Roms

Great site with a lot of roms … without spyware/adware/popups:

http://www.addictedroms.com

Sin Episodes: Emergence Patch 1

I've been playing this game since it come out on the highest difficulty level (it has a dynamic challenge system) and I must say that it became damn hard nearing the end of the game.

I did however manage to finish the game with a skill rating of 72 and a challenge rating of 75. Many other people however complained about the difficulty of the game.

Ritual responded to this very well by communicating with players through the message boards and this patch (a week after the initial release) is the result.

According to ritual, a specific playstyle caused the dynamic challenge system to NOT ease the difficulty. Details on the other changes made, can be found here:
http://www.ritualistic.com/forums/showflat.php?Number=168591

Sin Episodes: Emergence

Sin Episodes: Emergence is a first person shooter. It is a new part in the Sin universe and it's the first part of an episodic story. It runs on the source engine and it is being sold through steam (at first they couldn't find a publisher). Because of the big demand, EA sells it through retail channels now too.

At first many people were sceptic about the game because the early footage showed a lot of resemblence with Half-Life 2. Many people also didn't like that the game would be episodic and were afraid that the game would be too expensive compared to the amount of playing hours.

My experience however is that the game is just very well made and the final version distinguishes itself a lot from Half-Life 2. It is also one of the few games that was challenging (just like Ninja Gaiden). I personally like this, but I've read on forums that many people have complained about the difficulty (which is dynamic) and there should be a patch out within a week to address the difficulty.

My conclusion is that the game is well worth its money and the soon to be added arena mode will probably add to the gaming experience and will improve the replayability. The only thing that kinda bugs me, is that according to some website there are nine episodes planned. But only time will tell.

HL1DM: Source (Alpha ???)

Well as you can see I'm pissed that valve really fucked up the source remake of Half-Life 1 Deathmath: Source.

Therefore I decided to send him this e-mail:

Dear Gabe,

I’ve been a fan of the series and the company for years now and I loved all the games. So when I heard there was going to be a remake of HL1DM I was very happy. Unfortunately it got postponed, but I said to myself: “Ah well it must’ve been necessary for the quality of the game”. So when I heard I would be able to play it once I pre-ordered it, I didn’t even hesitate and grabbed the creditcard. At first I thought, hey the levels look a lot better with souped up graphics and lighting ….. but in my humble opinion it just isn’t ready yet. Its playability is really bad compared to the original.Gameplay improvement suggestions:

• Dedicated server option. For now this is not possible yet.
• Steam server filter for Half-Life Deathmatch: Source.
• Even the weapon damage some more. Now only the weapons with explosives, snarks and bees are usefull really. With all other weapons you can keep shooting, but you almost won’t be able to kill anyone.
• The explosive damage range is too big and the damage itself is too big as well for most weapons (by example explosive crossbow bolt).
• Weaponswitch is really slow …. some weapons like the satchel don’t seem to respond at all sometimes.
• The rocket and MP5 grenade are very slow, they should be faster as well.
• The gluon seems to have a slow reaction as well.
• Ragdoll physics would be nice.
• Remove the kickback from weapons. By example the MP5 and even the crossbow seem to have an annoying kickback tot hem.
• Make normal falldamage the default server option opposed to realistic falldamage. This is especially necessary in Bounce and a lot of people don’t notice or change this setting.

Graphics improvement suggestions:

• Better looking player and weapon models.
• Have some old textures replaced by better looking ones.

Bugs (if these are bugs):

• Turrets in crossfire can only aim at the 3D skymap, so they aren’t usable.
• Turret in stalkyard works, but the sound is dimmed and it doesn’t seem to do any damage.

I hope this constructive e-mail will help create a better and more fun game.

Best wishes,
Bjorn Houben

PS: I tried using a HL2DM map in HL1DM: Source and it worked pretty well, this would mean converting a map for HL1DM: Source shouldn’t be a lot of work. Therefore I hope support for it can be added soon to the SDK.

Half-Life Deathmatch: Source

First Impressions of HL1DM Source:

Positives:
+3D Skyboxes added.
+Improved lighting (incl HDR).
+General graphics improvement (not that much).
+Nice looking water.
+Source engine allows for physics and better looking levels.
+It looks as if HL2DM maps only need minor adjustments to use them for HL1DM: Source.
+Displacements (bumpier surfaces), this however might obstruct gameplay as well.

Negatives:
-Longjump module doesn't work (Half-Life without a longjump is …. well like Gordon without his crowbar). I can't understand they didn't notice this or couldn't fix it, since there are mods who have implemented the longjump.
-Grenades coming from MP5 are very slow.
-Explosions have a too wide range.
-Fall damage is absurd (especially when using tau cannon or just with normal playing in by example bounce).
-Some of the map changes decrease the gameplay of the map.
-Weapon models, player models and textures in general still look crappy.
-Physics on models doesn't seem to be implemented ( I couldn't slap a dead body around as you could in HL2).

Conclusion:

Quite some adjustments have been made, but it just isn't ready yet in my humble opinion.

I think they should have considered upgrading the weapon models and player models and leave the map building to the community.

I hope they will however update it soon.