Sulphur on 22/1/2020 at 10:38
I found myself a bit of a victim to Titanfall 2's hype. The campaign is pretty damn good, but its best ideas were already implemented in Dishonored 2 (and one of those ideas was probably inspired by twisty's university prototype IIRC). It's really just a well-designed game that's long on gimmicks but short on meaningful character.
Doom, meanwhile? Loved it. Got bored with it. Stuck with it. Liked it all the same in the end. It was too long, but got the basics so right. It's like mainlining a keg of adrenaline and surfing on the resulting ultraviolence high - ain't gonna get old for too long. I'm looking forward to the sequel on the strength of what '16 did. Pretty hype!
Thirith on 22/1/2020 at 15:30
The slower pace of Doom 3 works surprisingly well in VR. There's a mod that, like all such mods, isn't perfect, but it's still a neat proof of concept of what first-person shooters can be in virtual reality.
Starker on 22/1/2020 at 16:17
Doom 3 for me felt like it was trying to jump on the Half-Life bandwagon of linear narrative-based shooters. Except then Half-Life 2 came out and made Doom 3 look like it not only was it anywhere near the wagon, but was barely limping several kilometers behind.
demagogue on 24/1/2020 at 07:20
I had a lot of fun playing HL2, but overall I recognized what it represented and I wasn't actually happy with it. I've written about it before at length. It was the main trend-setter for this do-everything, entertainment-experience FPS convention that it feels like every FPS since has tried to emulate... As opposed to a more stark, immersive FPS style. It's why Stalker stood out so much in bucking that trend (although I recognize it was also a kind of try-to-do-everything FPS; it would take more words than I have time to write now to really distinguish what I'm thinking about). I guess I could agree it had a big impact on me at the time, but in a very mixed-feeling kind of way.
Sulphur on 24/1/2020 at 07:25
HL2 inspired similar mixed feelings for me. It was a bravura opening, but the game settled into this formula of varying things up that became easy to predict, and the formula within each iteration of a new gimmick/dynamic also followed a set pattern - I saw someone refer to it elsewhere as 'introduce, test, challenge' -- and you know, while that's the basic idea for any mechanic in any game, it's writ large upon the HL2 experience. Like if you took a bird's eye view of the game, you'd see that three-step repetition across each chapter with the only anomaly being what happens at the end.
This does not make it less enjoyable, mind you; I only wished that it was less transparent and predictable.
PigLick on 24/1/2020 at 09:28
the fucking boat levels man, fuck those right up its wanghole. The opening really had me a bit excited, but then as Sulph said it settles into a more bland pattern. Decent game overall and I can see why its so influential (for better or worse). I'm with dema on the Stalker thing, there hasnt really been anything that immersive and entertaining since.
henke on 24/1/2020 at 12:57
Pretty sure he's talking about the part where you drive the fanboat through the canals. The vehicle physics in HL2 weren't much to write home about, neither the fanboat nor the buggy, but I still liked those interludes.
edit: on the topic of HYPE, Hayfever comes out in a month.
[video=youtube;RyZulAR7p4g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyZulAR7p4g&feature=emb_title[/video]
I've played a bit of this at expos and it's a solid lil' platformer.
twisty on 24/1/2020 at 13:07
I didn't mind that part either. I loathed the sand jumping puzzle however -- the tedium of laying down debris with their wonky physics -- and some of the head crab areas.
PigLick on 24/1/2020 at 15:00
Yeh I meant the canal sections, for some reason I just found them tedious and just wanted it to be over. Keep in mind I didnt play it when it first came out, only a few years later, so I guess that lessened the impact on me.
Thirith on 24/1/2020 at 17:44
I loved Half-Life 2 at the time, but if I were to play it for the first time now, I would want it to be a much more concentrated experience. It has many good ideas, but it stretches them out way more than is necessary or effective. At the time we were more used to first-person shooters being a certain length, I think, so it simply tried to match those expectations, but in my mid-40s I think that quantity in and of itself is about the last thing I look for in games. A game can feel too short, but it's way more frequent for me to think that a game has overstayed its welcome.