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Blue Shift's level design and general gameplay was much better than Opposing Force, but the lack of new stuff and its shorter length definitely hurt it compared to OF (I won't deny the new guns are loving awesome though; the SAW is just great and the Displacer was basically a proto-portal gun mixed with a BFG. Too bad they never used it for anything really interesting) Race X were just not fun to fight though, even with the new guns they were bullet sponges.
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Nov 20, 2018 21:32
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I mean, Blue Shift was mostly meant as a bonus for buying Dreamcast Half Life, before that got canned. And only then reworked to be a seperate product like Opposing Force.
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Nov 20, 2018 21:38
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The part in Opposing Force where you're in the pitch black tunnels running away from all the RaceX aliens while trying to find the exit....whoever made that map should be shot into the sun. Your night vision googles have a distance of like 5 feet infront of you.
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Nov 20, 2018 21:43
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I disliked the ending of Opposing Force because, as would seem to be a running theme for the Half Life saga, there has never been any closure whatsoever to Shepherd getting shoved onto the G-Man Bus. edit: He's not even mentioned in HL2 or the episodes, which bummed me out.
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Nov 20, 2018 21:51
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:The part in Opposing Force where you're in the pitch black tunnels running away from all the RaceX aliens while trying to find the exit....whoever made that map should be shot into the sun. This and the horrifically leaky underwater base are both great zones. The anxiety! On the whole, I think the mapping in Opfor is very memorable, especially for a third party expansion.
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Nov 20, 2018 21:59
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It's also noticeably worse than Half-Life, the whiplash when playing it right after the main game is pretty severe.
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Nov 20, 2018 22:08
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i liked all the new weapons in opposing force, the little green guy you feed tennis balls who acts as a rocket launcher is super cute
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Nov 20, 2018 22:17
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Seeing the mixed opinions about OpFor today is interesting. I remember it being pretty universally acclaimed at release and enjoying it immensely myself. On the other hand Blue Shift was panned across the board for a number of reasons.
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Nov 20, 2018 22:18
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I could be wrong, but I think at the time, expansion packs were seen as total low-effort cash grabs more often than not. Opposing Force probably got a lot of credit for having overall production values equal to that of the main game.
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Nov 20, 2018 22:42
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When I played OpFor on release I made it about half-way through and noticed that I thought it was really easy. I decided to try and beat the entire game using only the wrench and never taking a single point of damage. Eventually there's a point near the end where you have to shoot some stuff across a bridge and I think I may have given it up at that point. Still I must have done at least 75% of it that way
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Nov 20, 2018 23:17
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strong agree re: spore launcher being cute as gently caress  the purring noises aaaaaa
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Nov 21, 2018 00:04
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I liked OpFor and Blue Shift, though Blue Shift being so short is definitely a mark against it. Though at least it wasn't too long. However...chocolateTHUNDER posted:The part in Opposing Force where you're in the pitch black tunnels running away from all the RaceX aliens while trying to find the exit....whoever made that map should be shot into the sun. absolutely agree. I hate that area. Especially since the enemies are pretty tough, come out of nowhere, and for some reason I always seem to enter that area with very little health.
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Nov 21, 2018 00:26
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Yeah, that area sucks.
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Nov 21, 2018 00:33
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It's been long enough since I've played the free Black Mesa release that I'm really looking forward to playing through it again as the full version. I'm thrilled someone's actually putting out a full-fledged single player FPS that isn't a loving open world game and I know I'm still insanely into Half-Life from enjoying the hell out of Half-Life: Echoes earlier this year.
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Nov 21, 2018 00:38
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timn posted:Seeing the mixed opinions about OpFor today is interesting. I remember it being pretty universally acclaimed at release and enjoying it immensely myself. On the other hand Blue Shift was panned across the board for a number of reasons. Blue Shift is kind of easier to replay. It's amazingly short, but doesn't really have any exasperating parts to it. OpFor has a ton of cool features and neat-looking zones, but it's sort of like base HL1 in that there are some parts that I don't look forward to when replaying it.
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Nov 21, 2018 00:44
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Fallom posted:It's been long enough since I've played the free Black Mesa release that I'm really looking forward to playing through it again as the full version. It helps that Black Mesa is a genuinely great remake as well, so  .
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Nov 21, 2018 00:54
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When I bought my physical copy of Blue Shift - on release day, at my local branch of Gamestation - the guy in the shop slowly and deliberately help up the box with his finger covering the F in the title. I asked him "Is it bad, then?" and he said "No", but in hindsight I think he was trying to tell me something.
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Nov 21, 2018 01:08
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Blue Shift is fine, but it really shouldn't have been released on its own. A 2-pack of Blue Shift and an online-enabled version of Decay would have probably been better.
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Nov 21, 2018 01:15
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Sir Lemming posted:I could be wrong, but I think at the time, expansion packs were seen as total low-effort cash grabs more often than not. Indeed:  edit: Is there an easy way to embed imgur pictures, because I can't figure it out Escape Goat fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Nov 21, 2018 |
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Nov 21, 2018 01:48
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:Blue Shift is fine, but it really shouldn't have been released on its own. A 2-pack of Blue Shift and an online-enabled version of Decay would have probably been better. Yeah that would have made a lot of sense. It's funny too because in the late 90s or early 2000s I would have cared a lot about getting many hours per dollar, but in 2018 it's kind of nice to have bite size games that can be finished off the backlog.
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Nov 21, 2018 01:56
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Escape Goat posted:Indeed: I think you are supposed to use [timg][/timg] and in between them, put the direct jpg url.
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Nov 21, 2018 01:56
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Ryuga Death posted:I think you are supposed to use [timg][/timg] and in between them, put the direct jpg url. Thank you, kind goon sir.
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Nov 21, 2018 01:59
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Maybe it's just because I only remember the "good" ones, but my recollection of circa 90's "expansions" is generally pretty high: Starcraft: Brood War, Morrowind Tribunal & Bloodmoon, Diablo Hellfire, Baldur's Gate's expansions, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Quake Scourge of Armagon, etc. I guess there were a lot of lovely cash-grabs, but I think I generally ignored the "unofficial" releases because they were often just filedumps of community made content. Put me on the list of people who really loved Opposing Force, though. I got it for Christmas the year it was released and was blown away by the new content. Like a lot of people here, one of my fondest memories was carefully accumulating a kill team of Marines and seeing how far I could lead them before the game arbitrarily restricted their progress. I also remember the pitch black sewer scene with the Voltigores(?), which is another fond memory for me because I was too distracted by the tension to see its mechanical issues. All of the new weapons were awesome with (in my opinion) the exception of the Barnacle gun, which seemed more like a goofy mod that reused preexisting assets than anything else. The introduction of the Gonome made me immediately wonder how much worse a headcrab zombie could become. Too bad nothing significant ever came of it. The experimental portal gun was very cool, and half of the fun was using its teleport function and not knowing where you'd end up (and being able to teleport to a ruined hazard course was a neat little nod to the original game). Cream-of-Plenty fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Nov 21, 2018 |
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Nov 21, 2018 04:11
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Escape Goat posted:Indeed: Are... are there map files online? I want to play them. Unless they're indoor maps. gently caress indoor/dungeon maps in starcraft/warcraft forever.
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Nov 21, 2018 04:42
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Ularg posted:Are... are there map files online? I want to play them. Oh yeah, I fondly remember the Starcraft levels where you were given a small squad of marines and had to slowly work your way through a map. I feel like those are the "mandatory stealth" section equivalents for RTS games. Ugh.
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Nov 21, 2018 04:49
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I believe they’re available on archive.org.Cream-of-Plenty posted:Maybe it's just because I only remember the "good" ones, I mean yeah, basically. Between SC and Brood War there were two third party expansions and they both sucked out loud, and nowadays nobody gives a gently caress.
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Nov 21, 2018 04:50
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Cream-of-Plenty posted:Oh yeah, I fondly remember the Starcraft levels where you were given a small squad of marines and had to slowly work your way through a map. Space Hulk?
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Nov 21, 2018 04:50
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WC3 actually went some way to making those kinds of missions tolerable to play because its gameplay in general is way more structured around micro and small unit tactics. SC2’s campaigns, whatever their other problems, keep that property. They’re only a chore in SC/BW because you’re fighting the interface all the way.
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Nov 21, 2018 04:58
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Cream-of-Plenty posted:Oh yeah, I fondly remember the Starcraft levels where you were given a small squad of marines and had to slowly work your way through a map. I want to like them since I love RTT games like Myth, but they really weren't designed for them. That said, I still kinda fondly remember the dungeons in Warcraft 1. There were enemies entirely unique to them, plus that was when I was getting into D&D so the idea of having adventuring parties doing dungeon stuff while the war was going on above was neat. I think that D&D RTS that wasn't Blood and Magic did something similar, plus as skasion said, WC3 definitely made them more viable.
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Nov 21, 2018 05:02
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LORD OF BOOTY posted:Blue Shift is fine, but it really shouldn't have been released on its own. A 2-pack of Blue Shift and an online-enabled version of Decay would have probably been better. I’m trying to remember but I think the publisher (Sierra?) would give you like $20 if you had purchased OpForce previously and mailed them your OpForce barcode +the code from your Blueshift copy. I remember that being prominently displayed on the box. Also count me as one of the half-life super fans who bought Blueshift on release, beat it that afternoon, then gleefully replayed the original half life and OpForce using the HD models. Also for opposing force I would make drat sure all my marine buddies lived. No matter how hard I had to try. Also the battles in “Foxtrot Uniform” were awesome and rivaled those in “Surface Tension.”
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Nov 21, 2018 05:41
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90s expansion packs that come to mind are Age of Empires: Rise of Rome, Red Alert II: Yuri's Revenge, and Tiberian Sun: Firestorm. All good, but also all RTS's. Still, not everything is garbage like D3d: Nuclear Winter, or one of those cds that's just map as from the internet. Edit: Mysteries of the Sith is good too. Pity they made the cutscenes so janky. I can understand not doing FMV for an expansion, but they could have at least made their prerendered animation look at least as smooth as the base game. Casimir Radon fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Nov 21, 2018 |
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Nov 21, 2018 06:27
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Cream-of-Plenty posted:Oh yeah, I fondly remember the Starcraft levels where you were given a small squad of marines and had to slowly work your way through a map. Ugh, those Men of War levels that played like stealth RPGs were the worst.
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Nov 21, 2018 06:48
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Cream-of-Plenty posted:Oh yeah, I fondly remember the Starcraft levels where you were given a small squad of marines and had to slowly work your way through a map. The lone indoor map in C&C: Red Alert was fun because you played as Tanya during it and just mowed down everything.
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Nov 21, 2018 06:55
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I miss the demo levels for Starcraft.  But yea, in the past two months I've gone back and played through all of Starcraft 1 and most of Brood War and played through Starcraft 2 Terran/Zerg campaigns (protoss isn't free yet so I can't play that yet) and tried to replay WC3. I have a lot of fond memories of RTS games from my childhood. How typing in cheat codes taught me to type well in starcraft. Getting kicked from WC3 custom matches because I didn't know there was a new dota patch out and no one wanted to wait for someone to download the new version. I just hate the micro/dungeon/indoor levels. They're really unfun because the game to me is macro and army movement and build orders. It feels bad to just kinda get screwed out of a mission because flame throwers spawned in the walls and killed half my zerglings and the level expects me to slowly stealth kill everything more dangerous than amarine with infested kerrigan. WC3 wasn't that much better. Sure abilities are nice but in the regular game I don't like microing heroes a whole lot. Or at least I don't mind so much as I don't like the inventory management associated with it. Having units level between missions and progress is really cool though. Also... also... C&C 64.
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Nov 21, 2018 07:11
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YERrs7FYkxo A interesting video about AvP '99 which goes a bit into how the game managed to end up having it's unique feel of "messy but polished" design when you have limited experience and resources.
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Nov 21, 2018 08:30
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Vakal posted:The lone indoor map in C&C: Red Alert was fun because you played as Tanya during it and just mowed down everything. I always liked how they counterbalanced Commando/Tanya's one hit infantry killing power (and crush immunity?) by making it so you have to manually fire. Can't just stand still and let their range do all the work! 
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Nov 21, 2018 12:26
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Never played the first RA, but it sure as poo poo wasn't like that in the later series. Tanya mowing down hundreds of infantry is a staple!
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Nov 21, 2018 12:52
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Fallom posted:It's been long enough since I've played the free Black Mesa release that I'm really looking forward to playing through it again as the full version. I'm thrilled someone's actually putting out a full-fledged single player FPS that isn't a loving open world game and I know I'm still insanely into Half-Life from enjoying the hell out of Half-Life: Echoes earlier this year. Same! I've been in a gaming rut lately because most AAA games feel so homogenous now. Even Tomb Raider, which should be a fairly straight forward action adventure, has useless skill trees and crafting and upgrading and fast travel and blah blah blah. Black Mesa is such a breath of fresh air. I always feel weird because I never really like OpFor. The combat encounters weren't all that interesting, having squad mates just annihilates your forward momentum and pacing, and there's a bunch of sections that just feel like they were lifted from the base game instead of trying something new. The Displacer is pretty neat tho.
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Nov 21, 2018 13:33
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Ularg posted:I miss the demo levels for Starcraft. Holy poo poo the nostalgia ~feels~ I loved PC Gamer and their demo disks. They introduced me to so many games I still love to this day. As a kid with dial up, no money and no car, my PC Gamer subscription was my lifeline. I still remember hacking in a variable in a text file in the original GTA to remove the demo timer because I loved the game so much and free roam was amazing even in 2d. Theme Hospital, Destruction Derby, SiN, man it’s all flooding back, I can even picture a lot of the cover art still in my head. That’s how much time I spent with them
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Nov 21, 2018 13:39
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I really liked both Opposing Forces and Blue Shift. I played them when they came out and felt nice to have more half-life single player (that weren't lovely buggy mods). I remember OpFor MP being cool too.
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Nov 21, 2018 13:39
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