Half-Life & its remakes

[67346834f1687voodoo47]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/399120/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzOFLcbFW98

nothing to see here I suppose.

[67346834f18b7JDoran]

I found Prospekt to be very disappointing. It felt like a disjointed (quality-wise) mod to me, one that was also inconsistent in it's attempts to infer a story. I genuinely think it's the second failed HL game (if you do class Prospekt as an official game), after Blue-Shift. Granted, my expectations were perhaps far too high - I usually stay away from previews or spoilers about a game I know I'm going to buy, so I went into Prospekt knowing almost nothing about it, and perhaps I was expecting something akin to a third HL2 episode, but whatever you might expect, I think Prospekt will disappoint you. If it was a free mod, then it would be an "OK, but I won't play it again, and at least it was free" experience, but the cost, ad much more importatnly the believe that it was (semi) official and so should be somewhere approaching official standards, really made the mod a real disappointment for me.

[67346834f1a30voodoo47]

kind of interesting - did this not go through some qc before it was released? I mean, having one HL fan play through this would reveal most, if not all flaws with next to no effort.

[67346834f1d28JDoran]

kind of interesting - did this not go through some qc before it was released? I mean, having one HL fan play through this would reveal most, if not all flaws with next to no effort.

That's a good point. I'm not particularly observant or the sort of person who goes through a game looking for things to complain about, so I didn't notice some of the flaws mentioned in that review, but someone more thorough (especially a hardcore Half-Life fan, as opposed to a more casual fan like me) could no doubt have listed many obvious and less than obvious faults from just one play-through.

The original Opposing Force is fantastic though. I replayed it through a year or two back, and it was just as good as when it was first released, aside from the rubbish final boss battle (HL2 Episode 2 is the only official HL game that has a good boss battle, but Episode 1's is OK).

[67346834f1ec4voodoo47]

I agree, but also have to point out that the friendly AI is.. less than optimal. it was ok back when it was a novelty thing, but it can make you cringe nowadays at more than one place.

[67346834f1fd1voodoo47]

so, a proper HL1 remake (Black Mesa did not hit the spot for me), maybe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwiRPJtZkC8

[67346834f213fZylonBane]

It looks fantastic, but just... why?

[67346834f2245voodoo47]

why any man does anything - because they can.

[67346834f23a5JosiahJack]

That looks amazing!!! 


Whadya mean why? What have you got against blasting aliens in a secret desert lab?

[67346834f2785JDoran]

That looks *incredible*! I was disappointed to find that it was just the opening part of the game (you don't even get to see the resonance cascade scenario!) though, I suppose we're in for a mammoth wait before the full game is done (or the project is abandoned, like sadly 99.9% of Internet advertised mods, hacks, and total conversions).

I do agree with ZB though; why do this? Yes, it looks great, seems very atmospheric, and the final product might well be brilliant, but why not put the same effort into a new Half-Life game (or not a Half-Life game) with new content? We have enough ways of playing through Half-Life 1 nowadays, be it the original game, the SOURCE version, Black Mesa, or even the PS2 version, and I think most people wanting an 'up to date' version of the game would be happy with Black Mesa - I think that the reasons some people (including Voodoo47?) dislike Black Mesa are to do with some of the gameplay and playing area changes Black Mesa made, and not down to Black Mesa looking in any way old nowadays.*

I'd much rather have this new version of HL than nothing, of course, but I'd prefer these obviously really talented modders to spend their time and effort on a new, original single player campaign rather than a campaign that we Half-Life fans have played to death. They could do what Azure Sheep (a *fantastic* Half-Life mod) did; let you fight through many of the levels of the original Half-Life game but as a different character and with different enemy patterns.

By the way, I recently played the new fan-made Half-Life mod, and it's really good. It's no wonder it's received endless critical and fan acclaim, it really pushes the Half-Life engine. Some screenshots:

The photos don't do the mod justice - the photos look good, as does the mod, but they don't show how inventive and well judged the gameplay is. Definitely one of the best Half-Life mods ever, up there with Opposing Force and Azure Sheep, if you ask me.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/half-life-echoes

Note: to play Echoes you either need to use the Steam version of Half-Life, or the fan-made Half-Life engine remake Xash3D, even though Echoes' web-page says the mod is only compatible with the Steam version.





* It's the opposite with JosiahJack's Citadel, or with M210's Java ports of Blood!, Redneck Rampage, etc, as with those projects there is currently no modern version to compete with them. I wish more games were open source, so they could be ported to newer machines and be improved and modded.

[67346834f2c3bvoodoo47]

why not put the same effort into a new Half-Life game (or not a Half-Life game) with new content?

making a fan mission or TC (using existing assets) - difficult. recreating another game in a different engine (using some existing assets) - even more difficult. creating something completely new (that's worth something) from scratch (and in your free time) - nigh impossible.