Blogs - Erykgecko

Today I was lazy...

I sat and watched Oldskool Dr Who Episodes, Original Darleks FTW!

But enough about that, Welcome to my Developers Blog, hopefully this will help keep me on track an inspired about the mod enough to see it through to completion.

Since I havent done anything today, there will be no real update in this one other than a basic guideline of what needs doing.

hud and knives are coded, I'm going to get the coder to start on the mike gun :D

woot!

Ok, So I just completed episode 2, Now despite making the best effort I can to fully understand the hl2 engine and mod it to the best of my abilities, I've always felt very let down by hl2, don't get me wrong, i played both hl2 and episode 1 through to the end, I bought both as soon as they came out, but i always left feeling very let down by it all, For most of hl2 I was running around trying to figure out what the hell had happened since hl1, I guess that was the intention, but still, everyones treating gordon like some mythical unkillable hero and stuff and I as gordon was simply running around the country side thinking to myself wtf? whats happened here, whats going on, over and over. I was also unimpressed by the whole driving debaucle, its like, this is a fps, not grand turismo.

I somewhat foolishly thought episode one would give me back that which I had lost while playing hl2, unfortunatly it didnt, it simply felt like a continuation of hl2, nothing new was brought to the table, instead it felt like they got halfway through production and then were like, well gee, we supposed to release this in a week and we havent finished it yet, I know, lets just cut the end off and add it on later under the guise of a continuing series... clever, but still ultimatly unsatisfying for me...

so it was with great trepidation that I finally allowed myself to buy the orange box a couple of weeks after it was released, and I wont lie, it was mainly just to play portal, and tf2, both of which are outstanding I have to say, and thoroughly enjoyable games to play. and so episode 2 sat untouched, undownloaded, just waiting to be activated in my steam list, and finally, a few days ago, while bored, I finally set out to continue the story.

 I have to say...

 I was really surprised. I actually enjoyed episode 2 a hell of a lot more than hl2 and ep1. I'm not sure what exactly it was about it, but it just felt right, they still managed to throw in the driving scenes, but somehow they felt a lot more balanced this time around, I felt like i was driving for a purpose. I felt like I knew what I was doing and why, I wasn't just running around aimlessly shooting combine after combine, and the whole thing just felt a lot more... I dunno, polished. and with the addition of the hunters, it felt like valve had actually gone back and made an effort this time. The addition of the acheivements like in portal and tf2 also helped, it gave me something to focus on, and i just find it regrettable that it's not there in hl2.

All in all, it's left me a little shaken up. I feel like I may have been a bit harsh on hl2 and ep1 and I feel like i should go back and replay them, maybe knowning what I know now will make it a wholly more enjoyable experience, but then again, maybe it won't maybe i'm just setting myself up to be disappointed again... and do I want to risk that when I could be spending my time on other things such as Brainbread Source?

I guess only time will tell.