Forum posts

That's because you live in a desert where nothing happens.

We'll need to set some strict guidelines up to keep things orderly. Perhaps we could get a dedicated page on TWHL for it?

Right on. Dunno about you, but having the Internet close by when I'm out and about is incredibly handy. Navigating to a destination, booking a table at a restaurant, buying movie tickets... being able to do this on the run saves a lot of time.

Man, for a bunch of geeks, you sure are crazily opposed to technology.

Doesn't Source have the equivalent of -wadinclude?

Reprising this, but making it not crap.

Uhh...how could you possibly say that Soup Miner's examples on the previous page offer no discernible difference?

I'm interested. Not sure what this is though. >_>

Got: iPhone 3G
Want: Whatever's after the iPhone 4.

Crollo: It allows you to take multiple screen shots without alt-tabbing and dumping the clipboard contents in Paint.

I'd like to try that one day.

Still on my same list of games. I tend not to game on work nights. Since it's Friday though...HELLO!

Need trims for the doors and the roof.

The Beatles - Ticket to Ride

The competition results aren't reviews. They're results.

It's not too hard to write a review in that style and it reads far more professionally than first person.

ATDestroy: It essentially makes a research paper read more like a factual document rather than just personal thoughts.

Captain Terror: Exactly.

With regards to this screenshot, pull some extra detail out of those textures with more brush-based architecture. It may be tempting to leave it as is because the textures are nicely detailed, but I still see it as a flat wall. Same goes for your other shots.

I might also add (since I can't edit PB's post) that we are looking for someone with an excellent grasp of spelling and grammar. In terms of review style, it would be preferable if proper reviews were not done in first person.

Erm, doesn't Hammer have the ability to change to imperical units?

Kenji Yamamoto - Donkey Kong Country Returns

Crollo: Gordon doesn't move infuriatingly slow if you aren't holding shift.

Huntey: This has nothing to do with rebinding controls: are you even reading my points?

I also mentioned that Just Cause 2 is a game that doesn't take itself seriously, unlike aspects of GTA IV. That's a game where the sandbox actually makes sense. I never said Just Cause 2 was a blindingly brilliant, all around package.

I'm comparing aspects of Uncharted to GTA IV, not the entire game. GTA IV attempts to make use of cover-based shooting and it fails miserably. As for not taking itself seriously, it seems to be divided in both camps. If you want a sandbox game that truly doesn't take itself seriously, play Just Cause 2, which is far more enjoyable. That game allows you to hookshot an enemy onto a passing airplane just for the hell of it. Want to stand on top of a airliner while it's flying? Go ahead!

When you're forced to enter buildings and take out enemies, you're doing it on foot. You hold Shift to run, which makes no sense. I don't want to walk at any point at the game, so why do I have to press an extra button to get Niko to do something he should be doing by default? Yes, I get that you drive a lot, which I do, but when the game forces you to go on foot, it's rubbish.

Still, it's way better than Far Cry 2, my undisputed 'worst game of all time'.

2x Intel Xeon E5620 (Quad core) @2.53Ghz per CPU, 6GB of RAM (expandable to 32GB) and 1TB HDD. Real let down for Mac hardware, isn't it?

Granted, my graphics card isn't the greatest, but still. ATi 5700 series.

Why does Rockstar assume that I want to walk everywhere too? Niko's walk speed is abysmally slow and in combat, it's ridiculous. Snap movement just can't be done, unless you're holding down shift...while you've got WASD going, Q to stick yourself to a wall, plus left and right mouse buttons, and the mouse itself. That's not intuitive, it's just ridiculous.

It explains nothing, you fool. Native dual-boot into Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

It's a crap game. Plain and simple. Over-hyped to the hilt and nothing to show for it. While the engine tech is great and the world itself is very well detailed and alive, the game itself is plodding and shows next to no evolution from GTA 3. The story itself, while far better written than previous games, is still vague with Niko rolling from emotion to emotion without any context between them.

For a third-person cover based shooter, it's rubbish. You clearly haven't played games like Uncharted that do it right.

So, playing through GTA IV.

It's so disappointing. Everything in the game feels like it's wallowing through thick mud: the animation, the controls, the shooting and the driving all feel slow. The driving in particular is crazy. The cars steer horribly and the physics engine is just ridiculous: the cars will occasionally just float through the air when you hit a tiny bump. As well as that, what the hell kind of super PC did Rockstar have in mind when they ported this game?

I really don't understand how GTA IV got such rave reviews. It has so many problems, problems that affect the core parts of the game. If the problems were just ancillary, I could overlook them, but they're really not. Rockstar put this effort into making the game 'realistic', but so many aspects of it aren't. Also, the voice acting is atrocious.

Put in a time limit that ends with an automatic death.

This is a similar principle.

Even if its a big lift, it'd still be powered by a generator. It's about making logical sense, not 'they add detail'.

If you're trying to power a lift, you'd use a generator, not a random collection of capacitors.

Playing Gran Turismo 5 at the moment on the PS3.

I think every talented level designer follows a similar logic. Can't say I'm one to map any more though.

I like to look at detailing rooms in a very logical way. For example, if you were to have pipes running across the ceiling, then think about what their purpose is for. Not in terms of 'it puts detail in the room', but rather 'these are pipes for channelling exhaust water from the machinery in the connecting room'. Once you've established a purpose for it, you can also look at whether or not its placement makes sense. Again, to use the pipe example: 'do these pipes logically flow on from that machinery in the connecting room and do they end correctly?'.

This doesn't mean that you need to limit your creativity, it just means your creativity needs to make sense, given what you're designing.

Looking at your screenshot, a few things stand out:

1. Why are the diagonal cross-beams so close to the wall? Support beams are generally there to support weak areas of a structure: are you saying that the weakest part of the structure is the rather large, solid brick wall? To me, if this were a poorly designed building, the beams would be further away from the structural safety of the walls.

2. There are a fair few electrical cables heading towards the large pipe in the ceiling: what are they for?

3. Similarly, there's a fair few large capacitor things hanging on the wall: what are they powering? Why are there so many?

4. The three spotlights: what are they illuminating? If they're lighting up the computer panels, wouldn't it make more sense if they were directly above the computers? If a person stands in front of the computer, they block the light from those beams, making it useless.

5. What are the posts for? The times I've seen posts spread out like that is simply to prevent vehicles from entering an area. If they're to prevent people from passing, then they need some kind of chain between each posts, but in an area such as this, it would seem out of place.

Please don't think of this as me bagging out your screenshot: there's potential there, but you need to sit back and have a good think about it.

I didn't like how horrid everything felt, particularly after San Andreas (or rather, the 'third' games in the series). Driving was one of the things I loved in the previous games and in this one, it feels awful.

Let's keep this topic on thread from now on, everyone.

It's console tastic.

Be prepared for a fun, 15GB download, just for the first game, let alone the episodes.

I'm downloading it at the moment: I thought it utterly sucked from the brief stint I had with it on the Xbox, but I figure I should try it properly.

When I did the Sydney Harbour Bridge map, it was a struggle for a lot of PCs. Couldn't even run it in OpenGL mode on my old computer...

I'd say forget about minimum spec with regards to Half-Life. Push the engine.

I'll agree with that. I opened the SDK yesterday after probably a year or more of inactivity and I was astounded at how buggy Hammer still was.

Umm...I'm fairly certain that Source for Mac is an entirely separate engine built to render with OpenGL. I've read that they're completely independent of each other, which makes sense considering the Windows version is DirectX only.

Uh...random Mac bashing?

Pretty much the entire admin team have full-time jobs.

Doesn't mean you shouldn't suggest these things. It's great getting some outside feedback from those using the site.

People, please stop. For the love of TWHL.

There are a multitude of free alternatives that do a far better job than Paint.

A realistic art style doesn't mean you drop the idea of identifying the characters via their silhouette. This isn't to do with using effects to make characters stand out, it's about their physical appearance. Again, look at the BioShock 2 multiplayer characters. While they're all essentially spliced people, each one is easily identifiable by their silhouette. Look at Uncharted 2's enemies as well: every single enemy type is distinguished by their body shape. You can tell who they are in a single second. It doesn't matter what kind of art style you adopt, be it cartoony or realistic: if the characters aren't identifiable by their silhouettes alone, you've designed poor characters.

Very impressive. I love that you have a very solid idea in mind with the concept art. Would like to see more of the map though.

If I can make one suggestion though: your current characters are not unique enough. I think one of things that makes a lot of multiplayer games successful is being able to quickly and easily identify who you're looking at: not in terms of the actual player, but the class. Take TF2 for instance: Valve very heavily pushed the old character design principle of silhouette. If you can't identify what class a character is simply from their shadow, then you haven't done it right. The team that worked on BioShock 2's multiplayer component also factored this in. It's actually an old animation rule of thumb back in the old Disney days and it very much still applies today.

The silhouettes of your current characters are very similar, so it'd be hard to tell them apart in-game.

I'm liking where this is going.

I loved Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. Best games on the Quake engine imo.