Posts by Sentura

  • Steam summer sale 2012!

    had to bow down and get the hitman collection, grimrock and some other stuff i can't remember. I CANT REMEMBER WHAT I JUST BOUGHT

    anyway i'm waiting for arma to drop to -75% and ill grab that too, really itching to see how good day z is.

  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

    Quote from Sentura

    ^^ This, not interested one bit.

    Same. Except I want to hear Reznor's contributions.

    you mean Reznov?

    a drumset falls down a canyon

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  • [HL2: EP2] Station 51

    i think you see it too much as a direct confrontation with the helicopter. there is more to building up a narrative than just direct confrontation. how about in some places the helicopter destroys paths so that the player has to go a different way (a good way to also clear up why the player goes into zombie town). also, you don't actually have to put in narrative that the player is being told by either voice or text, you could just have the environment tell it for the player. the best stories are written leaving much room between clues, so that the players themselves have to create the connection, and my personal opinion is that how well the player creates these connections determines his or her immersion in any story (game, book, otherwise). i won't claim to know shit about this at all, but i did write my bsc dissertation on environmental storytelling and some of the results correlated with this.

  • [HL2: EP2] Station 51

    Quote from SamCom

    Thanks for giving it a play, Sentura. By critical asset do you mean the rocket ammo? I imagined that would be way too easy of a fight if I left the rockets in an easy to access place - I tried it with them on the ground and it was a short, anti-climatic fight, just stand next to the crate and shoot until the helicopter dies.Where did you think an exit was in the helicopter battle? Was there a particular place you were drawn?

    That's weird about the combat pacing, almost everyone else has said there was too much dead space. Was there a particular place where you felt like you were short on health, or a place where you really wanted a breather? The crates obviously in the player's path are there so you can recharge before the next battle, and there are a number scattered around the larger spaces to reward exploration.

    about the dead space: don't forget that the half life series has a history of great pacing. puzzles usually follow combat to lower combat fatigue, and in general combat needs to feel varied in more ways than just having the handful of different enemies come at you. outside of combat the areas look great, and it would really be awesome if you had opened some more room for exploration. i guess if you want to build levels for something like halo or killzone or resistance or gears where everything is combat ALL THE TIME FOREVER, there probably is too much dead space. but given that you're doing it in source, i would assume you would follow the source style of gameplay, rather than of those games.

    as for the helicopter battle: i kept trying to seek cover which resulted in me moving around the back of containers. because i couldn't see the ammo box NOR the rpg i assumed i should use the copter's muzzle to break down a door or something. if you want to make it more climatic, then take a look at episode 1 where the player has to fight a gunship that has been CHASING him. i would almost go as far as to say that a climax in a battle requires a narrative, spoken or unspoken. instead of making the copter in just an arena style area, it would make far more sense that the copter chases the player through the map before the player FINALLY finds the means to destroy it with (narratively: the hero is weak and bullied around by strong force, finds object that is an antithesis to strong force and uses it to defeat it. the climax is there because there is a sense of justice being fulfilled.)

  • DOTA 2

    in general i really love these kinds of games for the pure aspect of mind games that is so prevalent. i guess it's also why i started playing fighting games again. your opponents will always give off small clues to what they're about to do next. sometimes they're easy to read, and sometimes they're very hard, but the clues are there at all times. especially when it comes to using the hook properly, there are a lot of situations to capitalize on if you know how your opponent will react to what you're about to do. one of my favorites is using hook right as they're lasthitting creeps, because their focus is NOT on the hook by then (they think they're covered). and once the focus is gone from you, you're "invisible" to them. sun tzu is all up in this bitch

  • [HL2: EP2] Station 51

    i'm opposed to that, i think there was too many enemies for most of the battles. in general there is very little pacing, and i worked up a lot of combat fatigue fast. also in most places you don't get to regenerate health before going straight into the next fight, which, mildly put, is fucking annoying. also goodie crates should be more reserved as a reward for exploration rather than just thrown in the way of the player (i noticed this was the case in a few places), and you need to put more direction in lighting and spacing in areas such as the copter thing, i was stuck for a while not knowing whether i should fight it or just run to some exit. and for the love of all that is holy, don't put critical assets in spaces that are difficult to access WHILE fighting a boss enemy like a copter.