/vr/ - Retro Games

You're just missing how different it was to everything that came before it.

>>598514
Sorry for my ignorance, but in what ways was it different?

>>598525
xDDDDDDDDDD FUCK YOU NIGGER !

>>598525
First FPS with serious story and gameplay.

Also
>Baldur's Gate 1
>groundbraking

Consider the most popular FPS beforehand are Doom 1/2, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D. Half Life had an immersive plot that happened around the player with great game feel, lots of variation in both levels and enemies, interesting weapons. It was also quite a tense experience, I won't say scary but there were oft times that you didn't want to explore dark areas.

It was a wake up call for what the FPS genre was capable of.

You just finished your first fps?

Honestly I find Unreal, which came out slightly before HL to be a more groundbreaking game, with its open space environments, compared to all the corridor shooters that came before.

>>599582
Yeah, don't own any modern consoles and mostly play strategy games. Thanks for the reco, will give that a shot

>>599582
Agreed. Love both, but had more fun with Unreal. Specially coop. No game blew my mind at the time like Thief though...

>>599582
Quake 2 > Unreal

deal with it

Good first choice OP.

Half-Life is usually regarded as a very overrated game. Yes, it's great, and worth a play through for anyone who enjoys FPS, but there are better ones. I consider myself an FPS fanatic, and I never enjoyed that series too much. You should try a few more "classics". Someone already suggested Unreal, and I agree that it is totally worth it. However, you should try Doom sometime. Easily one of the best shooters out there. It's a great stepping stone into the past, as well. If that makes sense.

>>599874
I DISAGREE! Quake 2 got boring to me after the first few levels. And the AI was dumb as shit.

Half-Life was groundbreaking because it had very diverse and realistic locations with much more complex details than FPS's that came before it (Duke Nukem 3D was the only one that had it, and not to that large extend). Also scripted events. This was probably the most fun I've ever had sightseeing in video games. That and slightly more complex AI was pretty much the game's entire call to fame and why it received shitton of GOTY awards.

>serious story and gameplay
It barely had any more story than other FPS games. The only story-based ones from 90s were Marathon and System Shock, and both came out shortly after the original Doom. And the gameplay is pretty shitty in my opinion - the arsenal is sloppily balanced (the useless submachinegun being the most blatant) and most enemies are pathetically nonthreatening.

If you want some more FPS games, then depending what you're looking for:
- eyecandy, exploration and scripted action: Duke Nukem 3D, Half-Life 2, Far Cry
- plot: Marathon (three games), System Shock (two games)
- gameplay: Doom (2/3 games), Dark Forces

>>599884
HL2 is still amazing in my opinion. HL1 is a little bit dated, but still fun. And the way they tell the story is the coolest part of the series. Looking forward to 3...

>>598505
I remember the first time I got to the Xen level. Holy shit that blew my mind, just because I wasn't expecting the game to change that drastically. I think what makes the whole series unique is how its built like an action to the point where valve created certain assets to be used only once. I remember playing HL1 for the first time, there was a part where a soldier planet a weird fire bomb at the end of a tunnel I was crawling through, and I noped back towards the hole I came from. I still reminisce about this game, and play through the series every once in a while.

>>599927
For me it's the opposite, a lot of HL2 feels shitty to me whereas I still love HL1 and Opposing Force going back to them.

>>598505
There's nothing wrong with you, dude. This game was the Ocarina of Time of FPS. I think you're just too fucking young.

>>599917
You might want to add Turok 3 to the eyecandy section, although currently the only way to play it is by buying a N64 and the cartridge.

>>600070
Did you ever hear about emulators?

>>600089
Pretty sure there's not an emulator out there that can run it. N64 emulation is garbage.

>>600089
Did you ever hear about how shitty N64 emulation is? Turok 3 doesn't run on any emulator as of now.

>>599958
To each their own I suppose. Opposing Force was better than HL1 in my opinion (gameplay wise anyway). Dat wrench.

>>599874
Quake 1 > Quake 2

>>600108
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRkb1vmKkgQ

>>599454
>First FPS with serious story and gameplay.
But that is Marathon when you talk about a first serious story for the FPS.

>>600249
You mean System Shock.

I played Marathon for about 15 minutes, and it wasn't very fun. Is there something I'm missing?

>>600265
same here. i never could enjoy it properly

>>600265
No. It's pretty boring compared to Doom and similar FPS of its era.

what exactly is groundbreaking about baldur's gate?

>>600249
Marathon feels kind of dated now, just saying.

>>599958
>opposing force

Master race.

>>600229
I'd take Turok 2 over HL1 anyday, but what is this shit?

>>600282
sorry meant 2. To me it just encapsulates everything good about that generation of CRPGS

>>599884
Thanks for the suggestions. After I do the HL expansions and HL2, I'll take a look at some of those.

You have to consider the impact it had for its time. It was years ahead of any competing shooter in terms of physics, grpahics and modability.

>>601004
You're pretty wrong about that. Unreal had better grahphics, physics were pretty much absent. You're close to right on with mod-ability. Really Unreal and quake were just as mod-able, but less utilized.

It was the story, and environments that made it stand out. The way they told the story. Nothing was spelled out for you. You had to pay attention to properly get it.

>>600249
Always wanted to get into Marathon but god damn that FOV. I usually don't bitch about low FOVs but that game made me feel sick while I was playing it. Shame too because it seems like a cool game.

>>599582

Unreal is unplayable compared to HL

>>598505

>just played and finished this baby for the first time

This is why you don't think it was groundbreaking. At the time it was great because it was the first of its kind. A story driven (in retrospect, a very weak story) FPS with a fluid engine. It would be like playing Super Mario Bros. for the first time in 2005 and wondering why people hailed it as the best thing ever.

>>601020
>Nothing was spelled out for you. You had to pay attention to properly get it.

This is why I prefer Half Life 1 over 2. 2 had way too many spots where the game just comes to a halt so the characters can feed you more story. It is alright during your first run but that shit gets really annoying on the second or third one because there is no way to skip it and move on.

>>601060

this, holy shit this

I really hate most of the cast in HL2

Kleiner and Breen are gold though, that nigger and his flatassed offspring are really badly written, same with Barney. Fuck wish there was a mod that gets rid of them. Replace Alyx with random rebels in action sequences.

>>599917
Why no unreal love?

What do you guys think about Unreal II - The Awakening?

I've been playing it these days I think it's a great game. Might not be retro though....

>>601089
>not liking alyx

>>601060

Personally I don't think the breaks are long and frequent enough for that to be a problem, with the exception of Black Mesa East.

>>601067
>Wondering about why Mario is considered popular.
But it's obvious to understand why SMW was a very popular game during it's time.

Half Life on the other hand, was overhyped at first, and the devs reworked 30% of the entire games, because they thought it was "too scary to become a public release" so to speak. It became almost a game for kids in comparation. Remember that "The Thing" was one of the main inspirations for that game. People who browse this board probably know, this game was more hyped through heaven and hell than B&W1.

The matter at hand is that Half Life still is a good experience. The problem I see that it's just a very solid game, yet it truely did nothing new for the genre. This "solidness" is also the reason its still a good game. It's a blessed but simultaniously a cursed game.

Unreal was far more unique than Half Life will ever become. The Artstyle is also more memoriable but not the setting. Both games are fun.

Also consider that Unreal and Half Life had very similar ratings. You can't really tell that one game is better or worse then the other without writing a wall of text about all considerable factors which made those games unique and fun.

I also find that the story of Half Life 2 sucks ass. Half Lifes story about the Black Mesa incident has been a fore more memoriable experience than the shitty Half Life 2 setting, though various add-ons helped to enhance that experience.

>>599520
>with great game feel
Shut up Arin.

I agree though.

>>598505
You messed up OP, you should have started way earlier. I'd have gone Wolf3D > Doom > Quake > and then Half-Life in order to place the game in the proper context.

Couldn't have messed up and played a better game though.

>>601454
>alf Life on the other hand, was overhyped at first, and the devs reworked 30% of the entire games, because they thought it was "too scary to become a public release" so to speak. It became almost a game for kids in comparation. Remember that "The Thing" was one of the main inspirations for that game.

What? Half-Life and Half-Life 2 received reworks because Valve didn't think the game was good enough yet, not because it was "too scary". That's complete hogwash.

>The problem I see that it's just a very solid game, yet it truely did nothing new for the genre.
But that also sounds like hogwash. Half-Life was one of the first games to play seamlessly from beginning to end, with no "mission structure" breaking up levels. While it's true Unreal also did this, Unreal tends to shine more in its open environments, while Half-Life has a comparatively extreme level of interior detail. Both of these things added up to a really immersive experience that people weren't used to.

I've often wondered why Half-Life became a hit, while SS2 remained in the shadows for years.

>>601992
>>601992
While I love both games, SS2 suffers from a certain un-intuitive complexity while HL does not.

For example, Half-Life does not require players to learn that "repairing" and "maintaining" weapons are two separate skills and you need to level up both of them in order for either to be effective.

>>602030
I can see that as a hindrance for a fair amount of people; I mean, it takes more effort than in HL.

Still, I think it should've had a larger impact.

Half-Life is still a fun experience, but are Quake 2 or Unreal worth playing at this point? I never played them back in the day.

>>598505
>Starcraft
>groundbreaking
Is this some kind of joke? This game did nothing new. (im not calling it bad)

>>602131
It polished off the genre and became insanely popular. In that sense it is groundbreaking, not for it's inventiveness but for its polish.

>>599454
What about System Shock? Strife?

Even a console game (Goldeneye 64) did this before Half Life.

>>602131
I'm struggling to think of another RTS that did truly asymmetrical 'teams' the way Starcraft does, but I'm not exactly deep in to the genre.

Any examples?

>>598505
>But I didn't feel like it was groundbreaking in any huge way

"Feel" your way back to the late 1990's and pretend you played it then when DOOM for the PC was still semi-fresh in your mind.

>>602197
Half Life was "groundbreaking" for people that only played Doom and Quake.

>>602203
If that's how you want to read into the history that's fine. I remember it being a big step up from Unreal and SS for me at the time.

Half Life is a FPS game made by autists and for autists.

The gameplay is mediocre. The combat is easy as fuck (even on Hard mode), the puzzles are for dummies (See that hole in the wall? See that wooden box close to it? You know what to do lol!) and the exploration is trivial since the game is almost linear.

Also, the story... what story? The game didn't had a good story. What Half Life character is well developed? None. "B-but the plot" the fans scream. Sure. Nerd Gordon Freeman is working on a lab, a portal from another dimension open (I already see this before, lol) and now he fight to survive against aliens. The average nerd is now a killing machine. He even invaded the native planet of the aliens and killed their leader! What a well developed story (for 5 years old, of course)

Nope. The story is just is basically "Gabe Newell power fantasy".

>>602231
The only good thing about Half Life is the modding community.

Half Life is a good "mod base", not a good game.

>>602203
Rubbish. Name another shooter that did the 'cinematic experience' thing before Half Life. By which I mean the memorable, scripted set-pieces complete with the confidence to do all kinds of bits and pieces that go on whether you happen to be looking at them or not. I played just about every shooter from Wolf3D onward and I can't think of many examples.

Think about the environment puzzles and the freedom it let you approach things with.

Also consider the way they managed to make Black Mesa feel like a real, cohesive place at a time where most shooters were a thinly tied together 'levels.' It's not quite as unique in that, but it's certainly AMONG the first good examples.

You can argue that the style it pioneered has ultimately been bad for the genre, and I'd agree to an extent, but it'd be difficult to make a case for it not being pretty unique at the time.

>>602231
>autists
Stopped reading right there. Might want to try making an argument without resorting to spittle-flecked name-calling and /v/ buzzwords.

>>602231
Your arguments are awful and ill-constructed.

Anyways, Half-Life was groundbreaking for the time due to it not having to rely on FMVs to tell a compelling story, it's good gameplay, and it gave birth to great mods like TFC (a continuation of QuakeTF).

>>602048
Not saying I disagree, my good fellow. While I prefer Half-Life, the extent to with SS2 is overlooked is quite a sin.

jesus christ
lots of people enjoyed it and you can find reviews online saying pretty much every reason why. just because you didn't enjoy popular game x doesn't mean you should make a passive aggressive thread to talk shit about it.

>>602110
YES OH FUCK YES. My favorites are Quake Two and Unreal Gold. Although, more people seem to prefer Quake One over Two, so you may be better off playing One.

I really wish I understood all the flak going towards Quake Two, I never experienced any of the issues they put forth. I never was bored with it, the game felt very fast paced and moving, great, varying weapons and enemies, sound effects that could keep a man in a hospital beds heart beating, and very nice level progression. I think its a blessing though, because if I had the same criticisms, I would have missed out on the greatest shooter to ever run on my PC.

>>599884
>doom
Enjoy your no Y axis.

>>609674
So?

>>601264
>m-muh waifu

>>609674
You didn't need it in Doom. AutoAim

>>609690
>tfw doom is even more casual than console shooters

>>609690
>autoaim
And where's the fun in a shooter like that?

>>598505
>TL;DR: Played game, is really good, but not amazing, what am i missing?


You're missing the nostalgia most people have for the game. The innovation they praise it for means little to a new player, so you're left with just another average shooter.
It's also not something everybody enjoys. I played it when it came out, i loved the intro chapter where everything's dandy until shit hits the fan dawn of the dead style, but it quickly becomes a fight-the-bad-corporate-soldiers borefest.

I recommend Unreal. Less linear, more intresting environment, enemies and weapons.

I played it when it was first released so I probably see it in different terms to what later generations might.

It *was* groundbreaking btw. The scripting was totally industry-changing, by the time this was released, publishers realized it was the new benchmark and most games that didn't see how it blew everything out of the water just looked ridiculous after HL.
The on-the-fly loading of maps meant that levels could be much larger than previously.
CS also played a big part in how it took off. Quake already had a good mod community going, but HL took modding to the next level. It's the game that made Valve.
How can you say it was groundbreaking?

>>609705
>>609724
Classic Doom is movement focused rather than aiming focused and the autoaim only targets stuff on the Y axis.

Half-Life is great, HL2 is amazing.
I don't get the Unreal love though. The game is basically a tech demo with big landscapes to walk around, and it's just boring now. Too few enemies, too much monotony.

None of the FPSes from the 90s really hold up well. Even in its time, though, Unreal wasn't that great. Don't get me wrong, it LOOKED nice - I remember being blown away by the scope of the level leading up to the Sunspire - but the enemy design was uninspired and samey, the AI was terrible, and what little story there is is told really poorly.

Also, I remember being really annoyed that some of the items just flat-out don't work the way they're supposed to. The "sound box", for instance, is supposed to confuse enemies by making it sound like there's a firefight going on somewhere else - but the enemy AI never respond to it at all.

ok go play doom and then play call of duty and yo-u might understand a bit better

Apart from one short scene, HL never took the controls away from the player. It didn't throw the player cutscenes or mission reports with gameplay statistics; the game simply allowed the player to control Gordon from the beginning to the end, which made the player feel more immersion in the game and its events. It felt more cinematic than a lot of things that had come before.
You got scripted events making the research facility feel more lively, and instead of everyone being out there to kill you, there were also some friendly/neutral characters (scientists, barneys, some of the aliens working in that Xen factory). You could kill these guys if you really wanted to, or you could let them be. And you could explore all the irrelevant side areas and stick around to watch the scripted events to the end if that was your gameplay style, or you could just run through these situations and shoot everything in sight if that's what you preferred instead.
The game tried to go for an immersive experience, so it attempted to give you this illusion of freedom/choice, and of things happening whether Gordon was there or not.

All the mods played a big role too; even after you finished the main game, there was a fuckton of free new content for you to download and play. Some of the mods grew to be pretty big and popular. And this: >>601934
Understanding the game's influence would be easier if you're more familiar with how it compared to other FPS games from way back. A lot of the things people take for granted in more recent games looked like fresh, new innovations back then.

>>601454
>the story of Half Life 2 sucks ass

I pity your lack of taste.

>>601980
>What? Half-Life and Half-Life 2 received reworks because Valve didn't think the game was good enough yet, not because it was "too scary". That's complete hogwash.

I disagree with that, during interviews it has been known that a lot of shit was cut out, and there was extensive beta coverage about Half Life, which looked better than the game we've got. Half Life 1 was made to be a horror themed science fiction / fantasy FPS.

>But that also sounds like hogwash. Half-Life was one of the first games to play seamlessly from beginning to end, with no "mission structure" breaking up levels. While it's true Unreal also did this, Unreal tends to shine more in its open environments, while Half-Life has a comparatively extreme level of interior detail. Both of these things added up to a really immersive experience that people weren't used to.

Do you really believe that "seamless" mission structure is really that impressive? There even were loading times in between so don't kid yourself about that. It's rather obvious that Half Life 1 is not more impressive then DooM in its level structure, it's just handled differently due to how the world is build. Instead of missions and set goals you progress at an unknown pace as the story unfolds so the player can make up whats going on during the progress

The best detailing and atmosphere inside interiors goes to Quake 1. The texturing on Half Life 1 was far more impressive and better layed out entirely but that game came out over 2 years later. Quake 1 has fantastic design, too

In fact, Half Life 1 isn't a almost perfect FPS due to a couple of things, but the entire matter of them. Its a splendid mixture of fantasy and realism within a very unique game envoirnment.

Half Life's theme was much more serious and Realistic. The game has this certain world build-up like you see in movies and that was new. However, if you take game design into consideration you can say that even Duke3D shares a lot but it's far more adventerous.

>>601454
reminder that there was supposed to be a monster that rapes you in HL1

>>609810
I played Half-life series (all games) 2 years ago and loved 'em, especially HL1. It's not nostalgia

It's amazing how the company which only made practically 2-3 games with a huge time-span (with everything else basically being mods, some of which didn't start as Valve's) became the leader of the industry. Mindblowing.

>>599927
>Looking forward to 3...
You are gonna have to wait a while...

>>610864
>Do you really believe that "seamless" mission structure is really that impressive?

The seamless structure + save any time is one genre convention I wish never happened and why I prefer Rare/Free Radical console shooters with set levels and 'free' mission objectives. With clearly defined missions, the game is broken up into chunks which can each offer variety of arbitrary challenges (beating a level with certain difficult settings in a given time for instance). Half Life (2 especially) conversely offers only minimal challenge at and no special goals which would provide replay value and actual difficulty.

>>601454
>>610864
Can you link to some interview where they said that they reworked the game entirely because it was too scary? That's new to me, I've never heard it said like that before. I've understood it was just that the people at Valve were perfectionists; they weren't satisfied enough with their initial HL1 plans, and that's why they scrapped them and started all over.

Also, what sort of stuff looked better than what we eventually got? I know there were a lot of aliens that can be found in the game files but never appear in the game (archer, stukabat, chumtoad, Mr. Friendly, and so on), but are you referring to them or something else?

>>610864
I don't need to "believe" it was impressive, I lived its impressiveness when it came out.

I can't take you very seriously when you say beta HL was better than what we got. From what we can even compare, release HL even looks better than beta HL. Compare the character models sometime, the beta ones are trash.

The game evolved a lot during its production but if you're going to throw around statements like "content all got cut because it was too scary" then provide a source. Have you read Raising the Bar?

They left barnacles in and I find those suitably creepy, same for headcrab zombies.

>>602174

>Even a console game (Goldeneye 64) did this before Half Life.

What was the story in Goldeneye? It was just missions

>>598505
Easy, play other FPS from that time
Say, Quake 2, Unreal.. etc and make a comparison.

>>610764
This is why.

>>599884

>doom great shooter

>just press fire in the general direction of an enemy and they die, you don't even need to aim up or down

it's like people who still call FF7 an amazing step forward even though it is an example of the worst period of 3d gaming

>>613010
>play Quake 2
>not Quake
>noface

>>598505
Starcraft was shit. Baldurs Gate was shit.
Neither were groundbreaking in any fashion.
HL1, wasn't mediocre. It was also extremely buggy when it first came out.
Despite what people say the plot was mostly paper thin, but it was pretended in character not in a cut-scene and they had poorly scripted enemy AI that also yelled what they were doing to impress imbeciles. That's about it.
The best thing about it was that it did have a modding scene and some decent mods came out of it like TS and AHL.

>>609896
>and the autoaim only targets stuff on the Y axis.
False.

the first good FPS was whichever one didn't feel like an old Windows screen-saver

>>613032
0/10

>>613070

can't handle truth?

>>613073
Try harder.

>>613102

I'm not trying anything, I'm just adding to the discussion

if you love windows screen savers so much why don't you go marry one

>>613032

I don't consider DOOM good for its shooting mechanics, so I guess you could say it's a shitty shooter, but what DOOM did was introduce complex level design, and also had great enemy design and weapon design. When you look at other shooters, the goal is to just shoot everything and move on. In DOOM and its clones, the shooting isn't really important at all aside from bosses. The games are about collecting keys/keycards to unlock doors and get to the end of the level

>>613110

the enemies did nothing but moves towards you and there was a big meatball that shot a fireball ta you too

>>613130
That's pretty much all FPS games.

>>613107
>windows screen savers

Is this the new /vr/ buzzword?

>>613130

But the goal isn't to fight them. You don't even have to kill the vast majority of enemies in those games. The games are about collecting keys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6PK9bd_uUs

>>613187
The goal is whatever you want it to be, posting a speedrun isn't exactly solid proof.

>>613185

do you remember the windows 95 or 98 dungeon maze screen saver?

that is doom

>>613187

if u don't kill them they take ur health off and you die

>>599454

>First FPS with serious story and gameplay.

>>613194
Do you remember my dick in your mom's ass?

>>613219

>"Muh 3d!" mad doom fig newton

>>613237

Metal Warriors and Assault Suits and Front Missoin Gun Hazard are infininitely better shooters than the shit 3D-Advent games

>>613193

>posting a speedrun isn't exactly solid proof

Except it is, because a speedrun is performing the goal of a game in as little time as possible. Obviously the goal isn't shooting things as he only does that when things are in his way. Levels are mazes, the goal is to navigate them and find your way out

>>613202

Unless you avoid them and run past them like the guy in the video. It's like a survival horror game like Resident Evil. The point of the game isn't to shoot everything, it's to get to where you're supposed to go. When you do that, you win

>>613516
I think you're completely missing the point

I suppose if you really water it down, the point of Doom is complete the levels, but it's not JUST about that

It's about going up against ridiculous odds, strategizing a plan and executing it as quickly and efficiently as possible, managing your ammo, and most importantly, conquering the demon hordes

It's about the challenge of completing the levels in a way that you don't get your ass ripped the next level

A speedrun of Doom does this too, but in a different way

It's still challenging, it's still about managing ammo and health, and it's still about going up against all odds, but his strategy is to run past everything

It's just another way of playing the game

>>613516

no they shot u so much u lose your health

even if running

>>613609

I think you think the point is something it's not. The point is that the shooting aspect isn't the centerpiece of the game, it's just one mechanic of the gameplay. These are games about getting from point A to point B by whatever means necessary, which may or may not include shooting things

>>613219
>Do you remember my dick in your mom's ass?

back 2vee adventurer!

>>601264

I liked Alyx back when I was 15.
She's only there to pat you on the back for moving the plot along and act cute in scripted sequences.

>>616852
>namefag
>responding to a post 13 hours earlier
>for no reason other than to shitpost
Let me tell YOU where to go, son.

>>601057
i played though it for the first time last month and it's on my 3x3 now.

>>613051
>if i say games most everyone agrees are very good are trash, then i'll have better taste than everyone else

>>599454
>First FPS with serious story and gameplay.
It's kinda bemusing how just about everything HL took credit for doing, various N64 games did first. Grief, Turok 2 even managed character volume shadows, a feature which had to be dropped from HL due to technical issues. And GE had scripted sequences with characters talking while you walked around.

Basically, it was the most amazing think PC gamers had played. Same was Xbox owners thought Halo 2's dual weapons were innovative when Goldeneye\Marathon\Perfect Dark had done the same thing years before. Even Halo 2's fancy environmental mapping effects were done first in Goldeneye.

>>621496

>It's kinda bemusing how just about everything HL took credit for doing, various N64 games did first.

Such as? Turok 2 also came out after Half-life. I've played a few N64 FPS and I never noticed any emphasis on stories/narration in them

Another thing people tend to ignore is that Goldeneye specifically is a piece of shit as a video game. It isn't fun, the controls are horrible, the AI doesn't even exist, so if it did something creative and cool on the side of that it doesn't make the game good. It's just a shitty game that had some good ideas, though not well implemented. I'm pretty sure Goldeneye was the first game to have full body locational damage (not headshots), but while that's a cool feature, it's wrapped up in a shitty game

>>610908
what

Guys, when I run original (not Steam) Half-life 1 in Win 7 it goes into the basic mode. Is there a way around that?

>>622185
GE has some flaws, but it's not a terrible videogame. Yes, it looks pretty terrible compared side by side with Perfect Dark, but that's a whole other story. Half Life is slick. But it doesn't REALLY do anything GE/Turok didn't do first. It wasn't some mindblowing leap in game design.

And you can't say N64 FPS didn't have a focus on story when GoldenEye, World is Not Enough, Perfect Dark, and Turok 3 were all story driven. PD and T3 both had full voice acting and scripted events, too. (To be fair, though, T3 is a blatant HL clone.)

>>599454
>serious story

The story is as serious as Doom's or Quake's.

Half Life suffers the same design problem Deus Ex did - being based upon a lacking, generic engine designed for arena shooters. Some people like this sort of design, but it became very blatant in the (very good) Black Mesa mod how simplistic the gameplay really is when you are no longer wowed by atmosphere.

>>598505
What is your age OP?

>>623756
>Generic engine
How can it be a "generic engine" if it's like the only one?

>Black Mesa
>Good
>Let alone very
Now you're just taking the piss.

0/10 apply yourself

>>623770
Not him, but what's bad about Black Mesa, apart from the lack of Xen?

>>623770
>Quake/Unreal Engines were only FPS engines.
You're forgetting BUILD. And LithTech. And that engine used in the Delta Force games. And the Turok engine. (Only Acclaim used it, though, IIRC. And PC's weren't advanced enough to make full use of it at the time.)

>>623786
>PC's weren't advanced enough to make full use of it at the time
how is that possible

>>601454

completely agree with HL2, what a bland game.

loved HL though. i can understand what you mean about it not being particularly "groundbreaking" but i feel like all the pieces came together much more effectively than in games like unreal, etc.

for me it was the little things, like walking into a room and watching a scientist get fucked up by a headcrab while you watch helplessly behind a pane of glass. and then you can eventually find your way into that room via an airvent or something. felt very immerssive to me.

>>623793
When Turok 1/2 was ported to PC, special effects had to be removed. Lighting, shadowing, etc. This was 1998, though. The Voodoo card was amazing at the time, but for some reason or other it had issues replicating what the N64 could do. This sorta thing wasn't uncommon. The N64's hardware was cutting edge at the time.

I don't know the exact details on why the effects were removed, though. Back in 1998, Software rendering was considered acceptable. Hardware rendering was experimental.

Speaking of software rendering... The engine used in Delta Force was incredible. Huge, decently detailed maps.

>>623825
Delta Force was a voxel-based engine, wasn't it? I remember having to save up for a Pentium 2 with MMX support, because the game needed it. I remember you could shoot down trees in that game. In fact, technologically, it kinda reminds me of Crysis. Not least because of the voxels.

>>623670
He's talking about this guy. It seems like they didn't even cut this enemy until pretty late in the game's development, too. If you've got the game and go browsing through its files, you can find a friendly.mdl that looks just like the creature in the image, and it has walk, attack and death animations included. I can't see a penis on the game model, though; I guess that part didn't survive through the concept art phase.

>>621325
You're really posting argumentum ad populum on fucking /vr/? REALLY? You're posting on a board where that very argument would relegate this entire board to dogshit because of a majority of fucking retard casuals playing modern games?
How the fuck are you that stupid?

>>623756
The engine wasn't a problem. The engine could have been used for 99% of FPS games up to that point. The engine only makes a significant difference when the game does something significantly different or is so poorly designed it's not worth using. idtech had it's faults, but it's generally useable and a stable base as well as tending to be easier to work with.

>>599582
Unreal was just a tech demo, UT is when they did actually something with the engine.

>>599958
the only stunning thing about half-life 2 in my opinion were the physics, now things like that are more common and it's kind of lost its touch

>>600103
>>600108

There was actually a specially packaged emulator/rom .exe for Turok 3 years ago, if I find it on my old hard-drives I will upload it

>>624378
Not really. Unreal deathmatch is just as solid as UT's, its just that UT adds tons of new modes.

Unreal has an awesome soundtrack (same guy as Deus Ex) and really cool areas. The weaknesses (guns all feel super weak) is a pretty standard problem in all the main Unreal games in all 3 engines. Gears of War fixed that one problem, but the game is mindnumbingly boring, so...

>>624378
Fuckin wrong.
>>624413
Fuckin right.

>>598505

>never played an FPS before
>this didnt feel groundbreaking

FULL FUCKING RETARD

>>623738

>And you can't say N64 FPS didn't have a focus on story when GoldenEye, World is Not Enough, Perfect Dark, and Turok 3 were all story driven

Goldeneye being the only one that came out before Half-life and it's pretty hard to say it has a focus on story when it's set up with selectable levels, most of which involve no kind of dialogue at all, and the few that do are just a couple of seconds of text at the bottom of the screen, which also happened in other games before Goldeneye. The only reason you can even say it has a story is because it's based on a movie, so if you know the story of the movie you can see a story in the game, but the game itself does nothing to create a story. Compare what you see in Goldeneye to what you see in Half-life. Half-life is like a modern FPS game in 1998, it created that style. Duke Nukem and Blood had more storytelling than Goldeneye

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6z3aM_Nlws

>>622185
>Another thing people tend to ignore is that Goldeneye specifically is a piece of shit as a video game.

This is just straight up bullshit. Aiming is just as 'good' in GE as any other console FPS, it's just unfortunate that that default settings are shit (then instruction manual even recommends switching the controls if you want to play the game seriously). Make the control stick aim, turn off auto aim and turn on lookahead (so that your view DOESN'T recenter whenever you walk).

However, the fact that aiming is inherently fiddly is very much a positive, as is means carefully placing your shots is difficult but has huge payoff.

The AI is far more effective then anything in HL2 due to the fact that enemies actually move around freely and remain actively threatening even if they only use basic path finding. The unlock-able difficulty settings and time trials allow the game to be made incredibly difficult without mods.

>>625285
>Goldeneye being the only one that came out before Half-life and it's pretty hard to say it has a focus on story when it's set up with selectable levels, most of which involve no kind of dialogue at all, and the few that do are just a couple of seconds of text at the bottom of the screen, which also happened in other games before Goldeneye.
You have a point, but there is a counterargument. Firstly, the selectable levels thing was a Rareware design trope. Perfect Dark had it, too, and that game was overflowing with story and incidental conversations ingame. (NPCs talking to each other, Joanna greeting people and they greet back, that sort of thing.)

Goldeneye's rail shooter origins mean many missions do, indeed, have next to no plot. However, some missions, such as Control, are basically one long scripted escort mission. Can you point to a pre-Goldeneye FPS which had this sort of thing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9uBu0TZIPs

Just because GE used subtitles doesn't mean that it wasn't telling a story. (Even if it is a clunky game which is nowhere near as good as Perfect Dark.)

>>623793
It's not. He's just blowing smoke up your ass because they decided on doing a shitty port.

>>626679
>It's not. He's just blowing smoke up your ass because they decided on doing a shitty port.
IMO, the Turok 2 PC port was downgraded because the game was specificially engineered for N64 hardware, which was indeed more powerful than consumer PC hardware of the era. When you ignore the shocking draw distance, Turok 2 N64 has dynamic lighting and volume shadows. The graphics on the PC version are OKAY, but the hardware taxing effects were removed. There's no point denying the N64 was more advanced than a consumer PC of that era. We're talking 1998 here. One notable example was the inability of PCs to replicate the framebuffer effects used by not only the N64, but the PSX.

>>626736
Basically, the Turok Engine was designed for the N64, just as the Quake engine was designed for PCs. Turok ran like shit on PCs, and Quake ran like shit on the N64. The closest thing the N64 ever got to Half Life in terms of game design was Turok 3.

>>600108
>Did you ever hear about how shitty N64 emulation is? Turok 3 doesn't run on any emulator as of now.
Hey, that's not true at all. It doesn't emulate CORRECTLY on most emulators, but it runs. The main problem is the shadows don't work properly ATM without Low Level Emulation.

Turok 3 is a much better looking game than Half Life. But then again, it had Acclaim's god-tier engineers working on it. Plus it came out 2 years after Half Life.

Because Half-Life is a fucking art game but it does it so flawlessly that you don't notice it. It's the inherrent struggle of choice vs freedom. Are we puppets of a deterministic universe or do we have free will?

It's the struggle of Freeman vs. G-Man. Two sides of the same coin. One in a scientific advanced armor and the other in a business suit. It's level design is such that you're exploring sewers, laboratories, mountains and you feel like a Free Man, but are constantly running into the G-Man at every corner.

Or remember how you thought that tram ride was annoying. And then it appears at the end of the game again? Or how about that final "choice" you get to make at the end of the game. All this symbolism that just wasn't in games before.

So fucking much going on in this game packed in a top of the line shooter of it's time.

>>599520
>great game feel, lots of variation in both levels and enemies, interesting weapons
>implying those other games you listed didn't have those as well

>>624328
get a poll thread on /vr/. i fucking dare you. guarantee starcraft and half-life have > 85% approval.

>>626823
>choice vs freedom

Fucking fate vs freedom.

>>602165
>inventiveness

Innovation.

>>626838
>get a poll thread on /vr/. i fucking dare you. guarantee starcraft and half-life have > 85% approval.
mfw I realise that since Starcraft and Command and Conquer are both on the N64 with enhanced graphics, they're technically casual games by /vr/'s standards.

>>602110
Dude.
Go play Quake 2 right now.

The gameplay isn't as impressive as Quake's gameplay, but it's definitely something a FPS gamer should try at least once. That shit was my childhood defining game.

>>602110
>>626868
Give unreal a go while you're at it. Better than quake 2 in my opinion, but quake 2 is good also

>>602231
None of those points have anything even remotely to do with autism.

Do you know what autism means? For future reference, it has nothing to do with stupidity.

Episodes were fun, but they weren't special like HL1/2. That's probably why HL3 is taking so long.

>>626838
So, your response to stop using an argumentum ad populum is to double down on being a dipshit?
You don't seem to understand what the fuck you're talking about do you?

Almost nobody mentions Delta Force. (1998)
The insane draw distance was achieved by using voxels. (Novalogic tended to retrofit their own flight game engines for their FPS games.)

It's tricky to take pictures of this game because FRAPS doesn't recognise it. (Probably because of the Voxel-based rendering engine.)

It has voice acting, too, sort of. (HQ radios you orders, announces squad status, etc.)

what does everyone feel about Black Mesa (the Source remake)?

>>627045
If you can see it, you can go there. The basic maps were only 1x1 kilometers, but you could keep walking and the game would provide terrain.

>>602231
go back to /v/

>>627063
Plus you could chop down trees with your assault rifle. Which is one reason why Crysis didn't impress me all that much - I'd already played this gem.

>>613056
true

>>627056
great

>>613194
no thats wolf3d

>>623770
>shitting on Black Mesa
nigga what

HL1's level design relies on the player being able to do shit like run through a room full of soldiers without stopping to engage. (In fact, this sort of not-quite-Quake gameplay is exactly why HL remains so popular.) Black Mesa slows down the player and makes enemies much stronger, forcing you to engage before you can proceed (they seem to have done this deliberately to add "depth").

They also did a bunch of other stupid shit like making Gargantuas immune to all weapons (ignore the fact that you're actually supposed to kill at least one during normal gameplay), removing the ability to interrupt Houndeye attacks, and generally sucking all the fun out of Power Up and On A Rail.

But at least it makes for some pretty screenshots. In one or two places. After you turn HDR off. If you don't mind the fact that they have no god damn clue how to use bloom properly.

>>627142
houndeyes telegraph their attacks though

>>627161
In the original, hitting them during the charge would make their attack fail. Since you always encounter them in huge packs that always seem to be one foot wider than the grenade's kill radius, this is the only way to kill them without taking damage.

>>627056
It had tons of cool stuff for HL fans (dialogue fleshing out the NPCs, and fun little jokes here and there). I didn't initially like the fact that it wasn't gonna be a 100% accurate conversion, but I ended up changing my mind. I thought it was nice that the game threw little surprises at you, like for example not giving you the crowbar right away.
"On a rail" was a somewhat tedious and long chapter back in HL1, so I was okay with its length getting reduced. Losing a nice chunk of "Surface tension" was a pity, though.

I had some issues with the gameplay. I don't usually mind jumping puzzles, but Gordon's jumping height was a bit too low and I kept miscalculating my jumping abilities. A lot of the enemies felt frustratingly tough, so I had to crank the difficulty level way down in order to make the gameplay feel fun. And manipulating the environments with the gravity gun has become second nature for me, so when I was looking at all the physics objects around Gordon, I couldn't help missing that gun.

On the topic of actual retro vidya: I never got to play Goldeneye 64 and I never really bothered to look up information about it, but this thread has made me curious about it. Until now, I didn't realize it used certain features before Half-life did. That's pretty cool. And I'm amazed that despite being based on a licensed property, it ended up being innovative instead of half-assed.

>>598505
Half-Life is a strange game. It's got most of the features you'd expect from a "modern" shooter, but because it uses a lot of Quake's code (movement especially) it ends up as some sort of weird combination of old-school and new-school. It's completely unlike any other shooter I've ever played.

>>627142
>They also did a bunch of other stupid shit like making Gargantuas immune to all weapons (ignore the fact that you're actually supposed to kill at least one during normal gameplay)

Their wiki says it's immune to non armor piercing weapons.
Just like in the original. Small arms do not work against it.
Nor do you HAVE to kill one in the original at all, not even if you don't just bypass the shit outright.

Half-Life is a perfect example of the Seinfeld effect in video games. It only seems underwhelming today because every other game has copied every good thing from it.

>>627272
It can't be killed at all with the player's weapons. You need to find a scripted event that kills it, and if there is no scripted event you're SOL.

And unless you have mad longjump skillz you're probably going to end up killing the one in Xen, or the one in Nihilanth if you're unfortunate enough to run into it.

>>627274
> It only seems underwhelming today because every other game has copied every good thing from it.
Please enlighten us to even a handful of games that copy everything good thing from it.

>>627478
So in other words, you got nothing.

>>610764

"Gets pissed when not fed" for the win, lol.

>>627298
>It can't be killed at all with the player's weapons.
You didn't try hard enough. The big guns kill them.

>>628214
I think he was talking about the gargantua in Black Mesa. HL1 gargantua could be killed with enough explosives or gluon/gauss gun, but the Black Mesa garg is invulnerable to all your weapons and it needs to be killed via a scripted event.