'You picked up four 5.56m Jacketed Hollow Point rounds for your M24A SOCOM X-4F Elite ranger 4.4344443434 27n gunwank carbine.'

No the names do matter, but they aren't the big deal being made of them. If the Authority had been introduced properly, had some proper backstory and a build up of threat it would have been a sore point but easily forgotten. The fact they weren't means that the name now stands out, because it's the ONLY thing we know about them.

Half-Life 2 and the Combine had a mystery about it that was interesting, and you encountered a lot of their activities, so the boring name didn't mean anything because it was drowned out by the other stuff.

Given the same company gave us the 'Strogg', I'm not sure I care about basic names in games. At least it allows us to avoid having to read about the shimbogs and their leader flobblewobble's involvement in the yuktuk wars of timblemin-minor against the savage tribe rrr-thuk-rgggrg. Because that's the shit we'd end up with. 

The Combine is actually a good name. A combine, used in farming, is a great metaphor for what they did to Earth. Someone put some thought into that and it works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combine_harvester

Also, there's the aliens and humans working together in combination angle. 

Quick Mercenaries 2 review. Bit of a shit game, 5/10. I was expecting a short, cool, fps. Got an open world, third person RPG/shooter reminiscent of Saints Row 2, only worse.

http://www.etherealhell.com/etherealhell/reviews/2012/mercenaries2.php 

some old propaganda and propaganda posters referred to nazi forces as a giant combine tearing up the earth, if I recall correctly. Art depicted a giant combine with a swastika instead of the rotating blades churning up the countryside. 

Thanks to Spirit, the DICK, I'm kind of replaying it again (the "portable" version). So great. People usually credit SS2, but the first one has more atmosphere imo. Maybe because of the low res textures and sprites. Quite nonlinear and explorative gameplay, even secret doors and areas. And with the pistols you can even rapid-fire like in HL if your trigger/mousefinger allows it. Just cleared the medical deck - didn't remember there were so many reinforcement mutants.

The standard controls take some getting used to, but it can (and should) be set to play like Doom. Spirit: I found out that E enables mouselook. It's a good idea to check out the reference card, although some standard key are remapped in the WASD config. 

Even in this day and age. 

that's what you get for not liking deus ex.

thanks! 

crosspostin' from rub2 thread.

Than said: By the way, this is perhaps warrant for discussion in itself, but are there any modern games that have this kind of level design (or design similar to typical Quake maps)? I can't think of a single game, but I haven't played that many recently; SS3, Duke, Bulletstorm and Rage are about the only shooters I played recently, and none of them had particularly interesting level layouts or vertical maps. Level design seems really dumbed down these days, or has very different objectives at least.

It's a shame but I think the sad truth of the matter is that the majority of the games-buying public nowadays have the attention spans of gnats (can't really say that in a way that doesn't sound snobbish - I appreciate there are a lot of nice people who play games who simply have limited time and just want some quick, easy, turn-your-brain-off action), and the more opportunities you give the player to be off the beaten track, the more likely it is they get lost, confused or whatever - even if only briefly - but it makes them respond less favourably to the game.

Back in the "good old days", gamers I think were a hell of a lot geekier and more patient and more interested in exploring sadistic maze-like levels. These gamers are still around of course; they're us! But sadly us wrinkly grey old farts now make up only a small fraction of the market base, and it's no longer financially viable to make games for us any more.

(normal Kinn disclaimers apply; the above is likely to contain random splatterings of bullshit/hyperbole which you may ignore as appropriate/to taste). 

Got to disagree, a lot of old games were badly designed and there were not that many to choose from. So we all endured the repetitive nature of 'old' game design. Fighting awkward control scheme's, obtuse UI layouts and getting lost because the designers believed in mind reading are not reasons to celebrate, but simply rose tinted glasses of a time when we were young and did not know otherwise.

Not all new games are shallow in depth or detail and there are plenty to find but everyone man and his dog is making games nowadays and finding stuff is a lot harder. Games nowadays are easier to pick up and play and cater towards certain groups of people better. I am sure there will be some weird backlash to current game design eventually and we will go retro again! :) 

was more about why I think games such as shooters have gone largely from non-linear to linear, rather than from badly-designed to well-designed.

I fully agree that a lot of old games had terrible level design, and even I avoided them. I couldn't stomach more than I think 2 levels of Hexen II, for example. 

Was terrible. Simply awful level design imho. 

http://i40.tinypic.com/2hydpic.jpg 

it's funny - i hate getting lost, but I love non-linear level design. My favourite levels in any sort of game are the ones where you have multiple objectives/routes from the start, and you can visit them in any order. Even if the choice of which one to tackle first is not a meaningful choice, I still love the feeling of freedom it gives. I suppose I am exactly the sort of audience for games that give you a map - go wherever the hell you want, but here's a map so you never get lost. 

Having multiple paths cost development / testing time which ultimately cost money. I remember working on a certain game and we wanted several paths through a level, it would have been so cool. We were told no because it would have meant extra time for QA to test it, extra time for Art to create additional assets and coders were not happy because it meant a larger file size (DVDs are not endless space apparently!)

Even after all those arguments we were told no from the publisher! Choice is an awesome concept but it costs time and not every developer / publisher can afford it.

I am sure if you speak to any developer about extra routes, choice, non-linear play and most will agree it is awesome but nowadays games are too complex to create / make even without the extra stuff. That is not to say all games are linear, some still exist but they are rare. 

...Which leads me to a question.

What do people think about the objective arrow system used in games like Oblivion and Skyrim - where you have little direction indicators at the top of the screen telling you where to head, letting the designer just plonk you in any environment and know you won't get lost.

The reason I ask is this: would I be chased into the night with pitchforks and shovels if I was to make a Quake level that was basically "press X buttons in the level lol", but was really non-linear/free-roaming and it used some sort of objective arrow system? (i don't know yet what this would be, whether it's something floating in front of player to appear as if it's on his HUD (yuk), or something a bit more subtle - maybe some sort of texture with arrows on that you find on walls or floors in junctions, but the arrow(s) can change to point in different directions depending on your objective(s)). Is this an awful idea? 

maybe some sort of texture with arrows on that you find on walls or floors in junctions, but the arrow(s) can change to point in different directions depending on your objective(s))

I think the dm456sp by negke did exactly that, and it was okay (aka not overly coercive (then again how the fuck is an arrow not ever coercive?)). 

i think the issue here is that you only want arrows when the player gets lost, and the player's realisation that he's lost generally comes when he gets to a junction and thinks "which bloody corridor do I go down to get back to the sodding GK door?" If I identified some important junctions and placed dynamic arrows there, I guess it could work. 

dynamic arrows

What if the arrows were written on wheels, and you could actually see some of them hiprotate when you press a button?? 

kinn: just try it and see how it goes.
i'd argue it might be better if you could work these "arrows" into the map itself... so like a visible building with something like lightning or flames or something to communicate that that place is important somehow. 

For some reason I did not care about the pacman dot trail in Fable 2 or the markers on the map / compass in Skyrim. I just wanted to get to the location and do what I was suppose to do, fight, find loot and have fun.

If you want to be clever then build your anti-getting-lost system with good art. Like have runes that change to obvious directions after a timer when the player is in an area. I am always disappointed with Quake levels that have arrows pointing somewhere because the design is saying go a different direction.

This is a classic thing to do in SP design btw, player enters area, timer starts, then hints start to appear in the environment or HUD. I would suggest decals and cool shader effects then I remembered it was Q1, but you could be clever with movers or sound. 

You could also use lights. As the level progresses, you could turn off some fill lights in specific corridors where you don't want the payer to go anymore. Nothing major, but we naturally gravitate towards areas with more light in them so it might be subtle enough to work... 

@Kinn, I know I probably made you run to the hills with my crazy email about textures but have you decided what art style you are going with? It will ultimately help with your method of trying to give the player directions. 

This is a classic thing to do in SP design btw, player enters area, timer starts, then hints start to appear in the environment or HUD. I would suggest decals and cool shader effects then I remembered it was Q1, but you could be clever with movers or sound.

that's interesting... a progressive hint system. 

I'd put in an arrow or some kind of primitive radar for the UI, as being obvious is a lesser evil to the player getting totally lost. You can still make the directions fairly vague, but just make sure the player has some idea of their progress (ie how many things they have left to collect/activate etc) and general hints on where to go.

I really think Serious Sam 3 has some great levels in it, surprisingly intricate with cool fights, but it really needed Painkiller's arrow to tell you where to go because arenas could be so big with lots of buildings and after fighting for ten minutes you lost track of where you entered and where you were supposed to go.

Also generally as graphics get more detailed I find games are getting less and less effective at pointing out where to go through architectural or lighting cues (though this could also just be that they've stopped trying and just put a UI marker in. I reckon L4D did very well in giving general hints as to where to go through lighting, but not making it too obvious so progress wasn't instant and in fire-fights you could still loose your sense of location.

Rage had some cool levels and some dull ones. The level in the abandoned brewery where you climbed all around the vats and fought mutants climbing up the walls was fun I though :E 

I always think it's a bad sign when you're looking for the way to proceed, find a corridor or jump or something, and find out it's actually a secret :p