Posts by Minos

  • Meet the Pyro / Valve Movie Maker

    Quote from SamCom

    The new Doomsday map/mode is pretty badass, a much faster paced capture the flag. It's interesting: you want to be a fast class to get the flag first, but then you have to be tough enough to take hits while you're standing on the platform waiting for it to go up. It keeps the scout from being the only optimum choice. And the delay at the opening means you don't necessarily have to sprint and be first at the flag, there's usually a duel in the flag zone, you can choose to avoid the flag area all together and ambush the other team if they grab the flag. It's worth jumping in just to check that mode out, I think.

    The new map is pretty underwhelming imo and feels like a rush job. The gameplay doesn't feel new or refreshing, it's just plr_hightower with cases instead of the payload train. The objective is also not very clear, the first time I got to the top of the rocket I didn't know I was supposed to jump to the tip of the rocket and just stayed there for well over a minute wondering why it took so long to win the map...

  • Max Payne 3

    Playing it now. Enjoying it but a few things really annoy me:

    - I hate how there's always someone yelling at you if you stop to explore a map a bit. "Hey common, let's go". Max Payne is supposed to be a lonewolf What I loved the most about the old games was that I could play them on my own pace, replay areas that I judged I didn't do well enough, jump off rooftops and load quicksaves soon after... There's none of this in this game.

    - Hordes and hordes of enemies. Killing enemies is not very fun because stunt jumps are weird and not as useful as in the old games. It seems like they tried to make them "realistic", having a start animation that takes 20% or so of the entire stunt jump time. This turns the game into just another cover shooter, forcing you to stay behind cover all the time.

    - I can never tell when I'm getting hit! Sometimes I'm exploring the map and die because I didn't realize I was being shot.

    - The art in the game itself is not bad, but the post-effects make everything look like a blurry mess. Specular/glossiness maps are super sharp, specially when it's raining. That makes the game look like Gears of War

    - Too much swearing. A bit of swearing is fun but when it's overdone it gets boring super fast.

  • Meet the Pyro / Valve Movie Maker

    Love it Meet the Spy is still my favorite!

    I hate what the pyro has become though. I think valve completely ruined the class by adding the degreaser and that goddamn axe in the polycount update. Pyros don't do any defense work anymore since it's so easy to kill unwary players with the degreaser/axe loadout. Goddam fraggers

  • The random model thread!

    Quote from Bunglo

    Hmmm, you've given me something to think about, Philip.I've only attempted a few environments (think I pussed out on all of them) and when I first tried them, they were areas you could walk around in and look at from any angle. I started looking at what others were doing (guys who were in the industry) and they all, or nearly all, seemed to be doing these camera based pieces. I personally didn't understand why, other than maybe it was easier. After a couple more failed attempts at doing the walkable pieces, I figured the camera based ones were simply quicker (and perhaps simpler?) to do and if it was getting people in, why not just do what's quicker.

    Maybe that's not the right mentality? I don't know, I certainly enjoyed trying to make a piece you could "play" a lot more than trying to stick to the camera angle thing, but the biggest killer for me is I just have terrible ideas for what might look cool.

    Perhaps I should just have a go at it again anyways.

    Just make game environments! Good looking environments rendered in real-time engines are one thing, and videogame environments are another. Even if you are making an environment just for eye candy, try to imagine how it could be used in a game and build some simple gameplay spaces around that (different levels, stairs, cover pieces etc).

    A production artist is a lot more useful than someone who knows only how to make cool shit but knows nothing about smart texture reuse, modularity, optimization etc...