WHAT PLAY YOU!? Version 3.0

[FLips]

Half-Life

Just as boring as I remember it being when I first had a go of it way back in 2005ish. I appreciate it set a standard for level design and narrative for FPS but it's just a bad game. Gordon Freeman controls like he's on ice the entire time, the music is forgettable, and the gameplay is a mixture of cheap janky deaths because of how random things are like floors giving out or awful platforming sections, and the rest of it is trial and error puzzles you have to save scum through. The checkpoints are generous but the health and ammo is not so you constantly find yourself restarting areas with low health and no ammo. the first half of the game where you escape the facility is OK but as soon as you reach the bit where it's mostly aliens and then eventually all aliens, the game is dreadful.
It's nowhere near as good as games that came before it like DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D and it's way behind the next generation like Halo. Do not get it at all.

[Chest Rockwell]

I've not played it in decades but remember thinking the first half in the facility was really good, and it got a bit boring after that. 

[Merzbow]

I was never huge on Half Life but that style of narrative based FPS gave birth to Starbreeze making the hugely superior The Darkness and Chronicles of Riddick games.

Both weirdly forgotten games from the 00's where shooters were getting brown and boring.

Half Life 2 and it's kinda sequels are a beautifully crafted world though, shame the gameplay never matched it.

Edited November 26, 2023 by Merzbow

[FLips]

9 hours ago, Merzbow said:

I was never huge on Half Life but that style of narrative based FPS gave birth to Starbreeze making the hugely superior The Darkness and Chronicles of Riddick games.

Both weirdly forgotten games from the 00's where shooters were getting brown and boring.

Half Life 2 and it's kinda sequels are a beautifully crafted world though, shame the gameplay never matched it.

I adored Riddick on the original XBox back in the day. Thought it looked stunning, played great with interesting concepts that you never saw in FPS games. I also remember finding Half Life 2 confusing to navigate. That being said I'm playing Half Life 2 now and within an hour I can already say without doubt it's better than Half Life 1 in every way. I am only at the start of the game though, I remember once you get into the more open areas it becomes a bit of a free for all. Is it Half Life 2 with the awful vehicle sections?

[Merzbow]

5 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

Is it Half Life 2 with the awful vehicle sections?

Oh yeah it is, and not a patch on Halo in the Warthog.

[FLips]

Just now, Merzbow said:

Oh yeah it is, and not a patch on Halo in the Warthog.

Oh dear. I remember hating the vehicle bits with all my might back on the Xbox. I just remember some sort of Hovercraft thing or a Buggy (or god forbid both).

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

I’ve been playing Metal Gear Solid Master Collection. I know it has come in for some criticism but, the games are still absolutely brilliant.

[The Gaffer]

I love Half-Life but I get it. I also think its actual legacy should be attributed to Half-Life/Mod tools/Counter-Strike/Steam as a whole. 

Second half of the game is indeed a generic slog once its initial script tricks and "Woah, so there's just no cutscenes?" shtick wears off. I'm talking about both Half-Life 1+2 there. 

Awful sound design, as well. Half-Life 2's Be Here Now mix with its awful, overamped, trebly gun sounds is criminal. 

Halo pisses on Half-Life. I'm sure there was a take that it was the unsophisticated jarhead cousin for dumb console players. It's wrong. 

[Keith Houchen]

Sacking off Yakuza. Played the darts game and it’s an abomination. You don’t need a double to check out and can just hit a single? This is worse than any of the Japanononce stuff. 
 

Also, it has that great feature where you can skip the dialogue once you’ve read it, which is ace, but given how they don’t actually say the dialogue and just grunt, it sounds dodge. “Uh, ooh, uh, ahh, JOYRU, hmm, oh”. That’s the noises from the telly and the game is becoming too risky to play. 

[Jazzy G]

I picked up Forklift And Extreme on Switch as it's £3.50 on sale. It's a fun enough distraction at that price. I know there's a free mobile version, but I'd rather play it using a controller. The physics are fine, but it's an odd choice to play from an isometric angle. There are camera controls to rotate your view, and there is a first person view, but it doesn't let you look behind you when you're driving backwards. The levels are almost like Tony Hawk levels with multiple goals. Move the boxes to their destination, do it within a certain time, find the F-O-R-K letters, and do that within a certain time, find the secret safety poster, avoid hitting any obstacles. There's a loot box system, and you get paid for each level you do, which lets you buy other characters, liveries for your forklift, and new models for the forklift as well. For £3.50 it's decent enough, but I wouldn't pay the £15 it was asking for without the discount on the eShop. 

[RedRooster]

The Super Mario RPG remake might be in contention to be my game of the year. It’s so full of heart and joy, I absolutely love it. There are certainly faults along the way - the platforming sections are imprecise and annoying - while one or two portions of the game have solutions you couldn’t possibly work out yourself - but the rest of the game is so good the flaws just don’t matter.

Edited November 26, 2023 by RedRooster

[FLips]

Half Life 2

A real mixed bag. The shooter parts are fun and the physics are fantastic and still never really matched. That being said the game goes on forever and ever for a shooter which is in no small part thanks to multiple empty and boring vehicle sections padding the middle of the game out. Having no cutscenes so you can do the whole thing uninterruped in-game is a noble idea but after an hour in a dune buggy the last thing I want is a 5 minute on-rails elevator sequence or bots talking to each other.

Absolutely can understand why it made such an impact at the time and some of it even in 2023 impressed me. It's a hundred times better than Half Life 1 but at times feels like the game forces you to crawl when all you want to do is run. It re-uses the same set-peices over and over again (fighting helicopters/dropships with a rocket launcher, driving a vehicle around an empty world, and using the gravity gun to play floor is lava being the worst offenders) so the game feels so artificially padded out. It peaks in the horrifying Ravenholme.

 

[Ironic Indie Lad]

I have a 3 month old baby so I am finding gaming time hard to come by at the moment.

When I do have a bit of time of an evening, I have been chipping away at Robocop: Rogue City

I think this got quite mid reviews but I have been having a blast with this. They have absolutely nailed the vibe, you feel like a tank, the violence is wildly over the top and gory and its loaded with easter eggs. I think objectively its nothing outstanding but if you are a big fan of the movies then I really think its worth a go. It's probably the 3rd most enjoyable game I have played this year behind Tears of the Kingdom and Mario Wonder. 

I finish work in a couple of weeks and dont start my new job until the second week of January. I am saving Super Mario RPG specifically for this period. Nothing says Christmas to me like playing a nintendo game. 

[Keith Houchen]

Thanks to everyone who recommended Quantum Break. Having fun playing that and it had the added bonus of Daniels and Carcetti from The Wire!

[Merzbow]

I was looking to play Tom Clancy's HAWX after replaying Ace Combat 7, it's sadly been delisted from Steam and a key is selling for a fucking grand?!? Just a line of 16 letters and number, a thousand pounds.

Thank fuck for piracy, hey?