Reading Games

There is something inherently interesting about being stuck in the middle of a situation that you cannot control and you cannot predict the outcome of. There is something that narrows into a focused beam of intensity where all else is shunted to the side of your awareness and left for later thought.

You fell the quickening of your pulse and details become clear and focused as if you had a filter on your eyes that improved your sight and your ability to recognizes and categorize. Anticipation wells in the pit of your gut, tingling and teasing like the feeling of the first time you got past third base in the sexuality game. It crawls up your spine and leaves you with that feeling of something standing behind you that you cannot see.

Out of the darkness a face appears, a familiar face you have seen before, a familiar voice that calls your name…

“Gordon.”

So begins Half Life 2. No information as to why here and now except that you have been put there by the G-man who you decided to work for instead of other more ominous options at the end of the first Half Life.

You are Dr. Gordon Freeman, survivor of the Lambda Complex and the atrocities that went on there and in the alternate dimension where the creatures came from. You awake on a train with no idea how you arrived or what has happened since.

A voice on the intercom is telling you about City 17 and as you look out the windows of the train you see a vast city stretched around you, falling into disrepair and sorrow. Your fellow passengers on the train remark how they did not see you board but really don’t think much of it.

When you reach the station and exit the train, you see a large hologram with a bearded man extolling the virtues of City 17 and how much better life is these days. As you walk towards the gate you see strangely suited soldiers waiting and a drone like thing approaches through the air…

Ok, so the first bit was a bit over dramatic but in a sense, that’s what this game is about. A dark and dour mystery where you don’t know what you are supposed to do, how you are supposed to do it and why. Things happen at seeming random intervals and you find yourself caught in a tide that sweeps you along while you dodge and run from things intent on stopping you.

Characters emerge and you learn little things to help you in the immediate but nothing that gives you a true sense of what your about. The characters are well done and while their lines may be construed as the slightest bit movie like, all in all you forget that pretty quickly.

Graphically speaking, the game is great. I have everything on high except for a few key settings that my less than cutting edge ATI 9600 can’t handle. The details in the textures and the atmosphere are intense and very crisp giving the feeling of an almost, I repeat, almost real life setting.

Bear in mind that the real thing that shines in this game is not some revolutionary graphics system like DOOM 3 has but rather a refining and enhancing of graphics and an amazing lighting system. The layout of everything also adds to the realism as you walk through the first part of the city and glimpse giant walkers a few streets over and the guards that are everywhere and notice you if you get too close.

When I got myself into trouble, which is inevitable in this game, I found more than one route to flee and more than one tactic that the police used to chase me. The flying drones would follow where they could and the security forces popped out of all sorts of places to swing at me. At one point I was edging across a ledge while people took shots at me from a helicopter.

Very intense and full of surprise and questions not answered. It may not be the game for everybody but for my money, it is fantastic and I’ve only just started playing. Like a good story, you are thrust into the middle of things and left to follow along as best you can, hoping you don’t chose the wrong direction.

I know I'm dead on the surface But I'm screaming underneath

Fine, I'll buy the damn game! Direct X 7 compatibility, though. Source can't be bad at all...

See that's the kind of programming this world needs more of, sensitive programming, programming engineers who know games and the machines they play on are expensive. To expect everyone to have the newest, latest, and greatest is folly. Good job valve!

I should be ashamed of myself.

This post was edited by Aynjell on Nov 17, 2004.

In essence, that's been the nature of the market since it's inception. The hardware gives the programmers more room to create so they in turn push the limits that the hardware makers have to expand. Given that understood relationship, we get new software that is more nad more powerful and hardware that costs more to develope.

I know I'm dead on the surface But I'm screaming underneath

Yeah, but if the engine is advance, then they should allow for the usage of older hardware. Source allows for DX7 cards to play it, but I'm sure it lacks a great deal of graphics, it's still playable. This alone will get me to play it, all of my inability to play throug the first installment aside...

Looks georgious. I am going to buy it because it actually has the things that make a crew good, sensitivity to the actual public. I honestly beleive this game will sell more than Doom 3 and Halo 2, providing Halo 2 has a PC release, just because the hardware requirements...

Now for a perfect example of how not to program, Mechcommander 2.

I should be ashamed of myself.

Actually, the truth of the matter is that game developers like to make backwards compatable systems but they are not judged by that fact. They are judged by how new and powerful the engine is.

People tend to have the feeling that newer is better and as such, they look for the revolutionary to praise. As a game, DOOM 3 was really nothing that great. The story line had already been written years ago. What made the game sell was the promise of amazing graphics and that is exactly what we got.

In development of a game, there is only so far you can take backward compatabilty before you either use up your budget or the game gets so bloated that it needs special media to carry it. Programming for all the seperate scenarios that can be found in the average home users system would take more time than it's worth.

So to maximize the profit, games are made with all the bells and whistles and the old system user is left without the ability to see the game as the developer intended or in some cases able to play it at all.

Would you take the engine from Mustang Cobra and rebuild it to work on a Yugo? The ammount of work to get it to interface would be staggering. Not to mention the torque of the engin would tear the transmission lose and set it spinning around under your car like a giant New Years Eve noise maker.

I know I'm dead on the surface But I'm screaming underneath