What single player FPS campaign are you playing?

[Xeogred]

Xen is just awful, lol. It'll be interesting to see how they handle it in Black Mesa, but when I heard it wasn't finished in the first release I didn't care at all.

That's just not fair. It's a mod (a free one that you pay nothing for and enjoy for free). Cut them some slack. It's a miracle that anything saw the light of day. It's downright divine that the game is so good so far.

Huh? I wasn't bashing the mod at all.

[MrPopo]

Crysis had that problem too... the aliens come in and the game just turns into garbage, phew was it frustrating and lame. Crysis 2 got a little old after awhile too, same three alien enemy types for the entire game.

Crysis Warhead actually managed to make "aliens show up" not suck total ass. They gave the aliens some pretty good AI and utilize the fact they could fly, and it made for some pretty fun gunplay.

Xen is just awful, lol. It'll be interesting to see how they handle it in Black Mesa, but when I heard it wasn't finished in the first release I didn't care at all.

I'll reprhase for you Xeogred. "I'm interested to see how Black Mesa does Xen, but I'm not disappointed that it wasn't in the first release".

[Ack]

Well, I am now playing through Black Mesa. I encountered some issue early on where the Office Complex level caused the mod to crash every few minutes, regardless of how I had my video and audio settings configured. But once I passed that level, I have not had any more issues. But it slowed me down, so I am only in Blast Pit. I feel I want to debate the value of the shotgun vs. the magnum so early in the game. I like the magnum, don't get me wrong. But in Half-Life, the shotgun was my workhorse. I used it for the majority of situations unless an enemy was better suited for death by something else. Most aliens though were buckshot bait. Plus, picking up two pistols so early in the game...not my favorite in terms of spacing. Still, the magnum is an effective sniping tool early on...

[MrPopo]

Getting the magnum early was a godsend for "We've got hostiles". I've found the shotgun is only decent. Both the bullsquid and the vortigants have projectiles that are very hard to dodge in Black Mesa, so my old strategy of dodging while moving forward into shotgun range didn't work well. So I found myself using the shotty a lot less than I did in HL1.

[Ack]

True for those long shots, but so many of the fights in the game take place in close corridors, I consistenly end up in range to do damage with it.

I've also found that the marines seem to step out and stand there with their heads exposed. I picked up the achievement for headshots with the 357 before I had even gotten halfway through We've Got Hostiles.

[MrPopo]

Yeah, it was the same for me. The thing is, the marines take so much damage, even with headshots, that the magnum and crossbow become your best friend for dealing with them. The MP5 is situational; it's not as effective as it was in HL1, but depending on the level layout it can do a good enough job to let you conserve your 1-shot magnum ammo.

[Ack]

Yeah, I found that the mp5 is best for groups of enemies, so I can spray while fleeing. That group of dogs (cannot remember their names) which shoot the shochwaves once you make it to the primary toxic shaft around the rocket engine test chamber...proved perfect for that, where I backpedaled and sprayed into the horde. But for precision, I'm sticking to the pistol, and the crowbar quite a bit, depending on the situation.

[Pulsar_t]

I'm trying to remember the title of an fps released in the post-PS2 era where to get to the final boss you have to get up a mountain and there's an intricate machine with large shifting gears where said boss keeps taunting and popping cheap shots at you. Perhaps it's not even an fps to begin with. It's like an itch I can't scratch

[Cronozilla]

Xen is just awful, lol. It'll be interesting to see how they handle it in Black Mesa, but when I heard it wasn't finished in the first release I didn't care at all.

Huh? I wasn't bashing the mod at all.

Sorry, if I was off the mark, the comment just came across that way.

[Ack]

I'm trying to remember the title of an fps released in the post-PS2 era where to get to the final boss you have to get up a mountain and there's an intricate machine with large shifting gears where said boss keeps taunting and popping cheap shots at you. Perhaps it's not even an fps to begin with. It's like an itch I can't scratch

Shadow of the Colossus?

Anyway, made it to Surface Tension in Black Mesa. I only get a couple of hours to play each night, but I've been putting as much into them as I can fit. I'm up to 18/25 achievements, and before someone gives me flak for going after achievements, I have to say that some of them make for entertaining challenges, and some of them I got normally through my behavior in the game.

That said, the most entertaining thing I've discovered doesn't have to do with the achievements at all. Turns out all landmines have portions which sit above the ground and which trigger the explosion if touched...by anything. So I spent a good twenty minutes killing headcrabs and then hurling their bodies into the minefield to trigger chain reactions. Once that happened, I started using their guts and trying to catch the "ball" of green goo each time I hurled it into a mine. That was far more fun than it should have been.