Re: 1st HL2 game memories from 2004...

On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 13:59:15 -0600, 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_.

On the other hand... it's a very hard road to walk for journalists.
Having some familiarity there, I know that most of them very much
wanted to offer an objective take on the subject. The idea of the
reviewer (or even the editor) 'on the take' is an unfair assessment.
They don't directly benefit from giving games good reviews and
(usually) they've no instructions from on high to do so either.

But...

As you say, playing a game an environment controlled by the publisher
-usually after being feted by them before hand- will influence anyone
towards being more positive towards their creation. As will worries
that being particularly negative might spark ill will between you and
the publisher, costing you opportunities to get early reviews or
inside information.

I mean, just going to MEET the developers and see them as people
instead of names is going to make you look more favorably on their
product. They've put their hearts and souls into their creations; they
believe in it and want it so desperately to succeed. (not to mention,
many of them NEED it to succeed to keep their families fed!). Do you
really want to be the person responsible for tanking their dreams?

And all that's before the advertising guys start moaning about how big
a customer EA is for the magazine. Good editors will usually shield
their reporters and tell them to write based on the game, not on what
might or might not piss off advertising partners, but just KNOWING
that ultimately your paycheck is dependent on keeping certain
publishers happy can't help but influence your viewpoint.

As hard as you try, it's incredibly difficult to remain objective in
these situations.

The alternative is, as mentioned, to be very strict in how you do your
reviews. But this option is incredibly costly. You have to PAY for the
product instead of getting reviewer copies. You have to WAIT for it to
hit store shelves instead of getting early access (delaying your
reviews). You can't depend on advertising to recoup some of your
costs, so you're forced to increase your subscription rates... which
also has an unfortunate side effect of greatly reducing your
readership. You'll also need to hire a better (read: higher-paid)
breed of reporter too; one more aware of how to avoid such
temptations.

And all that for a flash-in-the-pan mass-media product like
video-games where the review will ultimately STILL be based on the
subjective opinon of the reviewer? It's honestly not worth the effort.
Certainly readers don't really seem to care.

Certainly video game review magazines and websites could do better.
They could take steps to lessen the influence publishers have on them.
Certainly, too, there have  been unfortunate instances where there has
been open collusion between reviewer and publisher. But on the whole
the idea that video game journalists (in general) are in bed with
publishers is unfair. A lot of them try to do their job well. But it's
really hard sometimes.




<snip Half Life 2 stuff>

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

One of the more immediately obvious problems I had with "Half Life 2"
--and a very noticable downgrade from the original-- was in how it
loaded levels. The first game was amazing in that it pretty seamlessly
loaded levels without much of a pause between them. In an era when
most FPS games made you wait -sometimes up to several minutes!-
between level transitions as new data was loaded, "Half Life 1" did it
in seconds... sometimes so fast you barely even noticed.

It greatly aided in creating an immersive world, one that was whole
and compete from start to end. You weren't constantly pulled out of
the experience; there weren't sudden breaks in the geometry to tell
you that you're in a new map. No, there was a brief flash* as new data
streamed in and you just kept playing.

Half Life 2 came close but there level loads were still much more
noticable. You weren't, fortunately, thrown to a loading screen but
there was still a very noticable pause whenever you crossed the level
transition threshold. Even on modern hardware, it's still noticable!
It yanked me out of the game whenever it occured; the first few times
it happened I wondered if there was something broken with my PC or if
the game was buggy, because SURELY it couldn't be what Valve intended.
Not after they'd worked so hard to make those transitions
near-invisible in the first "Half Life".

"Half Life 2" wasn't a bad game. But it was a markedly less amazing
product than its predecessor and overall didn't wow me much more than
its competitors. It did some stuff really well; other stuff not so
much. It wasn't amazing. It was high-average; capable but not
awe-inspiring. It baffles me that it gets held in such high regard to
this day.





* if your hardware was fast enough. Up to a few seconds if you were
running on an underpowered PC. Still heads and shoulders better than
almost anything else on the market