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herooftime1000

Zero Punctuation

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kristus and myk (more or less) said:
I personally didn't find the Half-Life all that good.

Well you guys do recognize that you have pretty niche tastes when it comes to FPS right?

Nothing at all wrong with that, but outside of doomworld and a handful of other special interest websites, I've rarely met anyone who considers themselves semi serious gamers but doesn't like the Half-Life series. It's beloved by most gamers who enjoy a good singleplayer game.

Most real world gamers I know hold it as one of the best singleplayer games ever made, and I since I've actually met Yahtzee himself through these people, it make seance that he'd love it too.

I like you guys, really, I do! but you guys are the LAST people I'd talk to if I wanted impressions on modern video games.

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Well, I'm not saying that I'm any kind of authority of what makes a game good. But I've long ago stopped using the majority as any kind of authority either. ;)

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Captain Red said:

Goddamn halo >:(


Amen! I bought Halo 3 just to see if it were indeed as fantastic as people say it is. Its not.

It is a short just above average FPS that has it's moments. And that's it. I don't think modern games suck. I but i still think that the majority's "taste" in games is getting rather poor. :(

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One of the few games he doesn't show much pessimism is Painkiller, because he sees it for what it is (an arcade-style FPS), and if he likes PK, that's always cool. I would look foward to watching a review of Doom 4/Rage/RTCW2 when they are released.

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Reviewer points out obvious flaws in games while ignoring the bigger picture? Clearly he deserves the mangasm he seems to induce everywhere.

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Zaldron said:

Reviewer points out obvious flaws in games while ignoring the bigger picture? Clearly he deserves the mangasm he seems to induce everywhere.


That's not true, just watch his review for Painkiller.

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Captain Red said:

Well you guys do recognize that you have pretty niche tastes when it comes to FPS right?

Nothing at all wrong with that, but outside of doomworld and a handful of other special interest websites, I've rarely met anyone who considers themselves semi serious gamers but doesn't like the Half-Life series. It's beloved by most gamers who enjoy a good singleplayer game.

Most real world gamers I know hold it as one of the best singleplayer games ever made, and I since I've actually met Yahtzee himself through these people, it make seance that he'd love it too.

I like you guys, really, I do! but you guys are the LAST people I'd talk to if I wanted impressions on modern video games.

Half-life spawned a decade full of "play-it-once interactive movie" video games. Half-life can burn in hell.

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AndrewB said:

Half-life spawned a decade full of "play-it-once interactive movie" video games. Half-life can burn in hell.


Ya know, I was just thinking about how video games nowadays are almost entirely aimed toward a visual movie-like experience with in depth storylines, cutscenes, etc. I didn't really consider half-life to be the root of that cause, but it's a possibility. Despite that though, I did enjoy half-life.

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Did Half-Life start that? I don't know, I've only played it in deathmatch mode.

It probably wasn't a bad idea, but I agree that it totally blows that every game is like that.

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Halo did more harm to video games then Half-Life ever did.

Half-Life lead to the creation of System Shock 2 and Deus Ex while Halo managed to trick game developers into thinking that you can make a FPS on a console just as good on a PC.

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AndrewB said:

Half-life spawned a decade full of "play-it-once interactive movie" video games.

Never played Final Fantasy VII then? There was a PC version.

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Captain Red said:

Half-Life lead to the creation of System Shock 2 and Deus Ex

citation needed

If anything System Shock and Thief led to SS2 and DX.

In retrospect Half-Life was utterly boring and had no replay value whatsoever. Unreal was a lot better, even Q2 was more fun.

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At least in half life you had control of the character through 98% of the game. And in that 2% it was short sequences, all in first person and all in the engine, not FMVs. Compare that to final fantasy/mgs and it's a slightly nicer way to tell the story.

Obviously it's immensely linear and scripted so i can see what you mean by the "interactive movie" thing, but at least you don't get control taken away from you every ten minutes.

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Belial said:

citation needed

If anything System Shock and Thief led to SS2 and DX.

In retrospect Half-Life was utterly boring and had no replay value whatsoever. Unreal was a lot better, even Q2 was more fun.

Speak for yourself. The combat in Half-Life far more compelling then quake 2 and unreal was down right bad. Pretty green lit canyons can make a man forget boring weapons and annoying to fight bad guys. Go on, boot it up again. Maybe you like fighting bad guys who can take 20 rockets and magically flip out of the way as soon as you think about pulling the trigger. I sure as fuck don't.

Half-Life might have been an "interactive movie" but it was an "interactive movie" with fun combat and interesting enemies.

Also Gabe Newell advised iron storm on Deus Ex during it's devolopment.

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Captain Red said:

Good point

Goddamn halo >:(

I've only played Halo: CE, and I found it fun.

Though I haven't played it since I beat it. It was very linear. once I beat it, I felt like there wasn't much else to do with it.

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Captain Red said:

Maybe you like fighting bad guys who can take 20 rockets and magically flip out of the way as soon as you think about pulling the trigger. I sure as fuck don't.


Loved it for that exact reason, reminded me of the challenge that Descent 2 was. Found the same quality in Halo's Legendary mode later on.

Half-Life's fun combat and interesting enemies, aka walk up to a marine and shoot in head with pistol over and over again because they're too dumb to do anything about it.

The stuff about DX on nuwen ain't news to me, and I fail to see how HL had any major significance in making DX what it is.

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The titan fights were a bit of a drag but the Skaarj were always fun to mess around with. And if you didn't like their projectile dodging it's not like the automag or shock rifle were weak weapons.

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Half-life's spot in the spectrum between gameplay and storytelling is exactly my favourite. I'm starting to have less appreciation for games that are "fun" - they need to have a more powerful story or atmosphere as well - but I also don't just want to watch cutscenes, or else I would turn my computer off and go watch a move. Valve did it right.

As for whether this game reviewer is more "right" about games than you are, I would say no. Your opinions on a subjective matter are equally valid - you are definitely allowed to like a game even when everybody else hates it. However, I always recommend trying to understand the criticisms that others have about a game (and about other artwork). Try to see where the reviewer is coming from. With time, if you think carefully about criticisms and the games being criticized, you'll develop your own critic's sense of the strengths and weaknesses of a game, so reviews like these won't catch you off-guard.

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Although I've found that most of the games I like are gameplay-based and lack much of a story (like Doom) more story-intensive games definitely have their place in the gaming world. I enjoy playing games that have involved stories and cutscenes and the whole bit, as long as the story is interesting enough and doesn't dominate too much...as Creaphis says, there really is a happy medium between too much and too little story.

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While people are still talking about Half-Life...

If I want to have a story, I'll read a book.

If I want to "have fun", I'll play a game.

Of course there's nothing wrong with mixing a story with a game, but in that case it should be done while still keeping the focus on gameplay. For me HL failed this, it was generally speaking a slow shooter (Doom, for an example, would count as fast) without actually having much tension that you'd expect from a slow game (suspense, horror, sneaking elements, etc.).

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I still enjoy playing through Half-Life once in a while, although I thought Opposing Force did everything Valve did, but better. I'm still really impressed at the waypoint system they developed for enemies, especially the grunts. It was the first game I played a game where it actually felt like I was fighting half way intelligent enemies. They would take cover, run away when hurt, throw grenades, and run like hell when grenades were thrown. However I would say it heralded a new age of gaming where every game felt it needed to be scripted. Half-Life wasn't terrible with scripting, it feels like they used it just enough to make the game cinematic and entertaining but the actual combat with enemies is still random enough to make it fun on a replay. After it came out though the bulk of first person shooters seem to focus entirely on a scripted cinematic approach which just gets very dull. Half-Life 2 is probably the perfect example of this. The enemies aren't any fun to fight at all, in fact to me they seem less intelligent than the HL1 enemies. They barely seem to dodge or seek cover, grenades throw them for a loop, and they tend to just stand in front of you soaking up bullets. The combat sequences just seem to be a short break between the various over exaggerated set pieces and scripted scenes. Plus using a buggy or a boat for over 1/3 of the game gets old.

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Half-Life 1 was a really fun game for me because it kept the quake-esque speed while having a variety of other game assets. In other words, the movement was very similar to quake and similar games that most of the more modern games felt very slow and boring; now that's nothing revolutionary, but to me it's a foundation on a great game.
The variety I referred to was the fact that Half-Life's story(for lack of a better term) has a beginning, middle, end. The path you play in the game, although linear, literally spans from when you enter Black Mesa until you reach the portal to Xen and enter it. That's the advantage behind having a fully connected, no-cutscene system. I feel most other games don't have the complete timeline of events that HL does and their story is segmented or scattered due to changing POV, or lack of content.
Speaking of content, having a timeline of events in the game allows a variety of guns, monsters, and levels. HL has a good amount of these elements to fit the story but a lot of other games in comparison fall flat.
The part I liked the least was the scripted encounters. Jello already elaborated on this, but there are a lot of encounters that pretty much happen the same way every time and take away from the interactivity. I think this is where AndrewB is coming from. There are too many games that came after HL that abused scripted encounters without having the variety of game content to back it up.
HL2 and its episodes are pretty good but for different reasons that made HL1 a great game, IMO.

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Captain Red said:

Half-Life lead to the creation of System Shock 2 and Deus Ex

These two games were in production before the release of Half-Life. SS2 started in late 1997, Deus Ex started around May 1998 (and was planned and planned for several years prior, before Half-Life "revolutionized" anything.)

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leileilol said:

These two games were in production before the release of Half-Life. SS2 started in late 1997, Deus Ex started around May 1998 (and was planned and planned for several years prior, before Half-Life "revolutionized" anything.)


I still think half-life was a allot better.

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Ive faded away from story lines and am more intrigued by simple games with addictive traits. Contra is the god of all gameplay if you ask me.

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JohnnyRancid said:

Ive faded away from story lines and am more intrigued by simple games with addictive traits. Contra is the god of all gameplay if you ask me.


Yea, a good story is can be a real treat but gameplay comes first.

And unlike a good story, good gameplay can be enjoyed more than just once.

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