Half-Life 2 Not Really "Episodic" After All
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
So Half Life 2: Episode 2 (Liverpool 3) isn't an episode? What exactly is it then? Spin-Off? Add-On? Total Mod? Marketing Jargon? Overpriced Module?
As they say... you can have it fast, good or cheap (pick 2 at most).
The series is excellent and the price is reduced because they're shorter, the price for this is Valve Time and longer waits. I much prefer this system to the all too common method of "push it out the door prematurely and riddled with bugs, we'll fix that with a patch... maybe, but charge full price".
To be honest, Valve can have all the time in the world so long as the quality stays up.
The series is excellent and the price is reduced because they're shorter, the price for this is Valve Time and longer waits. I much prefer this system to the all too common method of "push it out the door prematurely and riddled with bugs, we'll fix that with a patch... maybe, but charge full price".
To be honest, Valve can have all the time in the world so long as the quality stays up.
I agree. If it's not episodic then why is Valve boldly publishing such games as "Half-Life 2: Episode 2"?The_root_of_all_evil post=7.73138.785218 said:
No clue What its supposed to be... i havent been in a hurry to play up to the end yet though so.. dont know
"Er... *wipes sweat* by 'episode', we clearly meant six hours of gaming released every two years or so... *cough* I mean, obviously it was YOU who was mistaken."
Definitely retconning.
Definitely retconning.
When Valve gets all done , I wonder if they can consolidate all of the recent games. HL3+episodes1,2,3 into one single continuous game where you blow up the citadel, see the gman end game speech from hl2, and it goes right into episode 1 intro seamlessly.
Since the HL2 Episodes are actually HL3. Then no, they probably won't. That would be like them smashing together HL2 and HL1. They might collate the episodes though.GoldenShadow post=7.73138.785817 said:
Valve's only backtracking now because they realize that they completely screwed the pooch on episodic gaming, got shown up by Telltale Games' Sam and Max seasons, and ended up looking like colossal idiots. They didn't want to release them as expansion packs because the attach rate has historically been poor for most x-packs. They couldn't release them as full games because the price point would turn off consumers. So they hitched their wagons to this idea of "episodic gaming" even though they didn't have the first clue what that term entails.
Personally I hope more developers follow the Telltale model. It keeps PC gaming in the news when sites have a "new game" to review so often.
Personally I hope more developers follow the Telltale model. It keeps PC gaming in the news when sites have a "new game" to review so often.
Ritual REALLY screwed the pooch with SIN: Episodes. They haven't released episode two yet and episode one was released in 2006.
Wow. Shot right out of the sky eh? The first episode was actually fun and had some pretty cool ironsight shooting mechanics before it became popularized. I kinda wanted to see how it turned out. Ah well.
It's not so much that Sin did awfully - although it was pretty half-assed - but Ritual was acquired by MumboJumbo in early 2007 and turned to casual game development, and that was pretty much that.
Which, as long as we're on the topic, is one of the risks of episodic development. If you're the sort who cares about story even in your FPSs, like me, you end up hosed because the developer goes tits-up halfway through the series, and things just stop dead wherever they happen to be. It's not cool.
Which, as long as we're on the topic, is one of the risks of episodic development. If you're the sort who cares about story even in your FPSs, like me, you end up hosed because the developer goes tits-up halfway through the series, and things just stop dead wherever they happen to be. It's not cool.
Too true. You can say the same thing for franchises though. Look at what happened to Xenosaga and. Planning sequels has become the order of the day, but all it does is shaft gamers with badly constructed (usually) endings and the possibility of getting the finger later on. Can anyone tell me that they finished Gears of War or Halo 2 and felt satisfied? To their credit though, Valve wrapped up HL2: Ep 1 pretty well so that I didn't feel shortchanged and was still hungry for more. Felt shortchanged after they announced Orange Box though, but we've been over that.
EDITED. Removed .hack from the unfinished series list. Thought there were supposed to be 8 of them but apparently there are only 4.
EDITED. Removed .hack from the unfinished series list. Thought there were supposed to be 8 of them but apparently there are only 4.
No, episode 3 is the third part of HL3. Taken together episodes 1, 2, and 3 ARE Half-Life 3. Gabe Newell pretty much said this. In fact I think he DID say it. Anyone verify?
Nevermind. Misread your post and didn't see the very important word "after".
I don't know if Valve has announced a new Half-Life game yet.
Nevermind. Misread your post and didn't see the very important word "after".
I don't know if Valve has announced a new Half-Life game yet.