/v/ - Video Games

never cared for it but didn't feel the need to tell anyone that.

Half-Life is shit in its entirety.

>>16340997

it was indeed pretty mediocre. The AI is fucked and combat really sucks in the game. It's like the devs forgot it's a shitscan point & clicker. Last time I played it none of the music worked either.

The entire game had you combating, puzzle solving and engaging in intense fire fight sequences in a variety of ways in locations that might feel familiar or recognizable, but are tightly designed, constantly reinventing how you might play from area to area. You had headcrabs burrowing in the sand, you were shooting for land mines, dodging attack helicopters, powering up a generator to fry a big blue alien, you were riding tram cars, navigating hazardous waste processing, discovering experimental weapons labs and solving puzzles to power up a reactor for a teleporter system. In ways it was exciting, but it was also a little generic, it didn't reinvent the wheel, it was still a generic military-industrial-laboratory facility. What you'd expect to see in those kinds of places.

Then you go to the alien world and the first section has you using HL1's utterly mediocre platforming. It's truly boring, it's slow and even tedious. Then it's another floating island that you explore for a bit, ride a dinner plate to the next alien island. Oh it's another big blue boy, well it's not a big deal because it's a 10 second section you run through. Then the big alien tentacles you can just long jump around. Then it's a fucking factory with giant barrels. The whole thing is a shit show of boredom, culminating in a truly unremarkable final boss. I also forgot Gonads but that's another exercise in tedium.

If you didn't hate Xen, you lack the critical faculties to talk about video games.

>>16341042

If you hate it here so much get out.

First person platforming never works if it's not the focus of the game. Thief has it great, Mirror's Edge has it great, Lovely Planet has it great, Hexen doesn't and neither does Half Life.

The map where you had to jump on floating manta rays to the teleporter was fucking garbage. Everything else was fine. The thruster pack is superbly underrated.

>>16341203

You know people have been doing crazy bunny hop shit for a long time right? Unless you have some sort of deficiency that prevents you from gauging space in video games, FPS platforming is easy.

It was a very common critique dating back to the release of the game. From what I can gather, it's because retards can't into longjumping, and/or don't realize that pressing back while in midair instantly stops you in GoldSrc. The area does genuinely seem a bit unfinished but overall it is a lot more interesting than some of the other levels.

>>16341186

>last minute

Huh? There were platforming sections throughout the entire game. Remember Waste Processing, a giant fucking movement/traps challenge with no enemies?

All Xen did was take that up a notch, which is exactly what I would expect out of a final level.

Xen was a casual filter, just like the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time. There's nothing wrong with it.

>>16341388

>casual filter

>at the very end of a game

Your age is showing, mein Fuhrer.

>>16340962

>People that work for valve are lazy fucks

Imagine my shock

I never really understood people shitting on Xen, I thought it was a nice change of pace in the game. It's not like it's the only platforming sort of section of the game, either.

>>16341589

Because you're easily entertained. It's poorly thought out and terribly bland.

>>16340962

You do not even know half of it, played the paid version from early last year

Here's the differences from the free version

>new weapon models, some better some worse

>eye destroying bloom fucking everywhere

>made the AI worse overall

>literally just added surface tension uncut as part of the main thing

>sorta fixed performance issues

it took them two years to do that, and even now one year latter it hasn't changed much if at all.

>>16341598

Incorrect, but your post sure was.

>>16340962

>>16340997

>>16341600

You guys are missing an important piece of the clusterfucky puzzle that is BMS's development cycle. After they released the half baked piece of shit mod version they shifted all of their focus on the multiplayer component (yes, the multiplayer that was dead on arrival because most HL fans would rather play the original multiplayer).

>>16341619

Tell me what's not bland about xen.

>>16341041

This, Xen was heavily lacking in setpieces, the only noteworthy one was the stealth section and most players probably miss it their first time through.

>>16341704

The AI in BMS was horrendously balanced.

>>16341003

A patrician among a gaggle of plebs.

>>16341381

>Huh? There were platforming sections throughout the entire game.

The long jump is a new addition to your abilities that is given to you right before Xen and it requires proper timing of the crouch, jump, forward that you have to practice to use it. The rest of the platforming you do is using the standard jump. I'd scrap the long jump outright.

Nihilanth was such a shit bossfight, I noclipped into his brain just so it would be over.

>>16340901

>first person platforming

>attempted stealth segment with no explanation

Xen, much like the rest of the game was massively shit. They call it baby's first fps for a reason, you know.

>>16340901

Because the platforming is absolutely god awful due to the reduced gravity and the bossfight is also shit. It looks pretty nice though.

>>16342000

>They call it baby's first fps for a reason, you know.

That's what people call Halo, dumbass.

Insta-death platforming from a perspective that doesn't even let you see your feet kinda sucks.

>>16342008

No that's Doom.

>>16342000

too scared to spam your shitty My First FPS edits?

>>16341896

>The long jump is a new addition to your abilities that is given to you right before Xen and it requires proper timing of the crouch, jump, forward that you have to practice to use it

I kind of agree the long jump is kind of forced, but they LITERALLY give you time to practice before entering, the fucking scientist tells you so. And it's not some crazy fighting game multikey combo, it's literally just the opposite of crouch jumping. You don't even need the forward key, you are making that shit up.

>>16341634

>You are playing a game and suddenly be able to enter the fucking alien world itself, with all the crazy environments. You get to see some of their fauna, their inside workings, etc. You need to do some platforming for obvious reasons, since most of it is compromised of floating platforms and it's not like they expect a human to be there.

>This is not cool as shit specially for a 1998 game

>>16342027

>What is air movement

Literally press S for fucks sake.

>>16342180

Crawlspace mazes not crawspace. I should sleep.

>>16342180

Absolutely this. The idea of new mechanics and relying on that is fine; Half Life always had a lot of gimmick-y setpieces that it would later abandon. The issue was how much the pacing got completely fucked with Xen.

I liked xen but the problem is you are so anxious to finish the game once you get there but the mechanics are completely different from the rest of the game and the skills you build up over the entire game are irrelevant.

been quite a while since I played it.

>>16341003

I wish /xen/ wasn't fucking dead

>>16342000

Halo baby mad that people were naming his favourite gayme ever in the other thread. Stop trying to force a meme.

>>16342180

actually some good points thank you anon

I liked Xen, simply because it felt fucking alien and the only equipment you found was scavenged off the corpses of people wearing the same suit as you, which gave you a taste of mortality.

Too often the "alien" sections of games are simply retextured humans in vaguely human environments. Xen did not feel like that.

>>16342180

I can tell you from experience with the bounce pads in DM that you are just a casual and there is definitely a right way to use them.

i think why Valve mentioned Xen was shit because a lot mechanics they had planned for the game like creature interactions didnt make it to end product

Xen itself is massive departure from rest of the game, and for good reasons, Valve is function oriented, if your interaction with something doesnt create entirely new mechanics or way to do things they get bored, its self defeating way to design things if its applied universally, i would limit that kind of thinking only to where its useful, instead Valve does it with everything, so when Xen is filled with a lot great atmospheric stuff and imaginative level design that doesnt serve more purpose, i like it, but Valve thinks its waste of time

Valve is their own downfall here

and people didnt like it because whatever it did try was crude and rushed, didnt succeed at what it was trying to do often, you need to take risks in design and if things dont pan out its ok with me, you can fail at things and game can still be success as Half-Life was

but if you dont ship and get stuck in the limbo - thats worse

>>16342899

Not all of the bouncing membranes are created the same way. It's a trigger_push that works in tandem with a non-solid, spikey piece of brushwork that comes jutting out from underneath for the visual effect. If you make them yourself, you can tinker with the trigger_push attributes to get different variations of lift for the player, and it still depends on how the player approaches it.

>>16341186

>>16341294

Stop making me want to play rock raiders, god damnit.

>>16340901

Xen was the best zone. People who hate it are bad at video games. I only died a single time to the platforming, and I thought it was a refreshing change of pace. The scenery was nice too.

>>16344154

I will never understand how people can be so stupid that they think that they only reason to dislike something is because you can't beat it. Then, I assume all those shitty walking sims like Gone Home must be great games that can't be criticized, since they're easy? As long as you can beat it without noteworthy issues, it must be a good game, is that it?

>>16342180

>He doesn't like xen.

>He doesn't like Swamp Fever.

Shit tastes confirmed. I bet you're the kind of fag that always plays and votes for the same tired old multiplayer maps and never gives the hundreds of other good maps a chance.

>>16344198

They're always saying that the platforming is too hard for them. Ask them yourself why they can't handle it.

>>16344133

It does require a certain degree of finesse/timing, but then again so does every other aspect of platforming in Half-Life. I'd hardly call it a random chance.

w

d

>>16342180

>constantly respawning

not a thing in HL1

some areas will have reinforcements airdropped after a while, but only once.

>Bullet spongy

only bullet spongy enemy was Gonarch, and yes, that fight dragged on too long, but alien controllers, Vortigaunts, grunts,and headcrabs all have reasonable HP pools and Gargantuas aren't supposed to be fought.

>>16341203

>First person platforming never works

Say no more.

>>16340962

all I remember is playing Half Life and then some faggot PM'ed me asking if I knew Black Mesa, and then said why I'm not playing it instead of the original.

>>16344236

Why does it have to be because "they can't handle it"? Most common criticism I see that gets made about Xen is that it's the point where the game drops everything about it that made it interesting and adopted gameplay and environments that felt much more typical of shooters at the time.

>>16345065

The platforming and boss fights were a challenge that made the gameplay more interesting. Exploring the alien world was a lot more exciting than endless bland corridors. Xen is criticized too much, but "on a rail" was much worse. In that level, you have to fight gimmicky controls while you are shot at from both sides by hitscan enemies while having no cover. Then you have to repeat a section over if you miss shooting the junction box. It was annoying and tedious, while Xen was a smooth progression from zone to zone.

>>16345105

what the fuck.

>>16345107

what was it?

>>16345112

this was back in like 2014, so no.

>>16345065

>environments that felt much more typical of shooters at the time.

You're confusing "totally alien outdoor environment" with "sci-fi corridors and sewers." Unreal is the most comparable example and it was also praised for its environments.

>>16340962

As much as I like Black Mesa, I knew the mod had some underlying issues when there was a debate about the crossbow many, many years ago. Originally they modeled one out of your standard every day hunting crossbow, which was a nice looking model and all but it in no way represented a proper recreation of the behemoth magazine-fed killing machine that was in HL1. If you tried to talk about it you would just get told that you should "import the old model if you like your low-poly models so much" which was completely ignoring the argument at hand.

Eventually they modeled a new proper recreation and all was right in the world, but it still raised some red flags for me back then.

>>16344996

>controllers

>reasonable HP pool

They have almost as much health as a grunt, except unlike grunts they attack from halfway across the map and force you to either waste precious revolver/crossbow ammo (which is always in short supply because you also need them to deal with the hordes of long-range slaves) or slowly plink away at them with the 9mm.

>>16342142

>you are making that shit up.

I found it easier to use by moving forward at the same time.

>>16342180

>trial and error jump geysers that are about a 50/50 chance of launching you or just lifting you slightly. And a one in 6 or so chance of it putting you on the right course to reach the platform you want to get to. No promise on it being in the right position when you do launch.

If you are talking about the closing butthole chambers in the ground part, that's not how you are supposed to do it anon. There is a cave with a "spike elevator" that puts you perfectly above the moving platforms which you can later use to land on the manta rays.

As far as I remember you don't need to use the other normal jump pads in the entirety of Xen at all.

>>16340962

>>16340997

pretty sure the original devs stopped working on BM:S after the demo/mod version came out. Then the new guys started charging for it and made a business around it "crowbar collective". Probably wanted a slice of the gmod pie but it's not even close to raking in the same revenue.

All I know is I used to follow this mod in the mid 2000s and then when I checked up on the team list on their website last year I didn't know the majority of the names.