Lost Coast.
I like Half-Life 2. The first one was a little annoying as it became a bit of a platform jumper near the end, but the second one never seemed to get just plain annoying to me.
Recently, a couple days ago in fact, Valve released the HDR tech demo "Lost Coast" which happens to be set in the Half-Life universe. (I have previously talked about this move here.) I played through the game part in about 15 minutes. This included spending some time just admiring the view I may add.
Just as an aside, the minimum recommended specs for the game are not quite met by my computer, I need a slightly faster processor to get it to stop complaining to me. It does seem to handle alright though. I was able to play through at 1600x1200 without much trouble. The HDR effects don't always work quite right on my too-dark monitor, but do pretty well. I did have trouble with the commentary part at those settings, and ended up dropping resolution to 1024x768 to go through it with the commentary enabled.
HDR is neat and adds a lot visually to a game. My monitor is getting old and runs dim - so it isn't as well done for me as it could be. What I do know is that running Day of Defeat Source at a buddies place with my 17" LAN Party "mobile" monitor it was noticeable and nice though. Maybe in a couple years I'll get an LCD to replace my current CRT - or it may all wait until I can get a new system.
What I want to share is the commentary. The last time I have seen something similar is while playing Medal of Honor Pacific Assault: Director's Edition
. Many games have special editions with "making of" features available on the disc, but in this game there were historical fact pop-ups during game play. These were actually pretty interesting, but they killed gameplay as they were intrusive and didn't pause/stop/effect the action in any way. Taking the time to read them basically means you aren't taking the time to play the game.
Lost Coast has done it differently. There are 14 comment points in the game. They will occasionally take control of the game for you to show you what they are for. They range in content from technology showcases to design decisions. The points at which they can be activated are very obvious, and they can be de-activated at any time.
They put a context on "making of" that is hard to explain without actually experiencing it. They never detract as you can have them turned off, as I did the first time I played. Turning them on they are still not intrusive, although they do basically preclude total immersion. Since you have to turn them on for this effect it is assumed that at this point immersion isn't that important anyhow.
I remember the first time I watched a movie with the commentary track. It was very interesting. I was able to hear and understand the reasoning that went into what I saw on the screen. This was similar to that experience, only better. The same way a good video game is much better than a good movie, that same video game having commentary during actual play is better than a watching clips of a game with commentary. The ability to look what is being talked about on your own terms is just as good as the ability to explore an environment on your own terms.
The last comment mentions that they are doing the in-game commentary as an experiment and would like to gather feedback. I for one would like them to do this with more games, and other designers/producers as well. Done right it would make the extra money for a special edition a lot more worth it than some video clips, interviews (that can usually be found on-line) and a cloth map.
Recently, a couple days ago in fact, Valve released the HDR tech demo "Lost Coast" which happens to be set in the Half-Life universe. (I have previously talked about this move here.) I played through the game part in about 15 minutes. This included spending some time just admiring the view I may add.
Just as an aside, the minimum recommended specs for the game are not quite met by my computer, I need a slightly faster processor to get it to stop complaining to me. It does seem to handle alright though. I was able to play through at 1600x1200 without much trouble. The HDR effects don't always work quite right on my too-dark monitor, but do pretty well. I did have trouble with the commentary part at those settings, and ended up dropping resolution to 1024x768 to go through it with the commentary enabled.
HDR is neat and adds a lot visually to a game. My monitor is getting old and runs dim - so it isn't as well done for me as it could be. What I do know is that running Day of Defeat Source at a buddies place with my 17" LAN Party "mobile" monitor it was noticeable and nice though. Maybe in a couple years I'll get an LCD to replace my current CRT - or it may all wait until I can get a new system.
What I want to share is the commentary. The last time I have seen something similar is while playing Medal of Honor Pacific Assault: Director's Edition
. Many games have special editions with "making of" features available on the disc, but in this game there were historical fact pop-ups during game play. These were actually pretty interesting, but they killed gameplay as they were intrusive and didn't pause/stop/effect the action in any way. Taking the time to read them basically means you aren't taking the time to play the game.Lost Coast has done it differently. There are 14 comment points in the game. They will occasionally take control of the game for you to show you what they are for. They range in content from technology showcases to design decisions. The points at which they can be activated are very obvious, and they can be de-activated at any time.
They put a context on "making of" that is hard to explain without actually experiencing it. They never detract as you can have them turned off, as I did the first time I played. Turning them on they are still not intrusive, although they do basically preclude total immersion. Since you have to turn them on for this effect it is assumed that at this point immersion isn't that important anyhow.
I remember the first time I watched a movie with the commentary track. It was very interesting. I was able to hear and understand the reasoning that went into what I saw on the screen. This was similar to that experience, only better. The same way a good video game is much better than a good movie, that same video game having commentary during actual play is better than a watching clips of a game with commentary. The ability to look what is being talked about on your own terms is just as good as the ability to explore an environment on your own terms.
The last comment mentions that they are doing the in-game commentary as an experiment and would like to gather feedback. I for one would like them to do this with more games, and other designers/producers as well. Done right it would make the extra money for a special edition a lot more worth it than some video clips, interviews (that can usually be found on-line) and a cloth map.
posted by Adam Myhr at
4:53 PM
1 Comments:
Wish I had time for games. About once a month I rev up some game on my laptop for half an hour, but that's no where near 'enough.' Commentaries for games sounds intriguing, though I'm not so sure they work in-game (as you point out, it detracts from the overall experience), especially considering I may never have the time to finish a game, but maybe would like to hear all the commentary anyway.
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Unknown, at 9:01 AM
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