Is a massive temptation.

Portal1 is well worth the effort, it last about an hour and is very well realised. 

Yeah I know, I was being more general in the statement. Good games generally have a level of polish to them that bad games don't - and thats on art/design/tech. 

is a massive disappointment.

Portal is nice! 

Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Yay or Nay? 

 

17 seconds. And you dont even have a computer! 

In modern Tomb Raider games does Lara still control like she's a fucking tractor? :p 

Underworld is pretty cool, though be warned the flame effects in the first level for some reason brings my framerate to a slow crawl. This is weird because it is literally just some small corridors, whereas later it renders huge, open, magnificent, gorgeous vistas without a hitch. Just so you know and don't dismiss it on the first level.

Actually Tomb Raider Anniversary is my favourite of the reboots, because it has that same great underemphasis on combat as the original did. 

will pick it up.

thanks czg. 

about HL2? 

http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=23795&start=3177

each to their own though, i absolutely love it 

and me asking then as well. hahaha.
I loved it when I played it, feel pretty good about it now. Liked episode 1 quite a bit, enjoyed episode 2 less for some reason I forget, and dislike the way the story is going.

Prefer HL1. 

and dislike the way the story is going.

yes, i feel this way too. i really do not like the direction that ep2 hints at (nor ep2 in a general sense).

hl2 for me was always about urban maps. for me, the parts that i enjoyed the least in hl2/ep1/ep2 were the maps that were NOT city17.

hl2 starts with city17 followed by a very cool extended chase sequence as you exit the city. you stumble on all these great locales-- post-ap shanty towns in drainage canals, rebel outposts, just plain abandoned areas you know no one's visited in years... all these great urban areas like out of an urban exploration blog.

i guess that's why i liked ep1 so much-- it's entirely in city17.
ep2 seemed like the beginning of an downward spiral as city17 is wiped off the map.
some cool parts in the mill/mine, but then we get boring caves. then we get a bit more factory type stuff, then the long drive through hillsides and the final battle takes place in kind of boring looking mountainous region.

ep2 ends and seems to point us to the antarctic or whatever where that ship is. so it looks like, either ep3 will have us spend a bit of time out in the country before we somehow get to that ship, or we'll just be teleported there and spend the entire episode there. which... i dunno, isn't really all that appealing to me. 

Be disappointed if theres another wanky super weapon ending to round it off.

Lots of environments stick out for me - city17 (metro right at the start especially), prison, beach / coastal, sandlion beach road and so on.

The best bits were probably the industrial sections though. 

Caves were uninspired. 

I thought Episode 2 lacked 'filler'. It felt like short set pieces bolted together with not enough simple run and gun to rattle through
yeah I think filler is a very good thing :E

Also those ant-lion caves were seriously too long, and Alyx just got irritating. EVERY time the player does something, she stops just short of kissing your pecker. Enough with the NPC 'OMG you're AMAZING!!' shit, I'm not four.

Oh and the car was way better than the buggy but then they don't let you enjoy it. In Highway 17 you had stretches you could bomb down, areas to explore at your leisure etc. In Ep2, alyx + the tighter design + that stupid beeping supplies thing meant you couldn't just chill out in the same way, you're constantly getting little pokes from the game to stop, go this way etc (yeah I know you can ignore it but I just wish it wasn't there).

...I loved episode 1 for the fact it didn't do a lot of this stuff. The hospital section for example was a fantastic bit of simple combat fun :E 

i did actually prefer ep2 to ep1 but i can agree about the lack of filler. and to some extent the antlion caves, which got a little tiresome after a while. but the finale was probably the most fun i've had playing any shooter game ever, and i generally loved the forest/mountain settings throughout, especially the setpieces like the falling bridge, that massive wide shot of a destroyed city 17 or when you see the armies advancing to white forest in the distance. loved the vortigaunt/gman twists in the story too and looking forward to where things are headed

ep1 was good but it pretty much felt like 'more of the same' and i was kinda relieved to finally escape the city at the end; any more and it would have dragged a bit

i have a feeling ep3 (if it ever comes) is going to be much bigger. i am so booking a few days off work and queuing outside GAME at midnight XD


i was never a *massive* fan of HL1... still liked it but could never see why such a huge fuss was made about it. tried replaying it after HL2 and found the gameplay much more frustrating in several places. and the story felt kind of random until this site helped tie it in. never got round to checking out opposing force or blue shift though, annoyingly as i have as part of the generation pack but have lost my cd key :( 

Oh and the car was way better than the buggy but then they don't let you enjoy it. In Highway 17 you had stretches you could bomb down, areas to explore at your leisure etc. In Ep2, alyx + the tighter design + that stupid beeping supplies thing meant you couldn't just chill out in the same way, you're constantly getting little pokes from the game to stop, go this way etc (yeah I know you can ignore it but I just wish it wasn't there).

YES. that's it, right on. it was too... i can't believe i'm saying this about a shooter, but too fast paced. i would have preferred a more leisurely pacing with some more optional areas to drive around and just explore.

the coastal driving section in hl was one of my favourite parts of the game.

i just love that concept that you're driving along this long road and stumbling on abandoned house after abandoned house.

i could totally play a unit where it's just driving from one encounter to another and maybe you pick up some gas here, or a part to fix your vehicle there, and each stop has some kind of sad or disturbing story to it. totally like a 'slice of life' of like mad max 2 or something.

if anyone remembers when i posted those venice hl2 shots... i was really hoping to do just that, but i'm just not very proficient at WC3.3 and also hl2 scripting is kind of goofy. :P

ep1 was good but it pretty much felt like 'more of the same' and i was kinda relieved to finally escape the city at the end; any more and it would have dragged a bit

i guess i'm just a huge sucker for post-ap settings. i love run down, destroyed city stuff. and not just freshly wrecked stuff like in a ww2 game. i could have an ep1 that was twice the length.
one part of ep1 that stands out for me, really in just capturing the whole atmosphere, was that tiny area right after going up the rickety lift after being mobbed by tons of zombies.
it's this dusty room with junk strewn all over the floor and the crank for the door is broken. 

gman/vort aspect of the story was one of the parts that bothered me most.

things could definitely go in a bad, tacky direction. X-files style, where the attempts to tie up some of the ambiguity (which made the show) really are lame/gay/unsatisfying. 

Necros: I am somewhat hoping that rage might be like that. 

However I am finding Crysis to be even better. Great graphics, even better gameplay. 

I am somewhat hoping that rage might be like that.

yeah, all the promo stuff i've seen of it definitely points in that direction.

but.... it's iD. they are fully capable of fucking it up. :P
i was very happy when i heard they were ditching that 'dark' game. 

I just remembered the Gnome achievement, and how the fucking thing had no friction with the car - so every time you turned it'd go flying out the door, even during the helicopter chase.

Insult to injury, the gnome fell out of the shuttle at the end somehow so didn't get the achievement. Refused to go back to a quicksave as well :I 

 

Sure theres an applied insult in there but cant be arsed.