Portal is the game of the year

[Kuciwalker]

Why should I accept your assertion that there was no skill/intelligence put into Halo/2/3, or that skill/intelligence put into a game matters more than the actual result?

[FrostyBoy]

Kuci, I didn't say there was no skill/intelligence put into Halo, I said it lacked it.

As I said before, it matters because that is the very challenge of a human being, it is pushing our abilities to the edge to make the best we can.

Halo is good, it's not great. Half Life is great, Monkey Island is great.

[Asher]

The problem is your reasoning is beyond retarded. Logically it doesn't even make sense if you take your ridiculous assumptions (which I don't).

If Halo lacks skill/intelligence put into it, this is the same as saying it has had no skill/intelligence put into it. You seem to think these are not.

I think, frankly, you are completely full of it. You're measuring metrics that have nothing to do with the game itself to judge the game. Those metrics you pull from your ass, where you (as a graphics artist -- no offense, but this is the lower rung of the intelligent pole in game development) determine how intelligent people were when they made the game.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sn00py
Kuci, I didn't say there was no skill/intelligence put into Halo, I said it lacked it.

Why should I believe that assertion either?

As I said before, it matters because that is the very challenge of a human being, it is pushing our abilities to the edge to make the best we can.

What the **** does that have to do with good games?

Halo is good, it's not great. Half Life is great, Monkey Island is great.

Convince me. Demonstrate those beyond just saying that they're true.

[FrostyBoy]

Sorry, my english sucks when I am rushing. I should have said little artistic value, not lacks. My bad.

Your other comments are sounding immature, you're just throwing insults, but where's the weight in your opinions on the discussion?

Kuci, it has a lot to do with valuing a game, I have difficulty believing you can't see that.

Sorry Kuci, I tried to compare Halo and Half Life on a development value, but it's kinda hard right now (I'm working and I haven't played Half Life or Halo in quite a while). But basically, from what I can remember, Half Life had better well thought out music, soundfx, atmosphere, introduction, story, ending, innovation, UI, artwork, programming, immersiveness (is that a word?) than any of the Halo's has ever had, infact better than any other FPS game, besides perhaps Deux Ex (I have never played) and some other names I have forgotten/not aware of.

But Halo is definitly not one of the competitors. Halo competes with Duke Nukem 3D.


edit: sorry, my english is very bad

[DrSpike]

Not that I want to get drawn into this twilight zone argument but:

I would rate HL more highly too, but not by a huge amount. Halo had a great deal going for it when it was released as no other shooter had pulled off (amongst other things) the wide open fights & the fun vehicles so well.

And the most important point would seem to be that writing off Halo just because it's a console game is pretty dumb. Either it's a good game or it isn't. The worlds are also becoming increasingly closer - Halo and Halo 2 (soon Gears) are on PC, and HL2 soon to be on consoles. How could this thing of artistic beauty appear on a lowly console? Well, because the arguments put forward don't really make a great deal of sense.

[FrostyBoy]

Don't misunderstand me, I know full well it's not necessarily the machine that dictates the design of a game. When I judge a game, I don't base it on what machine it was built for.

I hate consoles for a different reason.

And a lot of what I say doesn't make sense to most people because my brain works on a deeper less logical level.

[snoopy369]

Perhaps different people value different things in games, and this is why some people disagree over which is the better game? I can hardly say that suggesting graphical quality as the prime mover in liking a game is 'wrong' or bad or anything; it's not my prime mover, but it's certainly interesting to me. On the other hand, using words like "a great game" should probably, on both sides, be a bit less general; "a game I enjoyed a lot" would be much more accurately descriptive. I think that in a serious discussion it is impossible to define "great game" in a way that is satisfactory to all (quantitative metrics ie sales being virtually worthless to a gameplay perspective).

I myself do not enjoy shooters, so I would call neither Halo nor Halflife 'great games'. I have no doubt that in a theoretical neutral definition of great they probably both are; a large enough group of people really enjoy both, after all, that there must be redeeming qualities in them both.

Anyone who would argue with straight sales or played volumes would do well to remember that The Sims beats both hands down in those categories

[Kuciwalker]

The Sims is a great game

[Solver]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Perhaps different people value different things in games, and this is why some people disagree over which is the better game? I can hardly say that suggesting graphical quality as the prime mover in liking a game is 'wrong' or bad or anything; it's not my prime mover, but it's certainly interesting to me. On the other hand, using words like "a great game" should probably, on both sides, be a bit less general; "a game I enjoyed a lot" would be much more accurately descriptive. I think that in a serious discussion it is impossible to define "great game" in a way that is satisfactory to all (quantitative metrics ie sales being virtually worthless to a gameplay perspective).

I myself do not enjoy shooters, so I would call neither Halo nor Halflife 'great games'. I have no doubt that in a theoretical neutral definition of great they probably both are; a large enough group of people really enjoy both, after all, that there must be redeeming qualities in them both.

Anyone who would argue with straight sales or played volumes would do well to remember that The Sims beats both hands down in those categories

Yes, people enjoy different things, a startling discovery

Sure, almost anything people say about games is subjective. It'd be really weird, though, to every time say "I really enjoyed this game", "this matched my tastes very well". Readers should be able to figure out for themselves that when someone says "it's a great game", they usually mean "I think it's a great game".

I try to go beyond what I personally like, though. I recognize that some games are great even though I don't like them - I can either see that they're really good but simply don't match my tastes, or acknowledge the fact that most people like them. Take San Andreas. I don't like the game. But I acknowledge that it's a great game, or at least a very good one. Fans of the genre love it and I can see that SA does what it wants to do well. I don't like the things that it wants to do, but I can still see that it does them well.

[Solver]

That's something that applies generally, too, when judging games. You should try to look at the goals the game sets and judge how well it accomplishes those. An example, Doom 3. One of the popular criticisms was that it felt outdated gameplay-wise, without alt-fire modes for weapons, for example. Is that true? Absolutely! But when judging the game, one should keep in mind that one of the design goals was to provide old-school gameplay.

Ditto for other games. There are cases, often enough, when a game fails to do what it tries to do, or when what it tries to do is just plain unfun, but these are really separate cases.

[Quillan]

Both Doom 3 and Half Life 2 deliberately kept "old school" gameplay mechanics in them; I assume it was to avoid any possibility of irritating the fanbase by changing it. In my opinion, however, Doom 3 simply made a 10 year old game with updated graphics, while Half Life 2 made a stupendous game with a few retro elements. I found the Ravenholm chapter of HL2 to be scarier than the entirety of Doom 3. I felt like id had gone with cheap hack tricks in an attempt to startle you. No weapon-mounted light? More of the "monster closet" level design? Overall, I was disappointed in Doom 3, while I love HL2 still (it's been on my hard drive since late 2004).

I didn't play Halo until 2003 when it came out for PC, but while I think there are better shooters out there now than the original Halo, I can see why it was considered a great game. I can see why the original Half Life or System Shock 2 were considered such masterpieces at the time of their release, even though both games are nearly 10 years old now.

Now, as far as Portal goes, I absolutely loved it. I don't think it'll win any GOTY awards; it's too short for that. In fact, I look at Portal as more of a tech demo than a game. I think it's a "proof of concept" piece, showing that you can make a fun game mechanic out of this idea of movable portals. I would not be at all shocked to find the hand-held portal device making an appearance in Episode 3.

[Solver]

There's a big difference between those "old school" types. Doom3 went directly for "old school" - as in the gameplay of Doom2 and other contemporary shooters. HL2 didn't go for old school itself, it went for the style of the original HL. The important thing there was continuing the style - hence the absence of things such as lean buttons or visible hands. On the other hand, HL2 had a goal of innovating gameplay through physics, which it did. Doom3 had a goal of innovating in graphics, which it did, without the goal of gameplay innovations.

I love HL2 myself, still do as well. Didn't find Ravenholm scary at all, though, but was scared in Doom3. Ravenholm has a few great level design decisions, an excellent atmosphere and absolutely masterful direction (topped by very few parts in HL2 and episodes), but I didn't find it scary. Just creepy. Then again, that's not surprising considering what I find scary.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Quillan
Both Doom 3 and Half Life 2 deliberately kept "old school" gameplay mechanics in them; I assume it was to avoid any possibility of irritating the fanbase by changing it. In my opinion, however, Doom 3 simply made a 10 year old game with updated graphics, while Half Life 2 made a stupendous game with a few retro elements. I found the Ravenholm chapter of HL2 to be scarier than the entirety of Doom 3. I felt like id had gone with cheap hack tricks in an attempt to startle you. No weapon-mounted light? More of the "monster closet" level design? Overall, I was disappointed in Doom 3, while I love HL2 still (it's been on my hard drive since late 2004).

QFT - Doom 3 was a pile of poo.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


You said "best rated games". Liar.

Solver is one of the best mannered and most helpful people here, IMHO. I would suggest that calling him a liar because he clarified what he meant hardly makes you look mature. If you think thats advancing intellectual honesty, well ....