CamInHead wrote:I actually quite fancy buying a new rig. I'm getting really enthusiastic about ut2004 (and similar games). I'm on a fairly solid assurance I'll be off feckin' dial-up in the new year.
Should be able to get something much better than current for as little as £4-500.
Current is a P4 2ghz, 1gb SDRAM iirc an AGP 6600GT.

Anyone playing ut2004 nowadays ?

You do know that UT 3 is out, right?

ghhyrd wrote: *Pukes*

Left 4 Dead was just-
-run through corridor
-check behind you
-shoot zombie that spawned behind you
-check in front you you
-shoot zombie that spawned infront of you
-run forward
-turn corner
-shoot zombie off of friend
-run away from big zombie
-get killed because jerk has closed the Safe-House door on you
-quit game and punch monitor

And Descent was just:
-fly through corridor
-check behind you
-shoot robot that spawned in Matcen behind you
-check in front of you
-shoot robot that decloaked in front of you
-fly forward
-turn corner
-shoot Medium Lifter off of self
-run away from Fusion Hulk
-get killed because jerk level designer has locked the door behind you
-quit game and punch monitor

...okay, so I'm an ass. The point still stands, though. You can break any game down into a series of menial, repetitive tasks, even one you love dearly, but that's kind of not seeing the forest through the trees. All I know is that this thread made me very excited about a game I didn't know all that much about to begin with. The people posting in there aren't prone to delivering undeserved praise in the least, so when they start to wax poetic about something, I sit up and take notice.

I've watched a few hours of Left for Dead gameplay. The co-op looks fun, albeit a little mediocre but by far not the easiest game around. What I miss more than games in general is the socializing with friends on voice chat and generally going crazy.

Top Gun wrote:

ghhyrd wrote: *Pukes*

Left 4 Dead was just-
-run through corridor
-check behind you
-shoot zombie that spawned behind you
-check in front you you
-shoot zombie that spawned infront of you
-run forward
-turn corner
-shoot zombie off of friend
-run away from big zombie
-get killed because jerk has closed the Safe-House door on you
-quit game and punch monitor

And Descent was just:
-fly through corridor
-check behind you
-shoot robot that spawned in Matcen behind you
-check in front of you
-shoot robot that decloaked in front of you
-fly forward
-turn corner
-shoot Medium Lifter off of self
-run away from Fusion Hulk
-get killed because jerk level designer has locked the door behind you
-quit game and punch monitor

How can you possibly use that as a comparison when Descent is more than a decade older? It would have had to have been more simple, considering it's age, or at least L4D could have been more advanced.

Also Hunter, in my experience it really isn't too hard at all. I used to play it with my group, and we had one particular guy who, on the first level on expert, would kill all the other survivors, then complete the entire level on his own, setting off every car alarm, attracting as many zombies as possible, and then still getting to the safe room at the end alive.

I can use it as a comparison because any single game on the planet can be broken down into a series of very simple basic mechanics. If you're going to criticize Left 4 Dead for that property, you'd have to criticize every one of your favorite titles as well. And there's no reason that an older game has to be necessarily more simple; just going by genre conventions alone, even a fifteen-year-old RPG would be more mechanically complex than a modern FPS. Besides, that sort of simplicity in gameplay is probably why L4D has received so much praise. Again, I've never played it myself, so I don't have a personal opinion either way.

Arguably any good game should be able to be broken into a small set of tasks, otherwise it'd be incomprehensible. Of course, it's the meta-detail of those individual tasks which counts for gameplay - both Doom and Half Life are essentially 'go from A to B, shoot bad guys' concepts.

For every one golden game that has been released there are ten that are mediocre and five that are just crap. (disclaimer: Made up proportions, but more or less reflect the real life situation)

Been that way since the original Atari.

Sturgeon's Law.