Malleus on 4/1/2009 at 18:14
Quote Posted by Taffer36
I don't get how anybody could not like the gameplay in Gears or Halo but praise Half-life 2. C'mon, have you stripped everything that makes HL2 good away (the story, dialogue, puzzles, scripted scenes) and just looked at the combat? It's terrible.
I agree, but I don't strip everything that makes it good, so it's good. :) I think the gameplay of MGS1-2 is pretty bad too and still like it because of everything else. I guess sometimes it's that 'everything else' that matters.
Taffer36 on 4/1/2009 at 18:26
What the fuck?
I said that RPG's have certain game design principles in them that I dislike. One is inventory management. Another is putting up with (usually) poor combat for the enjoyment of boosting stats or feeling godly, etc. They have a very distinct advantage coming with a disadvantage that I simply don't enjoy for personal reasons. Some people enjoy the tradeoffs, some do not. And considering that NO ONE claimed to actually enjoy inventory management, those disadvantages clearly do exist.
Let me give you an example. I was playing Morrowind, and as I was walking along a crazed man ambushed me. So I lured him over to a guard post a small ways away. As I ran in, the crazed man stabbed me IN THE FACE with a spear. What did the guards do? They all stood around and asked what I needed. WHAT THE FUCK? I know in the days of top down RPG's this would've been acceptable, but in this day and age?
What I enjoy about the combat in Half-life 2 is its feeling of "OH SHI-RUNNNN" where you're constantly rushing around to frantically search for something to toss at the enemy at lightning speeds or what not. But have you looked at the actual gunplay? Enemies hardly search for cover, they stand still and fire bullets or slowly walk back and forth between rushing and retreating, while you strafe side to side and fire bullets or hurl one of the oh-so-prevalent exploding barrels at them
The reason I love Half-life 2 is that facing off with the normal combine soldiers is hardly a large part of the game, and in that respect the combat doesn't necessarily have to match up to Halo because while Halo has you doing the same thing over and over, Half-life 2 let's you do tons of other things.
june gloom on 4/1/2009 at 20:13
Quote Posted by Taffer36
C'mon, have you stripped everything that makes HL2 good away (the story, dialogue, puzzles, scripted scenes) and just looked at the combat? It's terrible. Run around and mash the fire button, and then spam the gravity gun. Yawn. At least Gears and Halo make you focus on tactics (if you play on normal then you played a completely different game though, because 99% of the tactics in those two games are lost on normal).
You're a fantastic twit. HL2's combat is leagues ahead of Halo and Gears precisely because even if the enemy doesn't search for cover they
do move tactically. Go play Minerva for a good example of the way Combine can be quite dangerous in close quarters.
Matthew on 4/1/2009 at 20:18
Quote Posted by Taffer36
Let me give you an example. I was playing Morrowind, and as I was walking along a crazed man ambushed me. So I lured him over to a guard post a small ways away. As I ran in, the crazed man stabbed me IN THE FACE with a spear. What did the guards do? They all stood around and asked what I needed. WHAT THE FUCK? I know in the days of top down RPG's this would've been acceptable, but in this day and age?
In Oblivion, at least, I can recall several instances of guards moving in to attack bandits and the like.
Jason Moyer on 4/1/2009 at 20:31
By "this day and age" he was obviously talking about 5-6 years ago, hence the Morrowind citation.
Taffer36 on 4/1/2009 at 20:57
Quote:
You're a fantastic twit. HL2's combat is leagues ahead of Halo and Gears precisely because even if the enemy doesn't search for cover they do move tactically. Go play Minerva for a good example of the way Combine can be quite dangerous in close quarters.
Moving around IN THE OPEN and strafing is considered tactical? Call it what you want, but the point I'm making is that they still don't search for cover very well and in the end they just hang out ready to be bullet fodder. There's a couple instances where I remember them properly seeking cover inside of a house, which was kind of cool, but for the most part they RUN RUN RUN at you, or strafe around while you either hold down fire on the SMG or run up and shotgun them repeatedly.
Gears is a bit unfair since all the AI has to do is literally use the cover system so of course it'll be that way, but even in Halo enemies properly back up when damaged, they advance
to adjacent cover, spread out, flush you out, they are constantly looking for an angle on you, etc. Have you played Halo on Legendary (IMO really the only way to play it)?
And I'm clearly talking about vanilla HL2, NOT the mods.
june gloom on 4/1/2009 at 21:03
It's evident in Vanilla HL2 as well. A good example would be the old Soviet bunkers shortly before entering Nova Prospekt, where the Combine toss out flares.
Granted they occasionally do stupid stuff like walking through a door singlefile like lambs to the slaughter, but they do behave more realistically in the episodes- observe the way they take cover and gradually advance in the White Forest Inn ambush.
The_Raven on 4/1/2009 at 21:10
That really does come down to how the nodes are placed by the level designer. Overall, I found the combat with the combine to be incredibly boring in Half-Life 2 due to the fact that the way the nodes were set up rarely allowed the AI to show what it was really capable of. After how much fun it was to have shootouts with the grunts in the original Half-Life, this was a major area of disapointment for me in the sequel.
Koki on 4/1/2009 at 21:20
Quote Posted by dethtoll
You're a fantastic twit. HL2's combat is leagues ahead of Halo and Gears
Halo has shield and enforces hit&run.
Gears has pretty advanced fire-from-move-between-cover system.
HL2 is you running circles around the baddies and shooting them TO DEATH then breaking boxes full of medkits and moving on. A formula identical to what was in original Doom.
But don't let my facts stop you from preordering Ep 3.
And to Taffer36: My argument was for what I pretty much said now - the combat in the three games you mentioned is so fucking
different that your sentence about enjoying one and not the other made no sense whatseover.
june gloom on 4/1/2009 at 21:25
Halo has you fighting against 6 million goddamn midget aliens and the occasional big alien whose idea of "cover" is constantly rolling left and right.
Gears of War's idea of gameplay is "take cover and occasionally pop up to shoot".
If you had a point, it never left the tarmac.
