plus new gameplay footage
Perhaps the Half-Life2/BioShock influence is more in the story and world building department? Because like you said, the level design and gameplay are much more reminiscent of Halo with a healthy sprinkling of CoD. I do like that your mech continues fighting without you if you get out. Sort of answers the question of why enemies don't just roflstomp it the moment you leave it to go faf about. But I think the first game did that too.Nazulu said:
Makes sense. I remember Half Life more for the level design than the story. I didn't play HL till 2015, so I missed that innovation tooChimpzy said:
You're comparing two completely different things there mate. It's all about execution. It's not just that Half-Life did these things, but it knew when and how to do them really well, surprising new comers even today.Smilomaniac said:
Yeah, I completely disagree. If every design section and component had been done better, then that would mean these other games would have more interesting designs and better execution than Half-Life, which I haven't seen yet. The game is very diverse with it's layout, so it's understandable that not everyone will like every part, but none of it is difficult to work around at all, and the story was obviously not the main focus. Sometimes it's better to include less if it can't be done well all the time, which is exactly my problem with HL2 and with a lot of other popular games.Smilomaniac said:Y'know, I wouldn't be surprised if the campaign has just as many scripted events and design considerations as Half-Life did, if not more. I don't mean the gameplay mechanics replace the "crafted experience", only that gamers are extremely jaded when it comes to what they/we are impressed byNazulu said:
My point is that Half-life is design-wise heavily outdated and a poor game to compare itself to today, for so many reasons, one including the cthulu'esque storytelling of the player not knowing what the hell is going on for 90% of the game. Note that I don't mean it's a bad game at all and I don't mean to rag on an obvious classic, but while barely anything compares to the whole experience today, every design section and component of Half-life has been done far better since then, including pacing.
I don't subscribe to the rose-tinted nostalgia nonsense that people so often spout and I definitely agree that there is an element of execution that has been lacking in games for decades, but then that's not exactly what they state that they're trying to be "inspired" by. Instead, that would be the intermission "action block" gameplay, which Half-life had as well, such as the airstrike section, which was a fiddly and annoying piece of shit, even if it was impressive back then, or messing with the railtracks for twenty minutes... Basically what was interesting then, is a nuisance now and that's what they think is so great.
For what it's worth, I have more faith in the parkour of titanfall, than I did in the ridiculous "skyway" in Bioshock Infinite. I don't think the wall running and jumping will be as repetative as say, the melee executions of DooM 2016.
It's all a subjective thing! It's all buzz words too! Hell, all the critics I've watched try to point out on how one fart joke works better than another, and I don't think we'll ever get a proper answer. That's how fucking complex these tiny little differences can make. No one can explain it completely.Smilomaniac said:Execution can be a subjective thing. I don't mean to be pedantic, but you'll have to be more specific on whether you mean the mood/atmosphere or the "puzzle" of a specific room, or the combination or the variation of them between rooms, etc. of a specific set piece or all of them combined.
Does execution ever become better than originality and is something still original, if it tricks you into thinking it is, such as by using the same challenge from a different angle?
What I'm getting at, is that execution is a buzzword to cover every design decision of a particular set piece. When I keep mentioning scripted events, that's because it's an easy example that Half-life did exceptionally well - I also imply that they have to be used effectively and not just because; I hope you know that. Scripts such as enemies moving in, things breaking or sounds starting up upon you reaching certain points, that's not only part of execution, but in Half-life that was a near constant occurance to make everything look like a living breathing world that reacted to your presence.
That's meticulous, tangible design that we can point to and distinguish from other games, because designers use less obvious scripted events now and rely more on AI and pathing for you to engage when you want to in a living world. On more than one occasion, you could see soldiers or aliens wait until you walked ahead by a couple of centimeters. You don't see that anymore in big titles, but in reverse you saw that a lot in Quake and Quake 2 if you moved outside the expected path.
Deus Ex (released 2 years later) already improved on the world interaction by not letting anything happen until you screwed up by getting seen or trespassing, or engaged enemies. That's one example of doing something better, though the game was flawed in other ways, such as letting aiming be a skill that you had to level up (making gunplay really hard and unforgiving, almost unnaturally so. A game design choice, but a bad one in my opinion). Another aspect of that was the multiple approaches and open areas used to effect (unlike open areas being the play itself like it is in sandbox games).
When things are done right, players rarely notice these things. When you finish a set-piece in a new game, you're more likely to have already seen everything in it from other games than not. This is where I think the jaded mentality comes from.
As games become increasingly easier as well, you can brute force through everything and don't have to suss out what the developers intended the challenge to be (which I admittedly very rarely do).
When something is done wrong, again DooM 2016, you can pinpoint it though, such as the incessant "hell in a cage" style set-pieces where you can't turn back, but are forced to fight in an unexplored location for a set amount of enemies.
We can just look at new games and state that we hope they have the right execution, but it becomes a nebulous term and doesn't make for a good discussion or argument. That's why I focus on what they'll do that sets the game apart, because I already assume they'll some sort of execution. From the video that's linked in the top, it seems to be alright, but then again I have to know what specifics you mean to relate it to.
Deus Ex (all of them, even the 2nd one), System Shock 2, Aliens vs. Predator, Red Faction, Painkiller, No one Lives Forever, VTM: Bloodlines, Prey, Bioshock, Dishonored, Wolfenstein (the newest one) and probably a lot more than I can remember are all very good games that in some ways are better than Half-life. If you can't find *anything* you think is better executed in any of those, even in some of the CoD games, bulletstorm or something like RAGE, then I think you might be either biased or too general
Getting stuck in doorways behind rebels who keep pestering you to reload your weapon, seconds after they watched you swap magazines does not count as squad management. I say more developers need to steal the squad management systems from Freedom Fighters and Full Spectrum Warrior: simple, effective and addictively fun!Ambient_Malice said:
