FluXs Thoughts - 4th Nov 2004

[]-UnderTOW-[]

Yes, UT2004 does LOD it's animated meshes, but ONLY them. It doesn't LOD the static meshes. One thing Source has over UE. As for terrain, i don't think it acctually does LOD itself like Far Cry's. I think it simply uses antiportaling.

 

[]-UnderTOW-[]

Here are some shots of a displacment test level i whipped up in a couple minutes

 

[Bytekeeper]

I played HL² as well, and I'm kind of disappointed.
Well the good points are:
* Graphics
* Sound
* Action
* Physics
* Enemy behaviour

The bad points are:
* Vehicle physics suck badly
* Repetitive gameplay (i.e. driving like 2h with that ****ty boat)
* Story (Atfer I played the game I know as much as before :/ )
* I'm not a pro player but a good one and played normal. There where 2 places in the game where I had to try up to 10 times. (i.e.: Some kind of mini DA where hords of soldiers attack u and u got only 3 auto guns to protect yourself
(* German synchro sucks so much OMG)

Argh need to go ^^

 

[FluXs]

ah that was easy, I was sad and carried an auto gun with me around that level. so when i came to defend myself i had 4 auto guns also during the pitch black level the auto gun i carried in my hand was able to pick out the soliders, handy andy...!

DA2 needs an auto gun like that, one which has a weakness in that you can knock it over would be cool and the mech can place.

 

[Bytekeeper]

Did u play on easy ?
No matter where I placed the guns, after a while some soldiers threw grenades at them & me. And the other soldiers just ran straight away into them and therefore dumped them.
Pitch black level ? Can't rmbr . The only difficult point besides the above one was when I had to fight 2 Striders + Mass soldiers in an open area...

 

[FluXs]

Did u play on easy ?
No matter where I placed the guns, after a while some soldiers threw grenades at them & me. And the other soldiers just ran straight away into them and therefore dumped them.

I played on normal. I stayed in that room in the middle with 1 gun facing each of the 4 entrances, you can pick the guns up again as long as you get to them just after they fall over. So it helps to keep them all nearby.... The striders are hard but they make cool noises when they die

One thing which was annouying was when driving the buggy, every time you go through the tunnels. You had to wait 20+ seconds to load the next level. Then the buggy hits the wall and spins around, and you cant tell which way to go and I kept driving back the wrong way and loading previous level

 

[]-UnderTOW-[]

* Vehicle physics suck badly
* Repetitive gameplay (i.e. driving like 2h with that ****ty boat)
* Story (Atfer I played the game I know as much as before :/ )
* I'm not a pro player but a good one and played normal. There where 2 places in the game where I had to try up to 10 times. (i.e.: Some kind of mini DA where hords of soldiers attack u and u got only 3 auto guns to protect yourself

Are you insane? HL2 has some of the best vehicles physics i've seen. What on earth would you classify as being better? UT2004's joke vehilces/physics? Far Cry's laughable vehilces? HL2's flying/helicopter vehicles move so realistically. The hoverboat is awesome how is bounces on the water and can be controled in the air. The buggy is the best 4 wheeled vehicles in a FPS since the Warthog.
Repetitive gameplay? It's a freaking FPS (are you just looking for things to complain about it?)! The story was great and well played out, it's exactly HL in that not much has been answered yet. Did you expect Alyx and Gorden to get hitched and live happily ever after or something? I agree with the Prison defending bit, as i've never liked those stuck in defence bits in FPS games.

 

[Bytekeeper]

Are you insane? HL2 has some of the best vehicles physics i've seen. What on earth would you classify as being better? UT2004's joke vehilces/physics? Far Cry's laughable vehilces? HL2's flying/helicopter vehicles move so realistically. The hoverboat is awesome how is bounces on the water and can be controled in the air. The buggy is the best 4 wheeled vehicles in a FPS since the Warthog.
Repetitive gameplay? It's a freaking FPS (are you just looking for things to complain about it?)! The story was great and well played out, it's exactly HL in that not much has been answered yet. Did you expect Alyx and Gorden to get hitched and live happily ever after or something? I agree with the Prison defending bit, as i've never liked those stuck in defence bits in FPS games.

Well I played BF42 which had far better vehicle physics for example.
The helicopter and striders move perfectly, but if u played the same game as I did, u can control neither yourself....
I didn't play Far Cry because I just don't like how it looks.
I did not play HL thru because I got bored after like 30 mins (and I mean really bored).
I did not expect Alyx and Gorden to live happily afterwards.
Am I looking for things to complain about ? I complain if I don't like something. You seem to be following the HL² hype as many people do. I didn't even complain about the loading times which are like 30 secs wait every 5 minutes.

While it has nice ingame cut-scenes and superb graphics and sound it looks a bit rushed - and that after all those years.

Edit: Note that I do like the game. The singleplayer is way better than most games that came out the last few months (besides United offensive maybe). But I also have seen better things...

 

[]-UnderTOW-[]

OMG, you're acctually serious about BF1942's vehicles?! You really must be insane . And not being able to control the other vehicles (BTW, Striders are NOT vehicles. They're like any other monster) doesn't mean the vehicles physics aren't great.
HL2 isn't perfect, as no game is. But HL2 comes the closest to perfection than any other FPS. I personally didn't like the defending parts because i don't like them just stuck in FPS games. I'm sure some people liked them. There are other inperfections (like load times), but not many. I haven't been tricked into thinking it's all perfect by the hype (hype has the opposite effect, anyway), i know an excellent game when i see one. If you didn't like HL1 i can understand you not liking HL2, but don't blame other crap like physics and story, and so-called repetitive gameplay (with that logic, you shouldn't like any FPS on the basis of 'repetitive' gameplay).

 

[spec_x]

*group hug*

 

[DA|aBsOlUt]

I guess what dante is trying to say is that it didn't, to a personal level always, give this BIG BOOM he was expected maybe.

To talk for my self I liked HL2, I havent passed even the boat vehicle because of school and usually I got people over and we play Halo 2 as its easier to play a team game because in HL2 some people have to watch someone play.

Anyway, repeating the stuff, physics are awesome, gfx are great, sounds for me are not good at all. Overall story so far is unclear but I have yet to play a whole lot so I wont express any opinions yet. Majority of people have told me ending really sux, a couple of people said ending was great.

Nevertheless the only thing I will point out is that the game itself never gave me *YET* the "omg I cant wait to get in and load it up" feeling.

Too early but for example Halo 2 gave me that feeling since second one.

I was warned by Valve a while ago, but I disliked the fact not even HL2 DM is included and some people mod it now and I saw alpha one which I heard good but buggy heck some even people said its a virus....(Go figure...)

It is true that UEngine is following behind according to many resources online and I think many stuff that HL2 has, UE can do but in a harder way and that is what I like about HL2 engine. Latest tech with easiest application.

Personally, I still learn UEngine and I like it a lot because it I got really aquianted with but I see it being a bit old now and the biggest thing I hate most is that mods never gather big communities.

I will stop here because I Dont want to make this thread a "3D engine" argument.

 

[]-UnderTOW-[]

UE2 still has a lot of nice things that Source doesn't do. Can't wait to see UE3

 

[Bytekeeper]

OMG, you're acctually serious about BF1942's vehicles?! You really must be insane . And not being able to control the other vehicles (BTW, Striders are NOT vehicles. They're like any other monster) doesn't mean the vehicles physics aren't great.
HL2 isn't perfect, as no game is. But HL2 comes the closest to perfection than any other FPS. I personally didn't like the defending parts because i don't like them just stuck in FPS games. I'm sure some people liked them. There are other inperfections (like load times), but not many. I haven't been tricked into thinking it's all perfect by the hype (hype has the opposite effect, anyway), i know an excellent game when i see one. If you didn't like HL1 i can understand you not liking HL2, but don't blame other crap like physics and story, and so-called repetitive gameplay (with that logic, you shouldn't like any FPS on the basis of 'repetitive' gameplay).

Well it's not really "repetitive" I meant... HL² does change alot within the game. But things like driving around in that insane hoverboat, for what feels like hours, is really bad.
They applied a bit too much physics to the vehicles. Other things in the levels "feel" good.
I didn't blame the general physics, just vehicle one's. I'm not saying hl²'s story has the complexity of i.e. frogger, but it stands no chance vs titles like for example Deus EX or Max Payne.
And for a game that claims to belong to the best I'm comparing it with the best.

 

[FluXs]

and that concludes the off-topic subject

 

[spec_x]

!!!!

 

[{UFF}HAMMERSTIEN]

were fluxs thoughts 4 dec 4th

 

[Eizo]

It's quite stunning how much this conversation has spun off lol

 

[FluXs]

eek i forgot