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From the Poke646 website:
The true meaning of Poke646 goes way back into the early 80's were the C=64 homecomputer was very popular. I wrote my first games on it in Basic and Poke646 was the command to change the font color on the screen. I thought it would fit the title of this mod as this is the first complete game I designed since my early days in the computing business. :) is half-life ported to the source engine. there are no major differences apart from water and maybe physics though, afaik.
but if poke646 is developed exclusively for this very version, it unfortunately means hardly anyone will be able to play it - at least i doubt too many people have bought hl1 again only because of the source features. if the team is smart enough, they will either (also) do it on classic hl or hl2. When I bought HL2 on steam it was a pack that included HL1 (along with ep1, multiplayer, etc).
Not sure if that kind of pack still exists, probably. If you still have your half-life CD key, you should be able to register it with steam, and then half-life and all the associated games will be added to your list of games on steam. You may have to download lots of content from the servers to get it working, but you shouldn't need to buy it again.
IIRC you can use the "activate a product on steam" window and input your hl1 cd key and it will unlock the game for currently logged in steam account, you can then download the game OR if you have it installed already it will copy the files over to steam and download all the updates automatically.
I haven't used this though, so it might not work that way Neg!ke, you are talking about Half-Life:Source, which is a totally separate game from half-life. Half-Life on steam is the same as HL without steam, valve just released a source version so you could have pretty water and effects :)
/clearup thanks. i've confused it.
does the steam version (newer patches) have any special features that justify developing the mod for it? or maybe just as a precaution. its just that 90% of hl players have the steam version now so it makes sense. As for upgrades and shizz I suppose there have been optimizations etc to the graphics engine and online play but I have not looked to closely at it tbh.
If this doesn't make you feel small after watching the entire thing, well then I dunno
http://selectivegamers.com/pc-news/r...o-problem.html Quote: A few guys have been working on a very impressive project during their free time, "Infinity: The Quest for Earth". The game is a massively multiplayer online game set in a futuristic persistent universe. Here's the impressive part: their game engine can render entire planets in real-time. It's best to quote Flavien Brebion, the main man behind the project: "..all the planets have realistic dimensions and scales. If you were to land on a planet and fly at low altitude at airplane speed, it'd take you hours before reaching another continent. You'd never see the same hill or some mountain twice. Then, each major planet can have tens of moons. Each solar system can have many planets, all rotating with realistic, dynamic orbits, allowing you to attend an eclipse or a sunset in real time. Finally, the galaxy will contain millions, if not billions, of these solar systems. All different." Here's a demo video of the game, the impressive part starts at about 1:00: I've finally gotten into playing some games again lately and from best to worst, here are my thoughts:
Thief: Deadly Shadows Top notch stuff. Chock full of interesting gameplay, open-ended, oozes atmosphere, great story, great voice acting, and most importantly, it's a fun game. The game is really well paced too...it changes from being a straight up stealth game where you're a petty thug who steals some things to being a game where you're basically saving the world. It does it gradually though...none of this "OH SHIT ALIENS ARE COMING HERE'S A GUN SEE YA LATER" stuff that every FPS seems to think will make you feel like a hero. In Thief: DS, the choices you make actually have an impact on the world, so you can play through the game 10 different ways and have 10 different experiences in terms of how NPCs and AI will react to you...not just little stuff either...I'm talking about hordes of people hunting you or no one hunting you all in the same scenario depending on how you've played it up to that point. It seamlessly blends horror, mystery, action, adventure, and stealth and uses just the right amount of each one. You owe it to yourself to play the damn game. Most memorable moment The entire Shalebridge Cradle level -- fucking fantastic. 10/10 Half Life 2: Episode 1 It's really just an exact continuation of Half-Life 2. Same exact gameplay, same exact locales, very very few new art assets, and virtually no advancement of the storyline other than things are starting to look slightly better, and you're making headway towards getting out of City 17. But I really enjoy the gameplay and universe of HL2 so I found this to be really enjoyable. The only slight distinction about HL2 EP: 1 is that it has a higher ratio of puzzle elements to action than HL2 did. It was something I actually enjoyed though although a lot of people I've talked to and read posts from didn't like the puzzle stuff. Most memorable moment Kind of low on memorable stuff, but the very beginning of the game had a few epic scripted moments...like DOG tossing you 1000 yards in an old jalopy 8/10 F.E.A.R. I had no intention of ever playing F.E.A.R really. It didn't look that interesting, it needed a seemingly monster machine to enjoy, and it looked like a giant Ring/Ringu rip-off. Well I ended up needing to play it and play it a lot when it became part of my job, and I actually ended up liking it. I kept getting my ass handed to me when I was first playing it because I didn't understand that Slow-Mo was vital to actually beating the game. I always thought that Slow-Mo was just some kind of gimmicky shit you use when you're recording a demo to show off to your friends "ne0dud3" and "XXX_Trinity_XXX" on the Matrix message boards. It still is that, but in F.E.A.R. you basically need to use it to beat the game because of the way the A.I. functions. The plot is OK...some nice twists at the end and it keeps a generally creepy vibe, but it really doesn't deviate too much from your standard "some bad shit went down here, and we'll slowly and cryptically tell you what it was" storytelling device. In terms of the game's horror vibe I will say this -- Thief : DS is by far a much scarier game, although F.E.A.R does have some slightly creepy moments...especially the intro for some reason...that is probably the most disturbed I felt by the game. Long story short, the combat is really fun, there are some interesting gameplay concepts at times, although they are rare, and it will probably keep you entertained throughout if you don't get frustrated and quit for the hour and a half you are in the exact same environment doing the exact same thing without a break. Most memorable moment The vault level 8/10 Quake 4
A pretty good game...much better than people seem to have said it was. Out of all the games on this list, Quake 4 was definitely the hardest. There are a lot of really fucking tough battles at points in the game, mostly towards the end. I would have preferred it if they had spread them around evenly with a slight ramp up towards the end as opposed to being a game where I never die for the first 5 hours then OMG QuickLoad for the last 3-4. The game has an absolutely awful fucking ending...definitely in my top 3. A much better ending would be Kane gets back to base and all of the dudes freak out and forget that he's been "changed" and start firing upon him mercilessly. As you lay dying, they hover over you completely unaware that you save their ass and someone in the background yells out "OK where's Kane..." And then the game fades to black. End of the terrible Quake 4 storyline and characters forever. The story on a whole is pretty damn shaky...but part of the problem is that Quake and Quake 2 really didn't have too much of a story and therefore Quake 4 had nothing to build off despite being the 4th damn game in the series. The industry has changed since '96 and suddenly if you don't have a good in-game story, your game is a piece of shit. I think part of the problem is that there have been sooooooo many shooters since then that good gameplay alone just isn't enough to cut it anymore. Quake 4 is rock solid gameplay-wise other than the aforementioned difficulty balance issues, it just suffers from a terrible story, a terrible ending, and the fact that id already let everyone down with the Doom 3 game and engine. (P.S. Raven don't you fucking dare make a sequel with these same characters, as was indicated that you might do with the ending of Quake 4) Most memorable moment Stroggification & the excellent and really creepy human-machine hybrids that are mounted on the walls in various levels. 7/10 Prey
Oh my sweet Lord Jesus...ohhhhhhh why HumanHead why why why did you ruin what could have been a good game with your ridiculous lack of the player dying? I can't even begin to express my disappointment with this system. The game was perfectly fine for the most part with a nice story, some excellent puzzle bits, and really innovative level design, but it was completely ruined by the fact that player CAN NOT FUCKING DIE. I know we had a debate on this very messageboard about whether or not dying is a good game mechanic to use, and I have to say after playing Prey that this game is the best argument to have the player die as part of the progression of the game. I literally spent 20 minutes beating the penultimate boss to death with my wrench because I knew I wouldn't die and I was just bored to tears by that point because of it. I knew that no matter what I did, I would come back to the exact same spot, the boss would have the exact same health from when I died, and everything would be fine and dandy while I continued to not fear death at all and play the game like a trained monkey. If you're going to remove the fact that the player can die from your game, it's probably not a good idea to have an hour long boss battle. I mean seriously, if you're going to say that tactics and combat matter so little that there is no consequence to dying, then just remove the HOUR LONG boss battle and replace it with the puzzle and story elements that you seem to be able to pull off just fine. The level design in Prey was top notch. It boggles my mind to think how long it must have taken to design some of the areas that you could completely rotate on all 3 axes. It had to be at least a month for just one of those areas. They were completely fantastic and awe-inspiring pieces of layout design. The levels themselves were usually less repetitious than Quake 4 and F.E.A.R and any other games that pad their length slightly with an hour or two of "room-doorway-room" layouts. I really feel bad for the level designers because I'm sure so many people didn't bother to explore at all since the lack of dying made it so you didn't need to hunt down health or ammo. The story and universe were pretty compelling, with only Tommy's girlfriend really being the only sore spot in the acting department. The major plot point is basically the story of creation as presented by Scientology with some names swapped out -- but it still works. Overall what could have been a great game was marred by one really stupid game mechanic that serves to nullify any kind of immersion you might feel. And yeah, it could be argued that quicksave is basically the same thing, but that would be wrong because I don't usually quicksave every 5 seconds during a boss battle, because if I did that I might end up quick saving with one health and have to go back to my last proper save because the game would be unbeatable. But since Prey brings you back with full health and all enemy attributes exactly where you left them, there's no reason to approach the game with any kind of strategy at all. (P.S. 2K Games, 3DRealms, and HumanHead. If you plan on bringing these characters and this universe back, as you have indicated that you would at the end of the game, that's fine. Please, for the love of the Native American gods in Prey, get rid of the lack of dying. Thank you) Most memorable moment Seeing my body on the other side of a room getting flipped upside down and tossed around while I was doing some spirit mode puzzle & the mini-moon orbit gravitational pull sequences 5/10 "I think part of the problem is that there have been sooooooo many shooters since then that good gameplay alone just isn't enough to cut it anymore"
I have a problem with that line of thinking, because most shooters since then dont actually have good gameplay, but instead try and pass off the inclusion of a (C grade) story and scripted sequences as good gameplay. Great reviews there. I don't agree with all your points but you are bang on the money with your assessment of Prey. Actually, you expressed its problem much better than I did. Namely - it's fine if you want to design a game where you can't die, but for fuck's sake at least design the rest of the game mechanics around this.
With Prey you have a standard twitch shooter. Ignore the puzzles for the moment. It's essentially like any other FPS we've seen in the last few years. Make the player invulnerable and the whole game breaks. Playing Prey made me feel exactly the same way as if I was blasting through say Quake 4 on God mode. An empty and ultimately boring experience. Not once did I get a kick of adrelanine like I did in Doom 3 or Quake 4. I couldn't even be bothered to go out of my way to hunt health or ammo. Regarding your Quake 4 review - I disagree with your view that if a game doesn't have a good story it's shit. I think this is one of the main problems facing games today - the idea that games need to somehow be interactive movies, with proper stories, characterisation etc. This is exactly what games don't need to be. I think it's a shame that money has to be spent cooking up expensive cinematics and whatnot when most gamers are going to want to skip them anyway. I was a little unclear. I don't think a game is shit if it doesn't have a story, but if I have to pick between a good solid shooter with a good story or a good solid shooter with a bad story, I'm obviously going to go with the one that has a good story.
Quake is a great game with no story, but I don't know the public would accept a game like that today where the entire story is in the readme or in the instruction book. I don't think the games buying public really care for stories in games as much as you think. People want fun gameplay - story shouldn't be allowed to get in the way of this. If story elements create immersion, then fine, but to be honest most of the overly scripted crap we see these days doesn't actually benefit the game. It just makes games more linear and expensive to make and the effort is largely unnapreciated.
I didn't have a problem with the spirit/death/reviving thing. I still tried just as hard to avoid dying (apart from in the boss battle but I usually either cheat or quit those anyway), and when I did die I ended up doing some jiggery pokery with shooting spirits instead of some jiggery pokery with F9...
Sounds like I am more able to get into the spirit (sic) of being immersed in a game than you guys... Is there ANY shooter at all that has a decent story?
HL1/2 does not. It has good and convincing world. With developed "legend" that is not being told actually. "Freeman comes and beats the shit out of combines" is not much of a story. Ok Deus, SysShock and Thief had good storylines. Those are less shooters tho.
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