CS 2.0:

Featuring 32 new, unbalanced weapons that you'll probably never use!!! You AWP/MP5/M4/AK/DE Whore!

And 12 new maps that are wayy too complicated for those that have been completely dumb-down by countless months of playing only De_Dust!!!

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

GTA: Vice City PC Bound:

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=35157

Yeah I've played Deus Ex. It's just that IMO the GTA games are a better example of non-linearity.

Among more recent games, Mafia had some fairly non-linear GTA-style moments (You can blow cars up with guns too), but they kept the mission progression linear to get the pacing of a great story just right.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

I'm still waiting for the patch that will make the AWP cost $10,000.

Damn whores.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

They seem to have further emphasized prioritization.

You have to have a plan or at least an general image of the city you want to create. Otherwise you'll probably end up spending on everything.

My current city has excellent healthcare and educational services. Everybody's happy, healthy, and rich, but taxes are extremely high and growth is rather slow.

I think my next city will be a redneck farming community.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

Personally, despite the fact that I had much fun with both HL and MOHAA, I would hesitate to slap the title of Best Game Evar on either of them.

The problem is the linearity of their gameplay. When I played those games I felt like I was being led around by an unseen hand. That my actions only served to support the storyline, not create it. There was no question on what I had to do next, no pause to think about the consequences of going this or that way.

If I were asked to tell a story about my adventures in that game, it would be the developer's literary masterpiece, not mine. All the reprecussions have been precalculated, the plot's twists and turns predestined like a roller coaster ride. Nothing more, nothing less.

If I wanted that sort of linearity I'd rather go read a book or watch a movie (Where the characters are usually not 2D and the plot is usually much thicker and involving.) IMO a game's ability to exploit it's inherent interactivity is paramount above everything else.
The new tactical elements of Unreal II were probably designed around that concept of such heightened interactivity. I can't wait for Vice City PC though.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

I thought the weapon design was quite good. The secondary firing modes were actually usefull and there was enough variety in usage and appearance to keep you engaged.

The level design however was uninspired (The latter levels barely touched on the deformable geometry gimmick) and the graphics became monotonous very quickly.

Needless to say I got tired of it soon after I had all the weapons at my disposal.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad
This comment was edited on Jan 14, 23:52.

I honestly thought the gaming orgy would be over by Christmas.

If DOOM III goes gold next week I'm gonna explode.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad
This comment was edited on Jan 14, 23:12.

Same here.

Anyone who has played the original Wolf3D should appreciate RTCW's lack of historical realism in favor of (To coin the phrase) "historical fantasy". In the original they already had seemingly magical entities (The robed guys who shot fireballs at you), mechanical powersuits (The one Hitler wore), bioengineered mutants (Those green guys with guns attached to their chests) and biomechanical monstrosities (Hans and Gretel with chainguns for arms.) The supernatural zombie elements of RTCW are only a simple expansion of this central distinctive theme. A theme that was somewhat implied in the recent interview with Tod Hollenshed.

Of course storywise, including zombies and x-creatures in Enemy Territory could not be an option since it happens prior to the events in RTCW. I wonder what kind of "superweapons" BJ and his buddies will encounter this time around. I'm guessing it will have something to do with North African culture (Egyptian space mummies!!!)


"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

fredrickson is both literary genius and genuine illiterate.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

I wouldn't underestimate the value of the CS franchise, especially internationally where newer games take more time and effort to get recognized if at all.

The Title alone will guarantee a few hundred thousand copies sold, regardless of the eventual quality or reviewer assesments. I'm fairly certain that over here it's gonna be warezed and pirated like rice for famished gamers.

IMO the problem with CZ emulating more traditional SP FPSs is that the fanbase either doesn't expect or wouldn't appreciate it.

When you think of CS, you don't think of being led around, adhering to strict, predefined parameters as defined by some disparate overarching storyline. Aside from the action and the guns, I see CS as a very decision oriented game. Decisions made by yourself and your teammates whose outcomes whether good or bad are rarely reversible (Buy Menu, Single Life per Round, Proper Weapon Handling, Transparently integrated Stealth System otherwise known as (4mp1n6 liek teh f@gg07, etc.) From what I've read they don't intend to preserve the positive aspects that experienced players use to define CS.

This is in addition to the fact that it makes CZ compete dangerously directly with similar games of clearly superior overall quality such as Splinter Cell.

My prediction is that it will sell an assload for the first month or so then be forgotten.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

Yeah. All the unique gameplay elements that distinguish and signify CS appear to have been rudely thrown out for SP. Why even bother including CS in the title?

I actually thought Gearbox's original concept of bringing the multiplayer experience to singleplayer by using bots and threading the maps together with a story and RPG elements would be quite an interesting change of pace from the linearity and the lack of open-ended gameplay from many FPSs today.

But hey, it could all change for the better right? Hopefully.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

I've played every iteration of this game since the original. It was actually SC2K that started my late-night gaming habit. SC3K got boring quick since I somehow found out the formula to "beat" it even in the hardest setting.

It looks like they've incorporated some new concepts into this. Can't wait to see what this will do to gameplay.


"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

I actually stayed away from GTA3 due to all the controversy surrounding it. Not so much due to the actual issues but because I was simply afraid it would be another dumbed-down console game.

Well after having just finished the story missions I can honestly say screw what I just said. It's pure, immensely replayable fun.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

The creatures in the E3 are a little too predictable and not as strange looking like the origonal DOOM.

True True. That whole biomechanical thing is so commonplace nowadays (So it turns out there were in fact cyborgs in RTCW.) I want something more akin to the freeform organic monstrosities in The Thing. Those Things seriously freaked me out.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

...invents the coinage "One-Handed-Gaming" ?

Bah.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

My guess is that DOOM used a lot of public domain royalty free sounds from those CDs mentioned. They're just so prevalant. It's fairly obvious that this is a common practice in just about every genre of entertainment, especially movies.

For Quake 2 I believe id initially tried to do their own sounds (read this in some interview awhile back) while reusing some of the old Quake 1 sounds, but they eventually contracted it to Soundelux, a large commercial sound contractor. Soundelux was also on board for Quake 3 (The foley work in Q3's character sounds is surprisingly intricate.)

When compared to the sounds in modern games (MOHAA, SoF2, JK2, etc.), Reznor's work in Quake 1 lacks detail and authenticity. The sounds are relatively short, unrealistic, and don't have the intricacies and subtle nuances brought about by the now standard repertoire of piling tons of samples on top of each other to create a single sound (Raven does this a lot.)

What Quake 1's sounds do have are emotions and a theme. The ability of Reznor's sounds to express a feeling that goes beyond the actuality of the object creating the sound. It hits the listener on a hard, distinct personal level, immune to analytical criticisms. All the while retaining that dark, foreboding, "gets into your head" reality that only a musician of Reznor's particular idiosyncracies can effectively convey.


"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

Oddly enough, I only got really hooked on it once I tried Modem-to-Modem play, since I couldn't use cheats in multiplayer.

I have fond memories of trying to kill a Cyberdemon at our spawn point using only fists and pistols. We were lucky if we could get more than 2 shots before being blasted apart by a rocket.


"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

I hope the real story is that they've ported CS to the Quake 3 engine. MMMM.... Shaders.

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

1997
Q1MP1 "Scourge of Armagon" - Ritual
Q1MP2 "Dissolution Of Eternity" - Rogue
1998
Q2MP1 "The Reckoning" - Xatrix (core members of Grey Matter)
Q2MP2 "Ground Zero" - Rogue

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad

In the mean time, don't be afraid to email us with questions you may have about the game.

LOL

"Life is not about the second chances. It's about the little mouse, and his voyage to an exciting new land. That, my friend, is what life is." - Dad