Portal doesn’t really require “twitch reflexes”. Sometimes you can use twitch reflexes to get to faster/shorter solutions, but there’s always a solution where figuring out the right thing to do allows you to finish the level without having particularly good reflexes.
So ya’ll are slow and dumb!
::licks short bus window::
What!?
I won’t argue that. I suck ass at games. Sort of makes dedicating a healthy chunk of the last 20 years or so of my life to playing them seem like a really bad idea.
I’m very psyched for this mod…I’ve been waiting patiently since it was announced. Glad they’re finally releasing most of it.
But what’s the deal with the Xen hate? It appears that I remember Xen a little more fondly than 90% of the net. When I played the original in 98, i remember it being very cool. Lots of atmosphere, cool music, pretty challenging (maybe due to the platforming), and beating it was a huge rush for me…a major sense of accomplishment. Rose tinted nostalgia??
Platforming and FPS’s do not go together for me. Jumping from one plank to another is one thing but jumping from planetary shapes to another is beyond the pale! Plus I remember it being hard as shit.
Nah, it being so horrible was/is mostly a myth.
I suck at platformers, 3D or not, and abandoned for example Psychonauts for the same reason, but I had no trouble at all playing the Xen segments in the original HL. There were only very few actual platforming segments, too.
rezaf
HL1 had quite a few platforming segments, actually, not just in Xen, and they were all awful. It wasn’t designed to be a platformer and it was bad at being one.
You have to use a pretty broad definition for “platforming segment” if you count “quite a few” in HL. The main one I think most people are referring to in HL is the one segment of the game where, in Xen, you’re navigating across those rocks that are floating in the sky.
I thought that level wasn’t actually very hard or something, but yeah, it was an odd fit. Guess it was Valve’s means to make Xen feel “otherworldly”.
Also, they probably liked to experiment a bit with several mechanics to break up the shooting. Some worked better than others, but in general, I felt it was a commendable effort.
I preferred that stuff to the frantic run-and-gun modern FPS games offer (a.k.a. the CoD-formula).
Sometimes I wish Valve hadn’t quit making games to be an e-Publisher.
rezaf
Earlier in the game there’s quite a bit of jumping around on debris and crates and stuff, avoiding electrified water and whatnot. Jumping across broken bridges, too, I think. Some other stuff like that. The game is not good at that stuff and should never have included it. It’s a big reason why I’ve never understood the universal praise Half-Life gets. It’s decent, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not some sort of holy grail of game design.
A bit of platforming is ok. A broken bridge here, some crate jumping in electrifying water there.
Xen had more of “a bit”, imo, and the difficulty was higher.
It also had less interesting combat, not having human soldiers. And again, being the last part of the game, it was pretty hard (I mean, 1998 hard!). hard and uninteresting is not the best combination.
HL1’s single player was amazing when it came out. Like all incredibly influential things, it suffers greatly in hindsight because everything is does right looks like old hat because so many subsequent games aped it.
No, it’s not a myth. The internet, and gamers, were far less cynical back then and people still hated it, I could only imagine what the reaction would be like today. The Zen parts of HL are so fucking awful that if the game wasn’t the first in the series and were released in 2012 you’d most likely see an ME3 ending type backlash about it.
That may be. But plenty of people still think it’s the bee’s knees today, and/or better than HL2 (which I think is a much more polished, innovative and interesting game and holds up better today than HL1 did when I played it, which I think was prior to HL2 coming out), which confounds me. And there are plenty of games of that era or earlier that I think are much more daring in their design and more interesting today. System Shock, for example.
Honestly, part of why I’ve been looking forward to Black Mesa: Source is to see if giving it a HL2 makeover helps me “get” how it must have felt back then.
Pffft. Back in the day, we were playing the game competively amongst my circle of friends and while noone loved the Xen segments, nobody was struggling with them as people make it sound these days.
The worst offending segment was pretty short, and the other stuff was negligible. The stupid jumping in the final battle was a bit annoying, yes, but by and large, maybe 5% of the game was “flawed” in this way, in a game whose remaining 95% were pure gaming goodness - by that days standards.
I really don’t get the crying about that stuff after all these years. Lots of modern games contain segments that suck for some gamers - QTEs, timed fighting like in the Batman games, escort missions, driving <-> flying … I’m not so sure things have improved significantly since the days of the first HL. But maybe I’m just odd.
rezaf
Yeah, I’m totally one of those people. HL>HL2 by a large margin.
BUT, my reasons are mostly tied down in the story. Kinda like the Matrix series, I’m not fond at all about where the story was steered from a very promising start. Highly subjective, of course.
Gameplay wise … I dunno. Like in HL1, Valve were going for varied gameplay - and arguably made better choices as in HL! - but HL2 in turn felt a little like a tech demo for various capabilities the engine possessed.
Look! Run and gun. Look! Driving a buggy. Look! Driving a boat, too. Look! The gravity gun. Etc.
rezaf
There’s so little actual story content in any of the Half-Life games, but particularly the first one, that I guess that complaint doesn’t resonate with me. The settings are evocative, and there’s some good scene-setting in the openings of both games, but as far as actual narrative, you’re pretty much just moving forward and shooting things, with dialogue largely confined to telling you to move forward and shoot things.
Actually, the setting in HL2 is evocative. The setting in the first one is…a lab. Pretty well-constructed, but nonetheless a lab.
For me, the beginning of the original Half life will always be one of the most enjoyable games I have ever played. Yeah the characters were all the same and stiff to boot. But the concept was strong. Walking through a lab where I was a big shot. The opening tram ride, that was mildly interactive, but totally immersive. This has stayed with me through a lot of other games.
I didn’t mind the various jumping, swimming puzzles. They were just right for the place that they were in.
You know what I hated? HL2 and the tunnels with that beast that took a certain series of moves to complete. You know, the one with the grubs and fire ants?
Anyway. To me HL1 was seminal. HL2 was good but not great.
I think you’re thinking of Episode 2, there, not the original HL2.
Yeah, HL1 was taking place in a “lab”, and there wasn’t all that much plot.
But that’s the point, you had a location that was (almost) realistic and viable, and the whole plot, thin as it was, revolved around it.
A lot of mystery, many things left in the dark, but the scenery was very limited, so these things worked to fuel the immersion.
The exploring the same place yet again from another point of view (in the two expansions) was a nice touch as well.
HL2 just made the whole thing a global affair, SOMEHOW (I’m pretty sure there were “snippets” you could collect to get a rough idea, but I had to google it at some point) the aliens essentially took over earth and it was now more of a resistance/guerilla game … I was just not very fond of what they made of the premise. In HL1, having little actual knowledge was part of the suspense, it made sense - in HL2, not so much.
The story slowing down to a snail-like pace (or even to a halt, who can tell) added insult to injury.
rezaf