New Half-Life 2 screenshots

[schepton]

The story of D3 is basically the same as that in Half Life 1

[Guest James]

Doom 3 will hopefully be tense and fearful, as well as pushing the boundaries as far as iD could (though it appears the Unreal 3 technology may have already gone further); it'll be enjoyable regardless, and still an important milestone in graphics - iD titles always are.

d3 is a retelling of doom 1 as such; i'd imagine it will follow the similar iD standard of having a premise as opposed to a story per se

[GregD]

  James said:

Doom 3 will hopefully be tense and fearful, as well as pushing the boundaries as far as iD could (though it appears the Unreal 3 technology may have already gone further); it'll be enjoyable regardless, and still an important milestone in graphics - iD titles always are.

Doom3 however is not going to push the gameplay boundries much further though I don't think.

Yes Unreal engine 3 looks fantastic.. to me all the demos look prerendered but they are apparently in real time.

[Guest James]

They create a high poly mesh and a low poly mesh and use the image of the difference to create the effect of using the high poly one when in fact they use the low poly one - tis clever!

[Kolzig]

  GregD said:

I do like the look of Doom3.. which seems to be inspired by HR Giger art (Alien movies). I just don't think ID have any flare for writing a good story/gameplay. You only have to look at their previous titles to see that they obviously dont have it in this department.

Well ID isn't doing the story for Doom3, they hired years ago the guy who wrote 7th guest and 11th hour games stories.

Doom3 is going to be a very different kind of ID Software game.

[manny_c44]

  Kolzig said:

Well ID isn't doing the story for Doom3, they hired years ago the guy who wrote 7th guest and 11th hour games stories.

Doom3 is going to be a very different kind of ID Software game.

Wait a minute. You're saying John Carmack, the same man who said "Stories in games are like stories in pornos, you expect them, but they don't really matter", actually cared enough to hire a competent writer for his story?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Evidently that's the case. iD had strangely decided to give Doom3 some kind of 'gripping, emotionally suspenseful' edge, and so they did add Matt Costello to the staff to write the story (whether that was Carmack's idea is debatable, I hardly think he's ever been the type to actually care about anything but graphics for a game). We've no idea how prevalent this will be in the end, as all the media, and iD for that matter, have been pimping to us to death is the graphics. Also, blame yourselves as graphics slutty gamers as well. [shrug]

Me personally, I find Fahrenheit to be far, far more progressive than Doom3 in terms of the overal experience. But we'll see once both titles are out.

[Blau Blau]

Roll on release!

I just hope when I play Doom3 with the lights off and the volume up I shat myself. Thats all I ask for.

Cyberdemons scared me before, can they do it again now I'm a big boy?

[Jayel]

  manny_c44 said:

Wait a minute. You're saying John Carmack, the same man who said "Stories in games are like stories in pornos, you expect them, but they don't really matter", actually cared enough to hire a competent writer for his story?

Waittaminute... are you saying that 7th Guest and 11th Hour had competent story?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

LOL, well they probably were actual, bona fide stories compared to the original Doom, if anything.

[manny_c44]

Ive actually never played the games, I was just assuming their stories were better than: hell on mars, kill everything that moves.

[Guest James]

yes, sorta...but only just.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Quote

I just hope when I play Doom3 with the lights off and the volume up, I shat myself.

Remind me not to come around on the day of release! (eugh, double entendre! ) :rolf

Half-Life hardly had a "story", it was based around killing a lot more than say, Deus Ex (which actually has an ongoing story). But for a game that's basically just MDK, those graphics don't entice me one bit!

[schepton]

  ThunderPeel2001 said:

Remind me not to come around on the day of release! (eugh, double entendre! ) :rolf

Half-Life hardly had a "story", it was based around killing a lot more than say, Deus Ex (which actually has an ongoing story). But for a game that's basically just MDK, those graphics don't entice me one bit!

It wasn't the story that was immersive, it was the way it was told.

The game made you actually feel emotion, and concern for the world around you, after you cause the cascade, you see the death and destruction caused by it. After you fight your way through swarms of Marines and reach the surafce, you only discover that the situation is much worse above than below, then must subside back into the murky ground.

There are many more examples, so don't say the game is mindless violence with no story.

[Marek]

I briefly played Doom 3 at E3. Take away the sugar coating of your initial excitement about the graphics, and you're left with a really standard game. I really don't know what this game's unique selling points are. Hopefully the story will be somewhat good.

[MrHoatzin]

  Chepito said:

But if you remember at the end of Op4 (SPOILER, SPOILER) the G-Man offers him a job just like Gordon, so how he will show up in HL2 is still a mystery. There is alot of speculation that the Combine troops that you fight in City 17 are somehow all clones of him, seeing as how he was the best marine form HL.

  Reveal hidden contents

I thought G-man arrested him at the end of the game so that he wouldn't have to exterminate him.

I don't really remember the exact wording he used.

[schepton]

Well I thought I was right, but if someone can re-play it...

I thought he had 2 choices just like in HL.

[GregD]

  Marek said:

I briefly played Doom 3 at E3. Take away the sugar coating of your initial excitement about the graphics, and you're left with a really standard game. I really don't know what this game's unique selling points are. Hopefully the story will be somewhat good.

Yeah this is what I expected. End of the day still have HL2 for gameplay and doom3 for sheer carnage

[Lama Himself]

If you want to remember HL without replay it, you can download Half life done quick

http://www.planetquake.com/sda/other/halflife.html

About the 7th guest guy, I thought he was hire by iD to work on the physics engine.

On Moby Game the story of 7th guest is credited to Matthew Costello

http://www.mobygames.com/game/sheet/gameId,283/

he worked lately on the italian job (wow!)

This is Graeme Devine who work now at iD and was lead programmer on the 7th guest.

[Lama Himself]

  GregD said:

Yeah this is what I expected. End of the day still have HL2 for gameplay and doom3 for sheer carnage

Doom 3 is more about fear than carnage.

[GregD]

  Lama Himself said:

Doom 3 is more about fear than carnage.

I personally like to think its about both

[Erwin_Br]

  Marek said:

I briefly played Doom 3 at E3. Take away the sugar coating of your initial excitement about the graphics, and you're left with a really standard game. I really don't know what this game's unique selling points are. Hopefully the story will be somewhat good.

Seems like our prejudices aren't always that far off from the truth.

--Erwin

[Marek]

  GregD said:

and doom3 for sheer carnage

If carnage means "kill up to two monsters in one area" and "compete with more than two (three) other players in multiplayer deathmatch", then yes.

That's why I think the story will be extremely important. The game needs some good pre-scripted scares and a strong suspenseful atmosphere, or else gamers will buy other games with more interesting gameplay.

Unless they're all a bunch of undiscerning fanboys, of course.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Quote

It wasn't the story that was immersive, it was the way it was told.

The game made you actually feel emotion, and concern for the world around you, after you cause the cascade, you see the death and destruction caused by it. After you fight your way through swarms of Marines and reach the surafce, you only discover that the situation is much worse above than below, then must subside back into the murky ground.

There are many more examples, so don't say the game is mindless violence with no story.

Hmmm. Sorry I don't agree. How is "comedy" moments of watching scientists being killed in various different "hilarious" ways - making you feel emotion? The only time there was emotion was when the army came in to "clean up", then you felt pretty fucked over! (Which was the best part of the game IMHO.)

As for the game not being mindless violence, let me ask you something:

1) Would you still enjoy HL without the story elements?

I'm guessing "yes", because it was an extremely well balanced game.

2) Would you have loved the game so much if the violence was interspersed with long periods of puzzle solving?

I'm guessing "no".

I *think*, athough I'm not sure, but wasn't the best part of HL it's gameplay, followed by the excellent atmosphere and trailing last, the actual story?

I'm guessing I'm never going to understand people's infatuation with HL

[Erwin_Br]

If you take away the story in HL, you take away the identity of the protagonist, Gordon Freeman. You take away the reason for being at the location where these hostile aliens appear, the reason why they appear and why you're fighting fellow humans (the soldiers). In other words; you'd be playing another Quake clone.

Half-Life was a very original game, which got loads of critical acclaim, mostly for the story behind the action and the scripted movie sequences. Things that the FPS genre wasn't very familiar with.

Would I still enjoy HL without it's story? Probably. But I don't think it would have gotten the same level of praise and recognition as it has today. Just like I said, it would be another Quake clone with some technical advancements in A.I and graphics.

--Erwin