specific sort of FPS im looking for

  autopilot said:

Aww come on, the Halo series are masterpieces of FPS design if you ignore the ridiculous hype marketing, childish fanbase, and lame sci fi story.

I liked the first one but I hate the characters and the theme music.

Looking forward to this, cheerz squee.

  Ego said:

I never understood the appeal to Halo. Played the first one on PC and it had some of the most repetitive level design I've ever seen. It made me feel like I was running in circles.

The level design in the first one is repetetive, but what I love about it is the way they integrated grenade and melee hotkeys (instead of the traditional selecting your melee or grenade weapon THEN using it), and the balance between all those difference facets of combat and large scale encounters with interchangable vehicle combat that in no way felt imbalanced. Along with the recharging shield system and high quality AI, it pretty much completely revolutionized shooter design overnight, as now even "realistic" war games like Call of Duty play like Halo (except that Call of Duty has really shitty AI).

Not only that, it made consoles viable platforms for shooters, and Halo 2 set a standard for internet matchmaking and skill measurement that didn't rely on traditional server browsing. This is also something that's in every game these days anymore.

Halo 2's my personal favorite because it has some really fucking awesome levels, like being in a freefalling station going through something like Jupiter's atmosphere. Fucking awesome.

<3 Halo

Allright, I'll give Halo 2 another shot. ;)

BTW, I mentioned Chronicles of Riddick earlier and it seems no one minded that but that's an amazing game! Great atmosphere & graphics, and the melee in this is amazing! It was also one of the first (or thé first?) to have a documentary mode like the one in Half-Life 2 episodes. This game is like finding a diamond in a pile of shit.

  Ego said:

Allright, I'll give Halo 2 another shot. ;)

 

This game is like finding a diamond in a pile of shit.

You should, Halo 2 is awesome, and lol.

  abusivegeorge said:

  vasio said:

Now go spend the next 45 min going from tunnel to tunnel killing the same old head crabs on Highway 17 or if you're not there yet spend an hour jumping from wood board to wood board in the middle of the beach. Some parts were just too long and repetitive, the episodes were much better edited, specially EP2, it played incredibly well with no really boring or repetitive parts, just going from setting to setting doing new stuff every time.

 

Is this really what I'm in for? Coz I've been quite liking it so far.

Yes, some parts are more boring than others but the whole beach/antlions part was too much for me, took me days to get over it. I've read that the no-hands driving was because of how they presented the original Half-Life and wanted to keep it that way in HL2 as well.

BS. Developer laziness that mars otherwise spectacular presentation.

"Oh man look at this photorealistic city this is so immersive and coo---wow, I can climb down a ladder upside down with both hands on a shotgun."

But I don't mean to whine, Half Life is truly great.

lol

That really grinds your gears huh?

OMG did I just say that?

It only bothers me because the game is otherwise SO good. It doesn't bother me in Quake 2 or Half Life 1 because that's how games looked/were back then, but when you've got something like Mirror's Edge out 1 year after the Orange Box, it shows how dated that kind of first-person presentation is.

Seriously though, Half Life 2 is still one of my top 3 games ever. So, don't take the complaint the wrong way.

  vasio said:

Now go spend the next 45 min going from tunnel to tunnel killing the same old head crabs on Highway 17 or if you're not there yet spend an hour jumping from wood board to wood board in the middle of the beach. Some parts were just too long and repetitive, the episodes were much better edited, specially EP2, it played incredibly well with no really boring or repetitive parts, just going from setting to setting doing new stuff every time.

uh there is a quicker way (i.e don't go trough the sand, there's some rocks)

maybe some parts are long but I think that sets a mood which is what makes the half life series so great. the episodes lack a bit in this imo.

Or just whip out your shotgun, sprint across the whole beach region to the cliffs on the other side before the boss fight, then easily kill the 4 or 5 things following you (there's a limit to how many the game will spawn at one time, and you can easily outrun them). It's actually quite easy to do, even on hard. The game just tricks you into thinking the antlions are scarier than they actually are. The real reason to take it slow is the goodies sprinkled everywhere.

halflife 2 was tons of fun, i never played the first (i tried to but i think me and the game are both too old now) or any of the episodes even though i have them, i might wait until the last one comes out to play through all of them at once. I also loved halo, was thinking about recommending it but figured people would just bash on it. I never found the level design to be repetitive mostly because the levels were all so huge, and felt very appropriate for an alien design. Loved staying up all night plowing through the campaign coop with my friend.