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Your 5 Best Games Ever


Aceyalone

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I've played so many games, this is tough. I'd probably have a different top 5 tomorrow when I think of other titles that stood out in my life. In no particular order, except Thief 2 is at the top:

 

- Thief 2

- Turok or Goldeneye (N64)

- Moebius (C64)

- Age of Empires 2

- Faery Tale Adventure (Amiga)

- Future Wars (Amiga)

 

Yeah, it's too hard to make a top 5. Others that I want to rotate in due to some interesting sparkle they had: Zyll, Defender of the Crown, Populous, The Last Ninja, etc. Lots from years ago. They all helped provide a foundation that I compare new games to.

 

I can't wait until some game developer figures out you don't need to have the latest/greatest graphics to have a good game. I guess gamers need to figure that out, too. Regardless, developers are always trying to push polys and graphical detail, which destroys framerates for many PCs and leaves little room to do other cool stuff with the game that would otherwise be possible. I think there's a chance if a large game studio took the graphics rung down a notch or two, that an ultra solid, expansive and wonderful game could be made. Instead, we're faced with HL2 and Doom 3 which seem to have the same 2 or 3 enemies fighting you the whole game; very little interaction with environments; etc. I have MotorStorm for the Playstation 3 and I'm seeing the same tracks over and over again. Something tells me that if they spent less time and money on uber cool graphics, that there would be more variety to this game. Yes, it's a gorgeous looking game; but if it means there are only about 5 tracks in it, then I'm not too thrilled with the 'innovation.'

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I guess gamers need to figure that out, too.

This is exactly the problem. :) Studios (and more specifically, publishers) have figured out that good graphics sell. So they set out to make games with good graphics. If it's anyone's fault, it's the collective fault of consumers for liking pretty stuff. Which isn't a problem in itself.

 

Game budgets are spiralling higher and higher though, to ridiculously unsustainable levels. Something's gotta give. Whether that means the studios cutting back on their graphics expenditure, I don't know. More likely I think it just means that even more people will get squeezed out of the traditional developer/publisher relationship, and end up looking for alternate methods of distribution - like online distribution.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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I think there's a chance if a large game studio took the graphics rung down a notch or two, that an ultra solid, expansive and wonderful game could be made.
I've often thought that too...

 

In fact, there has already been at least one enormously popular game to do that: Grand Theft Auto 3.

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Well I dont know about you but I think Half-Life 2 HAD interaction, HAD variety and most of all HAD innovative ideas (Gravity Gun, Physics, Story ,Enemies) and all that with DO HAVING GREAT GRAPHICS. But thats not the case...

 

When the best-sellers still remain the FIFA series, Need For Speed, James Bond and SpongeBob Squarepants Games then WHY a developer should spend Millions of dollars more to create something innovative since the profit would be less from a game that is copy paste from a movie! TO write himself in a golden book of history? Dont know, but I dont think I would care about that if that game didnt give me money so as to have something to eat!

 

Dont you see whats happening around? Looking Glass made some of the most innovative games and got CLOSED! The only game industries that remain up and running are EA and maybe Blizzard! (Not due the level of his games but due to Excellent marketing -hype is everything for Blizzard- ) Eidos for those who dont know almost got closed! And Lucas Arts had already fallen into oblivion...

 

EA knows its job well! The only ones who dont, are us by supporting its stupid games! And if we had supported Looking Glass back then you wouldnt have to make this mod right now but you would be playing Thief 4!!! And without having a bad Thief 3 to conclude the series!

Edited by Aceyalone
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Eidos is a good publisher they push from smaller studios so kudos to them. I will keep buying their games. EA is bad but it's not like OMG end of world kind of thing. C and C 3 I am buying that baby.

 

One developer which has stood out from the rest with innovation and still pushing the envelope is Bioware. They have created games which sell well and manage to create new things. This is a prime example of a company who is well managed and oozes talent.

 

Look at Starbreeze. They are low-key approach and keep pumping out quality games. Look for Darkness to be a big hit.

 

Look at Monolith. They started small and have grown and created games which sell well just like Bioware and are just as good if not better. Alien vs Predator 2 is just awesome. No one Lives Forever. F.E.A.R.

 

All these three companies have things in common. They know what they're doing. They have good talent. They know what draws gamers to buy their games. Marketing department is doing their job and doing it damned good.

 

Looking Glass pushed the envelope but the graphics eventually would not hold. Marketing also was a failure. I didn't even know about the Thief game till it was a few years out of release. In fact the only way I think I learned about it was through PCGameworld.com. Perhaps it was lack of funding. However Thief left it's mark and former employees i'm sure have found jobs.

 

Look at the difference with Bioshock. It's a well marketed game. People know about it before the first in game screenshot came out. Irrational was smart. They started with Gamespot and then bam found a publisher. Found funding. Went to E3 and did their thing. Graphics are great and it's gonna be on consoles. Go Irrational go baby go! B)

 

For a game to be successful right now odds are you will need to bring it to consoles. Unless you have massive rep like Valve it will be a tough sell on the PC. Even C&C 3 is going to be on the Xbox 360. Look at Epic games. They are bringing UT 3 to the consoles. There's just no point in not doing it. There's billions of dollars and companies want the biggest piece of the pie!

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Hey, me too. :) That's assuming you're talking about "skill-based" as in "player skill", not as in RPG stats.

Yes. Stats are only useful in CRPGs for measuring things that can't be directly surmised from the player's own skills. Although, I do admit that occasionally disallowing the player from doing certain specific things is enormously beneficial for balance.

 

Once the D3 engine is GPLed, this should definitely be possible! There are programs that allow you to use the wiimote on a PC, I've seen them in action.

I know. I've been doing a lot of thinking about how to make intuitive controls for TDM on wiimote. I think it would be an awesome experience, once tweaked right.

 

I look forward to oDDity's campaign , which should include, so far, a) having to operate each limb of the thief independently, b ) sticky liquid arrows that go squelch, c) naked pagans, d) female sorcerors who look like bride of frankenstein rejects, e) a thief called 'Farell', f) 'xombies' made of shit that fire heat seeking skulls, g) a rule that makes it impossible to blackjack more than 3 guards, h) a new loot system where you have to spend half an hour 'appraising' everything, i.e. Sim Museum Curator, i) no broadheads in the game.

 

It should be interesting, at least.

a)That's retarded, any way you look at it.

b)That might be interesting, depending on what they're used for.

c)Awesome, I love it! While not necessarily very logical (clothes aren't just to cover one's naughty bits, after all), it's an interesting idea, and certainly something people don't regularly see!

d)What the hell is the logic behind that? Given that magic gives one the power to manipulate reality, what's to say that all powerful sorceresses aren't also devastatingly beautiful as well?

e)Our nameless taffer finally has a name! Score one for team oDD!

f)That attack is basically (probably unintentionally) a rip-off of Undying's skull storm. It'd be great for an encounter with a lich (an undead necromancer), but way too powerful for a zombie. Personally, if people feel a need for zombies with weapons, I'd go with something similar to PoP:SoT's sand creatures: slow moving, but with fast, powerful attacks (drop the teleporting ability, though).

g)For a hard mode, it'd be great, but not for normal gameplay.

h)That sounds like it's probably hyperbole, but I don't necessarily see how any system could be implemented in an immersive way.

i)That's more of a campaign-specific thing, really. Could be fun, though.

 

That was another one of my ideas, a completely revised health and damage system.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks that aside from the rare game, like Call of Cthulhu, that actually tried, health systems in games are complete crap. Simple health meters are okay for a couple of games, but for most it's a debilitating handicap from a bygone era.

 

Naked women are ALWAYS welcome.... :wub::blush::wub::blush:

Well, at least now I now where to send the XXXL fatties...

 

Half-Life 2 HAD interaction

Where? I must have breezed by it while shooting my way through bland level design. At least the rails I was on looked pretty.

HAD variety

Yeah, there Combine cops, and Combine soldiers, and MORE Combine solders, and even Combine ELITE soldiers! Lots of variety there! Okay, yeah, HL2 did have a lot variety in its gameplay, but only when you compare it to the likes of Doom 3 (that is to say, most of the rest of games that had been released by then).

and most of all HAD innovative ideas (Gravity Gun, Physics, Story ,Enemies)

The Gravity gun was indeed innovative, but physics engines had already long since started appearing in games before HL2. The only really innovative enemy were the Striders, but they wound up sucking as an actual enemy due to their shittty build-up, and then the battle that made them total push-overs. I have just one question though, what the hell made the story innovative? It was great story, all the way up to where they cut it off completely in the middle of it (Episode 1 finishes off what should have been the original HL2 story-arc), but they stripped the player of their freedoms so badly that it might as well have been a fourteen hour long movie. The story was by no means good enough to simply stand on its own like that, especially since in their zeal they wiped all ability to tell their story in more subtle ways.

and all that with DO HAVING GREAT GRAPHICS.

Great art design, not great graphics. There's a difference, trust me.

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As for Half-Life 2:

 

Well about graphics first: I don't remember ever seeing another game having concluded so many and different worlds to combine! And that shows the power of Source Engine! Consider Quake 4 (which was built with Doom 3 engine) and the landscapes it had shown! Not bad, but VOID and LIFELESS! Half-Life while showed some cool lightning effects, it is true that they were way behind Doom's 3, with complex dynamic shading and light effects! But who said graphic art are not graphics! These guys had much more talent adjusting and using all aspects of an engine rather than create a stupid world with the same textures and just add a shading effect

 

About the innovations:Who said I care if a game has lots of different enemies? Yet it does, what am I supposed to earn as a consumer or gamer? What I want to see as one of them is something I have never seen before. Maybe I am not talking about a rocket launcher cleverly guided by mouse (Hell that was good :D) nor a gravity gun and first-ever seen puzzles (Especially Episode 1 had some good ones) but the awe that this gives you every time you explore an area. For the first time riding a boat it was fun, and the citadel world except it was to be amazed also gave me the same feeling as fought diablo himself in the diablo series. You knew from the very first your goal but you only got there in the end!

 

About the story:How many such stories have you seen in FPS? I don't recall anyone (Except Thief of course :D :D). For a pure shooter it was something very good! And you know where it was the really good part? Even if it was nothing special you did felt something was going on!

 

And last about interaction:Well I don't know how many games offered you the ability to catch a throwing grenade in mid-air and throw it back, nor how many games offered you the ability to catch medkits behind bars! But if you mean about story interaction then I am sorry! NO game that has an aspect of continuing a story and not concluding it as you like, could offer that (Imagine Thief 1 with different endings...What would be next? They would had to have as much diiferent beggings in next Thief)! And what ending had better sticked to you? One that shows this is the story, or different ones showing that story can be elusive and ultimately fake?

 

I think Half-Life 2 is a great game. Not every one must like it, but some things about this game are true!

Edited by Aceyalone
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Well about graphics first: I dont remember ever seeing another game having concluded so many and different worlds to combine! And that shows the power of Source Engine! Consider Quake 4 (which was built with Doom 3 engine) and the landscapes it had shown! Not bad but VOID and LIFELESS!

 

You are confusing an engine with it's content. Quake 4 is playing in a mars environment with a lot of space stations, so the environment fits. Actually D3 does (aklmost) the same, but Q4 is much more interesting to play, but this is a personal preference. Now when you look at teh quality of the engine itself, then Source is pretty poor. Graphicswise it's average at best, but the game still is good. Which shows, that you don't have to have a good engine to create good content and vice versa a good engine will not automatically make up for bad content (not saying that Q4 is bad though becuase it isn't).

 

Maybe I am not talking about a rocket launcher cleverly guided by mouse (Hell that was good :D) nor a gravity gun and first-ever seen puzzles (Especially Episode 1 had some good ones) but the awe that this gives you every time you explore an area.

 

Speaking of which, HL2 totally sucked a level design. Q45 is not much better, because it is also strictly linear, but it's not as obvious as in HL2. I spent 45 minutes dragging stuff around with the gravity gun, and align it, because I wanted to get up at an balcony where an NPC just apeared (the guy who gives you the shotgun later) and what happened? Instead of being rewarded, I just encountered an invisible barrier when I finally managed to climb up there. This is IMO bad level design, because I think if something is off limits, it should be clearly so. And not invite you to explore, only to get blocked by artificial handicaps.

 

About the story:How many such stories have you seen in FPS? I dont recall anyone (Except Thief of course :D :D). For a pure shooter it was something very good! And thats the good part. If even it was nothing special you did felt something was going on!

 

The story itself was pretty average. The execution was really good though.

Gerhard

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I spent 45 minutes dragging stuff around with the gravity gun, and align it, because I wanted to get up at an balcony where an NPC just apeared (the guy who gives you the shotgun later) and what happened? Instead of being rewarded, I just encountered an invisible barrier when I finally managed to climb up there. This is IMO bad level design, because I think if something is off limits, it should be clearly so. And not invite you to explore, only to get blocked by artificial handicaps.

 

Ahem... I dont know if it is very logical for a player to do that, but I dont think Valve would sacrifice the beaty (ok now I exaggerate a bit...) of the graphic world it created and its lifelikeness for a 0.001% of the players that decided to play dump... (no offence really). Besides what maniac would have placed a medkit in a place that would need 45 minutes to reach... Besides such borders I have seen and n Q4 (not many, thats for sure) and in D3 and ultimately I dont care! Why sacrifice a clouded sunset or a full moonlight for a brick wall justifying an impenetrable border in some place I would NEVER EVER go?

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Trying to climb at stuff is not something that only 0.001% of players do. If that were the case, then they wouldn't even need to build invisible brushes, because they are there EXACTLY for such players. Trying to reach a spot is a valid method within the gameworld. In fact the whole physics system is designed for this, and it is even employed in some places. So it is not as obvious or "dumb" to try this in other places as well, where you can't know beforehand that this is now valid place and the other one is not. Just from looking you can't see the difference.

 

Maybe you are the kind of average player who needs to get hold his hand and which games are dumbed down to cater for. I prefere games like Thief, where there are set rules, and the maps are built according to the rules. Good gameplay does not come only from fully restrictively designed games, good gameplay comes when the gengine is flexible enough that NOT everything must be resitrcted because the engine can't handle it properly.

Gerhard

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I look forward to oDDity's campaign , which should include, so far, a) having to operate each limb of the thief independently,
Ugh :P
b ) sticky liquid arrows that go squelch,
:huh:
c) naked pagans,
I should get her ingame with an alternate skin to remove her clothes (although her breasts are saggy & she's skinny).
d) female sorcerors who look like bride of frankenstein rejects,
I thought that was an April Fool's joke.
e) a thief called 'Farell',
Farrell (two Rs). I really don't like that name :mellow: What other choice is there since Garrett is a very cool name for a thief?
f) 'xombies' made of shit that fire heat seeking skulls,
:blink:
g) a rule that makes it impossible to blackjack more than 3 guards,
Depending on difficulty level I suppose.
h) a new loot system where you have to spend half an hour 'appraising' everything, i.e. Sim Museum Curator,
Would that be a game or a sim?
i) no broadheads in the game.
I rarely used broadheads when playing thief. Only when under extreme duress, so they're nice to have every once in a great while.

 

As for my 5 favorites?

Thief 1

Deus Ex

Mario Cart

Adventure of Link

? I'm not much of a gamer but I'd say Thief 2

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well let me remember:

 

I played and play a lot of games

 

1: Age of Empires - i played the first serie of the game a lot

 

2: Homeworld (the best one)

 

3: Close combat series

 

4: Total wars series

 

5: Civilization series

 

 

The FPS:

 

1: RCW

 

2: HALFLIFE(great game)

 

3: MaxPayne(this one won)

 

4: Medal of honor(i played this one online a lot)

 

5: Doom3 (the last one)

 

The Rpg´s

 

1: D&D games(I played NWN online a lot (Baldurs Gates II wins)

 

3: Online games (Everquest, eve, wow.)

 

4: Vampire the Bloodlines

 

5: Oblivion

 

The Simulations:

 

1: MFC 2

 

2: BOB

 

3: IL2(win)

 

4: SH3

 

5: Red Orchestra (Online)

 

 

and then theres the stealth games like the Thief, Metal gear solid, and Splinter cell series.

 

The Thief 2 win

 

So i can say more or less that this games where the best games i ever enjoy to play.

 

1: Thief 2

2: Baldurs Gates II

3: Homeworld

4: IL2

5: MaxPayne

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Trying to climb at stuff is not something that only 0.001% of players do. If that were the case, then they wouldn't even need to build invisible brushes, because they are there EXACTLY for such players. Trying to reach a spot is a valid method within the gameworld. In fact the whole physics system is designed for this, and it is even employed in some places. So it is not as obvious or "dumb" to try this in other places as well, where you can't know beforehand that this is now valid place and the other one is not. Just from looking you can't see the difference.

 

Maybe you are the kind of average player who needs to get hold his hand and which games are dumbed down to cater for. I prefere games like Thief, where there are set rules, and the maps are built according to the rules. Good gameplay does not come only from fully restrictively designed games, good gameplay comes when the gengine is flexible enough that NOT everything must be resitrcted because the engine can't handle it properly.

 

Well I have caught my self piling up boxes for more than 45 minutes (e.g. 3 hours in a Serious Sam 2 level and to eventually come to an invisible end), I have caught myself searching stages twice and thrice from the beginning to find a secret and I have never caught myself using a walkthrough! I prefer to spend a month trying rather than cheat (dont know how many have finished UT2004 in Inhumane difficulty...) so I am not an "average" player nor one that must have his hand hold! But I think its worthless blaming a company as big as Valve for the "impenetrable walls" and for fading its gaming experience, like we dont know that behind this game there is a C code or a graphics engine! Especially with the gravity gun I dont think anyone at Valve would want to spend time figuring out all the possible ways to reach such point! D3 and Q4 had buletproof cables wires and lights! I think the second one is closer to fading a game experience for an "average" player, yet noone mentioned it!!!

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Well I have caught my self piling up boxes for more than 45 minutes (e.g. 3 hours in a Serious Sam 2 level and to eventually come to an invisible end), I have caught myself searching stages twice and thrice from the beginning to find a secret and I have never caught myself using a walkthrough! I prefer to spend a month trying rather than cheat (dont know how many have finished UT2004 in Inhumane difficulty...) so I am not an "average" player nor one that must have his hand hold! But I think its worthless blaming a company as big as Valve for the "impenetrable walls" and for fading its gaming experience, like we dont know that behind this game there is a C code or a graphics engine! Especially with the gravity gun I dont think anyone at Valve would want to spend time figuring out all the possible ways to reach such point! D3 and Q4 had buletproof cables wires and lights! I think the second one is closer to fading a game experience for an "average" player, yet noone mentioned it!!!

And yet it's almost effortless to provide such a fix without blowing away the player's immersion. So why the hell couldn't they? In sparhawk's example, it would have been simple to have provided a plain room, with no furnishings, nor with a way out (locked door). Such a simplistic fix would have taken absolutely no skin off a mapper's back to do (unlike your example of not being able to shoot cables or light fixtures). The simple truth is that they had absolutely no concern for a player's want to explore their environment. They might as well have put the player on rails the whole way through! :rolleyes:

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1) Doom2

2) Doom1

3) Thief 1

4) Age of Empires 2

5) Resident Evil 4

 

Honorable mentions:

Doom3 [i always feel like the environment drags me into the game when I play it :wub: ]

Warcraft 2

Halflife 1 / The Specialists mod / Counter-Strike

Rush 1 and 2

Sim City 2000

Perfect Dark

Startcraft

Diablo 2

Oblivion

Zelda: Link to the past and Ocarina of time

GTA3

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And yet it's almost effortless to provide such a fix without blowing away the player's immersion. So why the hell couldn't they? In sparhawk's example, it would have been simple to have provided a plain room, with no furnishings, nor with a way out (locked door). Such a simplistic fix would have taken absolutely no skin off a mapper's back to do (unlike your example of not being able to shoot cables or light fixtures). The simple truth is that they had absolutely no concern for a player's want to explore their environment. They might as well have put the player on rails the whole way through! :rolleyes:

 

Correct. If they would have provided such a room, I would have been happy because I had found something where I thought not everbody might go. And if they would have dropped a ammo pack there, it would have even been nicer. Creating a good level doesn't mean that you have to test thousands of combinations. It's enough to build the level in such a way that it can naturally be done. Putting an invisible brush in such cases is simply lazyness.

 

For example in HL1 I noticed that they usually created twisted corridors in loadzones, so that you never get the feeling that the level ends here and the next one starts there. They could have simply created a wall there or an invisble barrier, but they did not. They spent the few extra brushes, and thus making the levels more believable.

 

Heck, even a tree or a big bush, would have served that purpose instead of putting invisible brushes, and cerating teh house in such a way that it actually invites to explore. If a bush would have blocked the path, I could have immediately seen that I can't get up there.

Gerhard

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For example in HL1 I noticed that they usually created twisted corridors in loadzones, so that you never get the feeling that the level ends here and the next one starts there. They could have simply created a wall there or an invisble barrier, but they did not. They spent the few extra brushes, and thus making the levels more believable.

Yeah, that was really nicely done.

 

Did fail occasionally though - I remember spattering one corridor with yellow headcrab blood, turning to face another headcrab and running towards it, crowbar at the ready - then suddenly the game freezes for a moment, the yellow blood disappears, and so does the headcrab (which was just jumping to attack). WTF? For a moment I thought it was deliberately scripted like that to freak you out, then I just realised it was a load zone. :D

 

Then I went back through the load zone and got clobbered by the headcrab (which had accumulated some serious air time since it was unloaded in mid-jump). Good times.

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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Yeah, I know you are right and I agree with you ! =)

 

Its just I maybe wanty to play devils advocate B) and prove the opposite! So I will continue ^_^^_^

 

True an invisible barrier could be MUCH more annoying than an empty room with no textures but you know that this spoils more of the game's reality rather than a barrier! And besides we all know the time problems Valve had with Half-Life's timetable! I think finding such "mistakes" would be tha last thing to worry them at that moment of time! Placing impenetrable invisible walls would do the trick and they wouldnt have to worry! (Except from a ghost cheat hihi... :D )

 

And I dont think Half-Life should be disgraced of such flaws (which in my opinion I wouldnt consider as flaws either). Its true that a solution could be a locked door or to be even more realistic an open door than a NPC closed it! Even a bush (George Bush??) that sparhawked metioned, and I totally agree! I just consider it (or like to consider it) as a time problem and not a boredom problem or even a disgrace of a player's will to explore problem!

 

True Painkiller hadnt had such spots, but D3 had (Doom 3 only had corridors remember...NOT open areas but some 4 or 5 exceptions)! And any game that has a hype behind it and must go into the market as soonest as possible to get the largest piece of the money pie, leaves such flaws behind!!

Edited by Aceyalone
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Top 5:

 

Thief 2 (not only the game, but most of all Calendra's Legacy)

Thief 1

TDS

System Shock 2

The Legacy (old Microprose's game)

 

Other great games:

Undying

Half-Life

System Shock

Morrowind

 

Hmmm... No new games. Am I getting older?

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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I suppose I should technically include Wonderboy in my list, since it used to be my favourite game about 20 years ago.

I spent a lot of time playing that in the arcade, until the point where I could complete the game with one life, so I got over and hour's entertainment for 10 pence.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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Its just I maybe wanty to play devils advocate B) and prove the opposite! So I will continue ^_^^_^

Perhaps you should learn a lesson from Bush and know when to pull out. ;)

 

True an invisible barrier could be MUCH more annoying than an empty room with no textures but you know that this spoils more of the game's reality rather than a barrier! And besides we all know the time problems Valve had with Half-Life's timetable! I think finding such "mistakes" would be tha last thing to worry them at that moment of time! Placing impenetrable invisible walls would do the trick and they wouldnt have to worry! (Except from a ghost cheat hihi... :D )

It takes all of five minutes to fix, and it takes virtually zero time, compared to invisible walls, to do it right the first time. Gabe simply could have told everyone, "We're trying to make this game as intuitive as possible, so in that vein, always ask yourself if that invisible barrier is REALLY needed, or if perhaps you could do the same thing some other way." Valve was under absolutely no pressure to release it any sooner than they wanted, so why the hell didn't they do this? Oh yeah! They were too fucking lazy!

 

And I dont think Half-Life should be disgraced of such flaws (which in my opinion I wouldnt consider as flaws either). Its true that a solution could be a locked door or to be even more realistic an open door than a NPC closed it! Even a bush (George Bush??) that sparhawked metioned, and I totally agree! I just consider it (or like to consider it) as a time problem and not a boredom problem or even a disgrace of a player's will to explore problem!

You're way too generous in your appraisal. It takes no time at all to fix something like that, especially as those invisible barriers are generally placed where players "can't" reach them. It takes very little to ensure that players can't reach such areas without resorting to cheating; invisible barriers are just a defect of lazy mapping!

 

True Painkiller hadnt had such spots, but D3 had (Doom 3 only had corridors remember...NOT open areas but some 4 or 5 exceptions)! And any game that has a hype behind it and must go into the market as soonest as possible to get the largest piece of the money pie, leaves such flaws behind!!

So you would actually encourage developers to release their games half-done and bug-riddled, just to get a couple of grand more (of spurious guarantee)?

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Perhaps you should learn a lesson from Bush and know when to pull out. ;)

It takes all of five minutes to fix, and it takes virtually zero time, compared to invisible walls, to do it right the first time. Gabe simply could have told everyone, "We're trying to make this game as intuitive as possible, so in that vein, always ask yourself if that invisible barrier is REALLY needed, or if perhaps you could do the same thing some other way." Valve was under absolutely no pressure to release it any sooner than they wanted, so why the hell didn't they do this? Oh yeah! They were too fucking lazy!

You're way too generous in your appraisal. It takes no time at all to fix something like that, especially as those invisible barriers are generally placed where players "can't" reach them. It takes very little to ensure that players can't reach such areas without resorting to cheating; invisible barriers are just a defect of lazy mapping!

So you would actually encourage developers to release their games half-done and bug-riddled, just to get a couple of grand more (of spurious guarantee)?

 

OK, you know whats going on?

 

I am a big fan of Half-Life and I STILL everytime I think of invisible barriers consider it as NOT a flaw! If you say that they needed less than 5 minutes to fix that, then laziness is not the word because it wouldnt take even effort to do that (considering that there are some tens or even some hundred) artists in Valve! I still think that Gabe Newell had some reason for doing that. Or even if he hadnt any reason at all, at least he thought he had...

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