Currently finally playing Mother 3 on an emulator. Mother 2 is one or my favourite games (typicallynot too into jrpg's) and I'm really enjoying this so far. It's a loot more plot/character based instead of just dialogue/moment bases like mother 2. Damn tho, didn't even finish the first chapter and already we're dealing with some heavy **** for a nintendo game. Too bad the rhyrhm game style combo attacks barely work because of the emulator input and sound lag. Plus, playing it on my flatscreen tv through an hdmi cable set to duplicate screen doesn't help.

I was just playing Half-Life 2 for the first time and oh my god is that **** cool. The no cutscenes thing is fantastic. It makes me feel in the present at all times, and that whole first segment before I got the crowbar was totally engaging to the point I almost forgot I wasn't the dude in the game. The 1984 atmosphere takes advantage of this by making me feel constantly intimidated and jittery; was just running from the pigs and one of them kicked in a door I was just about to go through and I ****ing jumped.

That immersion keeps the game engaging on another level, because I never quite knew where I was going and so I moved constantly, searching everything and just exploring. I actually moved more than I almost ever do in a game, making every aspect dynamic. The only time I ever stopped was to look at some piece of world building exposition that I could have just ignored if I felt like it, because the game is ****ing alive with that **** at times.

Oh and when I saw that bigass thing walking down the street I said out loud, "Oh my ****ing god that is so ****ing cool."

Half Life 2 is probably my favorite video game as far as atmosphere / immersive story goes.

Please, valve, make HL3 vr in a few years once the tech is improved.

Since Realms of Arkania 3 and Dungeon Master II exist, then yes, totally.

Not to mention Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Dragon Age, KOTOR, Diablo, The Witcher, etc.

Just wait till you play the 3rd part, that's really something!



sigh...
at least now you know all this "we want half life 3, god dammit" posts, rants and memes are justified.
Also, how well did it age ? it's a 2004 game after all, last time I played was maybe 4 years ago and I thought it aged pretty well for that time.. I'm not sure it will have the same effect now ;)

I can barely tolerate Half-Life 2. The guns are god-awful.

The first game and the expansion pack Opposing Force, are so much better in that regard.

The gunplay doesn't feel like the greatest, but I'm still not entirely used to shooters with the mouse and keyboard and I do still just have the pistol, so it might just be that. But other than that it holds up pretty ****ing well. Maybe if I'd ever played a game that felt like it before then it wouldn't hold up as well, but so far it's been a pretty unique experience for a game let alone a shooter. I honestly don't think I've ever played a game where you're supposed to shoot things, but you don't even get a weapon till like a half hour into the game, and even longer for a gun. How many testicles does a developer have to have to do that? They'd never in a million years put that in a CoD game.

Even the graphics are top notch. You can tell it's an older game mostly by how some of the NPCs move in that stiff, jerky way, but their textures are so good and smooth that I have to really look at them to notice. I actually had to look up whether the game had been remastered (it wasn't) cause I couldn't believe a game from 2004 could look that good.

It wouldn't surprise me if they are building HL3 as a VR game. All the other games were built around the new tech at the time. HL 1 was all about the crazy shit they did to the Quake engine, HL2 was all about the physics engine and facial animation, Episode 1 showcased HDRR and Phong shading, and by the time Episode 2 came out there wasn't really anything new that they could do from a new tech standpoint. Everything was just a bigger version of what had already been done before, like the see-saw puzzle but this time using a partially collapsed bridge instead.

Yeah, it's just a shame the game doesn't have excellent pacing, awesome set pieces, empathetic NPCs, and an incredibly fun physics engine to play around in... oh wait.

I'm a little surprised by the comment about the NPC movements, mostly because their animation is still something I think has yet to be topped today. There's a lot of little touches in how they emote through body language and facial expression that hasn't really been built upon. One of the only other games where I can say I noticed it in was Rage.

Like I said, it's not something I noticed until I was actively looking at a character during a "cutscene" and realized his arm movements were kind of awkward. The textures cover it up pretty well though. While actively playing the game I don't notice ****. I only even brought it up cause I figure I should have SOMETHING to criticize.