Half-Life 3

[Sxotty]

Does anyone else think that today, Id and even Valve are unlikely to surpass their own games of the past? Not just technological wise but in terms of making a game that tells a meaningful flawless thrilling story? What's the last hardcore sci-fi shooter? Wolfenstein? Didn't that bombed?

RTCW did well, I don't know the sales figures on Wolfenstein, but raven did it anyway. Remember that there is tons of hate for Doom3, but sales wise it did well. Id never told flawless stories, they had exciting adrenaline games. Q2 was the first Id game that had a coherent story in the forefront IMO. I already stated that I think part of the love for old things is nostalgia and thus you can't compete with that. Valve still has a story even if it wasn't as directly presented to the player. Id is getting more into stories not less. BTW I did buy and play thru the current wolf and I thought the SP was actually pretty fun, but I did not play the MP.

I do believe there and challenges and problems. Valve is a digital distribution company now. Id sold out to zenimax. We will see what this does to the future of gaming.

@ Mob what puzzles were there? It was like "here is a plank and a pile of cinder blocks" The only way the could have made their "puzzles" easier was to put a texture of a chalkboard next to it that described exactly how it is that you are supposed to do the super obvious thing. Finding the treasures in the new wolf was way more difficult.

 

[sonix666]

Well, the problem is that people who are negative about something, are the ones that feel the need to voice that. The much bigger crowd that is very happy with the game, including me, doesn't feel the need to voice that. It's a great game for me and many people with me and no amount of harsh posts about the subject is going to change that.

 

[swaaye]

Well, the problem is that people who are negative about something, are the ones that feel the need to voice that. The much bigger crowd that is very happy with the game, including me, doesn't feel the need to voice that. It's a great game for me and many people with me and no amount of harsh posts about the subject is going to change that.

You're right. Unhappy customers are naturally the loudest bunch. Oh well.

 

[cp2009]

Sorry if all my posts seem whiny. It's just that aside from technological improvements, HL2 did not do HL1 enough justice. I do enjoy both games, but HL1 for myself is forever godlike.

 

[Davros]

And did HL2 have the scientists in a lift gag ?

 

[Blazkowicz]

I found hl2 to be a very average shooter with great graphics, and huge hype that in the end leads to disappointment. Nothing wrong with the setting (though I didn't think there was really much of a story), but it's too easy, even if you do stupid things you now lots of big healthpacks are about two minutes away.

basic games mechanics is what ruined the game for me : weak weapons with no recoil and huge spread, harmless and faceless enemies. so you just run through the game at high speed, emptying your ammo loaders while vaguely aiming at the head, knowing you won't get headshots anyway.

 

[Grall]

Yeah, the weapons in HL2 are all terrible, with slight exception of the combine rifle - except there the clip size is pitiful and you're starved for ammunition, meaning you don't get much use out of it anyway... That zero new weapons were intro'd in either of the episodes sucks donkey schlong as well.

What's the fun in a new installment of a shooter if you don't get any new toys to play with?!

 

[homerdog]

basic games mechanics is what ruined the game for me : weak weapons with no recoil and huge spread, harmless and faceless enemies. so you just run through the game at high speed, emptying your ammo loaders while vaguely aiming at the head, knowing you won't get headshots anyway.

Harmless enemies I cannot agree with. Those crazy fast jumping headcrab zombies gave me plenty of trouble.

 

[obonicus]

The spider headcrab enemies (and their zombies) are also pretty good.

 

[Mobius1aic]

RTCW did well, I don't know the sales figures on Wolfenstein, but raven did it anyway. Remember that there is tons of hate for Doom3, but sales wise it did well. Id never told flawless stories, they had exciting adrenaline games. Q2 was the first Id game that had a coherent story in the forefront IMO. I already stated that I think part of the love for old things is nostalgia and thus you can't compete with that. Valve still has a story even if it wasn't as directly presented to the player. Id is getting more into stories not less. BTW I did buy and play thru the current wolf and I thought the SP was actually pretty fun, but I did not play the MP.

I do believe there and challenges and problems. Valve is a digital distribution company now. Id sold out to zenimax. We will see what this does to the future of gaming.

@ Mob what puzzles were there? It was like "here is a plank and a pile of cinder blocks" The only way the could have made their "puzzles" easier was to put a texture of a chalkboard next to it that described exactly how it is that you are supposed to do the super obvious thing. Finding the treasures in the new wolf was way more difficult.

Well many of us hadn't experienced that kind of gameplay before, so yes it did indeed take a bit of getting our heads around the idea of using simulated real world physics as opposed to just shooting everything that moves and using keycards to get us everywhere.

 

[Blazkowicz]

first game with physics was Postal 2 for me (hitting computer monitors and stuff with a shovel,beheading people and kicking their heads, etc.), it looked impressive at the time.
It was nice toying with HL2 barrels and grenades when it was new, too.

when you're not that impressed anymore, the puzzles are a variation of "push that crate over here so you can step on it"

 

[obonicus]

It was okay in HL2, it's just disappointing that in 2007 when Ep 2 was released, 'physics puzzles' are still Leverage and Buoyancy 101.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

first game with physics was Postal 2 for me (hitting computer monitors and stuff with a shovel,beheading people and kicking their heads, etc.), it looked impressive at the time.
It was nice toying with HL2 barrels and grenades when it was new, too.

when you're not that impressed anymore, the puzzles are a variation of "push that crate over here so you can step on it"

Oh c'mon. Using enemy soldiers are projectiles to take out other enemy soldiers was the best part of the physics engine. Heck, when anything you can pick up in the game becomes a weapon, it's just fun.

Throwing exploding barrels around willy nilly, wheee... Crate to the head! Kapow.

Regards,
SB

 

[N00b]

The first (3D) game with physics I know of was Trespasser. It had very similar physics puzzles as HL-2, just 6 years earlier. So I was really less than impressed with the HL-2, even though the gravity gun is way better than the "arm interface" inTrespasser.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The first (3D) game with physics I know of was Trespasser. It had very similar physics puzzles as HL-2, just 6 years earlier. So I was really less than impressed with the HL-2, even though the gravity gun is way better than the "arm interface" inTrespasser.

I was still more impressed by HL-2's physics, in that it was actually quite useable in a polished game.

Tresspasser while doing some innovative things didn't really do anything all that well, and as a result failed at just about anything it tried to do. And my memory of the "physics" interactions in Tresspasser were far less kind than yours. It used far more canned responses and psuedo physics, than actual real physics calculations.

But I don't exactly blame them for that as hardware of the time couldn't do reatime physics calculations at the same time as gameplay/AI code. Even flight sims at the time used mostly approximations, simplified calculations, and canned responses to try to simulate actual physics... And for flight sims they had far less objects that needed simulating with far less objects to interact with...

Regards,
SB

 

[Sxotty]

HL2 physics did not exist IMO, they were just havok. Doom3 actually had their own physics, but they were not really used. And I imagine they must have been worse since they were just developed on the side.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Tresspasser's physics were so buggy and unstable, that even a small pile of crates would have fallen apart in relatively short amounts of time. The unpredictability has lead to a serious reduction of physics based puzzles in the game as it was far too easy for the player to get stuck forever.

This is a very interesting and in-depth article about the entire project:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3339/postmortem_dreamworks_.php

 

[Sxotty]

Yeah physics just don't work well enough even now. In the episode I thought I would stack up some junk to get out of reach of an antlion queen or whatever. Well first there is an invisible wall b/c level designers are dumb. And second when I stacked crap before I finally got it high enough and found the invisible wall it was extremely unstable. Things would shoot out like they had rockets. It does weird things when you get a lot of objects together in a pile and seems glitchy even now.

 

[Richard]

HL2 physics did not exist IMO, they were just havok. Doom3 actually had their own physics, but they were not really used. And I imagine they must have been worse since they were just developed on the side.

DOOM 3's physics, while underrated by reviewers and gamers alike, had one fatal flaw: they were calculated on a single object only which meant if you had two boxes on the floor and you pushed one against the other then afterwards you couldn't push the first and have that one push the second one.

Their ragdolls didn't suffer from this but they were very costly: part of the reason why monsters disappear after a few seconds is so you can't make a pile of them. There are mods to "fix" that of course and they look quite good with today's hardware. DOOM 3 also had IK and per-poly hit collisions (with per-pixel side-effects) and breakable glass (extendable to other materials).

Overall though, the single object limitation means it's very awkward to make something "as simple" as a colapsable wall. Like you said, it was developed inhouse unlike Havok/HL2 which means DOOM 3 having no water also meant DOOM 3's physics didn't natively understand buoyancy. There were mods that implemented this: my first DOOM 3 map (tech demo really) had that.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah physics just don't work well enough even now. In the episode I thought I would stack up some junk to get out of reach of an antlion queen or whatever. Well first there is an invisible wall b/c level designers are dumb. And second when I stacked crap before I finally got it high enough and found the invisible wall it was extremely unstable. Things would shoot out like they had rockets. It does weird things when you get a lot of objects together in a pile and seems glitchy even now.

Yeah as I mentioned nothing implemented so far seems to have it's own realistic mass nor much inertia or friction, or all kinds of things.

Everything so far has felt rather like a box with a thin plastic shell. At least HL2 objects had enough of a "mass property" to do damage to objects they hit.

It's an ever evolving process, but real physics calculations are quite expensive. Still it'd be nice if we started seeing more of moveable/stackable objects having realistic mass and the associated properties that gives it. Inertia, friction, etc... Thus you won't get the plastic box syndrome.

Regards,
SB