Blatherscythe said:
Alright why do we all seem to love Valve so much? They take a long time to produce a single game and yet they are never really critizied if the game was not worth the wait. It seems that they owe most of their fanbase to the Half-Life series which I have tried, don't say HL1 is better than most games today because it isn't, it's a piece of shit by todays standards and take off your rose coloured glasses. As for HL2 played it didn't like it, gun play was bad, story wasn't great, no real characterization and an over used physics engine.
My main problem with Vavle is that they hold so much gaming prestige and only release maybe 1 game a year, most of the time (in my point of view anyway) it seems that it truely wasn't worth all the effort they put into it. Granted I haven't played Portal, and when I tried to play Team Fortress 2 no one was playing it (that usually means it's not that great), so maybe I should try Portal though that probably won't change my mind about Vavle being a mediocre game studio with a fanbase that is completly devoted to them if they release a certain game within the next 1000 years.
First off, Valve has, and always will be, a PC based company for me. Consoles just don't do it justice.
Now, as many have said before, a high quality game that takes time to polish and finalize is far better than a game released purely for cash (though I do wish Blizzard would hurry up with SC2, the beta is just not enough...). Personally, I didn't grow up with HL1 or 2 (and subsequent episodes), they were released before I heard of them, however I still found I enjoyed them to some degree. Whilst I agree that HL1 may be outdated by the gaming standards set today, such as the intense visuals and special effects used in Crysis, or the awesome destruction physics of BFBC2, it is still a classic game in its genre: That of a first person PUZZLE/action game.
Before anyone freaks, yes the puzzle aspect of the half-life series is slightly damp, but it is still mainly about being given a situation and having to figure your way out of it, without just blasting away at everything in sight (unless your playing on easy, then shooting everything seems to work all too well). TF2 on the other hand, now that is a Valve FPS; but I believe (before some of the class updates) that they managed to nail a lot of game-play aspects in it that current-gen Online Team-based FPSs don't quite achieve: eg. team/class balance, community support and free DLC, such as new maps (to avoid the dreaded Mapathy syndrome). Don't get me wrong, I do acknowledge that other company's do this too (EA games for instance), but they continue to lack the same dedication to the community that Valve does. A game is only as successful as the number of people who buy it: if the developer cares about its customers (patches and support are readily available, interactivity between designers and players is encouraged, the general experience of a game is positive), then through word-of-mouth/the internet/other forms of media, those customers tell other potentials; and if it receives enough praise, they get another customer, and the cycle continues. Heck, a perfect example of this is Starcraft, how many years old is it now? 12? and its still going strong, because people continue to talk about it.
On top of this, Valve's Steam system is quite ingenious. Did they invent the idea of an online store? No. But, they have managed to bring the idea of purchasing games online to the spotlight quite well - I find the ability to look at a game, read a synopsis and view the system requirements all in one location very handy. Yes, Steam has its share of problems, any program does, however; given that not only can you purchase a game and have it sent straight to your account, but also send games to friends, interact with them through the IM system and compare achievements and statistics with one another (promoting friendly competition), all from a single platform, I'd say that the good points outweigh the bad.
Am I a Valve fan? Yeah, to a degree. But more than just the games they make, its the distribution system and most of all the COMMUNITY which I like. You find me a company which can make online-game-networking and community as easy as Valve does (yes I acknowledge things like Xbox Live - which you have to pay through the teeth to be able to use properly), and we'll take a look at the two. But I can almost guarantee that as of right now, Steam is leading the way.
