Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On 11/15/2024 7:31 PM, Ant wrote:

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's >>> talk about those days!

I decided to see what I wrote about the game back 'in the day'. TODAY
I remember not being that impressed, but was that really the case in
2004? Am I just looking back at it with dung-colored glasses? I had to
find out.

Because "Half Life 2" came out before we started our traditional 'what
have you been playing' threads, I don't really have a review for it
the same way I have for many later games.

[In fact, the controversy about Steam is what prompted the
creation of that endless thread, as a break from people
constantly bickering about it. But even so, it was _years_
before I tormented people with my novel-length essays about
each games, so even had I written an end-of-month review
about Half Life 2 at the time, it probably only would have
been a sentence or two. Oh, how times have changed!]

Still, I did dig out my initial thoughts of the game when I finally
did play it in March 2005:

Well, enough. Half Life 2 eventually installed. For all that
trouble, I can't say I'm THAT impressed. Oh, so far it's nice
and all, but hardly revolutionary. The physics gun is neat,
but c'mon, we've seen similar stuff before (hell, its basically
just an evolution of Trespasser's jiggly arm!). The graphics
are nice, but not exceptional (except for the G-Man in the
intro; now THAT blew me away. Awesome facial animation). Lots
of atmosphere, not much substance so far. Linear levels. Very
good game, but heads 'n' shoulder above the rest? Not so far.
Oh well, maybe the good stuff happens later on.

A month later, having finished the game, I also commented:

Having said all that, while Half Life 2 has an interesting
backstory, the actual drama you play through is very weak;
it's about at the same level as Doom (the original!)
level as Doom (the original!), practically

So it's not just me being curmudgeonly today; I didn't think much of
the game when it was new either. Which just goes to prove that I've
been a grump for a long, long time ;-)

Are you looking at your saved local posts?! Or are those online? I miss DejaNews! :(
--
"Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." --Hebrews 11:16. I wanna move 2 there. "Rise & shine, Mr. Freeman..." HL2 is 20 yrs. old!
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On 22/11/2024 21:34, Zaghadka wrote:

When Jeff Gerstmann was fired, some 3 years later*, for failing to give a good review to a corporate partnership game, my opinion was sealed.

https://bit.ly/4fWpZmn

(The bookmark link on Wikipedia had problems with pasting. So bit.ly)

I thank Dan Adams for giving me the heads up.

I'm pretty sure it does happen so to me the question is how prevalent it
is and how explicit. So two examples from UK newspapers. Sources at The
Times (Murdoch owned) have said although they wouldn't be told directly
which stories where acceptable there was an understanding of no making
the owner look bad. The court case involving another Murdoch title, The
News of The World, was conspicuous underplayed in The Times even though
it was headline news.

The Daily Mail is quite different in that there the editorial staff are
told what they should be running with to create the whole narrative of
baton down the hatches as society is collapsing so the only solution is
to give more money to rich people.

I assume that this type of 'direction' also happens in games magazines
and has only got worse since the balance between money from actual sales
and the adverts in 'magazines' has shifted almost completely to the
latter. It's one of the reasons I rely more and more on Steam reviews
and not a professional review pointing out how mundane the game is, all
the bugs, technical issues etc. but still giving it 8.5/10.

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Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

On Sat, 16 Nov 2024 03:31:13 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Ant >wrote:

<snip>

My first HL2 memory was Dan Adams' _second_ paragraph in his pc.ign.com >review:

Before I really get into the review, you should know the background of
how this game was reviewed. Valve did not want to send out copies of
their game (for fairly obvious reasons) before it was released to the >>public. In order to play the game, I, and several of my colleagues >>throughout the industry, took a trip up to Seattle to visit Valve in
order to have some private time with the title. I was given a little
room to myself where I could close the door, turn off the lights, click
my little red slippers, and pretend that I was sitting at home. It worked >>for the most part, largely because I was so engrossed with the game that >>when I came out of my trance I often had to take a moment to get my >>bearings. Obviously, Valve was happy to bring me into a controlled >>environment for ideal playing conditions.

This is of course after the first paragraph, which gushed "[HL2 is] the
best single-player shooter ever released for the PC..." Yet strangely
claimed later in the same paragraph that "...[HL2] doesn't do anything >particularly new; it doesn't really innovate..."

Despite its touted physics and all the advertised eye candy. Hmm.

I thought, "That sounds like a conflict of interest."

Not really a conflict at all.
You can not innovate, but do what's been done before, only better than
it's ever been done before.

IE you took an existing thing and utterly perfected it, without actually
adding anything new.

I never thought HL2 was all that, far too on rails for my tastes.

The original HL was also on rails, but somehow it never managed to
*feel* like it was on rails, HL2 failed at that.

Xocyll

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On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 11:36:25 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

But part of the problem also lies with the audience, who /demand/ day
one reviews. The only way this is possible is if the reviewers are in
direct contact with the publishers, which leads to a worry about
LOSING that contact if the reviewers say the wrong thing. And even if
the reviewers are trying to be objective and avoiding this sort of
conflict of interest, the very fact that they have to rush to get
their review out to meet the publisher's release date (often running >pre-release code to boot!) is problematic. Gamers' obsession with
getting the game right away is part of the problem.

Exactly. In the afforementioned article I wrote about Gerstmann, this was
my primary point. The main problem was the audience, not the
publications. To wit:

What is at issue is credibility and the collected ire of the
readership. The perceived integrity of the gaming publications
business is clearly not in good shape. This is independent of its actual >integrity, which is fine, given the audiences the publications are
serving. It seems that a large portion its audience is ready and
willing to believe that publications and editors have given up
integrity in the name of more profitable relationships with their
sponsors. When the public faith in game reviewers is at that sort of
low, it doesn't matter if there is journalistic integrity or not.
Readers will believe anything they want about the subject, _a priori_.

As you say, the audience demanded too much. Then they turned on the publications when they couldn't keep up. Then they turned to Ben
"Yahtzee" Croshaw, who was constantly taking the piss but was thought to
give "honest" reviews.

I didn't get what I deserved, but the royal "we" sure did. Actual
corruption took root eventually.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

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On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:02:41 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Xocyll wrote:

Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> said:

On Sat, 16 Nov 2024 03:31:13 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Ant >>wrote:

<snip>

My first HL2 memory was Dan Adams' _second_ paragraph in his pc.ign.com >>review:

Before I really get into the review, you should know the background of >>>how this game was reviewed. Valve did not want to send out copies of >>>their game (for fairly obvious reasons) before it was released to the >>>public. In order to play the game, I, and several of my colleagues >>>throughout the industry, took a trip up to Seattle to visit Valve in >>>order to have some private time with the title. I was given a little
room to myself where I could close the door, turn off the lights, click >>>my little red slippers, and pretend that I was sitting at home. It worked >>>for the most part, largely because I was so engrossed with the game that >>>when I came out of my trance I often had to take a moment to get my >>>bearings. Obviously, Valve was happy to bring me into a controlled >>>environment for ideal playing conditions.

This is of course after the first paragraph, which gushed "[HL2 is] the >>best single-player shooter ever released for the PC..." Yet strangely >>claimed later in the same paragraph that "...[HL2] doesn't do anything >>particularly new; it doesn't really innovate..."

Despite its touted physics and all the advertised eye candy. Hmm.

I thought, "That sounds like a conflict of interest."

Not really a conflict at all.

Sitting in a campus playing on bleeding-edge hardware, in a controlled, sound-proofed space, with corporate handlers guiding you (and probably
gifting you a case of Code Red) is not a conflict? As an independent
journalist that is the definition of a conflict of interest. For
instance, Dan was playing at 1280x720... in _2004_.

There's a reason why _Consumer Reports_ runs on subscriptions and not
ads. Additionally, they are very hard line about *consistent* testing
standards for all products in a review class in a particular year.

They demonstrate the way to run an independent evaluation. For a games publication? Do it on your own equipment, which should be stock equipment representative of what most people have, in your own building, and
absolutely no ad money from anyone you review. Maybe no one related to
gaming at all. If you're advertising graphics hardware, you're probably
pushing bleeding-edge tech in your reviews to enhance the upgrade cycle.

I think the most important and informative service Steam has is the
annual technology polling, where you get to find out who has what. Very,
very few are on the bleeding edge. Mostly professional gamers,
competitive gamers, and people with more disposable income than sense.

Hardware is king when it comes to a proper PC Master Race experience, but
it doesn't have to be pimp.

You can not innovate, but do what's been done before, only better than
it's ever been done before.

IE you took an existing thing and utterly perfected it, without actually >adding anything new.

I never thought HL2 was all that, far too on rails for my tastes.

Exactly. "Doesn't innovate" means exactly that, and probably more.
Therefore, not only a conflict of interest in the testing process but an oxymoronic contradiction in terms as a result.

I mean it's opinion, so almost anything goes, but there's a limit.

The original HL was also on rails, but somehow it never managed to
*feel* like it was on rails, HL2 failed at that.

Yup. When I finally got around to playing HL2 I felt it was downright claustrophobic. Level complexity was sacrificed for graphics complexity.
At times HL2 felt like a series of quicktime events. Or cheap set pieces: Here's an unlimited box of grenades; here's a bridge; throw them now or
die.

But a lot of Half-Life fans wanted a cinematic experience in the sequel.
They got it. They got breathtaking, for the period, graphics and a
complete narrative experience. (Though IMO mediocre. Game writers at the
time were not great. See: Knights of the Old Republic.)

So, imo, Valve ran with Half-Life as if the only thing that made it
special was its cinematic feeling. The tram ride. The storytelling as
part of gameplay. The chapters. It did make the original special, but the gameplay was just as important.

The set pieces in HL1 (e.g.: the helicopter) were interactive, difficult, featured innovative gameplay at the time, and were less stagey. You had recently received the weapons to deal with them, but they weren't sitting
at the door in a box because the levels were larger. You had to _decide_
how to use them. Perhaps the illusion of agency, but agency nonetheless.

Personally, I thought they doubled down on the wrong thing and could have sacrificed some graphics, to the same effect, to enhance play.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

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On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 17:50:06 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Certainly readers don't really seem to care.

Pretty much my point in a nutshell. That's the TL;DR.

If the readership doesn't care, the publication _can't_ care. If the
readership starts questioning the integrity of the product? Eventually
the publisher must chuck integrity in the bin and make a buck however it
can. There's no point in spending money on it if no one believes it.

IMO, we were all better off with the *Nintendo Power* approach. Today, I
get much better information out of my Switch's patron news service than I
ever did out of pc.ign.com.

That's because there's no doubt as to what it does and doesn't do.


--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

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XPost: alt.games.half-life, alt.games.halflife, alt.games.half-life2

On 16/11/2024 14:11, Justisaur wrote:

Anyways, I remember playing this game over my Thanksgiving weekend. It
was amazing! Very smooth, pretty, and fun! I don't remember how long it
took me to finish it. It was a great sequel. Of course years later,
episodes 1 and 2 (The Orange Box -- will talk about that in three
years). I don't have and want a VR to play Alyx. 🙁

What about the rest of you?

I remember playing it, headcrabs, ships in the air, the guy and his daughter.  I didn't particularly care for it either, though I did finish it.  I've never had any inclination to replay it.  That's about it.

I hadn't discovered the comp. anything yet so I don't have any thoughts recorded.  The first comment I had about was in 2006 replying in a
thread about your favorite games, including of each category in .rpg to Knight37 & tussock.  (even back then we weren't too focused on keeping
it to rpgs in that group)

Obviously not as groundbreaking as HL:1 but I still feel it's a very
good game but doesn't meet the bar of my all time classics, HL:1 does
though. One thing I think it does really well is that levels have their
own feel both in terms of gameplay and environment. That means it's one
of the few games that I played to the end and wasn't already in the
territory of not enjoying it that much but just playing on to see the end.

I still have my bouts every few years of replaying it and both episodes.
See also HL:1, Blueshift and Opposing Forces!

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XPost: alt.games.half-life, alt.games.halflife, alt.games.half-life2

On 16/11/2024 14:11, Justisaur wrote:

Anyways, I remember playing this game over my Thanksgiving weekend. It
was amazing! Very smooth, pretty, and fun! I don't remember how long it
took me to finish it. It was a great sequel. Of course years later,
episodes 1 and 2 (The Orange Box -- will talk about that in three
years). I don't have and want a VR to play Alyx. 🙁

What about the rest of you?

I remember playing it, headcrabs, ships in the air, the guy and his daughter.  I didn't particularly care for it either, though I did finish it.  I've never had any inclination to replay it.  That's about it.

I hadn't discovered the comp. anything yet so I don't have any thoughts recorded.  The first comment I had about was in 2006 replying in a
thread about your favorite games, including of each category in .rpg to Knight37 & tussock.  (even back then we weren't too focused on keeping
it to rpgs in that group)

Obviously not as groundbreaking as HL:1 but I still feel it's a very
good game but doesn't meet the bar of my all time classics, HL:1 does
though. One thing I think it does really well is that levels have their
own feel both in terms of gameplay and environment. That means it's one
of the few games that I played to the end and wasn't already in the
territory of not enjoying it that much but just playing on to see the end.

I still have my bouts every few years of replaying it and both episodes.
See also HL:1, Blueshift and Opposing Forces!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 17 Nov 2024 01:03:45 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Are you looking at your saved local posts?! Or are those online? I miss DejaNews! :(

It's all local. (I have a spreadsheet!* ;-)

Wow. You keep track of everything locally, don't you? ;-)

I mean, you can probably find them on narkive.com too if you dig
deeply enough. AFAIK it doesn't have a search feature though, so
you'll just have to keep adding older posts until you get to 2005. It
may take a few hours (days) but for something so important, I'm sure
you have the time ;-)

More realistically, you can still search Google's Usenet archives too,
on Google Groups. They aren't /updated/ past Feb 22 2024, but all the
older content is still there. It's useless for browsing though, since
Google didn't filter out any of the spam. But if you have an idea of
what you're looking for, it's probably findable.

Ugh. See, this is why I miss DejaNews. Heck, Google Groups could in its
early days before it got worse. And why does https://groups.google.com
require me to log in? Frak that.

* not actually a spreadsheet

Oh, you pecker. :P
--
"[The Lord said] 'Woe to the worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! May his arm be completely withered, his right eye totally blinded!'" --Zechariah 11:17. Winter nights with a missing favorite chicken!
"The spice must flow."
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/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
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Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:02:41 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Xocyll wrote:

Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> said:

On Sat, 16 Nov 2024 03:31:13 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Ant >>>wrote:

<snip>

My first HL2 memory was Dan Adams' _second_ paragraph in his pc.ign.com >>>review:

Before I really get into the review, you should know the background of >>>>how this game was reviewed. Valve did not want to send out copies of >>>>their game (for fairly obvious reasons) before it was released to the >>>>public. In order to play the game, I, and several of my colleagues >>>>throughout the industry, took a trip up to Seattle to visit Valve in >>>>order to have some private time with the title. I was given a little >>>>room to myself where I could close the door, turn off the lights, click >>>>my little red slippers, and pretend that I was sitting at home. It worked >>>>for the most part, largely because I was so engrossed with the game that >>>>when I came out of my trance I often had to take a moment to get my >>>>bearings. Obviously, Valve was happy to bring me into a controlled >>>>environment for ideal playing conditions.

This is of course after the first paragraph, which gushed "[HL2 is] the >>>best single-player shooter ever released for the PC..." Yet strangely >>>claimed later in the same paragraph that "...[HL2] doesn't do anything >>>particularly new; it doesn't really innovate..."

Despite its touted physics and all the advertised eye candy. Hmm.

I thought, "That sounds like a conflict of interest."

Not really a conflict at all.

Sitting in a campus playing on bleeding-edge hardware, in a controlled, >sound-proofed space, with corporate handlers guiding you (and probably >gifting you a case of Code Red) is not a conflict? As an independent >journalist that is the definition of a conflict of interest. For
instance, Dan was playing at 1280x720... in _2004_.

You missed my point; I was not talking about a conflict of interest
between game publisher and reviewer, but of the 2 statements.
1. that it did not innovate and
2. "This is of course after the first paragraph, which gushed "[HL2 is]
the best single-player shooter ever released for the PC"

And there is no conflict between the two.
You can be the best single-player shooter and not innovate at the same
time - you just refine the single-player shooter experience without
adding anything new.

A new game does not have to break new ground, if it can go over well
trodden ground in the best way possible.

<snip>

Not unlike a TV show or a Detective novel or so many other things, you
can redo what's been done before, better than it's ever been done
before.

Go to a new steakhouse and get a pepper steak that's the best you've
ever had, even though you've been eating them for 40 years.


Xocyll

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On 23/11/2024 16:36, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Not that user reviews are without their own problems, of course.
They're, individually, just as easily manipulated, and even the ones
that are written in earnest, a lot of them lack objectivity or any
sort of real analysis. But the sheer number of them means that_some_
of them are going to be honest and trustworthy. Which is more than you
can say about professional reviews.

That's kinda what I like about them. Yes there lot's of dross ones that
don't really say anything but you still get ones that do expand on what
they found was good/bad beyond awesome/complete pants. My least
favourite review, ones that review it against this is what someone
wanted the game to be and not this is the game that the devs. were
trying to make. So no, you shouldn't give Shadow Gambit:The Curse Crew a
bad review as it's not Commandos. I'm not even going to mention the I've
never played the game but I saw a talking head on YouTube saying it's
woke (whatever that actually means) crowd.

Possibly a failing of them is that if people on Steam are generally
anything like me there's a bias towards reviews that either are this is
just really bad or this is just really good. Who's going to spend time
writing a page of text for well it's ok I suppose.

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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 18 Nov 2024 01:06:32 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 17 Nov 2024 01:03:45 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Are you looking at your saved local posts?! Or are those online? I miss DejaNews! :(

It's all local. (I have a spreadsheet!* ;-)

Wow. You keep track of everything locally, don't you? ;-)

Ugh. See, this is why I miss DejaNews. Heck, Google Groups could in its >early days before it got worse. And why does https://groups.google.com >require me to log in? Frak that.

Google was always awful in comparison to Deja News, and only got worse
as the years rolled on. But it got terrible once they rolled Usenet
into their whole Groups interface; it polluted both streams and I
don't think it made users of either platform happier for the
intersection.

Still, I was surprised to see how much spam was on c.s.i.p.g.action, according to Google. Almost all of that got filtered server-side for
me and it was rare that any snuck through so it actually ended up on
my client. Of course, Google could have filtered it too, but I guess
since most of it was /coming/ from Google groups users, that might
have been a conflict of interest.

Narkive is pretty good, although I do wish they had the ability to
better locate articles. The lack is forgivable though, since that
would likely require a lot more CPU and bandwidth, and I suspect the
site is already run on a shoestring.

* not actually a spreadsheet

Oh, you pecker. :P

Would it make you feel better if I told you it was a five-gigabyte MS
Access database?* ;-)

Geez. Big.

* I don't actually use a database either. If you must know, it's all
just a bunch of plain text files stored in a ZIP** archive.

5 GB of text files? Impressive. I am also an old school basic text files
too.

** okay, it's a 7Z archive ;-)

How big in total decompressed?
--
"When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, 'So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.'" --Acts 11:18. Chicken & King R 2 far!
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On 11/18/2024 6:42 PM, Ant wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 18 Nov 2024 01:06:32 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 17 Nov 2024 01:03:45 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Are you looking at your saved local posts?! Or are those online? I miss DejaNews! :(

It's all local. (I have a spreadsheet!* ;-)

Wow. You keep track of everything locally, don't you? ;-)

Ugh. See, this is why I miss DejaNews. Heck, Google Groups could in its
early days before it got worse. And why does https://groups.google.com
require me to log in? Frak that.

Google was always awful in comparison to Deja News, and only got worse
as the years rolled on. But it got terrible once they rolled Usenet
into their whole Groups interface; it polluted both streams and I
don't think it made users of either platform happier for the
intersection.

Still, I was surprised to see how much spam was on c.s.i.p.g.action,
according to Google. Almost all of that got filtered server-side for
me and it was rare that any snuck through so it actually ended up on
my client. Of course, Google could have filtered it too, but I guess
since most of it was /coming/ from Google groups users, that might
have been a conflict of interest.

Narkive is pretty good, although I do wish they had the ability to
better locate articles. The lack is forgivable though, since that
would likely require a lot more CPU and bandwidth, and I suspect the
site is already run on a shoestring.

* not actually a spreadsheet

Oh, you pecker. :P

Would it make you feel better if I told you it was a five-gigabyte MS
Access database?* ;-)

Geez. Big.

* I don't actually use a database either. If you must know, it's all
just a bunch of plain text files stored in a ZIP** archive.

5 GB of text files? Impressive. I am also an old school basic text files
too.

** okay, it's a 7Z archive ;-)

How big in total decompressed?

3 bytes.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

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On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:09:49 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB
wrote:

I've
never played the game but I saw a talking head on YouTube saying it's
woke (whatever that actually means) crowd.

"Woke" means, "You're tickling my well orchestrated cognitive dissonance
coping mechanisms. Stop that!"

--
Zag

This is csipg.rpg - reality is off topic. ...G. Quinn ('08)

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On Sun, 24 Nov 2024 17:22:39 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Xocyll wrote:

Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:02:41 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Xocyll wrote:

Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> said:

On Sat, 16 Nov 2024 03:31:13 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Ant >>>>wrote:

<snip>

My first HL2 memory was Dan Adams' _second_ paragraph in his pc.ign.com >>>>review:

Before I really get into the review, you should know the background of >>>>>how this game was reviewed. Valve did not want to send out copies of >>>>>their game (for fairly obvious reasons) before it was released to the >>>>>public. In order to play the game, I, and several of my colleagues >>>>>throughout the industry, took a trip up to Seattle to visit Valve in >>>>>order to have some private time with the title. I was given a little >>>>>room to myself where I could close the door, turn off the lights, click >>>>>my little red slippers, and pretend that I was sitting at home. It worked >>>>>for the most part, largely because I was so engrossed with the game that >>>>>when I came out of my trance I often had to take a moment to get my >>>>>bearings. Obviously, Valve was happy to bring me into a controlled >>>>>environment for ideal playing conditions.

This is of course after the first paragraph, which gushed "[HL2 is] the >>>>best single-player shooter ever released for the PC..." Yet strangely >>>>claimed later in the same paragraph that "...[HL2] doesn't do anything >>>>particularly new; it doesn't really innovate..."

Despite its touted physics and all the advertised eye candy. Hmm.

I thought, "That sounds like a conflict of interest."

Not really a conflict at all.

Sitting in a campus playing on bleeding-edge hardware, in a controlled, >>sound-proofed space, with corporate handlers guiding you (and probably >>gifting you a case of Code Red) is not a conflict? As an independent >>journalist that is the definition of a conflict of interest. For
instance, Dan was playing at 1280x720... in _2004_.

You missed my point; I was not talking about a conflict of interest
between game publisher and reviewer, but of the 2 statements.
1. that it did not innovate and
2. "This is of course after the first paragraph, which gushed "[HL2 is]
the best single-player shooter ever released for the PC"

And there is no conflict between the two.

No, I got that. You just said it in reponse to "That sounds like a
conflict of interest." So context. You seemed to be missing *my* point.
To wit, I left that statement dangling in the wrong place anyway.
Probably should of said, "That feels like it *might* be the result of a conflict of interest."

You can be the best single-player shooter and not innovate at the same
time - you just refine the single-player shooter experience without
adding anything new.

Not in my book, but most opinions are valid. They can be informed,
uniformed, well thought through, reactionary, or even unworthy of
respect, etc. Very few are unworthy, though. Yours sure isn't.

A new game does not have to break new ground, if it can go over well
trodden ground in the best way possible.

Agree to disagree. To be "the best ever," IMO, you have to do something innovative that other shooters haven't done. Level design. Cooler
weapons. Pacing. The first fully 3d modeled environments. Incredible
story. New way of telling a story. Something extraordinary. Incremental improvements to graphics, improved smoothness of gameplay, better FPS,
better load times, or UI quality-of-life improvements may make for an
excellent shooter, and an objectively better shooter for the genre on
some points, but not "the best ever."

Otherwise, every new graphics technique would make a new shooter "the
best." I don't think like that. Simple progress is not exceptional to me.

In its day, the original HL was the best shooter ever. Storytelling
without cut scenes. Seemless level loads. I think it still was after HL2 dropped.

Before that, Unreal held that title, in my book, for its seemless indoor/outdoor environments, cool weapons, pacing, and progression.

Unreal Tournament was the best arena shooter ever a few years later.
Superior maps and infinitely superior AI opponents. Amazing AI. But every iteration of UT after that was just same-old same-old with better
graphics and a few bells and whistles, which may be objectively better in
a limited sense, but doesn't raise the bar to "best ever" imo.

We have competing definitions. Neither is invalid.

<snip>

Not unlike a TV show or a Detective novel or so many other things, you
can redo what's been done before, better than it's ever been done
before.

Go to a new steakhouse and get a pepper steak that's the best you've
ever had, even though you've been eating them for 40 years.

Last try: If a pepper steak is "the best I ever had," the chef did
something innovative. Spicing. Cooking method. Something. Besides, your
analogy is significantly out of scope. The analogy to Dan Adams'
statement would be that it was "the best steak ever." If it isn't
something novel, that probably isn't true, right? Well trodden paths at
that general a statement level don't make the "cut," imo.

Otherwise, we're just going to disagree here. I understand your point.
It's not worth aruging mine any further. Same data, different
conclusions.

No wrong conclusions. Just different. If you reply, I won't follow up.
I'm not trying to be rude, you just get the last word.

--
Zag

This is csipg.rpg - reality is off topic. ...G. Quinn ('08)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

candycanearter07 wrote:

Jhulian Waldby <wichitajayhawks@msn.com> wrote at 07:06 this Friday (GMT):

candycanearter07 wrote:

Jhulian Waldby <wichitajayhawks@msn.com> wrote at 00:35 this Thursday (GMT):

candycanearter07 wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 18:38 this Wednesday (GMT):

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:50:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 03:31 this Saturday (GMT):

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's
talk about those days!

I got it in the modern day, and I remember enjoying it but not fully >>>>>>> seeing why people adore it so much?

If the comments here are anything to go on, most people --even the >>>>>> ones who bought it back in 2004-- feel the same way.

The original "Half Life" really was revolutionary; its success
transformed the FPS genre. "Half Life 2"? It was an okay game but
hardly a match for its predecessor.

Maybe it's better if HL2 is the beginning of the series for you.
Stepping into HL2 with no prior experience it's who am I some kind of
celebrity or national hero; everybody knows my name.

It was enough to draw me in. I played until I was stuck and then went >>>> back a few times (got a little further).

Same. Nova Prospekt really confused me.

obgameExperience: Really like that pipe. I played Rainbow 6: Raven
Shield for 400 hours and never once scored a knife kill.

What?

The HL2 melee weapon, a piece of pipe, has a good range that it reaches.
The Raven Shield knife covers an inappreciable distance. Same with
the Call of Duty knife. HL2 is more "Skyrim-like".

Oh, I never noticed that. More invisible game design stuff.

What it is is that the perspective in Call of Duty and Rainbow Six isn't friendly to me and I can't judge the distance properly. It's fine for shooting, but not for reaching out and touching someone with the
included melee weapon.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 25/11/2024 19:56, Zaghadka wrote:

Last try: If a pepper steak is "the best I ever had," the chef did
something innovative. Spicing. Cooking method. Something. Besides, your analogy is significantly out of scope. The analogy to Dan Adams'
statement would be that it was "the best steak ever." If it isn't
something novel, that probably isn't true, right? Well trodden paths at
that general a statement level don't make the "cut," imo.

There's obviously semantics in play but I tend to agree that the best
ever means something more than what you can technically take out of a
term. So I'm happy to describe HL:2 as one of the best FPSes I've played
(I still enjoy it to this date) but it doesn't make it onto my list of
best ever PC games whereas HL:1 does. That not only redefined what I
thought of as an FPS but also had a lasting impact on games that followed.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 25/11/2024 19:22, Zaghadka wrote:

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:09:49 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB wrote:

I've
never played the game but I saw a talking head on YouTube saying it's
woke (whatever that actually means) crowd.

"Woke" means, "You're tickling my well orchestrated cognitive dissonance coping mechanisms. Stop that!"

I just find it weird that people can be so rabidly anti something when
they can't really explain what it is beyond things I don't like. See
also labelling something socialist, or even Marxist, when they don't
even know what they are.

We even had our last government try and get in on the act when judges
were ruling that a country doesn't just become classed as safe because
the government say it is no more than they can pass a law that says the
moon is made of cheese. That's not how laws work but that only cost
£750mil so not a problem really.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

XPost: alt.games.half-life, alt.games.halflife, alt.games.half-life2

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 03:31 this Saturday (GMT):

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's
talk about those days!

IIRC during the first week of its release, I bought its retail from a
local Best Buy with a $10/10% sale or something back then. According to
my detailed https://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/toys.html history, I recently upgraded my Windows gaming PC with these parts: "... an AMD
Athlon 64 3200+ 2.2GHz 512KB Socket 754 single core CPU, ASUS K8V SE
Deluxe (VIA K8T800 Socket 754 ATX; VIA VT8237 South Bridge; Revision 2; onboard sound disabled; onboard NIC not used/connected (using 3COM NIC
for network) and can't be disabled or else Promise Raid won't be
activate), a 3 fan HDD Peeze cooler, 1 GB of PC3200 Kingston RAM (CAS
3), and Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS." :) I think I also got
Windows XP OS too.

Anyways, I remember playing this game over my Thanksgiving weekend. It
was amazing! Very smooth, pretty, and fun! I don't remember how long it
took me to finish it. It was a great sequel. Of course years later,
episodes 1 and 2 (The Orange Box -- will talk about that in three
years). I don't have and want a VR to play Alyx. :(

What about the rest of you?

I got it in the modern day, and I remember enjoying it but not fully
seeing why people adore it so much?
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 15:43 this Monday (GMT):

On Mon, 18 Nov 2024 01:06:32 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 17 Nov 2024 01:03:45 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Are you looking at your saved local posts?! Or are those online? I miss DejaNews! :(

It's all local. (I have a spreadsheet!* ;-)

Wow. You keep track of everything locally, don't you? ;-)

Ugh. See, this is why I miss DejaNews. Heck, Google Groups could in its >>early days before it got worse. And why does https://groups.google.com >>require me to log in? Frak that.

Google was always awful in comparison to Deja News, and only got worse
as the years rolled on. But it got terrible once they rolled Usenet
into their whole Groups interface; it polluted both streams and I
don't think it made users of either platform happier for the
intersection.

Still, I was surprised to see how much spam was on c.s.i.p.g.action, according to Google. Almost all of that got filtered server-side for
me and it was rare that any snuck through so it actually ended up on
my client. Of course, Google could have filtered it too, but I guess
since most of it was /coming/ from Google groups users, that might
have been a conflict of interest.

Narkive is pretty good, although I do wish they had the ability to
better locate articles. The lack is forgivable though, since that
would likely require a lot more CPU and bandwidth, and I suspect the
site is already run on a shoestring.

* not actually a spreadsheet

Oh, you pecker. :P

Would it make you feel better if I told you it was a five-gigabyte MS
Access database?* ;-)

* I don't actually use a database either. If you must know, it's all
just a bunch of plain text files stored in a ZIP** archive.

** okay, it's a 7Z archive ;-)

That's a lot of data!
Also, I think https://newsgrouper.org.uk/ has some historic archives
too.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 18:38 this Wednesday (GMT):

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:50:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 03:31 this Saturday (GMT):

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's
talk about those days!

I got it in the modern day, and I remember enjoying it but not fully
seeing why people adore it so much?

If the comments here are anything to go on, most people --even the
ones who bought it back in 2004-- feel the same way.

The original "Half Life" really was revolutionary; its success
transformed the FPS genre. "Half Life 2"? It was an okay game but
hardly a match for its predecessor.

It's definitely a pretty good game tho.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

candycanearter07 wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 18:38 this Wednesday (GMT):

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:50:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 03:31 this Saturday (GMT):

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's >>>> talk about those days!

I got it in the modern day, and I remember enjoying it but not fully
seeing why people adore it so much?

If the comments here are anything to go on, most people --even the
ones who bought it back in 2004-- feel the same way.

The original "Half Life" really was revolutionary; its success
transformed the FPS genre. "Half Life 2"? It was an okay game but
hardly a match for its predecessor.

Maybe it's better if HL2 is the beginning of the series for you.
Stepping into HL2 with no prior experience it's who am I some kind of
celebrity or national hero; everybody knows my name.

It was enough to draw me in. I played until I was stuck and then went
back a few times (got a little further).

obgameExperience: Really like that pipe. I played Rainbow 6: Raven
Shield for 400 hours and never once scored a knife kill.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 20/11/2024 18:38, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:50:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 03:31 this Saturday (GMT):

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's
talk about those days!

I got it in the modern day, and I remember enjoying it but not fully
seeing why people adore it so much?

If the comments here are anything to go on, most people --even the
ones who bought it back in 2004-- feel the same way.

The original "Half Life" really was revolutionary; its success
transformed the FPS genre. "Half Life 2"? It was an okay game but
hardly a match for its predecessor.

It's pretty rare that a sequel to a game* that was revolutionary, ground breaking, daring to be different etc. is ever going to be matched by
it's sequel. You just can't replicate that feel of an original. BG:II I
think is objectively a better game that BG:1 but I still enjoyed the
latter more. HL:1 is definitely better though!

*Or a film come to think of it. Even with Blade Runner 2049 I thought
they did a really good job of creating a film with it's own identity but
still clearly Blade Runner but you still can't match scenes such as the interview or the death speech. Then we have Das Boot (the mini-series).
I was looking forward to the reboot but managed two or so episodes
before thinking, the whole point is it's about the crew of the
submarine, their interactions and also how the mundane is punctuated by
the terrifying. How could you get that so wrong. I dread to think what
the later series turned into.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

JAB wrote:

On 20/11/2024 18:38, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:50:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 03:31 this Saturday (GMT):

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's >>>> talk about those days!

I got it in the modern day, and I remember enjoying it but not fully
seeing why people adore it so much?

If the comments here are anything to go on, most people --even the
ones who bought it back in 2004-- feel the same way.

The original "Half Life" really was revolutionary; its success
transformed the FPS genre. "Half Life 2"? It was an okay game but
hardly a match for its predecessor.

It's pretty rare that a sequel to a game* that was revolutionary, ground breaking, daring to be different etc. is ever going to be matched by
it's sequel. You just can't replicate that feel of an original. BG:II I
think is objectively a better game that BG:1 but I still enjoyed the
latter more. HL:1 is definitely better though!

*Or a film come to think of it. Even with Blade Runner 2049 I thought
they did a really good job of creating a film with it's own identity but still clearly Blade Runner but you still can't match scenes such as the interview or the death speech. Then we have Das Boot (the mini-series).
I was looking forward to the reboot but managed two or so episodes
before thinking, the whole point is it's about the crew of the
submarine, their interactions and also how the mundane is punctuated by
the terrifying. How could you get that so wrong. I dread to think what
the later series turned into.

It basicall-y became a watermelon-lime with 40 cal. a can.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Jhulian Waldby <wichitajayhawks@msn.com> wrote at 00:35 this Thursday (GMT):

candycanearter07 wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 18:38 this Wednesday (GMT):

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:50:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 03:31 this Saturday (GMT):

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's >>>>> talk about those days!

I got it in the modern day, and I remember enjoying it but not fully
seeing why people adore it so much?

If the comments here are anything to go on, most people --even the
ones who bought it back in 2004-- feel the same way.

The original "Half Life" really was revolutionary; its success
transformed the FPS genre. "Half Life 2"? It was an okay game but
hardly a match for its predecessor.

Maybe it's better if HL2 is the beginning of the series for you.
Stepping into HL2 with no prior experience it's who am I some kind of celebrity or national hero; everybody knows my name.

It was enough to draw me in. I played until I was stuck and then went
back a few times (got a little further).

Same. Nova Prospekt really confused me.

obgameExperience: Really like that pipe. I played Rainbow 6: Raven
Shield for 400 hours and never once scored a knife kill.

What?
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:50:06 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Also, I think https://newsgrouper.org.uk/ has some historic archives
too.

Good catch.
Newsgrouper at least has a search functionality, even if it is very
limited.

Yeah. It needs a search for email address I used. :(
--
"The Lord detests those whose hearts are perverse, but he delights in those whose ways are blameless." --Proverbs 11:20. Quiet Th.? Annoying itchy body.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

candycanearter07 wrote:

Jhulian Waldby <wichitajayhawks@msn.com> wrote at 00:35 this Thursday (GMT):

candycanearter07 wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 18:38 this Wednesday (GMT):

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:50:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 03:31 this Saturday (GMT):

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's >>>>>> talk about those days!

I got it in the modern day, and I remember enjoying it but not fully >>>>> seeing why people adore it so much?

If the comments here are anything to go on, most people --even the
ones who bought it back in 2004-- feel the same way.

The original "Half Life" really was revolutionary; its success
transformed the FPS genre. "Half Life 2"? It was an okay game but
hardly a match for its predecessor.

Maybe it's better if HL2 is the beginning of the series for you.
Stepping into HL2 with no prior experience it's who am I some kind of
celebrity or national hero; everybody knows my name.

It was enough to draw me in. I played until I was stuck and then went
back a few times (got a little further).

Same. Nova Prospekt really confused me.

obgameExperience: Really like that pipe. I played Rainbow 6: Raven
Shield for 400 hours and never once scored a knife kill.

What?

The HL2 melee weapon, a piece of pipe, has a good range that it reaches.
The Raven Shield knife covers an inappreciable distance. Same with
the Call of Duty knife. HL2 is more "Skyrim-like".

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

XPost: alt.games.half-life, alt.games.halflife, alt.games.half-life2

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's
talk about those days!

IIRC during the first week of its release, I bought its retail from a
local Best Buy with a $10/10% sale or something back then. According to
my detailed https://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/toys.html history, I
recently upgraded my Windows gaming PC with these parts: "... an AMD
Athlon 64 3200+ 2.2GHz 512KB Socket 754 single core CPU, ASUS K8V SE
Deluxe (VIA K8T800 Socket 754 ATX; VIA VT8237 South Bridge; Revision 2;
onboard sound disabled; onboard NIC not used/connected (using 3COM NIC
for network) and can't be disabled or else Promise Raid won't be
activate), a 3 fan HDD Peeze cooler, 1 GB of PC3200 Kingston RAM (CAS
3), and Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS." :) I think I also got
Windows XP OS too.

Anyways, I remember playing this game over my Thanksgiving weekend. It
was amazing! Very smooth, pretty, and fun! I don't remember how long it
took me to finish it. It was a great sequel. Of course years later,
episodes 1 and 2 (The Orange Box -- will talk about that in three
years). I don't have and want a VR to play Alyx. :(

What about the rest of you?
--
"And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light." --2 Corinthians 11:14. Go away Devil, sins, etc. Quiet TGIF & weekend? I should mv 2.
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Jhulian Waldby <wichitajayhawks@msn.com> wrote at 07:06 this Friday (GMT):

candycanearter07 wrote:

Jhulian Waldby <wichitajayhawks@msn.com> wrote at 00:35 this Thursday (GMT): >>> candycanearter07 wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote at 18:38 this Wednesday (GMT):

On Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:50:05 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07
<candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Ant <ant@zimage.comANT> wrote at 03:31 this Saturday (GMT):

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's >>>>>>> talk about those days!

I got it in the modern day, and I remember enjoying it but not fully >>>>>> seeing why people adore it so much?

If the comments here are anything to go on, most people --even the
ones who bought it back in 2004-- feel the same way.

The original "Half Life" really was revolutionary; its success
transformed the FPS genre. "Half Life 2"? It was an okay game but
hardly a match for its predecessor.

Maybe it's better if HL2 is the beginning of the series for you.
Stepping into HL2 with no prior experience it's who am I some kind of
celebrity or national hero; everybody knows my name.

It was enough to draw me in. I played until I was stuck and then went
back a few times (got a little further).

Same. Nova Prospekt really confused me.

obgameExperience: Really like that pipe. I played Rainbow 6: Raven
Shield for 400 hours and never once scored a knife kill.

What?

The HL2 melee weapon, a piece of pipe, has a good range that it reaches.
The Raven Shield knife covers an inappreciable distance. Same with
the Call of Duty knife. HL2 is more "Skyrim-like".

Oh, I never noticed that. More invisible game design stuff.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 16 Nov 2024 03:31:13 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Ant
wrote:

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's
talk about those days!

IIRC during the first week of its release, I bought its retail from a
local Best Buy with a $10/10% sale or something back then. According to
my detailed https://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/toys.html history, I >recently upgraded my Windows gaming PC with these parts: "... an AMD
Athlon 64 3200+ 2.2GHz 512KB Socket 754 single core CPU, ASUS K8V SE
Deluxe (VIA K8T800 Socket 754 ATX; VIA VT8237 South Bridge; Revision 2; >onboard sound disabled; onboard NIC not used/connected (using 3COM NIC
for network) and can't be disabled or else Promise Raid won't be
activate), a 3 fan HDD Peeze cooler, 1 GB of PC3200 Kingston RAM (CAS
3), and Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS." :) I think I also got
Windows XP OS too.

Anyways, I remember playing this game over my Thanksgiving weekend. It
was amazing! Very smooth, pretty, and fun! I don't remember how long it
took me to finish it. It was a great sequel. Of course years later,
episodes 1 and 2 (The Orange Box -- will talk about that in three
years). I don't have and want a VR to play Alyx. :(

What about the rest of you?

My first HL2 memory was Dan Adams' _second_ paragraph in his pc.ign.com
review:

Before I really get into the review, you should know the background of
how this game was reviewed. Valve did not want to send out copies of
their game (for fairly obvious reasons) before it was released to the
public. In order to play the game, I, and several of my colleagues
throughout the industry, took a trip up to Seattle to visit Valve in
order to have some private time with the title. I was given a little
room to myself where I could close the door, turn off the lights, click
my little red slippers, and pretend that I was sitting at home. It worked
for the most part, largely because I was so engrossed with the game that
when I came out of my trance I often had to take a moment to get my
bearings. Obviously, Valve was happy to bring me into a controlled >environment for ideal playing conditions.

This is of course after the first paragraph, which gushed "[HL2 is] the
best single-player shooter ever released for the PC..." Yet strangely
claimed later in the same paragraph that "...[HL2] doesn't do anything particularly new; it doesn't really innovate..."

Despite its touted physics and all the advertised eye candy. Hmm.

I thought, "That sounds like a conflict of interest." Reviewers,
apparently *all* of them, were being handled by Valve on their campus.
Ever been corporate handled? I have. Your objective opinions go out the
window, if you can even tell what is good information and what is spin.

So I took "it doesn't really innovate" as the actual review.

I didn't download Steam for 7 years after HL2. I didn't buy Half Life 2
until 9 years ago for Black Mesa. I loved the _original_ Half-Life.

So my first memory of HL2 was, "Well, that's the absolute end of any
chance of independent reviews."

When Jeff Gerstmann was fired, some 3 years later*, for failing to give a
good review to a corporate partnership game, my opinion was sealed.

https://bit.ly/4fWpZmn

(The bookmark link on Wikipedia had problems with pasting. So bit.ly)

I thank Dan Adams for giving me the heads up.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten _____________________________________________________________________

* Jonah Falcon and I had quite the conversation about this. I even wrote
an article. Here's a paragraph:

What we end up with is a thorough perception that the whole review
industry has been compromised by carrot-and-stick public relations >manipulation. There is a widespread belief, often unstated at the >publications themselves, that the materials for previews will suddenly
"dry up" if they give too harsh a review on a shipping product. You don't >bite the hand that feeds you, you can't. In an attempt to capture the
lowest common denominator to bring a large audience, these publications
have all but divorced themselves from what matters to the more discerning >audience. They are providing an entertainment product first, and critical >review second, a sort of *Nintendo Power* approach, but in the guise of >"independent" journalism. The perception is that there is no spoken policy >regarding these issues, just a tightening of the purse strings by overlarge >publishers when the playing field is not slightly tilted in their favor.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/26/2024 12:27 AM, JAB wrote:

On 25/11/2024 19:22, Zaghadka wrote:

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:09:49 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB
wrote:

I've
never played the game but I saw a talking head on YouTube saying it's
woke (whatever that actually means) crowd.

"Woke" means, "You're tickling my well orchestrated cognitive dissonance
coping mechanisms. Stop that!"

I just find it weird that people can be so rabidly anti something when
they can't really explain what it is beyond things I don't like. See
also labelling something socialist, or even Marxist, when they don't
even know what they are.

We even had our last government try and get in on the act when judges
were ruling that a country doesn't just become classed as safe because
the government say it is no more than they can pass a law that says the
moon is made of cheese. That's not how laws work but that only cost
£750mil so not a problem really.

"My <insert deity of choice> says 'That's Wrong!'"

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 26/11/2024 15:25, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 11/26/2024 12:27 AM, JAB wrote:

On 25/11/2024 19:22, Zaghadka wrote:

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:09:49 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, JAB >>> wrote:

I've
never played the game but I saw a talking head on YouTube saying it's
woke (whatever that actually means) crowd.

"Woke" means, "You're tickling my well orchestrated cognitive dissonance >>> coping mechanisms. Stop that!"

I just find it weird that people can be so rabidly anti something when
they can't really explain what it is beyond things I don't like. See
also labelling something socialist, or even Marxist, when they don't
even know what they are.

We even had our last government try and get in on the act when judges
were ruling that a country doesn't just become classed as safe because
the government say it is no more than they can pass a law that says
the moon is made of cheese. That's not how laws work but that only
cost £750mil so not a problem really.

"My <insert deity of choice> says 'That's Wrong!'"

From the woke detector Steam Group. Honestly I'm just not sure whether
it's an elaborate prank or not.

“Woke” content = any images, messages, characters, storytelling,
dialogue, music, or game mechanics that include themes associated with
the left-side of the political aisle in contemporary western politics.

These themes include things like:
pro-LGBTQ+ messaging
pro-DEI messaging
pro-climate action messaging
pro-communism/socialism messaging
pro-abortion messaging
pro-pedophilia messaging
pro-immigration messaging
pro-transhumanism messaging
anti-western society messaging
anti-human messaging
anti-colonialism messaging
anti-capitalism messaging
anti-heterosexual messaging
anti-patriarchy messaging
anti-white messaging
anti-family messaging
anti-free speech messaging
anti-gun messaging
etc.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/27/2024 1:59 AM, JAB wrote:

On 26/11/2024 15:25, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 11/26/2024 12:27 AM, JAB wrote:

On 25/11/2024 19:22, Zaghadka wrote:

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:09:49 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
JAB
wrote:

I've
never played the game but I saw a talking head on YouTube saying it's >>>>> woke (whatever that actually means) crowd.

"Woke" means, "You're tickling my well orchestrated cognitive
dissonance
coping mechanisms. Stop that!"

I just find it weird that people can be so rabidly anti something
when they can't really explain what it is beyond things I don't like.
See also labelling something socialist, or even Marxist, when they
don't even know what they are.

We even had our last government try and get in on the act when judges
were ruling that a country doesn't just become classed as safe
because the government say it is no more than they can pass a law
that says the moon is made of cheese. That's not how laws work but
that only cost £750mil so not a problem really.

"My <insert deity of choice> says 'That's Wrong!'"

From the woke detector Steam Group. Honestly I'm just not sure whether
it's an elaborate prank or not.

At least in the USA its not a prank. Here all the "Anti-Woke" "Culture
War" shit is based on religious beliefs with a dash of wishing for a
society based on the imagined version of 1950s America, complete with
massive racism.

“Woke” content = any images, messages, characters, storytelling, dialogue, music, or game mechanics that include themes associated with
the left-side of the political aisle in contemporary western politics.

These themes include things like:
pro-LGBTQ+ messaging
pro-DEI messaging
pro-climate action messaging
pro-communism/socialism messaging
pro-abortion messaging
pro-pedophilia messaging
pro-immigration messaging
pro-transhumanism messaging
anti-western society messaging
anti-human messaging
anti-colonialism messaging
anti-capitalism messaging
anti-heterosexual messaging
anti-patriarchy messaging
anti-white messaging
anti-family messaging
anti-free speech messaging
anti-gun messaging
etc.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/27/2024 1:53 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Wed, 27 Nov 2024 07:30:03 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 11/27/2024 1:59 AM, JAB wrote:

On 26/11/2024 15:25, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 11/26/2024 12:27 AM, JAB wrote:

On 25/11/2024 19:22, Zaghadka wrote:

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:09:49 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, >>>>>> JAB
wrote:

I've
never played the game but I saw a talking head on YouTube saying it's >>>>>>> woke (whatever that actually means) crowd.

"Woke" means, "You're tickling my well orchestrated cognitive
dissonance
coping mechanisms. Stop that!"

I just find it weird that people can be so rabidly anti something
when they can't really explain what it is beyond things I don't like. >>>>> See also labelling something socialist, or even Marxist, when they
don't even know what they are.

We even had our last government try and get in on the act when judges >>>>> were ruling that a country doesn't just become classed as safe
because the government say it is no more than they can pass a law
that says the moon is made of cheese. That's not how laws work but
that only cost £750mil so not a problem really.

"My <insert deity of choice> says 'That's Wrong!'"

From the woke detector Steam Group. Honestly I'm just not sure whether >>> it's an elaborate prank or not.

At least in the USA its not a prank. Here all the "Anti-Woke" "Culture
War" shit is based on religious beliefs with a dash of wishing for a
society based on the imagined version of 1950s America, complete with
massive racism.

I really debated whether nor not to get involved in this conversation, because csipga is sort of my 'safe space' from that sort of
nonsense... but yeah. The entire anti-woke movement --and what's going
on in America in general-- is extremely dismaying. What is now called
'woke' used to be called common sense, fairness and social
responsibility, and to see an entire nation turn their back on that
ideal... it's heart-breaking. Terrifying and enraging too, but mostly heart-breaking to see a country turn its back on what it used to stand
for.

But while I really didn't want to get into another discussion about
the topic --and especially not here-- neither did I want to sit on the sidelines saying nothing, implying you're the only one upset about it.

That's really all I wanted to say.

I understand fully and I actually do try to minimize my ... commentary,
but what I see happening to my country makes me very angry.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/11/2024 21:53, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Wed, 27 Nov 2024 07:30:03 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 11/27/2024 1:59 AM, JAB wrote:

On 26/11/2024 15:25, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 11/26/2024 12:27 AM, JAB wrote:

On 25/11/2024 19:22, Zaghadka wrote:

On Mon, 25 Nov 2024 10:09:49 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, >>>>>> JAB
wrote:

I've
never played the game but I saw a talking head on YouTube saying it's >>>>>>> woke (whatever that actually means) crowd.

"Woke" means, "You're tickling my well orchestrated cognitive
dissonance
coping mechanisms. Stop that!"

I just find it weird that people can be so rabidly anti something
when they can't really explain what it is beyond things I don't like. >>>>> See also labelling something socialist, or even Marxist, when they
don't even know what they are.

We even had our last government try and get in on the act when judges >>>>> were ruling that a country doesn't just become classed as safe
because the government say it is no more than they can pass a law
that says the moon is made of cheese. That's not how laws work but
that only cost £750mil so not a problem really.

"My <insert deity of choice> says 'That's Wrong!'"

From the woke detector Steam Group. Honestly I'm just not sure whether >>> it's an elaborate prank or not.

At least in the USA its not a prank. Here all the "Anti-Woke" "Culture
War" shit is based on religious beliefs with a dash of wishing for a
society based on the imagined version of 1950s America, complete with
massive racism.

I really debated whether nor not to get involved in this conversation, because csipga is sort of my 'safe space' from that sort of
nonsense... but yeah. The entire anti-woke movement --and what's going
on in America in general-- is extremely dismaying. What is now called
'woke' used to be called common sense, fairness and social
responsibility, and to see an entire nation turn their back on that
ideal... it's heart-breaking. Terrifying and enraging too, but mostly heart-breaking to see a country turn its back on what it used to stand
for.

But while I really didn't want to get into another discussion about
the topic --and especially not here-- neither did I want to sit on the sidelines saying nothing, implying you're the only one upset about it.

That's really all I wanted to say.

Well I did mention it in the terms of games :-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/11/2024 15:30, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

From the woke detector Steam Group. Honestly I'm just not sure whether
it's an elaborate prank or not.

At least in the USA its not a prank.  Here all the "Anti-Woke" "Culture
War" shit is based on religious beliefs with a dash of wishing for a
society based on the imagined version of 1950s America, complete with
massive racism.

Fortunately in the UK it's never really gathered much traction with the
public regardless of how much our last government, and its client media,
pushed it as an issue. What people actual care about is rising energy,
food and mortgage costs and also our crumbling public services. Saying
that if all the things that people worry about are your fault then it's probably best to push a different agenda.

In terms of games the whole anti-woke thing seems driven by a bunch of self-entitled fools who would seem to be want to be told what they are
supposed to be enraged by today. It's not as though there can't be valid commentary on games 'pushing' a certain agenda but there's literally
thousands of games out there so if you get upset because a game doesn't
have attractive females with their breasts half hanging out then, well
play one of other games that you can bash the bishop too.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 11/28/2024 7:51 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Wed, 27 Nov 2024 18:25:22 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

I understand fully and I actually do try to minimize my ... commentary,
but what I see happening to my country makes me very angry.

Please don't take my earlier comment as a criticism or taking you to
task for being a bit off-topic. That wasn't my intent. I've no
objection there.

I was just showing support without wanting to actually have to get
into it myself.

No offense was taken.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)