Be Excellent To Each Other

Huh. That's not textures then, they don't compress. What the fuck could it be?

Models. A shit load of geometry

Ok, had a quick dabble up until Red Letter Day which I'd just played up to the other day so I reckon I'm in a good position to remember the vanilla experience:

Pros:

New textures look ok.
No one is wearing any "zany" mod outfits; everyone is wearing the same or with slightly better texture work.
There's some nice incidental work such as new posters and computer screens that were initially washed over blurry textures now being readable.
Some of the additional screen furniture. For example, when you're being chased by the Combine you do the rooftop dash, right? But just before you get onto the roofs you exit out of the demolished section of roofing. This big whole in the roof is now covered partially in boxes. And that's ok because it's probably more believable that someone would cover the big hole up.
The roof tops is a small section where arguably the mod has improved the original. It looks nice and the surrounding roof top cityscape looks like, say, that shit hole London with far more incidental details than the original.
The new pistol looks very good.
It's a darker place too, so you now have a permanent light which you can switch on and doesn't drain your aux battery. The perma light is a significant improvement over the 10 seconds of light you could access before.
The gunshots that miss you and hit the walls have better particle effects. Well, there might as well not been any before, pithy little things they were.
There's some incidental background music in places. It isn't bad, normally just some atmospheric lift music stuff that wasn't there before. It didn't annoy me but I like my games largely music free if cold hard atmosphere is what we're aiming for.

Cons:

Well, it doesn't really add much to the experience. In fact, the clean and simple nature of City 17 has been actually lost something in some areas.
Take the square at the beginning, it's got a load of blown out cars and trucks parked up everywhere which seen out of place. They don't tell a story of a big battle that took place (or something) and the surrounding buildings are relatively unscathed if a battle was supposed to. I can accept that people might no longer be able to drive their vehicles and left them parked up to rot but these look as though they've been burnt or been there for fucking decades the amount of rust on them. Sometimes less is more. The original clean lines and emptiness probably works better.
Sometimes the lighting gives off some weird neon blue colour which is a bit shit. This is miserable City 17 not neo-Tokyo.
There's the odd shit texture dotted about. I was probably on the look out for it but sometimes there's just a clutter of texture work and new screen furniture. The first teleport for instance is a jumbled clutter of shit that looks worse than the original.
Sometimes the textures and the animation are having trouble. Alex had a weird stutter at one point.
It crashed on me once in the first 20 minutes.
The darkness is fine in moderation. Remember when you first get knocked out in the stairwell. It's pitch black here. You can't even tell that you've been battered by a Combine. It's crap.
There's a few big-o textures on walls that are clearly a much smaller texture tiled. It doesn't look great.

Overal, and so far, after an hour I'm half-and-half as to whether it's worthwhile shoving this mod on. I don't think you can improve on the near perfection of the original styling.

It's 17 gig, like City 17!!!!111111

A couple more stuff about the cinematic mod:

1) Loading times are tripled between segments.
2) Someone thought I'd be funny to have graffiti with Reddit's Dickbutt scattered around. I've seen 3 very prominent dickbutts. *sigh* And a load of swear words dotted about. Pointless and atmosphere ruining crap.
3) The cinematic music is a bit annoying now and plays over the top of most action sequences. Pointless and atmosphere ruining crap.
4) The pistol noise is rubbish. It sounds like a click rather than a pow, as though it has a silencer on it even though it doesn't. Enemy guns are the same. It's just not punchy anymore.
5) There's a neat cloud that's been put on the barrels exploding. I like this.

I'm thinking there's more bad than good here.

Well, yeah, that's because the textures are now a decent size and there's an unavoidable overhead in loading assets in every time so bigger stuff is going to equal longer load times. When I was playing Tomb Raider Anniversary the other day the loading screens appeared and disappeared comically quickly but I'd take more modern graphics over that slight convenience any day.

I've ran HL2, EP1 and EP2 for a few minutes each now, both to comply with the instructions and to remind myself what the vanilla version looks like. I'm running the installer now, but I need to leave the house shortly so might not get a chance to actually play it today. Which will make this a really boring and pointless post. Oh well! *hits Submit button*

Any news about HL3 today?

I got the Cinematic Mod working after the initial install attempt failed and had a go at it last night before it crashed on me about ten minutes in. It definitely looks nicer in general and I suspect if I had the machine needed to turn everything up to full it would make a much bigger difference. With the exception of the 'bloom' which is quite badly implemented in places so, for instance, the holographic screens with Dr Breen rambling out of them as you get off the train are so bloom-y that you can't actually see his face. There's also the odd texture that just doesn't look right at a design level (e.g. one outside wall has this weird tessellated tile thing going on where you'd just expect brick) but overall the higher def textures work well. Because the graffiti and torn posters everywhere are properly readable I felt that helped with the immersion as there's nothing better at reminding you you're playing a game than coming through a door to see a blocky low-res squiggle on the wall in front of you. I haven't played it very far in due to the aforementioned crashing so I'm interested to see what difference it will make once things get going a bit so I'll probably go back to it for a while once I finish Year Walk (which is just fucking lovely so far by the way). It's worth noting that you can actually tweak a lot of things if any parts of it annoy you so you can actually disable the new music that was pissing Sat off and I'll be turning the bloom right down next time.

I couldn't be bothered installing the mod and playing through HL2 again, so I just watched this...

If got as far as the canal route.

It's certainly a prettier with some nice backdrops. Y'know, trees on the banks and grass on the floor and stuff. The indoor bits have more clutter generally and darker indoors with not many light sources. I've quite enjoyed this bit.

The hovercraft looks decidedly worse than the original skin though.

Then I'd got to the set piece where people and vehicles blast stuff at you from the embankments and it goes a bit shit. For some reason they've made the middles homing and when they tank into you there's a 70% health reduction. So two hits and you're fucked. Low health and you're fucked. It took me about 10 attempts to drive through this section breaking up the flow; whereas you should be able to do it in one go without punishment.

I'm not exactly sure I can bothered to see Half-Life 2 again. I've suddenly lost my interest a bit.

That's another option you'd have been best to disable. They upped the damage as part of the mod for some weird reason; I switched it off as soon as I saw it.

Where are you seeing these options? I'd looked in "audio" to turn off the cinematic music but couldn't find it. That was in-game, mind. I never checked at start up menu, if that makes a difference?

Watching chunks of that video I'm reminded once again how Half Life 2 wasn't really that good of a game.

Never did complete it, despite trying two or three times.

There's a completely separate configurator app thing you can launch from the start menu folder that gives you shit loads of options.

At the time it looked fucking lovely but nah, it never was that brilliant a game. I'm always interested to see what people can do to jazz up old games though so I'm fiddling with it out of a sort of technical curiosity. I'm certainly not likely to play it for more than half an hour, especially with my crappy PC.

Well you two are in a tiny minority. Half-Life 2 is nothing but a classic.

At the time it had great pacing, set pieces, variety, shooting, baddies and stuff and even by today's standards it has great pacing, set pieces, variety, shooting, baddies and stuff.

Each to their own like but I never felt much love for it really, and I had a PC at the time that could pimp it all out and make it look lovely.

The whole game just felt a bit sterile, the guns were crap, and once you got over the AMAZING PHYSICS (which was good for the time I agree) and LIFELIKE FACES what you were left with was a fairly underwhelming FPS game IMO. And that fucking hovercraft bit went on for far too long. I have memories of a lot of running around fairly empty environments, fiddly combat, annoying puzzle elements, over-hyped AI and so on.

I conked out with it somewhere in the final third even on my first playthrough, and tried it again once or twice but never even got that far IIRC.

I remember thinking FEAR (which was released about a year later) was a much better game.

I'll just add this to the things AE is wrong about:

1) Discopath
2) The Walking Dead
3) Half-Life 2

And I'll add this to the things that AE is actually right about:

1) FEAR

I loved it on the PC in 2004, slightly less so on the 360 in 2007, but I finished it twice so it must have been doing something right.

It's all about Ravenholm.

It was above average, but it wasn't great. Half Life was great.

It was supposed to be a sterile in places (like the tower) since earth has just been taken over by an alien race; the Citadel is obvious supposed to be sterile. But other places like the bridge, the waterway, Nova Prospekt and the prison were all filled with objects, people, aliens and had great map layouts mimicking real places whilst still offering a gaming challenge to navigate.



The shotgun was awesome fool. It had a reet good noise and combine were sent flying at close range. Plus, the sodding gravity gun?! Who doesn't love the gravity gun? The SMG sounds nice and has a good spread on short burst. The magnum too has a great noise and can blows folk away. The only ones I didn't particularly like were the handgun and the crossbow (which, IIRC, had an orange bolt which was a bit crap) but even that stuck combine to walls and shit! I can't remember any games doing that around the time.



Physics that really were showcased by the weapons? Those crap weapons? Hmmmm.



I can't actually remember that being a thing. Doom 3 came out at the same time, right? That had some good faces. Probably. I can't remember.



It's anything but underwhelming.



It did a bit, didn't it. Weirdly though when you speed through it, the whole section can be completed quick-sharp as there are certain areas that you don't even need to stop at.



Some were, some weren't; but you need the down time to make the shooty bits better. And you need some room for all the shooting. It's funny because the cinematic mods adds a load of extra onscreen clutter and you only really notice it when you set off a grenade and a load of stuff somersaults everywhere. It's only a little touch though and adds nothing to the previous game.



Fiddly? The shooting is ace. Crossbow bolts stick guys up the wall with accuracy, the magnum knocks combine all over the shop, the shotgun allows you to run in close range, the grenade launcher on the SMG causes combine to launch themselves into the stratosphere. Hey, that combine AR had a brilliant sound to it. DU-DU-DU-DU. Great that was. And controlling the ant lions to murder enemies?



Infrequent physics puzzles, y'mean. Place a load of bricks on a board was stupid, but it was over no sooner than you start it. Same with the blue barrels under water.



The combine were so much fun to fight against. They fall down dead with not much persuasion from projectiles in their faces very similar to FEAR. They have the great chatter that FEAR had too. I don't know about them being particularly clever, but they did more than just stand there and shoot ; walk slowly towards you constantly shooting; or just sit behind a wall popping their heads up every now and again whist shooting,



Nah. You've got it all wrong. Half-Life 2 was and remains amazing. I'm like Myp since I played it through to completion twice which is something I have only ever done with a handful of games. It's a FPS but it's an interesting one. The variety of the maps and the variety of the combat situations keeps you entertained throughout its lengthy campaign back when developers gave you your moneys worth for your single player campaign.

I might reinstall it, complete with CINEMATIC MOD, and then hate on it all over again, just to emphasise its 'meh'-ness.

And I never said Discopathe was a good film. If I had a glove, and we were in the same room, I'd be challenging you to a duel over this grevious and continuing misrepresentation of what was said in the throes of a post-vasectomy trauma.

DON'T MAKE ME POST A JPEG AS EVIDENCE OF HOW HORRIBLE IT WAS. YES I HAVE THE PICTURES.

[edit] DISREGARD THAT DISCOPATHE IS THE BEST FILM EVER

FTFY.

I'm just trolling you about Discopathe but, no, I would not like to see pictures of your willy. Thanks anyway. x

Half Life 2 was to me at least the perfect game. It just had everything. I loved how it would go from action, to exploring, to story telling etc all so perfectly.

I also didn't realise (until about a year or so) just how much I appreciated the fact that Valve had kept it under wraps until it was absolutely perfect from a technical standpoint. Pretty much everything that gets released on the PC these days is either fucked (then patched) or fucked beyond patching (like Batman). So it's clear that greed wasn't the most important part of Half Life 2 and I really think that shows.

Still, if you don't 'get' something then me banging on about how wrong you are won't fix that. It's kinda like the moment you step out of Vault 101 in Fallout 3.. You either see the true beauty in it or it just goes flying over your head.

Still not Half-Life 3 but an apparently Valve-approved addition to the story in the shape of a mod called Prospekt.

Interesting. I'll take a gander at that.

Elsewhere, I thought I was going to stop playing Half-Life 2 and play something else but then it's been so much fun and I can't remember much of it that I've been ploughing on down to Highway 17.

I gotta say that Ravenholme looks much improved over the original with the wall textures and abundance of grass in places. The grass does have its draw backs at times when you drop something and can't see where it's gone or you've got a headcrab in the long grass munching your face, but unlike the textures the grass adds something to the game for a change as a headcrab comes bursting out of nowhere and skims your grill.

Then when I got to the train tracks with the snipers I was wondering what the difference was with the original so I had a quick gander at a youtube for reference and the cinematic mod looks leaps ahead. Really good stuff it is. I've not ventured far out onto the highway but the trees make it look more like thick forest which I think is really decent stuff.

Even the music is more restrained too. I noticed in Ravenholme how there wasn't much of that cinematic music at all which really helped the atmosphere.

So I've much happier with the game having spent more hours with it. You really appreciate the variety of stuff going on with the game. It's shocking how varied they made a FPS. So it's a shame no fucker paid any attention to the lessons on display after CoD came out and everyone wanted to be the new poster boy for shooters. Well, apart from the Resistance 3 developers. Natch.

Then I found the alien assault rifle...

... what a fucking travesty that is. They've made it into a bog standard assault rifle and removed the awesome noise and replaced it with a generic AR sound. Hnngh. Plus, it has a grenade launcher underbarrel which still fire the globes of light! I mean, whut? It's silly and shit.

Highway 17 is undoubtedly Half-Life 2's best level and the mod makes it look even better so I'm reet chuffed with this. And it's not just textures neither before some places are unrecognisable to the original in ace ways. Like, for instance, one of the waterways has a massive downed passenger jet just rusting away; the highway is cracked and raised in places as though an earthquake has torn it apart, and there's a huge water plant in the background at one point which I swear wasn't there before. Overal this is very impressive, if you ask me. Are you asking? No. Sod ya then.

Am I being completely sense here or what?

The world has been taken over by an alien race, right? The regular combine troops, Civil Protection, are humans that have been brainwashed somehow to work for the big baddies. Only, the big baddies aren't the Zordi-whatsits because they're on the humans side, ok.

So, am I right in saying that we never ever, ever, ever see throughout the entire campaign who the big baddy aliens are? The only actual baddies related to this alien master race that has enslaved everyone are the headcrabs but they're more of a weapon used by the big alien baddies.

And then we only see the Big Bad at the end of Episode 2 when they're the big squishy slug monsters.

Oh man, I wish I'd have had a look at the Mod config tool before I started. The Character Pimper is bloody hilarious. I might start episode 1 with "Vic" with her bullet proof nipples instead of Alyx.