n_gulati at hotmail dot com. 

 

I haven't played Portal (or HL2 for that matter).
Portal looks like ugly box rooms. I'll give it a shot one day though. 

yes, portal is ugly box rooms. that said, it's somewhat necessary for the puzzles and it's a consistent theme of the game. 

:p

The test chambers are boxxy, but it's the puzzles and GLaDOS' personality that really make portal a fun game. 

The rooms are boxy, but I wouldn't say the are ugly. It's minimalist and fits with the rest of the game, they are believable, nothing ever seemed ugly to me as I played it.
Portal 2 looks gorgeous. 

Portal is a beautiful game :) 

much appreciated. I might finally play it. Although I still havent played HL 2, and sleepy gifted me that years ago :) 

Is a massive temptation.

Portal1 is well worth the effort, it last about an hour and is very well realised. 

Yeah I know, I was being more general in the statement. Good games generally have a level of polish to them that bad games don't - and thats on art/design/tech. 

is a massive disappointment.

Portal is nice! 

Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Yay or Nay? 

 

17 seconds. And you dont even have a computer! 

In modern Tomb Raider games does Lara still control like she's a fucking tractor? :p 

Underworld is pretty cool, though be warned the flame effects in the first level for some reason brings my framerate to a slow crawl. This is weird because it is literally just some small corridors, whereas later it renders huge, open, magnificent, gorgeous vistas without a hitch. Just so you know and don't dismiss it on the first level.

Actually Tomb Raider Anniversary is my favourite of the reboots, because it has that same great underemphasis on combat as the original did. 

will pick it up.

thanks czg. 

about HL2? 

http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=23795&start=3177

each to their own though, i absolutely love it 

and me asking then as well. hahaha.
I loved it when I played it, feel pretty good about it now. Liked episode 1 quite a bit, enjoyed episode 2 less for some reason I forget, and dislike the way the story is going.

Prefer HL1. 

and dislike the way the story is going.

yes, i feel this way too. i really do not like the direction that ep2 hints at (nor ep2 in a general sense).

hl2 for me was always about urban maps. for me, the parts that i enjoyed the least in hl2/ep1/ep2 were the maps that were NOT city17.

hl2 starts with city17 followed by a very cool extended chase sequence as you exit the city. you stumble on all these great locales-- post-ap shanty towns in drainage canals, rebel outposts, just plain abandoned areas you know no one's visited in years... all these great urban areas like out of an urban exploration blog.

i guess that's why i liked ep1 so much-- it's entirely in city17.
ep2 seemed like the beginning of an downward spiral as city17 is wiped off the map.
some cool parts in the mill/mine, but then we get boring caves. then we get a bit more factory type stuff, then the long drive through hillsides and the final battle takes place in kind of boring looking mountainous region.

ep2 ends and seems to point us to the antarctic or whatever where that ship is. so it looks like, either ep3 will have us spend a bit of time out in the country before we somehow get to that ship, or we'll just be teleported there and spend the entire episode there. which... i dunno, isn't really all that appealing to me. 

Be disappointed if theres another wanky super weapon ending to round it off.

Lots of environments stick out for me - city17 (metro right at the start especially), prison, beach / coastal, sandlion beach road and so on.

The best bits were probably the industrial sections though. 

Caves were uninspired. 

I thought Episode 2 lacked 'filler'. It felt like short set pieces bolted together with not enough simple run and gun to rattle through
yeah I think filler is a very good thing :E

Also those ant-lion caves were seriously too long, and Alyx just got irritating. EVERY time the player does something, she stops just short of kissing your pecker. Enough with the NPC 'OMG you're AMAZING!!' shit, I'm not four.

Oh and the car was way better than the buggy but then they don't let you enjoy it. In Highway 17 you had stretches you could bomb down, areas to explore at your leisure etc. In Ep2, alyx + the tighter design + that stupid beeping supplies thing meant you couldn't just chill out in the same way, you're constantly getting little pokes from the game to stop, go this way etc (yeah I know you can ignore it but I just wish it wasn't there).

...I loved episode 1 for the fact it didn't do a lot of this stuff. The hospital section for example was a fantastic bit of simple combat fun :E 

i did actually prefer ep2 to ep1 but i can agree about the lack of filler. and to some extent the antlion caves, which got a little tiresome after a while. but the finale was probably the most fun i've had playing any shooter game ever, and i generally loved the forest/mountain settings throughout, especially the setpieces like the falling bridge, that massive wide shot of a destroyed city 17 or when you see the armies advancing to white forest in the distance. loved the vortigaunt/gman twists in the story too and looking forward to where things are headed

ep1 was good but it pretty much felt like 'more of the same' and i was kinda relieved to finally escape the city at the end; any more and it would have dragged a bit

i have a feeling ep3 (if it ever comes) is going to be much bigger. i am so booking a few days off work and queuing outside GAME at midnight XD


i was never a *massive* fan of HL1... still liked it but could never see why such a huge fuss was made about it. tried replaying it after HL2 and found the gameplay much more frustrating in several places. and the story felt kind of random until this site helped tie it in. never got round to checking out opposing force or blue shift though, annoyingly as i have as part of the generation pack but have lost my cd key :(