λ ☣ ☢️ (λ)²

    • MissGutsy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      6 days ago

      As a genre? I would say no. Cyberpunk is usually described as a capitalist dystopia in which a handful of companies supersede government powers and wage wars against each other beyond the concepts of national borders. In addition, cybernetic enhancements become commonplace, as a way for companies to extract more value from their workers. Cyberpunk stories usually are about groups rebelling against the system through organized crime, who ultimately fail to escape the underlying system of capitalism, doomed to repeat history time and time again.

      HL2 falls in none of the genre stereotypes. While it is dystopian, it’s not capitalist, so it’s not “punk” and it isn’t “cyber” either because of a lack of commonplace cybernetics.

  • Unleaded8163@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    77
    ·
    8 days ago

    HL2 is peak first person shooter. More recent games have added a lot, but after playing through HL2 recent, it’s really nice to strip all that extra stuff away.

    • imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      8 days ago

      I can see why people didn’t like some parts (boat, car) but they’re so iconic to me.

      Except episode 2 (1?) car shit with the buckeyballs. Fuck that.

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        ·
        8 days ago

        I disagree, I cannot see why people dislike those parts—the tension is fantastic in both

        • Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          7 days ago

          It’s only awful if you’re achievement hunting and trying to drive the god damn gnome through the level without it flinging off into space and being lost forever

  • 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    ·
    7 days ago

    Half Life 2 still holds up really well, honestly better than a ton of modern first person shooters. The only places it’s lacking from a non-technical aspect is enemy variety. If valve did a remake just updating the graphics and gun play that would be my only knock on it and that says a lot for a 20 year old game.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      7 days ago

      The physics puzzles, whole still functioning fine, feel extremely goofy today. It’s easy to forget how revolutionary they were. I’m not saying the game shouldn’t have them or anything, but some are just so silly lol.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      7 days ago

      On enemy variety, I see the critique of games like Zelda: BOTW and even realistic games like Hitman. Something those games have in common is very well-made enemy AI that presents you many ways to defeat them.

  • MunkysUnkEnz0@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    ·
    7 days ago

    There is also a VR mod on Steam that works perfectly With Half-Life 2, No need to jump through hoops, it just works. One of the best VR experiences out there.

      • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        7 days ago

        Ricochet hasn’t recieved the love it deserves. We’ve been waiting on Ricochet 2 for decades. The fans need closure.

        • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          6 days ago

          You just can’t update perfection.

          But there’s “Ricochet: Source” out there as a mod

          I worked on it with some people half a life(time) ago. It was playable but we never really finished it properly

          • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            6 days ago

            I’ll be straight with you - I never played Ricochet. I was just doing the joke from that one guy who asked Gabe about it that one time. But the fact you ported it to the Source engine is honestly really cool.

            • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              6 days ago

              If you’re ever at a lan party, I’d say: check it out. It’s quite fun and can get quite challenging on fuller levels.

              It’s how I stumbled on it decades ago

        • andxz@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          4 days ago

          Speaking of Richochet and love reminds me of a guy I halfway knew in my youth. He had the bright idea to jerk off a quick one in the middle of a LAN party (I know, right?). After he inevitably got caught (despite being somewhat secluded) he alt tabbed from whatever grainy porn clip he had up straight into Ricochet just as he… well ya know.

          He never came to another LAN party again, but 20+ years later he’s still known as the guy who jerked off to Richochet.

  • Katana314@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    edit-2
    6 days ago

    The way in which Half-Life maintained a continuous viewpoint over long stretches of gameplay and landscape was always so immersive to me. Games like God of War and Dead Space did something similar, but Valve had an additional challenge.

    They almost never take player control, instead relying on mere hints of where to look; they even have the character sequences scripted for wherever the player was standing. That all usually took a lot of their effort.

    I could be biased because I even enjoyed toying with their choreography tool, which let you layer simple gestures together; so without making a new animation, you could have someone both lean forward and nod right, and point their thumb right.

  • proti@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    7 days ago

    I mean the game was given for free and just received an update. It’s also a really good game as well

  • blackstrat@lemmy.fwgx.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    8 days ago

    FYI, that’s roughly 50x the normal average over the past 3 months. And also the highest ever concurrent users was 4 hours ago. Not bad.

  • Snot Flickerman
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    8 days ago

    Nostalgia’s a helluva drug. I’ve done my best to try to avoid it, but we all like that hit from time to time.

    • datavoid@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      7 days ago

      Is there formatting on this post? It seems to have broken voyager slightly

      • Nima@leminal.space
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 days ago

        i am also on voyager and its also broken for me. how interesting. i wonder why.

        • datavoid@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          7 days ago
          1. I’m guessing the other guy who responded was correct - must be related to markdown lists not having enough space for 4 characters before the period.
      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        7 days ago

        A number followed by a period is Markdown for an ordered list. To make it easier, the renderer always starts from 1 and counts properly. So on your app it is probably rendering this as an ordered list with one item instead of as two sentences.

    • Baggie@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      32
      ·
      8 days ago

      The full list is on steam, the main thing is it’s bundled all hl2 games in one package, integrated workshop for mod installation, and added new developer commentary for hl2. Also a bunch of misc fixes etc.

    • Ashtear@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      7 days ago

      If you’re into the nuts and bolts of game development at all, the commentary is fantastic.

      • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        7 days ago

        When it first came out, for some reason, I thought all games would start following Valve’s lead and introduce commentary.

        And now two decades later, I don’t know if any other games have.

        Then again, we have other ways like game devs talking on podcasts/live stream.

    • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      7 days ago

      I was totally fine playing HL1, and HL2, and HL2 episode 1… but I never finished episode 2 because of motion sickness. The problem isn’t really with episode 2 though. The problem is just that I got old, and now I get motion sickness from FPS games that didn’t affect me before.

      But I do know that not every FPS makes me sick. I think mouse-look smoothing helps. I’m not certain what else, but I’d try messing with the field-of-view angle and stuff like that.

      • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 days ago

        I thought it was just me! I played every HL game as a teen. Now 20 years later, my old eyes seem to struggle a bit.

        And yeah, changing FoV is what solved it for me.