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 Now online (1)recycle ...and 111 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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Members 8025Messages 2613816 Today 38 Topics 127525 |
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So who's playing it and how awesome is it? I wish I'd bought it via Steam now because I couldn't find it today FUCK . I don't think I'll have too much use for Team Fortress 2, too busy with Warhawk, but Episode 3 and Portal should be worth it for me, even at just a few hours each. Also looking forward to replaying the original with the commentary feature on. I hope that feature is widely copied throughout the industry. |
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I have been trying to buy it off Steam all day, but there was something wrong with my visas. Nobody could help me at the bank. I'm desperate! |
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Do you think you will be playing Warhawk past Christmas? My friend, owner of a PS3, is returning from school then and plays Warhawk quite often. Maybe we should form an xltronic dream team, or you can destroy me. Your choice. |
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had you ever heard about piracy |
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I have a nice little Half-Life 2 gift for anyone decent who wants it. Just need your email. As for the Orange Box, I've only played Team Fortress 2 so far, and not enough to form any valid opinion. Seems fun if one is on a team with non-annoying people. |
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Maybe. It's ridiculously fun right now, but there's not enough maps so it might get old eventually. If there's new maps/weapons/vehicles released at some point, then I'll be playing it for quite a while. Unfortunately it doesn't look like Warhawk is going to be greatly supported, even though it's a big success, because the studio that developed it was broken up and the people distributed to other Sony studios. Depressing. |
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Is Portal worth $20 on its own, j? |
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Hell yeah. The consensus seems to be- ''It's only THREE hours long... but an incredible three hours''. Factor in the eventual user-created content and COWABUNGA |
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I've been playing Team Fortress 2 loads this last week (as it was out on beta for a while) and it's loads of fun, just needs a few more maps - only has 6 so far. Finally the rest of the orange box unlocked today and it was well worth the wait. Completed HL2:Ep2 today, but looking forward to doing it again on Hard as well as unlocking all the achievements - plus it's always more fun the second time round. I got addicted and ended up completing the main run on Portal too. An absolutely amazing game - a purely puzzle-solving FPS, with a nice little sinister twist. Really amazing atmosphere, like a detention centre being run by HAL's young sister, with perfect minimal music to suit. The actual solving of the puzzles is really satisfying, and actuallys make you use your brain. Mindblowing at times, but you eventually get used to bending the laws of physics. Time to move onto the advanced chambers now, plus the challenges, which are same levels but with limited portal use, limited steps or limited time). The poor dollar compared to the pound also made this a worthy buy! :) |
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Far out. I can't wrap my head around what exactly Portal IS, can't wait to find out. It almost feels dirty getting all this stuff for 50 bucks. The value is mental. |
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sure i'll take it! felasa [at) gmail.com |
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ja, ist bill_gates@mail2world.com joop! |
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Portal is awesome. Fucking awesome. |
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yo friend me up on steam. i'm not at home, but i think my username is epohs. is there like a multiplayer portal? |
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Gift sent!!!!1111 |
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wo hoo! thanks, i can pay you back with o.ink invite if you want |
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Neat! My email address should be visible in my profile. Thanks! |
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50 dollars?! Jesus christ. I didn't know it was that cheap. Tried to install a friend's copy of HL2 on my laptop earlier this week, I really want to play it again, but I can't connect to Steam from behind the university firewall.. I'd love to buy this, especially considering the price (Portal looks incredibly interesting) but there's no point if i'm unable to use it at all :/ |
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hahah, what's your warhawk name? One of the other guys living here has a ps3, and I've been playing it quite a bit. You have probably killed me! |
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i've got the same gift as well, so i'll send it on through to you. |
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Just bought HL2 the other day for 9 bucks for the original x box, it's really good! Most def playing the orange box later. It would be cool to have an anti gravity gun ... |
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Get this fucking bullshit... Not only could I not pre-order Orange Box over steam (nor could I purchase any other game) because steam was malfunctioning, but now every time I try to open or re-install steam, it tells me that there can only be one copy of steam running at a time. Now, I can't play HL2, Bioshock, etc, and even if I bought the Orange Box in retail stores, I'm afraid it won't let me install/play the games because, in their infinite wisdom, Valve forces you to connect through steam to play any of the games installed by it. I thought this was a mistake on DAY 1 of steam's release, and it's still a major fuck-up today. This isn't even the first time I've had to completely uninstall and redownload every game I had installed through steam. The entire program crashed once before and at this point I don't have any patience left. Sadly, until this whole steam nonsense is sorted, I don't think I can support Valve or any developer that forces you to use it. I don't believe this much frustration should be inherent in trying to simply install or run a game. Aside from a basic forum help-service, Valve's support for steam is basically nonexistant. Thus far, I've been unable to locate a single telephone number where I can call to get help with steam on any of valve's websites. |
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Open windows task manager, kill Steam.exe, and try again. If that fails, reboot. durr |
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Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that in the task manager, there is no steam.exe running. This problem happens from the moment I reboot my computer. Steam does not load on startup, either. |
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odd. bollocks to that, i say. |
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yeah it basically sucks. :( |
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balls |
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revolverjgw, you? If I killed you, it was probably with mines or an airstrike. I'm a sneaky peripheral cheapshot hate monger. |
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. Though I'm not touching it until I play the real thing. |
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the idea with episodic content was that it would be released faster than it would to make a fullblown followup. But it still friggin takes roughly 2 years to create one short episode :\ Maybe we should give a sign to the Duke Nukem Forever team that they should do an episodic release for that as well |
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Agreed... the episodic content is basically a gimmick to keep interest in the franchise, in my opinion. For example, Episode 2, had they just focused on that, would have been released at LEAST 6 months (perhaps as much as a year) ago, but because of the decision to wait to release it with Portal and TF2, we've had to wait 2 years for another couple hours of gameplay. I'd rather they just release full-on expansions, as these episodes are far shorter and apparently take just as long to produce. |
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but then again, you thought it was a mistake from day one. |
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Assassin's creed BIATCH |
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No, I thought the Steam Client was a mistake from day 1, and I'd love to hear arguments to the contrary. |
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Ah, god damned, I hate mines! They invalidate my constant "fly-in-and-get-the-flag-for-three-seconds" tactic!" I'm under [uib]jznylund, or something like that, I think... I'll try to find you online the next time, even though I have no clue as to how I would do that... |
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I know, it's so annoying playing against people that spam mines. They're so nefarious and cheap in this game because your teammates can't set off mines that you plant... so you can put down tons of them and not worry about teamkills. I have too much fun sneaking into the main enemy bases using the knife for radar invisibility, and then mining all the vehicles and turrets. If I die in the base (which I usually do because guys are spawning all around me), I'm taking down 3 or 4 people with me anyway. |
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To find someone, go to Buddies and it'll list what game your buddies are in. I pretty much play Team Deathmatch and Zones exclusively though... CTF is too fast paced for my style. |
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Haha, yeah, I love the knife.. I hide in their base and just run around knifing people. The tank is also awesome; it's not overpowered, in that you can take one down with just a little skill, and at the same time, it packs a punch if you use it right (I swat airplanes a lot - one shot kill, but they're difficult to hit). Was it you who added me (or, rather, the guy whose ps3 it is)? |
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I didn't add you yet. I was wondering if somebody named Geebag posts here though, they added me a while back. BTW it looks like there's an expansion pack on the way with huge dropships and more maps. Huge mobile floating fortresses were in the original trailers and they looked awesome. I hope it's free... the game is rather low on content, and I don't want to see the community split between the haves and the have-nots. Anyway, I finally got The Orange Box today. Portal was hard for me to come to grips with, I have horrible spatial awareness even when I'm NOT manipulating the laws of physics. Some of the stuff in Portal, particularly going through the floor, almost makes me puke. It's fun stuff though, very inventive and indeed the presentation and atmosphere is great. I especially love the deadpan humor on the ''computer's'' part. ''Beware, contact with the (plasma ball?) can and has resulted in permanent disabilities, such as vaporization''. But really I'm just itching to get going at Episode 2. I just hope the vehicle segments are mercifully short, they're the only real sore points in HL2 for me. |
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Hahaha, weird.. then it's just some random guy. Anyway, it probably doesn't make sense for you to add him, as me.. better wait until I can afford myself one of those. |
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Yeah.. it should be free, but then again, when it comes to upgrades, the most expensive one I've seen for any game yet hasn't been more than 20 kr (small change you have in your pocket), so it probably won't be too bad. If they're more expensive in canada, just get yourself an european account. |
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I find it interesting that so many people disliked the vehicle scenes in HL2. For me, these were among my favorite portions of the game, for various reasons. Firstly, I think vehicles play an important part in creating immersion. As no one is likely to walk great distances in today's day and age, it's logical that some sections of your journey will require a means of transportation other than your feet. Rather than simply "teleporting" you to the new "level" and implying that the player character travelled there, in HL2 you actually do the traversing. The vehicle scenes are, in my opinion, one of the few areas of HL2 where it feels like you have open-ended level design. In just about every part of the game, only one door in a given set of doors will ever open to lead to a new area. This kind of level design feels too much like you are being funnelled towards the end of the game against your will. I know the vehicle scenes are still guilty of this, but they featured larger-scale set-pieces than you normally see in the game. One example of this is the section on the boat where you must fight your way through buildings along the water's edge to unlock your next "route" before continuing on. I feel that, while this isn't exactly open-ended design, it creates the illusion of such, as it not only gives you a glimpse of the world around you, but you actually get to interact with that world on your way from point A to B. In my opinion, the vehicle scenes simultaneously add length and believability to the travel sections of the game, which would otherwise feel like every area of the game is no further than 200 feet from any other area (like most games that try to produce the illusion of long-distance travel). What was it, in particular, that you disliked about the vehicle sections? |
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if you don't like the vehicles, you're gonna love the last section of the game. I won't say anymore though. |
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I agree with you about the ''immersion''... it wouldn't make sense for Gordon to traverse so much land with no wheels, and since this is Half Life, you can't just sit through a cut-scene and magically go to the next distant area. I think there are some cool design elements at work during the vehicle segments. But while I never said I thought the vehicle segments were BAD, or that I wasn't looking forward to the vehicles in Ep 2... I just don't want it to be so dragged out. The mechanics of the vehicle segments aren't all that entertaining... weird frustrating physics, not a lot of wanton destruction or crazy stunts, the canals are an extremely bland and boring place to be racing through... to me, just not a lot of fun. And MAN do they last LONG. Much longer than the usual vehicle interludes in these kind of games. Even when I get out to solve a couple of the more clever puzzles on foot, it's always in the back of my mind... ''once I open this gate/lower this ramp, it's back to that FUCKING boat... arrgggh!''. I think the buggy segments on the highways are cooler though. The side-areas you explore in the countryside are far more interesting than the bland warehouses and stuff you explore in the boat levels, and in general it's a much more scenic route than the ones on the boat-things. |
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Another point... I think the fact that you have to traverse these huge distances AT ALL is kind of a drag to me in HL2... one of my favorite things about the first Half Life is being stuck in one self-contained, mysterious area... Black Mesa. HL2's kinetic gauntlet through dozens of separate areas can be fun, but in general I find HL2 to be way less interesting than the original. Most of the time, I don't care where I am or why it exists, I'm just on the run to get to... wherever it is I'm going. A canal is just a boring canal I have to get through to reach Dr. Whoever at some random place. Then its on to the prison or the mines or whatever. Little relation to each other. Unlike HL1, where it was fun to penetrate deeper and deeper into Black Mesa's areas and secrets. Each interconnecting area felt functional and symbiotic, like it had an important place in both the facility's existence and history, while still providing a new gameplay concepts. The winding halls of lab complexes meant cool tactical shootouts with the special forces guys... the industrial section had lots of platforming in the form of conveyor belts, pipes, and machines... made sense. The mountains surrounding the complex had their own challenges, like scaling cliffs and avoiding helicopters... know what I mean? You didn't NEED to take some long trip through a wasteland. Everything was right there as you progressed, and it made SENSE for everything to be right there. Everything was logically laid out. By contrast, to me HL 2 feels more like a random smorgasbord of looser-fitting and less compelling areas, laid out in a linear fashion one after the other, and the mad vehicle dashes through no-man's land is symptomatic of it. This is subjective of course... I just personally think HL2 is a step down from HL1. Game is still amazing though (and holds up incredibly well), and some of the destinations really are awesome. It's cliche to think this, but... Ravenholm is awesome. |
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You've made more than a few excellent points with those last two posts. I agree completely about the interrelation between all the areas of HL1 that made the level design feel so... complete. In fact, I think mostly everyone at Valve would agree with you on this fact as well. I think the reason HL2 plays out as more of run-and-gun trek is because of HL1's gameplay, not in spite of it. They couldn't copy and paste the format of the original game without being slammed by the fans, so they struggled to create a new concept. In this light, I actually enjoyed the direction that HL2 took, even if the boat sequences were hackneyed at times. I think it was the right step to take for the franchise, in theory. Unfortunately, HL2 ends up lacking open ended gameplay just like its predecessor, only this time lacking the overall cohesive feel, as well. Another important factor in this quandary is that Valve made the decision to focus not just on graphical improvements (which would be nothing more than a new coat of polish on the same old game) but spent a large portion of thier development process involving physics into the layout of the game. Subsequently, less time was spent making sure the game's flow felt natural. I've heard that a lot of people thought HL2 relied too much on the gravity gun and obviously many people feel this way about the vehicle sequences. Gameplay over graphics should always be the focus of game developers, but occasionaly, some games must, ironically, get it backwards for the sake of progress. Even though HL2's gameplay and story may pale to that of HL1, the advancements in graphics, physics, and immersion that raised the standard for all gaming as we know it must not be ignored. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I'm willing to forgive the narrative and architectural shortcomings of Halflife 2 because of it's fresh direction for the series, and it's technical achievements. |
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i forgive the narrative and architectural shortcommings of half life 2 because the game is so damn good anyway. |
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Definitely wasn't easy to follow up one of the most paradigm-shifting games of all time, indeed. I criticize because I care. You're probably right in that they did take it in the right direction, but some of the detours they took in the process bug me. (although honestly I think Xen was worse than anything in HL2) I've been replaying HL2, been a long time anyway, and then I'll be moving on to Ep2 and then Ep3. I think the set-piece that still hits me hardest is the bridge, I just got past it, it literally makes me woozy. Heights in games is something that really gets to me. That bridge is so fucking precarious. |
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Ep1 then Ep2 I mean, OBviouthly |
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the bridge? i replayed HL1 last year and once i got to Xen i just had to stop. Very irritating. |
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