I can't deny the sales of Half-Life, nor the capabilities of the engine. But I suppose it's in part an aesthetic difference (not entirely, however). Half-Life did put maps into an order with perhaps less variance from area to area... until the dramatic shift to alien locations. And that may be less startling than walking out from a laboratory to find yourself hundreds of stories up with spacecraft zipping back and forth (especially when you know that the sewer wasn't all that far away...
I don't really expect conformity to spatial realities in these kinds of games. In a persistent world or a strategy game in which your location in the larger world has game significance, that's another matter.
My comment about the scripted scenes seems to have been misinterpreted: I love scripted scenes, but they don't, in themselves, make up for a poor contivance (for example: a jump puzzle in which boxes hang by chains over an abyss, using box and chain textures, but not making any sense as to why they exist, what they are good for, why they are hanging over an abyss, etc.).
The demo for Half-Life had great scripted events, lots of them, tightly connected. And when puzzles were presented they used materials that made sense. Of course, spatially, it's plenty odd to see the various subjects of the map so close together and arranged as they are... but care was taken to make what is in view sensible enough and to ensure that the pace never slowed.
The full game abandoned this attention to detail rather quickly. Perhaps it was just too long to maintain that quality and stay on schedule, but I won't overlook it even if I can excuse it. The game moved at a snail's pace more often than not, falling back on meandering exploration and poorly contrived skill tests. The ratio of plot- or situation-driven events to abstracted fps filler left much to be desired. So far, Messiah seems less watered-down.
HL works in the context of the GENRE, ACTION and DESIGN.
GENRE
It's a First Person Shooter. A real-live honest to goodness genre. Surrounded by a persistant & constant hazardous environment. The designers created as many obstacles that I can think of.
ACTION
The environment is mediated with how you(the player) react to opposition. Mostly on the fly.
DESIGN
The environment is a fabrication where the player(YOU) is existing within a world that was there before YOU(The Player) appeared.
An urban area.
An alien ship.
Another planet.
Aboard a jet plane.
An island in Costa Rica.
Although Messiah is not a FPS. It does have action and design. Or my favorite: CONTENT & DESIGN.
The design of Messiah faults on so many levels, it's not even funny.
Just when I didn't think there was nothing else to SPOT --->Someone else finds another BLOOPER. If it was intended, OK. But I doubt it.
Originally posted by Airwall: Compare that to Half Life, Thief or Jedi Knight, where the levels feel 'right'. Heck, even Duke 3d for that matter.
The examples you stated are the right ways to do a game. All four are "gaming gods". To try to have every game you play to live up to all four games is idiocy, especally when you consider that Messiah does a fair job at everything each of those excel at. Saying that messiah can rival Half-life is not something to be proud of. Messiah takes games to a new level. If you don't believe me, just read what popular mags have to say about it like gamepro. Messiah doesn't offer good level design, but if you look past the surface, it has great gameplay.
Originally posted by Airwall: Compare that to Half Life, Thief or Jedi Knight, where the levels feel 'right'. Heck, even Duke 3d for that matter.
The examples you stated are the right ways to do a game. All four are "gaming gods". To try to have every game you play to live up to all four games is idiocy, especally when you consider that Messiah does a fair job at everything each of those excel at. Saying that messiah can rival Half-life is not something to be proud of. Messiah takes games to a new level. If you don't believe me, just read what popular mags have to say about it like gamepro. Messiah doesn't offer good level design, but if you look past the surface, it has great gameplay.
Marv I get your point, honestly.
But remember your conversation with PMaster,
its opinion not TRUTH.
Another thing is that I have read your many posts and its like you are kicking a dying horse,over and over I might add. (whats the point) It's one thing to criticize a game and another to slice it open pour alcohol into the wound and then add some tabasco for good measure, and then laugh insanely.
Heh Heh Heh... That's pretty funny. Not as morbid as a Wendy's Massacre in Flushing, NY. But funny.
No, seriously. For the millionth time:
I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO disappointed IN ALL MY LIFE WITH A VIDEO GAME. I JUST CAN'T EXPRESS IT THAT CLEARLY. I WANT SO BAD TO POUND THIS ISSUE INTO THE GROUND UNTIL THERE IS nothing LEFT...
Ok I gotcha. I am glad I don't share your deep disappointment. But now I know where your coming from. Why don't you look to the future, lots of good games coming out.
Messiah, was not meant to be a FPS, not meant to be a true action game, it was meant be a Metal Gear Solid type stealth and stategy game, with a nice twist to it, you are able to consume bodies of various classes and use them as human shields, very innovative.
Requiem attempted this, and failed, Shiny used a little naked baby and did it successfully :-) Who would have thought Pampers would make this game shine.
Lets talk about the gameplay here. Messiah could have had a better design overall, yes i agree with that, but what the ended up with Messiah was good. It was good in the fact that it attempted to do something out of the norm of regular games and interweve many types of geners into one.
Messiah involved a lot of puzzles, a lot of stealth is required, mixed with action. This is not a game where you can go in guns balzing, well you can but that baby will never see past the next level. Yeah we all tried and failed I'm sure :-)
The gameflow was good, in flowed nicely, without having to really backtrack to complete a mission, if you had to it made sense most of the time. I hate games where you just get so damn lost you have to backtrack in the reverse path you came, when going forward was hard enough!
If you notice that the arsenal weapons wasnt really heavy meaning not a lot of thought there, because it wasnt meant to really be an action game, and putting in a better arsenal would have pissed people off, I have these cool guns but I cant use them as I'd like. More puzzles than anything here.
Overall Messiah was good, not saying great here because it wasnt great, was good. As a hardcore gamer I was satisifed with it because I went in knwoing what to expect out of this title, a hybrid of some action with some cool stealth and puzzle solving. The demo showed that.
So I mean to mock a game over and over shows that some people do not have better things to do, there is so much that you can do productive. Satisfying the bloodthirsty gaming community is very hard, people will always moan and bitch to put it bluntly, until they can make something better, just shut up. There.
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