λ ☣ ☢️ (λ)²
they should make another one of these
Hey that’s a good idea, lemme just email gaben
The way in which Half-Life maintained a continuous viewpoint over long stretches of gameplay and landscape was always so immersive to me. Games like God of War and Dead Space did something similar, but Valve had an additional challenge.
They almost never take player control, instead relying on mere hints of where to look; they even have the character sequences scripted for wherever the player was standing. That all usually took a lot of their effort.
I could be biased because I even enjoyed toying with their choreography tool, which let you layer simple gestures together; so without making a new animation, you could have someone both lean forward and nod right, and point their thumb right.
You’re not biased. You’re completely correct.
I mean the game was given for free and just received an update. It’s also a really good game as well
Is half-life cyberpunk?
As a genre? I would say no. Cyberpunk is usually described as a capitalist dystopia in which a handful of companies supersede government powers and wage wars against each other beyond the concepts of national borders. In addition, cybernetic enhancements become commonplace, as a way for companies to extract more value from their workers. Cyberpunk stories usually are about groups rebelling against the system through organized crime, who ultimately fail to escape the underlying system of capitalism, doomed to repeat history time and time again.
HL2 falls in none of the genre stereotypes. While it is dystopian, it’s not capitalist, so it’s not “punk” and it isn’t “cyber” either because of a lack of commonplace cybernetics.
Not really.
Half Life 2 still holds up really well, honestly better than a ton of modern first person shooters. The only places it’s lacking from a non-technical aspect is enemy variety. If valve did a remake just updating the graphics and gun play that would be my only knock on it and that says a lot for a 20 year old game.
The physics puzzles, whole still functioning fine, feel extremely goofy today. It’s easy to forget how revolutionary they were. I’m not saying the game shouldn’t have them or anything, but some are just so silly lol.
On enemy variety, I see the critique of games like Zelda: BOTW and even realistic games like Hitman. Something those games have in common is very well-made enemy AI that presents you many ways to defeat them.
How many games receive any update after 20 years?
Most, if not all Valve games
Ricochet hasn’t recieved the love it deserves. We’ve been waiting on Ricochet 2 for decades. The fans need closure.
Old classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=632kyLysP6c
You just can’t update perfection.
But there’s “Ricochet: Source” out there as a mod
I worked on it with some people half a life(time) ago. It was playable but we never really finished it properly
I’ll be straight with you - I never played Ricochet. I was just doing the joke from that one guy who asked Gabe about it that one time. But the fact you ported it to the Source engine is honestly really cool.
If you’re ever at a lan party, I’d say: check it out. It’s quite fun and can get quite challenging on fuller levels.
It’s how I stumbled on it decades ago
Speaking of Richochet and love reminds me of a guy I halfway knew in my youth. He had the bright idea to jerk off a quick one in the middle of a LAN party (lI know, right?). After he inevitably got caught (despite being somewhat secluded) he alt tabbed from whatever grainy porn clip he had up straight into Ricochet just as he… well ya know.
He never came to another LAN party again, but 20+ years later he’s still known as the guy who jerked off to Richochet.
I mean who hasn’t at least once?
Artifact? Both of them?
HL2 is peak first person shooter. More recent games have added a lot, but after playing through HL2 recent, it’s really nice to strip all that extra stuff away.
I can see why people didn’t like some parts (boat, car) but they’re so iconic to me.
Except episode 2 (1?) car shit with the buckeyballs. Fuck that.
I disagree, I cannot see why people dislike those parts—the tension is fantastic in both
It’s only awful if you’re achievement hunting and trying to drive the god damn gnome through the level without it flinging off into space and being lost forever
There is also a VR mod on Steam that works perfectly With Half-Life 2, No need to jump through hoops, it just works. One of the best VR experiences out there.
You just changed my life.
It just works like the way Skyrim VR just works or will it make HL2 the same kind of experience as HL: Alyx?
I mean half life alyx’s entire mechanics revolve around VR controls.
That’s why they’re asking.
That’s the difference; does the mod allow interaction with the world like Alyx, or is it just you’re there, but still using basic 2D controls to manipulate shit (press E to use a door instead of grabbing the handle and pushing/pulling)?
No, it has full motion controls. It’s quite enjoyable.
I’m not sure how the game engine can incorporate such fine detailed mechanics. It almost seems like it’ll have to be reworked from the ground up, with only the assets being maintained.
It’s the Source engine. Which Alyx is made in too.
The workshop is a complete mess right now. There are multiple copies of every mod because people just rushed to get them on there.
It’ll be funny when everyones game breaks after the dust settles.
Imma go make it 52001
FYI, that’s roughly 50x the normal average over the past 3 months. And also the highest ever concurrent users was 4 hours ago. Not bad.
- Brb.
Is there formatting on this post? It seems to have broken voyager slightly
A number followed by a period is Markdown for an ordered list. To make it easier, the renderer always starts from 1 and counts properly. So on your app it is probably rendering this as an ordered list with one item instead of as two sentences.
i am also on voyager and its also broken for me. how interesting. i wonder why.
- I’m guessing the other guy who responded was correct - must be related to markdown lists not having enough space for 4 characters before the period.
very interesting
I posted from Boost for Lemmy, but formatted nothing.
Very weird! This is the only time I’ve ever seen this.
Nostalgia’s a helluva drug. I’ve done my best to try to avoid it, but we all like that hit from time to time.
Played Half Life 2 for the first time in my life at 25, 10/10 perfect game.
Avoid nostalgia?
Yes, ignore false history.
Is the update actually anything significant?
The full list is on steam, the main thing is it’s bundled all hl2 games in one package, integrated workshop for mod installation, and added new developer commentary for hl2. Also a bunch of misc fixes etc.
If you’re into the nuts and bolts of game development at all, the commentary is fantastic.
When it first came out, for some reason, I thought all games would start following Valve’s lead and introduce commentary.
And now two decades later, I don’t know if any other games have.
Then again, we have other ways like game devs talking on podcasts/live stream.
