I've never played any Half Life games

[hoverdog]

Wow. DraQ has actually found a worthy spam-quoting rival

 

[Carrion]

Let me guess, adding something to jump on, duck under, evade, adding secret hard-to-reach stashes that just happened to have been buried under the rubble, using the environment to actively obsruct the visibility, thus keeping the player guessing what's behind that corner or a toppled giant piece of some broken machinery, instead of just traversing the straight 15m-hallway from the beginning to end without doing anything else, would screw this up completely as well?

I'm not sure what your point is. You just described the first couple of hours of Half-Life. It takes about a second to sprint through that 15-metre hallway anyway, so I really don't see the problem in allowing the levels to breathe a bit.

 

[DraQ]

Unreal was basically an arena-based FPS, build upon the combat situations with a single type of enemy - the Scaarj (of a variety of different flavors). There were others, but they were somewhat (or even much) less interesting gameplay-wise. That enemy was mobile as fuck and required you to run around the entire arena in order to evade (and yes, apart from some ASMD-wielding Skaarj later on, Unreal was all about evading

Yes, Unreal was about evading, and yes, Unreal was absolutely awesome, but it still had empty-ish levels. It also, as much as I love Unreal's arsenal, didn't really require much situation-dependent weapon switching. Most important factor in weapon selection was whatever had the most ammo, the rest was pretty much the division between projectiles that are actively dodged by Skaarj, and projectiles Skaarj weren't scripted to dodge (which I consider AI oversight, as Skaarj should try to dodge all projectiles they can see unless capable of just tanking damage) plus hitscans, and you could still fight Skaarj with projectiles they dodged, it was just harder to score a hit.

Contrast HL where situational utility of different weapons varied a lot and effective use of different weapons required different tactics.

hitscanning vortigaunt

Vortigaunt attack was slow and easy to either avoid or break by killing the alien.

and the big alien dudes with the loads of auto-aiming alien flies

Had different cover requirements than HECU dudes because, you know, homing ammo, but no 'nades.

What? No, you can't die, it's a tutorial, stupid.

It's perfectly ok to give player a few warning shots at the beginning. HL does that quite well at the beginning without feeling forced - there are no situations where player asks themselves how they survived that, but there are some good "this could've been you" moments that make player pay more attention afterwards and you can get killed, for example in control room.

The environment got BLOATED specifically to FIT all that "cinematic environment"

Bullshit. Environment "got bloated" to not feel like abstract FPS level.

You might as well bitch that sunspire didn't need to be almost a km from base to tip as all the ocntent would fit just as easily in a 100m one, or that Trench was too big. Whatever.

How is that not hijacking?

By the virtue of not having "we interrupt the gameplay to showcase this awesome scripted setpiece!" moments cowaduties and ass-ass are peppered with.

Scripted sequences in HL either don't interact with gameplay, do so by removal or insertion legitimate mechanical elements or occur during downtime.
About the only that stretch that are tentacle poking into control room, but it was brief and you can't kill tentacles with regular weapons anyway, and your capture, but as a method of depriving player ow gear it beats starting new episode with none of the previously acquired weapons for no reason.

Perhaps you want to explain just how exactly lazily ducking under a slow scripted laser is supposed to totally make the player better in an FPS game?

Basic precise controls under nominal time pressure and getting used to environment killing you.
Similarly trying to get into the lift labelled not to be used in emergency teaches you to pay fucking attention to environment.

How about "armed with a majestic shotgun" instead?

You still have to find majestic shotgun and judging by the prevalence of shotgun zombie half of the facility was armed with majestic shotgun with large portion of the remaining marines wielding heavier stuff - didn't do them much good.

In the end you still take on fucking forces of hell reinforced by your former buddies, all alone and armed with just 1x beretta, 1x knuckleduster and 2x massive gonad. And succeed.

although somewhat circumvented with the use of uber-suit

Precisely. HL at least attempted to explain your survivability.

At least in HL you have an excuse of being busy dimension hopping while the worst shit was going down.

And in DooM you have an excuse of being busy sitting there twiddling your thumbs while being grounded for insubordination. Somebody clearly needs to read his "README.TXT", it seems.

Except, unlike HL, forces of hell are still there and they are even stronger than when they just invaded because of zombies, while in HL your primary source of casualties at the beginning is structural damage - and you arrive after whatever was there to collapse collapsed and whatever was there to explode exploded, leaving you with just a bunch of disoriented alien animals and slaves running around and not knowing WTF just happpened and hazardous broken machinery.
Later on aliens start to actually invade but that's after HECU already gained control over much of the facility and you're effectively flying under the radar of both warring factions most of the time, caught in between them alongside remaining Black Mesa personnel.
At best you get promoted to side objective.

HL avoids pitting heroic solo popagonist against coordinated evil attack force.
It throws protagonist in between two attack forces mostly busy tearing at each other, structural damage and confused wildlife.

Except that in Blood and Shadow Warrior explosives are just as deadly.

I was thinking about ID games and Sin.

 

[Infinitron]

Am I really seeing somebody argue for smaller, more cramped levels in the age of consolitis

 

[DraQ]

Am I really seeing somebody argue for smaller, more cramped levels in the age of consolitis

Yes.

 

[almondblight]

Play Marathon instead.

As a person who actually finished the original (not AlephOne) version of the first Marathon on TC not so long ago, I've gotta say this. Gameplay-wise, Marathon is a fucking abomination (which, BTW, is vastly inferior to Pathways into Darkness in almost every way) that should just fucking die. And as for the story, I didn't find it significantly better than in, say, System Shock 1 (and, as you can remember, SS1 is not exactly a pinnacle of game storytelling in any way). More pretentious (with a ton of red herrings all of which, I'm sure, s7mbolize something, and other intentionally nonsensical hogwash) and occasionally ironically hipsterish (Durandal!) - but certainly not more complex or twisty or whatever (I'm talking about first Marathon only; dunno about the second one though). Also, Jason Jones' levels fucking suck - and I'm pretty sure I'll have a lot of nightmares about that Bob-B-Q level he made, in the years to come. Greg Kirkpatrick's levels were pretty good though (G4 Sunbathing in particular), I'm gonna give it that. Still, I am pretty sure, that I won't fire that game ever again in my entire life - and the very though of that makes me happy like you wouldn't believe.

Granted, I haven't played Marathon in a long time, but I remember enjoying it a lot. I played it around the same time I played PitD, and though PitD is probably the more interesting game, I don't remember Marathon being horrible in comparison. Based on my recollections of Marathon and HL2, I'd much rather play the former again.

As for the plot not being much better than SS1 - isn't SS1 mostly about stopping the evil Shodan? Marathon starts out like that, but although Durandal is insane and causing the whole thing, working for him becomes your best bet. It's also nice the way the game switches back and forth between Leela's "let's save the day!" quasi-competent attitude and Durandal's scheming. The plot was one of the more interesting video-game plots (granted, not up against a whole lot of competition).

I honestly don't know if I'll do the Infinity after completing M2. On one hand it has the legendary Acme Station which is like ZOMG TEH HARDEST LEVEL EVER from what I gather - and it makes me curious (downside - it's right in the middle of the game, so in order to play it on TC, I'll need to get there first). Moreover, there won't be any of Jones' levels and a lot of Kirkpatrick's, which is awesome. On the other hand, what's the point, especially seeing that I'm playing strictly for the story - and the story in Infinity is pretty famous for being nonsensical pretentious pile of crap even by other two games' standards?

Infinity's storyline is pretty easy to follow (and relatively interesting). I suppose it would be difficult if you tried to find a way to make all the semi-crazed ranting terminals fit into the plot, but I always took them to be localized insanity.

 

[Psquit]

Talking shit about hl and hl2. The fuck is this shit, Bungie forum?

 

[dunno lah]

This is Codex. Everything is shit.

 

[grudgebringer]

iqzulk

 

[iqzulk]

Granted, I haven't played Marathon in a long time, but I remember enjoying it a lot. I played it around the same time I played PitD, and though PitD is probably the more interesting game, I don't remember Marathon being horrible in comparison.

PitD, as an FPS game, was built around a very simple and clear idea: maneuvering your way in a web of numerous intersecting extremely narrow passages, while evading enemy projectiles and trying to hit enemies from as close as possible (due to bullets making somewhat more damage that way and due to necessity to REALLY, no joke, conserve the ammo until a certain point in the game). It had a perfect speed for its level-design, and it had perfect responsive controls (which failed only if you tried circle-strafe-meleeing). By introducing different external factors to the ruleset and by changing basic map-building blocks from level to level, it also managed to change the gameplay effectively (and sometimes somewhat radically) between the levels while also staying the same game I described above.

Marathon ditched this unifying idea while not introducing anything of that matter itself (it tried, with a "vid" shtick, the ability to look up and down - and no, it was not nearly an adequate substitute). It also introduced finite speed bullets, inertia and low gravity (that turned every fight on non-flat terrain into a nightmare) thus effectively killing any kind of "tips of the fingers"-responsiveness this game COULD had (and PiD DID have). Also, speeding up the game and adding headbobbing made it perceivably more junky (even if you disregard the fact that it ran like shit on non-PPC). Also, ditching the PiD core idea, they lost the leverage that allowed them to drastically change on-level gameplay using slight changes into rules and map designs - and, as a result, Marathon is a much more repetitive game than PiD was.

Marathon was also a game, that used traps and ambushes freely, and the idea of save-terminals and inability to save manually as a specific weakness of a player to play upon. And, I think, I don't need to tell you, just how annoying this game can get in some of its more challenging parts due to the combination of these factors. And yes, Pathways also had ambushes, and it also closed doors behind you, but it did that much more rarely and for reasons (even if only to punctuate the important and truly culminative moments of the game). For the most part, though, gamer was left to his own devices, and didn't need to worry of being slaughtered by SUDDENLY THOUSANDS ENEMIES EVERYWHERE HA-HA IT WAS A TRAP with the last save point being 10 minutes away and the next one - the very next room.

Lastly, the save terminal and the shield recharger introduced a very unpleasant split in the game, where the player is this immortal demigod if he could backtrack to any of those two, and he was thoroughly fucked if he couldn't. In PiD it didn't make sense to backtrack to the save rune for the most part because of the respawn and the slow speed of your character - and the player could replenish health at any time by resting, although it was dangerous due to the real possibility to get ambushed (the enemy got a free hit on you - and possibly a couple of more, while the player himself has time to react) AND there was also the time limit ticking. I think, the only level in the game where the recharger and save terminal idea really WORKED, was that G4 Sunbathing level (which is pretty much the only thing I truly love about the 1st Marathon), where the player had this "base" right into the middle of this huge level - and he had this dangerous uncharted territory everywhere else, with the necessity to backtrack to the base frequently (more so - because of the limited air) to replenish his supplies, while the enemies player alerted, but didn't kill off, freely navigated the level searching for player, thus making the environment dangerous and unpredictable. As far as I can remember, there also was a real necessity to conserve ammo as well (since the player acquired the only gun he could use on G4 Sunbathing, on a previous level).

The reason for all of those changes, I think, is that they tried to go as far as possible BOTH from PiD's sheme, AND from the scheme DooM (which became the de facto standard of the genre immediately after its release) introduced, while ALSO following DooM's suit in some of the aspects (linear set of levels, ditching all the dungeoncrawling elements, active use of traps [however, DooM's traps were much more lighthearted even on Ultraviolence - with the exception of rage-inducing Perfect Hatred and Hell Beneath from Ultimate DooM - and, overall, contributed greatly to the overall fun; in contrast to that, Marathon' traps were all about the level-designers being the Biggest Assholes Ever], etc.). I think they went full experimental with this game, without really knowing what they were actually doing, and, well, ended up with some weird and not very functional mix on their hands as a result of that effort.

As for the plot not being much better than SS1 - isn't SS1 mostly about stopping the evil Shodan?

Isn't M1 (AND M2 for that matter) mostly about stopping the evil Pfhor? And SS1 had whatshisname Diego's subplot that was somewhat interesting, from what I remember, while at the same time not being tied directly to your current struggle with Shodan.

Marathon starts out like that, but although Durandal is insane and causing the whole thing, working for him becomes your best bet. It's also nice the way the game switches back and forth between Leela's "let's save the day!" quasi-competent attitude and Durandal's scheming.

Except all of the plot was LITERALLY

Spoiler

following SS1's mold under Leela's command for 2/3 of the game (both beginning half and last 2 missions) and being hijacked by Durandal as his new favorite cyborg toy for the remaining 1/3 of the game, starting from the midpoint. Like this: LET'S SAVE THE DAY!!! Let's save the day! Let's... save hte day? Le7s saev he da7 L77s77777777777777 7777777 Ah, yes, YOU. Ironically. Ironically. Sarcastic. Ironically. Bullshit. Bullshit. Ironically. A MAN CHOOSES, A SLAVE OBEYS. Ironically. Oh, by the way, you totally need to fry that S'pht controller, so you better start moving, I guess. Yeah, that's all, nice working with you. Ta-ta! P.S. And, by the way, here is your Leela. 7777777777 777777t7e da7! LET'S SAVE THE DAY!!!

The plot was one of the more interesting video-game plots (granted, not up against a whole lot of competition).

The reason I somewhat dislike it is because, while I admit that it was built upon somewhat interesting ideas, there is simply too much of that "Totally smarter than you" hipsterish attitude, while not that much of actually complex and interesting, well, plot. It's really simplistic and straigtforward, once you cut out all the bullshit and all the red herrings that don't resolve in ANY way during the course of the game - and there's simply waaaaaay too much posturing for a game with that kind of plot.

Infinity's storyline is pretty easy to follow (and relatively interesting).

I already somewhat don't like it because they made Tycho (who I remembered from other two games mostly for very precise and direct attitude and that "Spectrograms of dying screams" rant) into a freaking bureaucrat. I've only cleared a couple of levels though.

 

[octavius]

The reason I somewhat dislike it is because, while I admit that it was built upon somewhat interesting ideas, there is simply too much of that "Totally smarter than you" hipsterish attitude, while not that much of actually complex and interesting, well, plot. It's really simplistic and straigtforward, once you cut out all the bullshit and all the red herrings that don't resolve in ANY way during the course of the game - and there's simply waaaaaay too much posturing for a game with that kind of plot.

Heh, I was thinking something similar while playing the Unreal Tournament TC of Marathon.
Marathon beat System Shock by being the first FPS being in set in a space station with an AI gone bad. Marathon also has the added complexity of the aliens, but SS1's story was more detailed and more integrated into the level design. Also, it was more emotionally engaging with all the logs containing the dying words of the crew members. Playing the UT conversion (which is faster than the original, though) I definitely feel that the experience of Marathon:Resurrection is closer to Doom than to System Shock, but even closer to Half-Life...

 

[iqzulk]

Marathon beat System Shock by being the first FPS being in set in a space station with an AI gone bad.

Well, not quite. The floppy version of SS1 was released before Marathon - and the voiced CD version of it was released only two days after Marathon's release.

but SS1's story was more detailed and more integrated into the level design.

True, the abstract level design of early Bungie games simply doesn't work with supposedly human environments - and Marathon 1 is the game, that suffers from that the most, since it has the most significant share of such environments. However, keep in mind, that this game has some levels, where the environmental design clicks with the supposed story context of the level really damn well. Just keep playing the game - and you'll get there.

Also, in case you are interested, there is also a remake of Marathon 2, with true 60fps, 3D-models and such. Sadly, XboX360-only.

EDIT: Sorry, seems like I'm mistaken, and that XBLA Marathon 2: Durandal uses sprites for its weapons and enemies (although in much higher resolution) as well.

 

[octavius]

Also, in case you are interested, there is also a remake of Marathon 2, with true 60fps, 3D-models and such. Sadly, XboX360-only.

EDIT: Sorry, seems like I'm mistaken, and that XBLA Marathon 2: Durandal uses sprites for its weapons and enemies (although in much higher resolution) as well.

What kind of a topsy turvy world are we living in when a mod is made for the kiddie-box only, and denied the master race?
Oh well, there's always the Aleph version.

 

[almondblight]

Marathon ditched this unifying idea while not introducing anything of that matter itself (it tried, with a "vid" shtick, the ability to look up and down - and no, it was not nearly an adequate substitute). It also introduced finite speed bullets, inertia and low gravity (that turned every fight on non-flat terrain into a nightmare) thus effectively killing any kind of "tips of the fingers"-responsiveness this game COULD had (and PiD DID have). Also, speeding up the game and adding headbobbing made it perceivably more junky (even if you disregard the fact that it ran like shit on non-PPC).

Also, ditching the PiD core idea, they lost the leverage that allowed them to drastically change on-level gameplay using slight changes into rules and map designs - and, as a result, Marathon is a much more repetitive game than PiD was.

Eh, they're not just different games, but different genres (FPS vs. FPS/RPG) - as you say, closer to Doom. Stuff like, say, the night-vision goggles or ammo box wouldn't really work in Marathon unless they wanted to move it away from a more traditional FPS. Also, it had some cool environmental interactions - I actually really enjoyed the level where you turn on the security drones.

Also, if I remember right, only explosives (rockets and grenades) and energy weapons (fusion and alien weapon) have finite speed bullets.

Marathon was also a game, that used traps and ambushes freely, and the idea of save-terminals and inability to save manually as a specific weakness of a player to play upon. And, I think, I don't need to tell you, just how annoying this game can get in some of its more challenging parts due to the combination of these factors. And yes, Pathways also had ambushes, and it also closed doors behind you, but it did that much more rarely and for reasons (even if only to punctuate the important and truly culminative moments of the game). For the most part, though, gamer was left to his own devices, and didn't need to worry of being slaughtered by SUDDENLY THOUSANDS ENEMIES EVERYWHERE HA-HA IT WAS A TRAP with the last save point being 10 minutes away and the next one - the very next room.

I actually liked that, it made the game more intense. A lot of what I remember about M1 and Infinity is desperately searching for pattern buffers/shield rechargers. Always letting you save before big fights would hurt the game.

Lastly, the save terminal and the shield recharger introduced a very unpleasant split in the game, where the player is this immortal demigod if he could backtrack to any of those two, and he was thoroughly fucked if he couldn't. In PiD it didn't make sense to backtrack to the save rune for the most part because of the respawn and the slow speed of your character - and the player could replenish health at any time by resting, although it was dangerous due to the real possibility to get ambushed (the enemy got a free hit on you - and possibly a couple of more, while the player himself has time to react) AND there was also the time limit ticking.

Well, yeah, one of the things I liked about PitD a lot was it's difficulty. Still, I don't recall the shield rechargers making the game too easy, especially since the later enemies could pack a pretty big punch, and if you were only stuck with a level one recharger, losing those extra levels of health really hurt.

Isn't M1 (AND M2 for that matter) mostly about stopping the evil Pfhor?

Not really. It's what you do, but the plot is:

Spoiler

Help Leela stop the evil Pfhor -> Help Leela stop the evil Durandal -> Help Durandal, who caused the Pfhor to attack, to free the S'pht so that he can have followers and escape...and, yeah, that'll also stop the current threat.

If the game was just about stopping the evil Pfhor I doubt it'd be remembered as fondly today.

The reason I somewhat dislike it is because, while I admit that it was built upon somewhat interesting ideas, there is simply too much of that "Totally smarter than you" hipsterish attitude, while not that much of actually complex and interesting, well, plot. It's really simplistic and straigtforward, once you cut out all the bullshit and all the red herrings that don't resolve in ANY way during the course of the game - and there's simply waaaaaay too much posturing for a game with that kind of plot.[/spoiler]

Well, as you implied, you didn't like how Durandal was written. I remember him being not as interesting as in Infinity (never played M2), but I don't remember disliking him (maybe I would today). Other than that - Leela's played pretty straight, the backstory about rampancy and the the martian revolution provide decent background. Some Bob's talk to you about what's happening with them too, I think. Other than that there are a couple of the crazy panels, but I only remember there being a few of them (certainly not as numerous as Infinity).

I already somewhat don't like it because they made Tycho (who I remembered from other two games mostly for very precise and direct attitude and that "Spectrograms of dying screams" rant) into a freaking bureaucrat. I've only cleared a couple of levels though.

I enjoyed it, but I felt the levels were more maze like than M1. Actually, one of the things I liked about M1 was that several of the levels felt more like an actual ship than a standard '94 FPS maze.

 

[Nutmeg]

I just want to point out that the exchange between Draq and iqzulk (who has great taste with regards to 3D rendering) further reinforces the fact that there can be no agreement between those who play games for amusement, mental challenge, and the canvas for child like creativity they provide, and those who play games for simulation, immersion, suspension of disbelief and escapism.

The two views are just incompatible at the most fundamental level.

 

[DraQ]

I just want to point out that the exchange between Draq and iqzulk (who has great taste with regards to 3D rendering) further reinforces the fact that there can be no agreement between those who play games for amusement, mental challenge, and the canvas for child like creativity they provide, and those who play games for simulation, immersion, suspension of disbelief and escapism.

The two views are just incompatible at the most fundamental level.

I like mental challenge (in before obvious joke), and I like games allowing for much creativity.
But first I need a reason to start playing.

I would consider myself not a storyfag, but something broader - a themefag. A game must fire up my imagination in some manner before I'm willing to experience those other joys of playing it.

Obviously stale and trite stuff like generic tolkienian rip-off, doesn't do that for me.
As much as it pains me to say that I'm also not really into military simulations, not because I'm not interested in tactics or tech, but because they just don't do it for me in terms of premise - I'm just not fired up by military fiction.
I need a why of playing before the how of playing can draw me in.

 

[Nutmeg]

That's reasonable and many people are like that.

Personally, I've been introduced to many "themes" I otherwise wouldn't have found very interesting through games. I think games have great educational value in this way too.

 

[iqzulk]

Stuff like, say, the night-vision goggles or ammo box wouldn't really work in Marathon unless they wanted to move it away from a more traditional FPS.

Actually, Marathon did have the night-vision goggles. It's just that there weren't any outside of the secrets.

Also, it had some cool environmental interactions - I actually really enjoyed the level where you turn on the security drones.

Eh? What do you mean exactly? I mean, yeah, you turn on the defense systems on the 4th level because of story, and yeah, there are two drones on that level which are strangely enough very much active even before you turn on said defense system - but what's that part about cool environmental interactions?

Also, if I remember right, only explosives (rockets and grenades) and energy weapons (fusion and alien weapon) have finite speed bullets.

Nope, bullets hit with very noticeable delay as well. BTW, this particular aspect got ditched in the Unreal Tournament remake - there the weapons are true instantaneous hitscans. Also, you seem to mistake the M1 type of alien gun (which was a machinegun of sorts) for the M2/Infinity-type of alien gun (which was like this plasma rifle of sorts).

I actually liked that, it made the game more intense.

And made the level-designers the main enemies of the player - moreover, the enemies he doesn't ever get a chance to punch in the face. It's like that goddamn Perfect Hatred level from Ultimate Doom - but in more than a half of 80+ levels of all the 3 games.

Also, there is another consideration. Both first and, especially, second Marathon storylines seem to have this thing about the player being just a minor thing of the overall situation, about the big high-level plot not revolving around the player, etc. (it's mainly derived from the second game, but the first one first the scheme as well)

Spoiler

Like in G4 Sunbathing, after all the effort you put into realigning that relay dish to send a distress call to Earth, you find out that they will receive it only in 90 years or so - and while that thing absolutely had to be done, it just physically can't help your current situation any way. It's just that it's absolutely not about you at this moment.

And the gamedesign with all the traps, set up specifically to fuck you, personally, up, really clashes with that high-level story attitude of the games.

Well, yeah, one of the things I liked about PitD a lot was it's difficulty. Still, I don't recall the shield rechargers making the game too easy, especially since the later enemies could pack a pretty big punch, and if you were only stuck with a level one recharger, losing those extra levels of health really hurt.

So you backtrack to the recharger after the fight. Big deal. Given that many of the levels were more or less compact, that's not actually THAT big of a problem.

Not really. It's what you do, but the plot is

If the game was just about stopping the evil Pfhor I doubt it'd be remembered as fondly today.

It's remembered fondly because of those insane rants and all the people who tried to make a coherent narrative out of all of them, thus uncovering the tru7h.
The plot both you and me retold in pretty much the exact same manner, was simple and straightforward - and, frankly, it doesn't even matter all that much, what was exactly in the game's script, since Pfhor were still the main arch-enemy in the first and second games (Infinity, from what I've heard, had some kind of star monster, but, as I've said, I've only played a couple of missions of it), they were the ones, dispatching whom (and whose creations) constituted 90% of both games' gameplay, and they were the major (negative) driving force, setting those ingame scripts into motion. And yes, in second game, even Durandal regarded them as something that absolutely needed to be stopped.

Spoiler

Besides, Leela never considered Durandal the main threat. She did state, that he was dangerous, and there were also a couple of anti-Durandal missions, and I don't remember if she knew that it was he who "invited" the Pfhor - but she definitely considered the battle with Pfhor her first priority (with Durandal being "Well, maybe we'll deal with him later on"). So the Leela parts are as anti-Pfhor as it gets. And as for Durandal's 1/3 of the story - I'll just remind you on WHICH SHIP half of the Durandal's episode was actually taking place.

Well, as you implied, you didn't like how Durandal was written.

Well, not only Durandal (although his sarcastically-bullshitting attitude didn't help). I rather disliked the sheer quantity of red herrings and absolutely unresolved threads touched upon in something like a single terminal, but in such a manner, that UUUUUUU THAT TOTALLY SIGNIFIES SOMETHING. Like that Gheritt White thing, or that terminal about CRUSTs and Martian Revolution you seem to like so much. Especially considering the simplicity of the resulting story. Too much bullshit, too little substance. Also, the Leela's part of the story is effectively System Shock, so in either case any implied "greatness of the plot" comes from either the rants or Durandal.

Other than that there are a couple of the crazy panels, but I only remember there being a few of them (certainly not as numerous as Infinity).

You might want to recheck this page. There are PLENTY of those in the game. Infinity could have even more - I wouldn't be surprised after everything I've heard about that game - but Marathon 2: Durandal absolutely has much less of that.

---------------------------------------------------

As for HL - finished the Surface Tension today. I am thinking about posting my thoughts on human environments in the game after completing Lambda Core, which will hopefully happen tomorrow - hence the lack of HL-related posts.

Spoiler

 

[octavius]

Is that a Half-Life TC for Ultima Underworld?

 

[iqzulk]

Is that a Half-Life TC for Ultima Underworld?

No, it's just that open locations look really shitty on the software renderer, and that the resolution of the skybox isn't enough even for 640x480. I really hope Xen will look better than this.

 

[DraQ]

hence the lack of HL-related posts.

Can we also have a lack of Marathon related posts?

Marathonfags, get a room thread.

 

[iqzulk]

So, uh, okay. This:

Spoiler

Hard difficulty as well.

I finished the game some hours ago - and I honestly don't know, what to say on it. The whole thing still rubs me completely the wrong way - I'm still not able to pinpoint just what the fuck feels so wrong about playing this game and just what the fuck annoys me to no end about it. It always did - and it does now. I thought, that playing using Software Renderer and in low-res would make the issue to go away - but despite that the game did indeed feel a LOT less visually empty (due to all the aliasing noise) to what I remembered it to be - and quite a bit more colorful - there is still something seriously wrong with it.

I could go on for thousands of symbols about just how the combat is completely fucking static saveload-fest without any sense of flow whatsoever; about how Half-Life is an important illustration of just why the regeneration later became widespread in the genre; about how fucking meaningless the "oh so varied" environmental interactions were in the chapter "Office Complex" specifically (I hate this fucking gray flat repetitive shit - as much as I hate On A Rail and Surface Tension that drag on for fucking forever); about how the "Blast Pit" was the best and most immersive chapter in the game (even despite having quite a bit of scale and, thus, quite a bit of extra space) specifically due to leaving the player fucking alone without little to no scripting (not including the tentacle boss though) and with some amount of freedom - and due to being the only chapter that really made the player to conserve the ammo as much as possible without a clear sense of when he would stumble upon the next meager ammo stash (not to mention all the pretty - seeing all the vibrant colored lights after the monotonous grey ugliness of "Office Complex" and "We've Got Hostiles" was literally something like this: ); about the game never again reaching the "Unforeseen Consequences" level of visual beauty other than in (partially) "Lambda Core", "Interloper" and, maybe, "Blast Pit"; about how there are both ammo pools and pattern bosses specifically in the Xen chapters of this game (with Gonarch fight being more pathetic than any of the HL2's bossfights DraQ seemed to complain about earlier); about how only the "Apprehension" and "Forget about Freeman" chapters had enough situational variety and density to be decent linear script rollercoasters (strangely enough, these chapters were also the only ones with the assassins in them); about how it's much quicker to memorize the placements of the said assassins than to develop a viable tactic (other than sniping with a crossbow them from some dead-end) against them, which is the specific reason I think the assassin fights are severely underutilized in this game (also, randomization of placements of all non aggro-ed assassins in the arena with each loadgame for both already existing fights with them would totally solve the issue); about how I'm really not sure if Xen aesthetics fits into the low-poly factor of the game at all; about how the Nihilanth fight requires the player to use, like, only 5% of the entire arena, with all the other place there being for the sole purpose of confusing the player and for serving as a gigantic red herring; about all the times I wondered, if I just did something I was totally meant to do, or if I just cheesed the hell out of the game (due to it being absolutely not clear from the actual context of the game); about the fancy-shmancy weapon menu (requiring anywhere from 2 to 5 presses of 2 different buttons) serving as an effectively one-weapon limit for any more or less intensive firefight - or two-weapon limit it you abuse the hell out of the "last weapon" button (the sheer significance of which is extremely non-obvious and isn't explained anywhere); about FUCK THOSE MARINES WITH GRENADE LAUNCHERS; about their (marines') "majestic AI" (which is exhausted with randomly running to "medic" after a lucky hit, and with throwing grenades to your last known location) being absolutely irrelevant in the game due to the fights with them being asymmetrical in a sense of having an emphasis on you dispatching them as quickly as possible, using the revolver, launcher grenades, etc. (with the only exception being "We've Got Hostiles" chapter); about me never before having this obsessive wish to urinate on any kind of an armored personal carrier as I did (have an obsessive wish) in case of this (fucking hitscanning splash-damaging piece of shit)

Spoiler

one; about, say, first Deus Ex proving that realistic-looking locations don't clash with the possibility of actually good and densely-packed level-design; about... ah, fuck it.

The point is, I don't know anymore what my point is. I just don't like this game. Something just rubs me the wrong way about it (exactly the way it did for, say, first Blood and first Marathon) - and I just can't get to the bottom of it, despite all my repeated attempts. The only thing I feel after completing it now (as well as in a lot of places WHILE completing it) is a deep sense of utter confusion and frustration. I sincerely hope I won't have to play it ever again in my life, now that the software renderer thing is out of the way.

As for occasional relatively pretty - I guess, I could throw together a pack of a couple of hundreds of screens (as a rar pack) if somebody asks for it (I actually have >1000, but many of them aren't that good), or I might post a couple of them here tomorrow or something, but as of right now I'm just too tired to upload a freaking gallery, one by one, the way I did on a previous page.

 

[retardation]

Shit, those screenshots make me wanna play this again.

 

[octavius]

Why not fucking play the game instead of fucking overanalizing it?

 

[DraQ]

Why not fucking play the game instead of fucking overanalizing it?