I noticed that all the Valve game discussions either died due to not much posting or didn't have thread (apart from TF2) so who else plays Valve games?

HL2: EP3.......

It's worth the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im6yRpQrsaY.

I'm thinking there's a better name for this thread . . . like "Valve Games" maybe

I love Portal and Portal 2. The latter didn't have puzzles that were as challenging as the former, but the story made up for this. I'm also eagerly awaiting the challenge mode they're adding in September which I suspect will rectify this deficiency.

HL2 was fun but it was too linear for my tastes, a problem the original had as well. I don't expect all games to be as open as the Elder Scrolls but really, you can hardly go thirty feet off the rails in HL and HL2 before hitting a dead end. In the Episodes this didn't bother me as much, the increased story and character depth made this work out. I'm eagerly waiting for the next iteration, whatever it is called (as we've all realized Valve has certain psychological problems with the number three).

I haven't gotten around to L4D. A while back my wife and I were going to team up with two friends but this fell through and since then I haven't caught up. I'll probably pick it up at the next holiday sale.

http://oi55.tinypic.com/2mhh5w3.jpg

Half life is one of my favourite game series, I loved HL2 but during the summer sale I grabbed the Valve complete pack for ￡25 (best deal ever) and I'm not sure which Half life is better D:

I'll play some L4D with you Donner, I've played way too much of L4D2

Say, how would one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tsHkpesBdY?

I've listened to that about 30 or 40 times by now.

Orange Box.

Please remove Portal from your thread because as you can see, my thread is http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1184157-portal-2-discussion/page__st__80, with the last few posts being made as often as once a month. You just don't see that kind of activity very often!

(Yes I'm being sarcastic)

Anyway, I don't play to many Valve games aside from the Portal series, though I do really like the company itself. I tried a few hours of Half Life 2 but I got sick and tired of the early game being nothing but running, and running, and staying in a base for 2 minutes, and running, and running... Someday I'll get around to playing Half Life 1, and then maybe I'll be interested enough to get through Half Life 2.

Anyone played Riot In Progress??

I'm playing through Half Life 2 again. For some reason I remember it being longer than it actually is. But I guess I just got better at FPS games.

Also some Left4Dead 2 occassionally, it really has a lot of content now that they're adding the L4D1 campaigns. Some of the custom campaigns are also very good, I love http://www.l4dmaps.com/details.php?file=9754. So far I've only played it on single player with bots since custom map players are harder to find, but it's still cool.

Link?

I hate it when that happens with games.

I've been playing http://youtu.be/PUjTvDDHxis lately, on the HL2 mod side of things. It's really very good--and also really very extremely terrifying. As in, I think it may actually be scarier than Amnesia.


I can usually only play it for 15 or so minutes at a time before I get too freaked out and have to quit. On the plus side (or not ), I think it's totally desensitized me to the FEAR series. I was playing FEAR 3 earlier this week when Alma popped up for a jump scare and I just went, "oh, that's nice, dear," as opposed to my usual "launch butt from chair" reaction. Scariest. Mod. Ever.

Sounds... Interesting. Going to give that one a try some time.

Is there a Nightmare House 1 I should play first?

Zombie master is a great mod and Zombie master 2 is being made

The first Half-Life is great, but I always felt HL2 is much worse than HL1 for multiple reasons. HL2 simply don't deserve all the praise it got as far as I'm concerned

• Running around in some top secret lab facility was fun, running around in some half-ruined city and sewer is not. I was very amused when I saw the periodic table for the first time in HL1, for example, and how some parts slightly reminded me of the high-security areas of the OKG nuclear power plant where I have worked.
  
• It also annoyed me how everyone react to the almighty super hero Gordon Freeman. It was better when he was a nobody.
  
• The physics-based puzzles just bore me. They aren't hard to figure out or anything, it just takes time to put enough stuff where it's supposed to be and then you can go and continue to kill enemies. For me they just felt like an unnecessary obstacle to make the game seem longer than it actually is. Same with the driving sections.
  
• The thing I miss the most from HL1 is how one would see different enemies fight eachother. The evil aliens vs the bad military guys. If you just stayed out of it, they would keep fighting eachother. In HL2 is always just us and them. There's no third part, and that's what made HL1 special to me compared to the previous shooters I had played at that time. Well, the antlions first just fight "us" and then switch sides thanks to a new weapon and are then used to fight "them".
  
• Oh, and I'm also annoyed that Half-Life 2 is the PC game that introduced the need to activate the game online to be able to play it, even though it's a single player game. Although that doesn't really have to do anything with the actual game, but I list it here anyway.

Errr, a lot of complaints, I guess. But yeah, while the actual gameplay didn't change that much between the games (the action is still top-notch but I think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.E.A.R. have even better action and thus is a better FPS), the whole setting just fell flat for me. This while the only flaw of HL1 is pretty much the last Xen area. I look forward to the http://blackmesasource.com/, seems like a very good remake of HL1 for the HL2 engine.

I think that the Portal series is easily the best thing Valve has created though, both the first and second Portal are awesome games and I had lots of fun playing thru the Portal 2 co-op levels too. Left 4 Dead is quite fun too to play with friends. Also have Left 4 Dead 2 but I barely played that one, still lots of unplayed campaigns there, but good so far.

The rest of their games, CS: Source, TF2 and so on, are games I don't really care about so I can't comment on those

Nope, confusingly enough. The "first" Nightmare House was apparently a small map taking place entirely in the titular house. It's been updated and bundled into NH2 as a "prologue."

I played that mod, it was very nice, but I lost interest in it completely when L4D came out though.

Gonna have to check out this new one then.

I just purchased the Portal pack on Steam now that Portal 2 had its price drop - and I wanted Portal lumped in there because I've played through it but didn't yet own it.

Portal was one of those magical moments in gaming... Hands down in my top 3 games of all-time, despite its brevity (perhaps in part because of it). The puzzles, the comedic overlays, the presentation, the pacing, it was put together masterfully.

Portal 2 rekindled much of that, but in expanding to a full standalone game lost a bit of the appeal. Still an excellent game, don't get me wrong. The early game had excellent humor and great plot points, and the visuals were evocative (playing off the first game brilliantly). The story was expanded, though I think it had a few hiccups in the latter half where things were a bit disjointed. Some excellent new puzzle elements, too - the gel was interesting to play with. I wish, though, that there would have been a few more big puzzles that brought together all those disparate new puzzle elements better, and not just "Okay, puzzles 17 thru 20, you're going to focus on the light bridges." This was especially true with the final showdown, which was very simple. Still, an excellent game, and I shall have to try the coop mode at some point. And play through it again to see if I can do some things better or faster or just plain different.

...Haven't played any other Valve games, though. Don't shoot me!

Guahhhhh, I want them to announce half life 3!

Make many videos like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wP23hWPlfs and Gabe will release it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uApdpig6SMY

Can someone explain..
What's Half Life 2 episode 1.. and 2?

Are they expansion packs?

Sort of. They're basically standalone expansions that continue the story. Episode 1 picks up where Half Life 2 ends, episode 2 begins where episode 1 ends. Basically an idea Valve had for episodic content which I don't think they liked much in hindsight.

Everyone's complaining that there's no episode 3 because episode 2 ends with a cliffhanger.

Half Life 2 is ancient.. so I guess there won't ever be an Episode 3..

every time someone makes a fat joke about gabe it's delayed by another week so yeah it's gonna be a while