What I like most about the Source engine is the clarity of the textures.

Yes, I agree. And while it is the only engine that has really attempted to portray "realism" (Q4 in space, FC on a desert island, but HL2 in Eastern Europe) I thought it did an admirable job. I just like the weathered, rusting look they went for in HL2. Of course, that bit is an opinion, and was mainly down to texturing and design choices, the engine's strengths (the most realistic water, the best physics engine I have seen in a game, scope for wide environments and open skies) helped enormously in accomplishing the goals they set out.


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What I like most about the Source engine is the clarity of the textures. Even in Quake 4 there are some hilarously bad and pixelated textures.

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

As for FEAR... I really wasn't a fan

Me too. I just finished it a couple of days ago. Too much of a good thing is too much. The firefights and AI were VERY good things but there was just too much of it. It was practically the whole game. I finally started getting bored toward the end and then when you have to deal with the confusing ghost monsters popping out in the last couple of levels it just got annoying.

It was an OK game, but definitely not a great one. The atmosphere, sounds, lighting, and creepy music were primo, top notch, and spectacular. It definitely made me nervous and kind of creeped out on occasion. But it was just too monotonous both in gameplay and level design. I LOVED the part when you see the big sphere inside the vault. It was a stunning piece of work. It's a shame there weren't more moments like that in the rest of the game.

yeh i had that problem a few times... seems to happen more in multiplayer CS

its not like a frame rate stutter - its much faster than that... almost like a 5ms delay between every 1ms of actual gametime...

and yeh, it always seems caused by some sound effect - i usually see it happen during explosions or nades going off

doesnt happen all the time tho - fairly rarely actually

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He could be talking about the audio stuttering problem. For a lot of people, myself included, it doesn't preload the audio properly. Every time there's a new sound the game hitches while it loads the sound into memory. There's a lot of threads in the steam forums about it, but Valve never really seemed interested in fixing it. Which is odd as it affects a lot of people.


"We're not the same, I'm an American, you're a sick a--hole." - William 'D-Fens' Foster
This comment was edited on Dec 29, 12:09.

What crap machine are you using? I didn't have any weird stuttering or physics problems on mine in HL2.

I was wondering about that post... HL2 has better physics that any game to date, particularly with regards to characters movement - that's not to say that it's brilliant, especially when you look at some of the upcoming Unreal engine videos, but certainly miles ahead of the competition. I have not heard of such stuttering before.

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Emotinomicon: Emoticons of the Dead

Half Life 2 gets best single player story, best urban city graphics, but scores low on the physics aka (HF, Unreal stutter type of movement and character animation)

What crap machine are you using? I didn't have any weird stuttering or physics problems on mine in HL2.

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BF2 Player Name: "MindTrigger"
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Well, if you look at Crytek's new engine revision (there was a small video from E3 capturing it) they seem to be developing another Far Cry, at least judging by the engine enhancements. In fact, they used Far Cry to show off the new stuff.

Yeah, that video was pretty stunning... the plant leaves moving as you brush past them, the volumetric clouds and the character models. Farcry was so close to being great but the awful plot and poor multiplayer let it down, whilst the modding community seems near non-existant; hopefully a sequel can rectify those downfalls. Also, The Project was quite an interesting tech demo - it seems that they have learned from their mistakes, apart from the dodgy accents.

As for FEAR... I really wasn't a fan. It was a nice idea but walking around the same style rooms and corridors is just tedious, with faceless enemies and a dull plot not helping. The level design was too boxy and the performance, for the visuals you get, is poor. Also, colour was non-existant... nothing memorable like the Farcry bright blue skies and green hills, or the Half-Life 2 reds and browns of urban decay... just grey and black; very forgettable. That and the stereotypical B-movie style characters just made me appreciate how good Half-Life 2 is. I play games for enjoyment, so if a game is tedious to play through I don't rate it highly; the only thing I found enjoyable about FEAR was the multiplayer. I find it strange that all the reviews seem to point out all these flaws but still give it 90%+.

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Emotinomicon: Emoticons of the Dead

Well, if you look at Crytek's new engine revision (there was a small video from E3 capturing it) they seem to be developing another Far Cry, at least judging by the engine enhancements. In fact, they used Far Cry to show off the new stuff.

The really interesting one: Your character colliding with all - all - vegetation. As a character creeped through the bush to snipe someone on a beach, you could see his model pushing the ferns out of his way in 3rd person.

Far Cry...yeah. I remember fairly early in the game I had some trouble in the jungle environments. Lol...except for say...Operation Flashpoint, I used more infantry tactics to get around than any other game. Get shot at, run off back into the hills, set up an ambush with my sniper rifle. Good times. I wished they would make a sequel to Far Cry, but who knows...I'm kind of hoping Far Cry Instincts 1.5 will come out for the Xbox 360.

Purchased Fear just now off Amazon. Expensive there, but I was making a huge order of books, so threw it in.


No save game hacks with Far Cry for me, either. I made it throug the game, something I don't do as often as I think. Deus Ex and HL2 were probably the most recent FPS I did that with. I never needed quicksaves with Far Cry, though. The default saves screwed me a few times, but rarely did I feel like I was treading over ground too many times.
Well, ok, remember towards the end, with the huge satellite dish and the big rocket guys? That sucked. Sucked huge. I tried the chair trick, which only worked sometimes. It took me like 2 days to get through there.
But I did. Usually in games I'd get frustrated and then distracted, never returning. Far Cry at my time long and hard.

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Doomriders: the first new band worth a signature - http://www.deathwishinc.com/

I'd have to give Farcry the best Trophy in terms of environement graphics, AI etc. The closest to getting the game OUT of the boxed maps. It was an awesome game, but for multiplay its netcode and such had problems.

Doom 3, Quake 4 for best multiplayer physics with Fear in the running. Doom 3 also had great lighting.

Half Life 2 gets best single player story, best urban city graphics, but scores low on the physics aka (HF, Unreal stutter type of movement and character animation)

Yes Fear was a good game and I never had performance problems with the game.
This comment was edited on Dec 29, 03:19.

By far the best FPS I have played this year. My system sucks by todays standards but I didnt run into any of that stutering that everybody keeps talking about though. The game did the auto detection and it set the audio quality level to medium, mabey if you guys try putting it down a notch it might go away.

Only thing I didnt like about the game was the ending.

Nope no toxic slime.
Though sst:through out the game if you listen to the voice mail messages and the info on the laptops it continually mentions toxic chemicals in some water. But there never was an ending/conclusion to that? Maybe I missed it but it never seemed to add up to anything? Anybody else notice that or did I just miss something?


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oops sorry...i was talking about Farcry's lava level..i know it musta seemed like i was talking about FEAR LOL. btw, any toxic slime in fear?

Tongue-in-cheek? No way man, the building just happened to be built on an active volcano, that's all.

I'm a little more than half way through FEAR, right now, I think. I would laugh my ass of if I ran into a big pool of lava in the basement of the building. That would be perhaps the funniest tongue-in-cheek (cuz it'd have to be) gaming moment ever.

I believe he is talking about Far Cry.

Gotta be.

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And that one time that it started you at the waterfall without a gun. The game saved with one of the monkeythings in midleap to kill me. No ammo, little I could do, I must have reloaded a few dozen times trying to fix that.

I loved that level. ONCE I'd made it to the damn helicopter. SO satisfying. No save game hacks for me. Never did manage to finish Farcry though.

at one point I killed the mutant scientist on about my tenth try sat through a lengthy cut scene and within a couple of minutes was dead after going outside. All they had to do was have a save point after the cutscene. SIGH.

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I believe he is talking about Far Cry.