Will Gordon 'the' Freeman have..

[repeating integers]

Kicked enough Ass
Busted enough Can
Prodded enough Buttock

By the time HL3 is released to have learned how to aim down the sights?

Sights are for wussies. The Freeman is accurate even shooting from the hip.

Look, I'll tell you why so many want Aim-Down-Sights: Console gamers and their inadequate gamepad controls.

See a thumb-stick is such a poor aiming device even with aim assist you cannot get the right balance of speed and precision, all ADS does is at the push of a button:
-decrease sensitivity
-dial up aim-assist
-use more detailed sights.
-narrow-spread

Look at all the PC focused games that do NOT have Aim-down-sight as standard:
-Quake
-Unreal Tournament
-Half Life 1 & 2 + Episodes
-Left 4 Dead
-Team Fortress 2
-Painkiller
-FEAR
-Bioshock
-Killing floor

Duke Nukem got markedly higher metascore on PC I think down to the mouse-aim is much more suited to aiming without ADS.

The only PC focused games that integrate an ADS mechanic are those who are going for a higher sense of realism like ARMA, Stalker, Metro 2033 and also Crysis (realistic in a Hard-sci-fi kind of way).

Because with a mouse the ergonomics are so good it is easy to quickly snap to the target then precisely move the reticule for a headshot. I've just come from playing Bioshock 2 on PC where I got 3 headshot insta-kills in a row against a series of charging splicers, every time I'm confronted by one I pop a bolt though their head before they have a chance to react. You only really need sights for when you need high zoom, like with sniper rifles.

Gordon Freeman uses a powered suit to shoot from the hip with ease and a heads up display to always tell him where his gun is pointing. He is not like every other soldier who must slow to almost a stop to shoot, he is able to take on the Combine and all other incredible odds by being footloose.

The question should instead be:
"Will Gordon Freeman be enough of a wimp by the time HL3 is released to have FORGOTTEN how to shoot accurately from the hip"

Face it, ADS is less for "realism" and much more a crutch for poor console controls that are more suited to action/adventure games than any kind of shooter.

But with the new Source engine the could include a localized body damage mechanic, it seems a pretty lame excuse not to include an aim mechanic "because we dont want to be like CoD" well..do you want to be like every man on the planet?

Pro tip: play it on PC where it belongs, where you have a REAL aiming mechanic that is called "mouse aim". I have been playing shooters with both DualShock and Mouse + Keyboard for over a decade now, I can easily hit the body parts I want with mouse aim sans-ADS yet console I need the ADS crutch to even do half as well.

Good for you, I guess. Personally, I'm terrible at aiming on both platforms, and play as medic in TF2 because I can't hit anything (whereas with medic, I don't have to because of how the medgun works, heehee!). Personally, I like the idea of giving certain weapons iron sights or scopes - I mean, look at the SMG, it has a scope you for some reason can't use. Same goes for the rocket launcher.

 

[Wintermoot]

I don,t think HL will work with iron sights also WHY would you want them if every weapon already has crossairs.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Crowbars don't have sights.

 

[Shock and Awe]

Doubt it, Valve wouldn't change the gameplay that much this late in the game.

 

[Treblaine]

Good for you, I guess. Personally, I'm terrible at aiming on both platforms, and play as medic in TF2 because I can't hit anything (whereas with medic, I don't have to because of how the medgun works, heehee!). Personally, I like the idea of giving certain weapons iron sights or scopes - I mean, look at the SMG, it has a scope you for some reason can't use. Same goes for the rocket launcher.

Why doesn't Gordon use that sight? Well because the optic on the SMG is a "Reflex sight" which is designed to "Project a cross-hairs over where the bullets will hit with minimum obstruction" without any zoom or any other effect.

Gordon's HEV suit does that already with the Heads up display painting an absolutely perfect Crosshairs in the middle of the screen. Modern military soldiers would trade their boots for a sight that good that so far is only sci-fi (though technically feasible, it would require micrometre precise motion tracking).

So the reflex sight on the SMG is superfluous for Gordon, probably on there for the measly Combine to aim with adequate accuracy.

Look into macros that "reduce mouse sensitivity" and bound that to right-click or shift for a replication of ADS as that's all it does: finer movements. Maybe mix walk-toggle into the macro as well.

But really man, you just have to practice and remember my unofficial totally-not-made-up-on-the-spot Golden Rules of aiming:

Rule #1 = if you are thinking about the aiming you will be too slow, you have to trust you subconscious, FEEL THE FORCE. You have to have that "Turn off your targeting computer" moment and just go for it try to make the headshot as a twitch motion, trust your reflexes and eventually you will get good.

Rule #2 = ease yourself in slowly with a challenge level you can learn from, play a game with a lot of intermittent enemies like Bioshock. When you collide with them be bold, use tonics and weapons that favour headshots like and go for the quick efficient kill.

Rule #3 = you'll never get better at aiming playing Medic, at least no the way most people play. Be an ACTIVE medic, you can be a lot more use at times laying down fire than healing (10 seconds after taking damage the heal is at the minimum 24hp/sec rate) and you should aim to heal and buff every team-mate in sight, even when healing a heavy if a friendly scout runs by heal that scout then go back to Heavy. One good medic with quick aim can buff almost his entire team at once. Your uber meter builds 2x as fast when healing injured teammates.

Rule #4 = disregard all the others, this should be rule #1, get a good mouse mat, a mat you can glide your mouse over smooothly and consistently. The free mouse-mats or just your table-top is usually not an adequate surface, you want a hard sturdy surface that is slick like graphite.

 

[Daniel Cygnus]

...Right. Because CoD invented sights in games.

Never said it did. It definitely popularized it, though.

 

[Treblaine]

That's because you don't run around with the gun glued to your actual hip.

Pick something up, A large bottle of water or a broom or something.

Hold it as you would a gun from the hip. Now secure it as if you're aiming down your sights. Which do you think is going to give you a better cluster?

The recoil it diminishes is immense. The bullet spread you find in games is to compensate for that.

Firing a real fully automatic gun isn't like firing an air rifle. There is a lot of kick. unless you secure the weapon to your shoulder it's going to spray like a hose pipe.

There's a reason the army teach you to AIM before firing. In real life we have pretty good sensory awareness and can generally hit a decent sized target without aiming down a sight. The army teaches you to aim, not only because of how much more accurate your shot will be, but because you're not going to have a gun flailing all over the place because you decided it was cooler to spray from the hip.

I can't speak for the other guy, but I've seem people use the term "aiming from the hip" for any time a gun is fired without looking through the sights. For example it is possible to have a weapon held with the buttstock well seated in the shoulder to absorb the recoil but with your head held high is about 8 inches higher and 4 inches to the left of ths sight line.

In fact to fire most rifles from a standing position, one must hold the rifle with the stock so high up on the shoulder (so that the weapon is no longer recoiling directly into the body) and stooping the head down to be in line with the sights that are already raised high above the barrel line (leading to parallax problems).

Just look at this picture:

Notice the M4 Carbine's straight-line stock is negated by how only the lower part of the stock is actually held in the shoulder, and I detect a distinct "hunch" of the shoulders up and head stooped.

Of course, this is the best the Army can do with the realities of combat, we did not evolve to fire rifles from standing, and every soldier does not yet have a "heads-up-display" of cross-hairs shooting where their weapon is pointed. However, Gordon Freeman does. And look at the way he holds the weapons in game:

it's not like it is lolling around at waist height but up and shouldered but shouldered low and with head held high. I've held a metre-ruler like this against my low shoulder and the line of perspective is exactly in line with the perspective seen in HL2.

 

[maturin]

All good points, Treblaine.

But really, that optic on the SMG is just laughing at us. None of the other weapons need it.

 

[maturin]

The stupid thing about CoD and other FPS is that when you fire "from the hip," the weapon is still held against your shoulder. The only difference is that your head is raised, yet somehow the bullets barely travel in straight lines, zooming off at odd angles. Move your head behind the sights, and the gun magically becomes laser-accurate (and games (besides Arma 2) never have bullets follow true parabolic paths even when they brag about realistic ballistics).

Guns should still put bullets in the same place when you're not sighted it, you just shouldn't know where they are pointing at that moment.

 

[Jegsimmons]

iron sights arent really important when the regular reticules are enough to snipe a ***** from half way across the map.
iron sights would just take up button space and be redundant since you have a scoped weapon on you nearly all times.
Halo doesnt let you look down iron sights and its fine.

 

[Zetsubou^-^]

I don't think half life needs an iron sights. i mean, its already a point and shoot fps, it doesn't need the CoD "slowdown to aim" (and yes, its slower because you can only walk at best while aiming) it just doesn't fit half life's move on your toes combat.(and no im not crediting CoD with it, its just the most recent)

the freeman can run whilst capping a few combine and dodging headcrabs. why the hell would you want something that potentially limits that? besides, I usually ended up using the gravity gun more anyway. the guns that may have been aided by aiming were the pistol and machineguns, and they drop ammo religiously.

 

[Jegsimmons]

also i never liked the term "fire from the hip" i know what they mean but has anyone ever tried to shoot a gun like that? well lets say its a bad idea especially for shotguns. (part of my head STILL hurts from that)

 

[Akiada]

It's not going to happen.

Half-Life is set pretty firmly in the old school tropes of shooters. Percentile health, armor on top of that, being a walking armory having an independant melee weapon (instead of a melee key) and being accurate without ADS.

And that's fine, because that's how HL rolls. It's the gameplay style.

Though, I do find the notion that Gordon doesn't ADS because he's a "Scientist" to be absolutely ludicrous.

Did you guys miss the entire first game by chance? The tutorial where it shows he's exceptionally physically fit and is skilled at handling firearms (As is required of all people of Gordon's job description - you see a number of HEV-suited, firearms totting bodies scattered around the Xen levels) and that's before the game even starts properly.

After that he not only kills tons and tons of horrible aliens, he massacres a fuckload of US Marines, and not only marines, but black-ops, wetworks team marines. Guys specifically picked for their ruthlessness and skill.

He survives multiple ambush attempt by them (including attempts with rocket launchers, bunkers, helicopters, and Browning .50 cals), kills even more, then goes on to invade an alien world, kill it's leader and some time later is brought back to murderlize the alien forces that took over the world is a measly seven hours. And he does it, too.

The man isn't some nerd who doesn't know the barrel from the sights. Gordon Freeman is more skilled a combatant than most soldiers. Hell, he's better than most teams of special forces soldiers.

Look at all the PC focused games that do NOT have Aim-down-sight as standard:
-Quake
-Unreal Tournament
-Half Life 1 & 2 + Episodes
-Left 4 Dead
-Team Fortress 2
-Painkiller
-FEAR
-Bioshock
-Killing floor

Killing Floor

Whut. This is a mistake, right?

Because in Killing floor ADS is the only way to aim. There is no crosshair, your options are:
- Oh god I hope I hit
and
- Aim down the sights you nonce.

 

[BlazedWithPower]

I would like to be able to shoot while zoomed. Maybe a 'squint real hard' option?
If you want accuracy use the pistol in HL2.

This particular mechanic will have no effect on whether or not I buy HL3. Because I'm buying HL3 no matter what. I need it for its engine. Though I might wait until its bundled with every other source engine game like Orange Box.

 

[Treblaine]

Look at all the PC focused games that do NOT have Aim-down-sight as standard:
-Quake
-Unreal Tournament
-Half Life 1 & 2 + Episodes
-Left 4 Dead
-Team Fortress 2
-Painkiller
-FEAR
-Bioshock
-Killing floor

Killing Floor

Whut. This is a mistake, right?

Because in Killing floor ADS is the only way to aim. There is no crosshair, your options are:
- Oh god I hope I hit
and
- Aim down the sights you nonce.

D'OH!

I bought Killing Floor in a Steam Sale and still haven't gotten round to playing it, don't know what I was thinking.

Anyway, the "exception that proves the rule" I'd call it.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Actually i'd love to see characters from the Machinimas to appear in Half Life 3, like in a "Café of Broken Dreams" (get the reference?), i mean only Gordon Frohman would suffice...

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Mister Freeman is too bad-ass to need ironsights.

i think your opinion is more worthy to be highlighted than those who write too much and say too few.

 

[hazabaza1]

I'd be happy just getting a slight zoom, smaller crosshair type aim. Seriously, sometimes I want to get a long range shot without the damn combine sidestepping the slow arse crossbow bolt, let me aim longer please.