Frank Miller’s Ronin 2 looks a lot like a Daikatana comic…
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i thought that was the maxx at first
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I need to post about middle aged hl2 modder leon
he has a very eccentric style that has more in common with quake than half life. all the music in his mods is stolen from like medal of honor allied assault and max payne. you regularly have to platform on thin ass ledges that look like level boundaries. corridors lead to nowhere. in his first map pack none of the doors that are openable look like doors you can open
almost all the enemies are combine soldiers and he puts shotgunners behind you and around corners 24/7 like hes making a doom map. you fight hordes of enemies. he will explain stuff to you with text pop ups right before you run into it which ruins any suspense a boss encounter could have. and he loves keycard hunts and inane cutscenes that take control away from you
but his levels have this really odd and distinct style that i think is entertaining
[Call of Duty 2 credits song solemnly plays as you walk around for 10 minutes trying to figure out where to go]
also he made a 20 hour long mod thats his version of what half life episode 3 would look like??? and it has bizarre made in gmod cutscenes where gordon freeman goes “Holy SHEIT” and gets yeeted out of a minecart at 100 mph??? he was 55 years old when he made this.
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Coastline to Atmosphere was great. I only got lost a few times. It’s sort of like the highway 17 chapter but… off. the dxm hl2 coastline experience. and it has an all timer FPS nightmare sequence. Here is the full thing, Max Payne music and everything. It goes on for way longer than you could ever imagine.
It even has a part where you go to a movie theater and the guys in the movie start shooting at you and you have to shoot back like Cryostasis!!!
Leon is a genius.
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this is such a good and funny setpiece, its also a really good demonstration of his non half life sensibilities in encounter design. leon really said im going to have dr breen telepathically taunt you with overlapping dialogue while you get owned by the brightstone cove tseldora spiders and max’s choice: duty vs passion plays
genuinely exciting to play through!!
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I keep thinking about how negative all the modern reviews are for Coastline to Atmosphere whereas in 2006 when it came out IIRC PC Gamer talked it up and people were generally a lot more positive on it. Nowadays it’s all people calling him stupid or incompetent because Valve broke some of the scripted events with engine updates and they don’t like the way he makes levels. It’s kinda dumb but part of the appeal of mods at least for me is having to get used to a specific persons weird design language and if you end up understanding where they are coming from then that’s great you’re going to have a good time…it doesnt make them an idiot or boring because you dont understand what theyre trying to do or had a technical problem that isnt their fault…if you go back and play old, early half life 1 mods they would be completely unacceptable by the standards of Modern Game Design but it really didnt matter in 2000 or whatever. that wasnt the point. stuff like timeline was crazy because of the spectacle off playing a NEW GAME IN HALF LIFE WOWOWOW. sure you barely had any ammo and the encounter design was frankly insanely awful but LOOK AT THE TEXTUREWORK!!!
it kinda sucks that if you want to make anything like this now people basically expect you to either hew so close to valve’s style that you’re making some shit like black mesa or whatever their idea of AAA game design is. if koumei satou released mistake of pythagoras today most of the comments would be negative probably. a dark future for the leons and tecnobacons of the world
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