[Fineus]

The depth, the story, the fun it was to play?

[SKYNET-011]

The part at the end when freeman is recruited?

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]Halflife is the best FPS I've ever played. It broke the mold.
[/color]

[ZylonBane]

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/25936/

Half-Life didn't break the mold, it just refined it to an incredible degree. Games like the System Shock and Thief series are the mold-breakers.

[diamondgeezer]

Hey, don't get me wrong, I played Deus Ex and loved it to bits. HL, though... I kept thinking 'why am I a particle physicist trained in the use of machine guns?', 'why has on-one explained the point of this facility?', and 'screw this, I'd rather be playing DX or UT'

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Diamond Geezer prefers to be paid under the table

[ZylonBane]

As you can see, Half-Life doesn't appeal well to gamers incapable of figuring things out on their own. They'd rather have everything spoon-fed to them via hundreds of pages of text.

[diamondgeezer]

That gets a C+ for effort. You're feeling a little more on your game toady, ZB?

Anyway, what? OK, it's like this - when it all went to hell and suddenly you're looking at all those beasties, I though 'blimey, I like this already'. After that, my attention just dropped right off. The armies of identical security guards and scientists completely failed ot grab me... though myabe DX's huge cast had spoiled me a little in that aspect.

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Diamond Geezer owns 23 t-shirts

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]Sorry I should have said 'it broke the mold for me' until the point where I got a copy of halflife I'd only played quake and Duke, neither of which were hugely story driven experiences.

Deus Ex is a very good game, lots of clever ideas but nothing approaches the sheer awe that I felt the first time I pressed 'new game' in halflife.
[/color]

[diamondgeezer]

Speaking of which, that ride through the caverns on the sky train - great intro, but far too long. I got up and made a cup of tea half-way through.

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Diamond Geezer ocasionally attempts to write fanfic

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
The armies of identical security guards and scientists completely failed ot grab me...

Then you must dislike about 99% of all computer and video games.

[diamondgeezer]

Guess so. I own *checks shelf* about 20 games. I'm guessing that's actually less than 1% of the world's published titles. And I don't actually hate Half-Life... I just failed to see why you're so in love with it. Like I said, I'd rather have been playing Dues Ex

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Diamond Geezer used to study geology

[CP5670]

Actually, you are not alone there. I also thought that the game was good, but nothing all that special; it didn't drag me into the plot and make me really want to keep going through the game the way DX, SS2, Thief 2 and even some more traditional-style FPSs did.

Many crowbars we call 'murder of crowbars'. Always carry one with you for kombat. Ha.

Almost right; I think it is "always have one for kombat."

[mikhael]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
That gets a C+ for effort. You're feeling a little more on your game toady, ZB?

Anyway, what? OK, it's like this - when it all went to hell and suddenly you're looking at all those beasties, I though 'blimey, I like this already'. After that, my attention just dropped right off. The armies of identical security guards and scientists completely failed ot grab me... though myabe DX's huge cast had spoiled me a little in that aspect.
 

I'm so with you, DG. I stopped playing Half Life within hours of starting. I've never even reinstalled it. Nothing in it grabbed me and made me say, "HOT DAMN!".

Now, Shock2, Thief, Deus Ex, Thief 2... oh yeah. Now that's hot syrupy gaming goodness.

(side note: everyone thing good thoughts for my friend, Crash. He's doing the interview rounds at Ion Storm Austin, trying to get a job with the inimitable Warren Spector. )

[diamondgeezer]

Your friend's called Crash, is he? Well... er... fingers crossed for him and this job, then

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Diamond Geezer likes movies with spaceships in them

[Turnsky]

well, um, i guess everybody stopped caring about valve after the immeasurable delay of team fortress 2

well aint this a bolt out of the blue, next thing they'd be telling us is that DNF is being released next month

[Stryke 9]

Half-Life? Never bought it. I've got a pretty low tolerance for the FPS genre. The shooters I do like, I'm absolutely ****ing fanatical about to the point of religion (namely, Blood and Deus Ex, which, between the two, must have consumed almost half a year total of my life in worshipping-hours), but most shooting games, after about five minutes I've had enough, and never want to see the thing again. They're so mindless, and dull to boot. Hard strat, at the very least, gives you the illusion of brain activity and actually getting something done...

[diamondgeezer]

Well this is the thing about Deus Ex, isn't it? It's not a shooter, it's an RPG. Sure, you're carrying enough weaponry to level a medium-sized villge, but nine times out of ten you only use it when you've cocked something up and the guards are after you.

Two things that I really like about DX - every time you play, you can advance through areas a different way, using different tools. And, every single time I play the game through, I discover something new - a new line from a UNATCO trooper, a new hidden weapon mod, but always something that I'd never seen or heard before. I love it

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Diamond Geezer can't stand children

[Turnsky]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Well this is the thing about Deus Ex, isn't it? It's not a shooter, it's an RPG. Sure, you're carrying enough weaponry to level a medium-sized villge, but nine times out of ten you only use it when you've cocked something up and the guards are after you.
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Diamond Geezer can't stand children

same in fallout 2 heh, except you intend to vapourize everybody with your gatling laser :devil:

[Stryke 9]

I thought gatling lasers were only FO1...

Anyway, Deus Ex was kinda halfway between. It had RPG elements, but the plot was fairly linear (most RPGs I've played, at least, you pretty much could do as you pleased from the start), and about 99% of the things you had to accomplish involved blowing someone's head off at some point. Granted, it was generally from a distance and they never knew what hit them (at least in my case), but in most RPGs you can do stuff that doesn't involve killing things if you so wish, at least in some parts of them...

[CP5670]

Two things that I really like about DX - every time you play, you can advance through areas a different way, using different tools. And, every single time I play the game through, I discover something new - a new line from a UNATCO trooper, a new hidden weapon mod, but always something that I'd never seen or heard before. I love it

Same here; my most recent find was the reload mod behind the trashcan in Manderley's bathroom. I think the key innovation with Deus Ex was the nonlinear gameplay, as all of the levels were designed to be completed in several different ways. The stat-building RPG elements were not as prominent as in System Shock 2 (although still far ahead of most FPS games), but this sort of multi-tier gameplay is what really made the game so great in my opinion. And of course, Deus Ex is in a sense two games in one, since I must have spent almost as much time fooling around with the various funny things that can be done due to engine quirks as actually playing the game, and I have completed the game 17 times now.