"Striders seemed only to go down if I shot them, not the NPCs."

That's kind of the point. You're playing the game, not watching it. :) 

You were the only person who had never played HL2, and probably the only person who didn't like it ;). 

For me works the same as a great film, whenever I play it, it still after all this time holds my interest and is still fun. Quake is the only other game that has been able to do this for me, so that is my 2p =) 

Yeah, Half-Life 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. People who don't like it confuse me. 

... was very innovative at its time... and for sure it a very good game...
However, like "old" games, it is deprecated compared to new ones... though... aren't we playing/mapping/discussing a very old game here ? 

never played it. 

Is a good game. You can only even describe it as 'average' if you only play excellent, top notch games.

Ones graded on a real 0-100 scale and not a games journalism one of 60-100. 

I think the criticism of B movie storyline is a bit problematic.

I mean, I feel like it's pretty difficult to have a very popular, 3d ACTION SHOOTER without incorporating ACTION movie style aspects. Which shooter games can you think of with stories that are NOT heavily influenced by the stereotypical action/sci fi cliches? I actually feel like the HL universe is giving into many of these in the later episodes to a greater degree than previously, but I also think that most of that has to do with the fact that a resolution is actually being formulated. I think I've said before that I just hope it doesn't end up like Xfiles/Lost etc. - shows that kept things very intersting using tension and ambiguity and open endedness, but kind of turned brittle and ridiculous by the end, IMHO.

Even if the series does give in to sci fi stereotypes, I think that those cliches have worth. Many things that seem cliche or corny etc started off as cocnepts original and effective to inspire way too many imitators, which kill the idea by regurgitating it without enough new being added.
The difference is that first person video games can allow you to experience those moments in a more direct and intimate fashion than many movies. I think this is the kernel that makes them more involving...
someone finish that thought for me - I have to go...

Also the game came out a pretty long time ago. SO some of the things that it "redid" first have been made into cliches all over again. I have to say that I've been replaying it myself, and DOOM 3, as well. And I think HL2 has aged WAY better! 

Spirit / other Linux users, how well does Steam / HL2 / L4D etc run under Wine? I have had mixed experiences... so I haven't really been eager to install that. I'm probably not a very avid gamer these days. I try to manage my time, too :-P

Besides, I'm in Germany, and I hear Steam is very cooperative with the German ministry of censorship. 

Apparently there's a good number of people who successfully play L4D with Wine. At least according to some statements I've read. Then again, considering how many glitches Spirit seems to have had in HL2, which is the same engine, it might be tricky on some machines.

As for the censorship. A large number of games aren't available to German users in the Steam store (IP block) and some that are, like L4D for example, only come in cut versions (no gore etc) if bought over Steam. However, in most cases games or keys bought in other regions can be gifted/registered at a German account and give you a fully functional uncut version. So if you know someone from abroad or simply buy a retail from amazon uk, everything's fine. 

http://appdb.winehq.org/

For me HL2 crashed almost as often as I was killed if you count kaputte savegames that crash too. Apart from that it was alright. Severe slowdowns sometimes.
Using Steam is a huge pain in the ass. 

Steam did install all the game updates, didn't it? 

Shit is going down.
http://store.steampowered.com/news/3533/
"Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations"

Started people going crazy on the forums, recap :
-Portal gets surprise update yesterday afternoon
-People see new mystery achievement
-People play and see the radio in the beginning room now has a green light
-Carry it around and notice it makes strange broadcast interference noises in certain places
-Locate and place all 26 of these mystery radios for achievement
-Smart people yank wav files out of game content folders and run them through steganography programs
-Produces 26 weird cryptic image files in a numbered sequence
-Some dude runs the number string through an md5 hash translator and gets a landline number
-Internet traces it to Kirkland, WA (near Valve HQ)
-People find out its not a phone/fax line but a data line hosting a BBS and telnet it
-Use a clue from one of the files to figure out the BBS user/password login info
-End up with a bunch of weird ASCII artwork
-We're trying to figure out wtf it means

I love Valve. 

 

Cool game with some fantastic level design in places and mediocre in others, the main problem being that some areas just didn't seem 'up to snuff' compared to others. Some of the jumping puzzles just didn't work the way I thought and I had to try them again and again to get the right spacing/timing while others that seemed really tough were very easy.

Story was wonky, not very exciting, cliche, didn't feel like I did anything and not really sure what happened at the end. Did the bad guy get his or what? Still unclear to me, but it's my understanding Mirror's Edge was planned as a trilogy - correct? Also the cartoon cutscenes were balls, didn't really fit in imo. Dante's Inferno also had bad cartoon cutscenes but much worse. Why do they these things to games?

Gameplay was fun for the most part. Running and jumping on stuff is fun. The combat was sparse thankfully but got really tedious when they introduced the all-melee fights. Not sure exactly why, though, it didn't seem to fit. Also felt like they straddled the fence on the actual shooting - felt too light that they probably shouldn't have included it imo, just added more running away/disarming type stuff. Faith doesn't seem the shooty type.

Visuals were great - awesome 'impression' of a city instead of it being an actual city. I don't care what dictator is running things, a city is not going to be all bright color-coded sterile hallways and rooftops. Still though, fucking amazing style that I'm sure would've been great to play with had there been a level editor (is there one?) Also some of the layouts were top notch and very Quakey imo. Having a sterile metropolis means you can do all kinds of weird spirey things and twisty layouts and still be believable to a degree. Top notch for the most part.

Good length too - I felt it was a bit short but only by about maybe half an hour. The story progression kind of went limp after a while (you rescue your sister, watch a cut scene, then whoa she's kidnapped again (WHAT THE EFF?) so a longer length maybe would've meant another impotent rescue plot and ANOTHER kidnapping plot afterward, sooooooo I'll let it slide.

Cool game, worth the $6 I paid for it during the Steam sale. 

Actually looking into it you can hack the UT3 editor to work with Mirror's Edge, but I'm unsure what's all involved. Might give it a spin. 

Yeah I think it's still one of the best looking games around.
I really don't understand why they had those shitty 2D cartoons spread throughout the game, the 3D is so gorgeous, they should have just stuck to that. 

the 2d is seriously balls, the 3d is beautiful. 

Valve has changed the ending to Portal, mega spoiler ahead :
http://www.xfire.com/video/2393cf/

Woo! 

Not that great an ending imo. 

it's disappointing they resorted to ret-conning the ending. 

I don't really see the trouble, it's not like they changed anything, they just added a bit on.
They could have as easily just added it to the start of whatever comes next and it wouldn't have bothered anyone, but this works nicely as a teaser. I think it's smart. 

Oh well, it's quite an okay game (SP) - I enjoyed it. Needless to say, it suffers from the obvious flaws most modern FPS have: MSD. Visually great, even though I could 'only' play it on DirectX 9. Cool finishing moves.
A game like this would benefit from at least some nonlinearity in its map design. After all, what's more scary than seemingly being lost in a dark base while chased by aliens? There are six maps in total which you play through in different ways and directions, and with slight changes, depending on the species. While it was done well, they could have done more here. I wished the campaigns were longer, especially the Alien campaign which was very cool. Considering this fact and the overall playtime, I wonder why it has such a huge filesize.
Good controls, although the melee combat takes some practice. I thought the Predator weapons are a bit of a let-down: I hardly every used the proximity mines; the spear feels silly because it doesn't have to be picked up again after a throw.
Story-wise it was nothing special and the way it was told, the audio diary collectables in particular, was kind of lame for the most part. I'm tired of being guided through a game over a radio. Also, ffs why Tenenbaum again..?
The marine AI is stupid and poorly done. You can kill one unnoticed while others stand right next to him. They don't even become alerted when they discover fallen buddies.

I haven't tried MP yet. Have to mentally prepare for being smashed by Bal. 

The thing about mapping for Mirror's Edge is that the lighting utility used on the maps to give them the distinctive HDR look is not shipped with the game, so you CAN map for it, but you will have real trouble matching the style of the original game.

Apparently though, some people have managed to cook up some custom shaders that make custom maps look very close to how they are supposed to look when processed by the proprietary lighting tool.

Another gotcha is actually playing custom content in Mirror's Edge. There is no actual menu to select and play any custom usermade content, so what actually has to be done is this:

1) Backup a timetrial map of your chosing
2) Save your map under the same name as the timetrial map, essentially replacing it
3) Launch the game and load the timetrial map via the menu, which now will obviously launch your map instead. 

it's like doom mapping all over again :)