25th at 2:29am 2007

Totally agree with you bengreenwood. Half-Life, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift combined had way more style than HL2



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 Re: Just Completed Half-Life 2
Posted by omegaslayer on Sat Aug 25th at 2:31am 2007

The exposure of the RPG in the middle of the room is always a heated debate. I guess a good reference to something that you might get is in Halo's Blood Gultch in the center of the field is the rocket launcher. You have it there in the open, but you risk getting picked off by pistols and sniper fire or even the occasional flying warthog. Its the whole risks/benefits type thing.

As a further note crossfire was one of the most celebrated maps on the original game (well they all were really). It was so popular Dario Casali made a remake of it called doublecross (same concept).

Generally though arron your not getting the whole experience of HL1 DM. You kinda got in the game too late to really appreciate what HL1 had accomplished.


Posting And You



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 Re: Just Completed Half-Life 2
Posted by Cash Car Star on Sat Aug 25th at 7:21am 2007

Not all the HLDM maps are good. Lambda Complex is a pile of junk. Hooray dead ends! Hooray poor weapon placement! Hooray useless bouncepads! If you want the experience Lambda Complex should have been, play ReNo's Echo.

And of course no one truly likes Bounce.

And the one with the tracktrain (name escapes me right now) would have been great if the tracktrain code wasn't so hysterically buggy in multiplayer.



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 Re: Just Completed Half-Life 2
Posted by wil5on on Sat Aug 25th at 7:22am 2007

Thats what tends to happen when you take a map straight out of the SP campaign and pop deathmatch entities in it.

Crossfire = good. Undertow = good.




"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"
- My yr11 Economics teacher



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 Re: Just Completed Half-Life 2
Posted by DrGlass on Sat Aug 25th at 7:25am 2007

I found HL2 more of a grand cinematic experience, while HL1 was an art house film. Both great in their own way but really not up for comparison.

Though I was able to play through HL1&2 a number of times each, but I never really find myself getting lost due to my more intimate knowledge of how levels are designed.

Also, I never mind the lack of enemies. I feel like most games have a bunch of babbies that just get stronger and stronger rather than the same guys in more challenging situations. For instance, Metal Gear Solid. You are up against grunts for 98% of the game minus a boss fight or helicoptered fight. HL2 pulled off the same thing, rather than boss fights you had points where you are faced with very challenging grunt fights.

anyways, I'm sure we will see some more depth in coming episodes.



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 Re: Just Completed Half-Life 2
Posted by Riven on Sat Aug 25th at 7:47am 2007

Well, I'd have to disagree. Let me explain:

Call me naive, but I thought HL2 had a good balance of enemy types. Grunt appearances are always going to be the most common. There are more than 3 "factions" of enemies, which always keeps things interesting, and the environments were superb (not in retrospect any longer of course). The kinds of enemies kept me on my feet. The infamous headcrab never ceases to surprise me with its jump attack, the Combine ball spawners were kinda cool, along with the striders and now the hunters, which make me feel like they're more efficient at killing things than I am, which really makes me feel uneasy when thinking about going up against one.

The manhacks were a cool innovation that freaked me out from time to time and the switch with the antlions from foes to friendlies was a surprise. Not to mention the engine, and the weapons, and many other things like AI, gravity gun and physics and such.

Remember, this game came out in 2004, and we've had quite a few games since then copy many aspects of it. Are you guys sure you're not giving this game too hard a crit in retrospect? Think about what you were thinking when you played it after it first came out. I thought it was pretty freaking awesome all around.

/2 cents




Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202



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 Re: Just Completed Half-Life 2
Posted by Le Chief on Sat Aug 25th at 9:24am 2007

I always liked subtransit from half-life 1. Probley my favourite map in half-life 1.


Aaron's Stuff



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 Re: Just Completed Half-Life 2
Posted by reaper47 on Sat Aug 25th at 2:56pm 2007

? quote:
The manhacks were a cool innovation that freaked me out from time to time...


Yes, the manhacks... I wish HL2 had more truly innovative enemies. Probably just as cool are the new sentry guns (which can be moved around, used as friendlies etc) Those two were probably the best examples for what went right with the enemy changes in HL2.

I also liked the antlion tunnels suddenly becomming relevant and how rollermines could be used against enemies (once or twice) in Episode 1.

There should be more 3-party fights (aliens vs grunts vs player). They're totally absent from HL2 except for a few random zombie encounters. I miss those moments from HL1 were you heard a fight between aliens and grunts from a distance, only to take on what's left once you enter the fight.


Why snark works.



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 Re: Just Completed Half-Life 2
Posted by bengreenwood on Sat Aug 25th at 6:27pm 2007

Riven, Half-Life 2 is the most recent FPS game I've played, so I'm not comparing it to today's games. And why should Grunt appearances be the most common? They probably were in Half-Life 1, compared to the other types of monsters, but in HL2 there are more grunts than all the other types of enemies put together! Also once you got near the Lambda Complex the grunts disappeared altogether, made way for other enemies i.e. assassins and alien grunts, which kept things fresh.

The new sentry guns were cool, I'll give you that. Knocking them over was fun. I dunno, maybe it's just the level design of some of the episodes. If they'd done more with the aliens in the middle episodes it would be different. And they could have had cooler grunts in the later episodes than just the same old ones in white costumes.

I'm definitely looking forward to making an episode for HL2, don't get me wrong (playing as the Combine against those rebels I found so annoying). I like HL2, I just don't think it's as good as the original.

BTW Dr. Glass yeah MGS did have loads of grunts but it also had really cool boss characters every so often like Sniper Wolf etc. Plus it was a s**tload shorter than HL2.. and not as good anyway imo.





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 Re: Just Completed Half-Life 2
Posted by Cash Car Star on Sat Aug 25th at 7:55pm 2007

? quote:
I always liked subtransit from half-life 1. Probley my favourite map in half-life 1.

You never tried to play it online when 56k was the standard. It's a good map, but the technical limitations at the times frowned upon it.




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