Game Debate #121: Half Life

[RH | 4,903]

4 hours ago, Sumez said:

I honestly can't understand why anyone would want to play Half-life over way more fun and engaging games like Quake or Duke3D.

Quake is too twitchy from what I recall. Compared to Half-Life, especially multiplayer, you have options on how to play.  You can jump straight into the fight or, you can perch somewhere and snipe.

I never played Quake much but from what I recall, most of the game was built around intense arena battles, where Half-Life levels are diverse—some are intense, some are wide open and some provide options to play style.

Duke 3D was an amazing game, but it was of an older aesthetic that was rather limited.  Half-Life was built at the right time in what was possible with PC hardware.  I mean, it had a great multiplayer experience, but HL really elevated it.  I like DN3D in High School, but I LOVED Half-Life, and there was little going back.  I also think the single player campaign of HL is way better than Duke too. Don’t get me wrong, Duke Nukem is a solid 8.5-9, but Half-Life is about .5-1.0 point higher.  It’s much closer to FPS perfection.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,530]

13 hours ago, Sumez said:

I honestly can't understand why anyone would want to play Half-life over way more fun and engaging games like Quake or Duke3D.

Is Quake more fun or more engaging than Half Life though? 

[Sumez | 2,951]

On 10/8/2022 at 11:33 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

Is Quake more fun or more engaging than Half Life though? 

Why wouldn't it be? You are constantly on the move and engaging enemies, it feels like playing a real video game rather than a simulation. In Half-Life you're spending more time just walking around trying to find the way forward, and when you do engage with enemies you'll spend more time hiding from them, or trying to dig out enemies hiding from you, a lot of that owing to all the soldiers with hitscan attacks. For all the qualities you can argue Half-Life has, would you really bring up the combat mechanics as one?

[Reed Rothchild | 9,530]

Yes, I would say the tactical battles against the troops and Apaches are more engaging than the hodgepodge of Doom-y Strogg-y Lovecraftian horrors that mostly just beeline you while you pump shotgun rounds to their face.

Not to say I don't like both things very much.  But they both have their place.  Same reason I think Dishonored is more fun than Serious Sam.

[DefaultGen | 5,405]

I mean I like everything about HL but I’m not gonna disparage Quake in comparison. Both are the best at what they’re trying to be. It’s sometimes hard for me to comprehend how fast, dark, and metal Quake is and how almost nothing else competes with it. There are a lot of Doom clones that feel kind of like Doom with a different coat of paint, but nothing is ever as rad as Quake’s industrial medieval setting. Fuck Quake II for getting rid of that for generic space marine BS. What was the topic again?

[Sumez | 2,951]

7 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Yes, I would say the tactical battles against the troops and Apaches are more engaging than the hodgepodge of Doom-y Strogg-y Lovecraftian horrors that mostly just beeline you while you pump shotgun rounds to their face.

If fighting lovecraftian horrors that beeline at you doesn't require a tactical approach, you're either playing a too low difficulty, or using quicksaves too much as a crutch  

[Reed Rothchild | 9,530]

16 minutes ago, Sumez said:

If fighting lovecraftian horrors that beeline at you doesn't require a tactical approach, you're either playing a too low difficulty, or using quicksaves too much as a crutch  

"Crank the difficulty to compensate for the AI!"

[Gloves | 11,779]

Never played it. 

[Sumez | 2,951]

13 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

"Crank the difficulty to compensate for the AI!"

I know you're just pushing buttons here, but come on there's an actual topic here  You just finished playing and rating every game in a 16bit generation library, full of action games designed around the merits of basic enemy mechanics.

Is "AI" really what creates interesting interesting scenarios in a fast paced action game? Would Super Mario Bros. be more fun if the koopas tried to avoid you when you jump on them, and the goombas tried to flank you?

[Reed Rothchild | 9,530]

2 hours ago, Sumez said:

I know you're just pushing buttons here, but come on there's an actual topic here  You just finished playing and rating every game in a 16bit generation library, full of action games designed around the merits of basic enemy mechanics.

Is "AI" really what creates interesting interesting scenarios in a fast paced action game? Would Super Mario Bros. be more fun if the koopas tried to avoid you when you jump on them, and the goombas tried to flank you?

Yeah, I mean you're totally right.  Some of my favorite games are 100% pattern memorization.  And Doom is in my top 10.  If we ever do Quake I'll probably score it a 8/10.

But I don't think the lack of those things hurts Half Life.  I like the way it introduced more measured pacing.

[Sumez | 2,951]

Predictable behaviors doesn't mean relying on pattern memorization. IMO the best games still rely RNG, or build up entropy in other ways. Unpredictable situations that can be solved using predictable logic is pretty much the core recipe for tactical gameplay, no?

Maybe you can "patternize" yourself 100% out of Quake? I'm not sure honestly. Speedrunners seem to mostly rely on patterns, but then again so do Half-Life speedrunnners. Either way, I don't think that describes its gameplay at all.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Sumez