Team Fortress 2 and Portal

[SpiderMonkey]

Speaking of the Ship, is it any good? I've only seen the ads for it once on steam and the title seemed vaguely appealing. Is it worth the money?

I'd love to give a decent answer, but I'm afraid I've had very little time with it so far and so, beyond expressing how ugly I find the HUD font, I couldn't offer any worthwhile opinion. This guy (Shacknews) gushed about it in a pretty entertaining way though.

Going back and focusing on the arcadey, excellent gameplay of TFC seems like a smarter option to me.

Agreed. I just hope that the 2 at the end of the title gives them enough licence to explore some evolution of the concepts at the core of the game, rather than pushing out another straight port, CS:S and DoD:S style.

[Thrik]

Consolevania reviewed The Ship in the latest episode, so get it downloaded.

[miffy495]

never hurts to have opinions from OUTSIDE Consolevania as well though. Especially for me, as someone who never gets into multiplayer games. Is the concept intruiging enough to keep you hooked? How much narrative is there, and does the presence of other players detract from it? etc, etc, etc.

[Jake]

I'm really, really glad they're instead planning on reviving the glory of TFC.

Not to nitpick but TFC still pales in comparison to the original Quakeworld Team Fortress. TFC always felt clunkier to me, more rigid Given the visual appearance of TF2 I'm hoping clunkiness won't be an issue though.

[Oath]

I'll just keep adding stuff to this thread as it goes.

Now there's a trailer for Portal out:

• Gamespot stream
  
• 
  
• Fileshack download
  

A guy from Valve said that they would be releasing videos this week, so expect some TF2 stuff soon, I guess.

[Wrestlevania]

...wow.

Might have some chronic balance issues me thinks, but still; credit to Valve for being brave. Hopefully the finished environment won't be quite so bland and 'functional' either. I expect the game's emphasis will be squarely on the use strategy and cunning. Looking forward to seeing more.

[toblix]

I thought it looked great. Either the demo is representative of the game, in which case it'll probably be a game for the Xtreme crowd, or they showed some overly complex stuff just to make it look totally awesome and cool (which it did). Either way, I'm getting it. I sort of liked the sterile, Cube-like levels, but I hope they jazz things up a little.

The voice was a bit lame, maybe, but the illustrations were pretty neat.

A portal gun in HL2 would be totally enjoyable to max.

[ysbreker]

I really liked the art direction in the video, although I agree on the somewhat cheap vocoder voice.

looking forward to playing that

[Kolzig]

That was an awesome video.

What's with all the Combine looking graphics?

I know that the minigame is situated in the HL universe, but still...

[elmuerte]

funny

I wonder if you coudl stick portals on moving elements (like that crate)... that would be nice

[SpiderMonkey]

Might have some chronic balance issues me thinks ... I expect the game's emphasis will be squarely on the use strategy and cunning.

Your post sounds kinda like you are expecting a multiplayer game, so I'm just replying to point out that this is a singleplayer puzzle game.

For those interested in The Ship, I've been playing enough of it to feel I can give some first impressions:

- It's really fun when you manage to pull off something clever.

- The atmosphere, especially the music, is great and the style of it all works well.

- There's a lot of downtime where you aren't actively participating in the game, sometimes only a minute or two, sometimes more like 5. If the idea of stalking the people who are still playing and pretending to be their hunter, in order to fuck with their heads is appealing, you'll probably cope. If it doesn't, you'll probably spend half of your playing time quite bored.

- It's all nicely balanced and the needs system works well. I've noticed one bug so far, which was a time wasting related problem, but other than that it seems glitch free.

Overall, currently, I would say that if you want something to play every now and then, and if $20 is what you consider a cheap price for a game, it's a definite purchase. If you want something you can play the hell out of like CS or BF2 or DoD, or if $20 is enough money for you to constantly be saying "I'm not sure I've got my money's worth" (which lots of people seem apt to do with HL2:Ep1 & SiN:Ep1), then you shouldn't buy this.

Edit: I forgot one vital detail about the game. The poo and pee noises are UTTERLY DISGUSTING. Least welcome sound effect in a game, ever.

[miffy495]

Damn portal looks awesome. I will be preordering as soon as it's available (as that seems to be a good way to save about $5 on Steam...) and playing the hell out of it soon after. Downloaded Narbacular Drop, but haven't had a chance to play it yet. Soon...

[Wrestlevania]

Your post sounds kinda like you are expecting a multiplayer game, so I'm just replying to point out that this is a singleplayer puzzle game.

Ah. That's me not realising that the figure you appear to be 'chasing' in some of the footage is actually yourself.

[Marek]

Portal is fucking incredible. Is the price of Episode 2 going to be the same, or higher because of the stuff that comes with it? I mean, shiiiit.

[Carlius]

Could anyone post some links where you can see screenshots from Portal, because I don't have permission from my webmaster to stream videos nor to download the videos.

[Twilo]

Hee, I think that Portal trailer had the effect of killing narbacular drop's server.

I assume it's running on source, so can a multiplayer mod really be that far off anyway?

I got HL2:Ep1 a couple of days ago, it's freaking expensive after tax ($25!) and I'm not convinced that there's enough new content there to justify the price; Minerva is pretty much the same thing but free.

The super-bundle Ep2 sounds like it has great value for money, though.

[miffy495]

Played a bit of Narbacular Drop now (dl-ed it when Portal was first announced, motivated by the trailer to actually play the thing) and it's quite fun. Damn impressive considering that it's a free student project. A little rough around the edges, but I find it hard to complain about something of this quality that's also free. Now I REALLY want Episode 2 to come out already.

EDIT: whelp, just beat it. Took all of 20 minutes from start to finish. Still fun though, and free. Special thanks to M.C. Escher. heh.

[Oath]

It's the people who made Narbacular Drop that have been making this too. They got hired by Valve after they showed their project, developed at DigiPen, off. I think they've been working on this for the last year.

Could anyone post some links where you can see screenshots from Portal, because I don't have permission from my webmaster to stream videos nor to download the videos.

Screenshots really, really don't do this justice. Besides, there aren't any official screens released. Here's a snapshot from the HD trailer though:

[Carlius]

It's the people who made Narbacular Drop that have been making this too. They got hired by Valve after they showed their project, developed at DigiPen, off. I think they've been working on this for the last year.

Screenshots really, really don't do this justice. Besides, there aren't any official screens released. Here's a snapshot from the HD trailer though:

I'm most positive that you're right, thx:clap:

[Oath]

Since you asked for it (before the edit):

[Carlius]

damn, why is Valve so good:grin:

[andreadst]

this portal thing is already cool in Prey but this is a incredible.

I'm not really into puzzle games but this one seems like it could convert me to the genre.

and even the weapon looks cool!

And I'm wondering, is this the first FPP , first person puzzle, or someone attempted this before?

[SpiderMonkey]

I got HL2:Ep1 a couple of days ago, it's freaking expensive after tax ($25!) and I'm not convinced that there's enough new content there to justify the price; Minerva is pretty much the same thing but free.

I'm sorry to go offtopic, but hearing stuff like this pisses me off and so I feel compelled to call you on your bullshit. Minerva is a great piece of work but it is absolutely not "the same thing but free". One has voice acting and proper character acting, the other has Shodan sending you some text every so often. One has 14 levels packed with content, the other has 2. One pushes FPS gameplay into interesting new areas, one offers up a solid set of straight forward fights.

Adam Foster is very talented and Minerva is excellent for what it is, but let's be honest here: it's obvious that Minvera is the work of 1 person and it's obvious that Ep1 is the work of ~30. They are not the same and, I'm doing my best not to be rude, but I can't help but feel you are being willfully asinine in trying to suggest otherwise.

[Twilo]

I'm sorry to go offtopic, but hearing stuff like this pisses me off and so I feel compelled to call you on your bullshit. Minerva is a great piece of work but it is absolutely not "the same thing but free". One has voice acting and proper character acting, the other has Shodan sending you some text every so often. One has 14 levels packed with content, the other has 2. One pushes FPS gameplay into interesting new areas, one offers up a solid set of straight forward fights.

Adam Foster is very talented and Minerva is excellent for what it is, but let's be honest here: it's obvious that Minvera is the work of 1 person and it's obvious that Ep1 is the work of ~30. They are not the same and, I'm doing my best not to be rude, but I can't help but feel you are being willfully asinine in trying to suggest otherwise.

Wow man, way to go bat fuck insane

[schepton]