>>729138152
half life was never good.

>>729138791
maybe if you live on planet faggot

some of entropy zero's gunfights were memorably ballbusting but it's mostly just "another story-light mod where you gun down a bunch of enemies as a dude then it ends"

entropy zero 2 is kind of a level beyond sorry, lot of memorable gimmicks and setpieces

>>729138152
Not particularly no.
2 has way better level design and combat encounters. The original is kind of amateurish and shit. Will be curious to see what comes of the remake whenever that is finished. And Uprising is kino too, more people should play it.

>>729138152
No not really, The first one was very clearly the first mod they guy was making and it shows. The levels are very barebones and unimpressive and the story is mostly there as a placeholder.

>>729138860
it doesn't get the half life atmosphere right, and that drags it down so hard. There's too much dialogue, too much plot. Half Life is mainly just you playing as a guy walking through environments and gunning down enemies, while you piece together the plot from environmental details. Entropy Zero 1 does that excellently.

Plus there are too many bullet sponges in EZ 2 and too many redundant weapons.

>>729139195
nigger take.

>>729138995
Less is more with story in a half life game. EZ 2 has too much story.

>>729139252
Niggers want the game to beat you over the head with the story so they won't miss it. White men appreciate subtlety.

>>729139195
I don't really care for EZ2's writing much either but it's way, way more fun to actually play. And the original had bad cop spouting one liners too.

>>729138152
>calling it entropy zero two instead of entropy one
baka baka

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59 KB JPG

slavic cringekino

>>729139195
so i'm autistic enough about this that I think that TF2 even had the "valve vibe" at launch and don't really like the comics because it feels like they got away from it
I don't agree with you, I think EZ2 was way better off doing their own thing. Would not have been nearly as memorable if it was just silent overwatch man killing rebels and then it ends

>>729138913
EZ 2 has longer combat encounters with more enemies. I wouldn't call them better. A lot of them suffer from dragging on too long, ending up like a doom slaughter map. EZ 1's encounters have all the same difficulty, but don't overstay their welcome. Plus there's the issue of having too many weapons that do the same job. Hl2 already had this problem, and EZ 2 makes it worse by removing the gravity gun and adding another machine gun. They should've cut the mp7 and the crossbow.

>better level design
not really. The levels in EZ 1 look great and do a good job of guiding the player. And again, they have excellent atmosphere. The ones in EZ 2 would too if Bad Cop had less dialogue and Wilson weren't in the game.

>. And Uprising is kino too, more people should play it
Playing it right now, and the combat encounters are pretty meh. It gives me too much ammo and not enough enemies. It should either increase the number of enemies or half the amount of bullets it gives me. Alternatively, it could arrange things to make the fights more difficult, like EZ 1 did with its turret ambush hallway.

>>729139397
There's a difference between the Schwarzenegger one liners from EZ 1 and the Marvel quips from EZ 2. Bad Cop also simply does not work as a proper character with sympathetic motivations. He's much, much better a faceless psychopath who takes joy in murdering innocent people for an evil alien dictatorship. That whole daughter thing was just dumb, it made him stupid for believing them, and his clone stupid for thinking he could blackmail them, and the combine stupid for not liquidating him when he killed a bunch of fellow officers.

> but it's way, way more fun to actually play
I have to disagree. They're about on par gameplay wise in the best areas, but then EZ 2 just drags on, while EZ 1 knows when to move on. Plus the man hacks were great, meanwhile the squad mechanic, while cool, wasn't as fun as using the manhacks to decoy fire while I flanked the rebels. And vortigaunts are bastard enemies that are not fun to fight.

>>729139414
Its a second zero entropy phenomena. The first one was the reactor in City 10, the second was that stabilization device outside of the Borealis (the one you fight clone cop in).

>>729139642
>Plus there's the issue of having too many weapons that do the same job. Hl2 already had this problem
having a lot of guns is fun, HL2 lacking in the "lots of fun weapons to cycle between" department is a reliable point against it when I compare it against HL1. gravity gun is pretty boring honestly

>>729139620
I feel like if they had just expanded on the version of him from EZ 1 instead of completely retconning him, that would have been perfect. Ditch the daughter and his humanity entirely. Have him be a stone cold sociopath who kills because he's always hated people. Have his clone be fighting out of pure self interest, he's only fighting you because he knows that if the combine win, they'll dispose of him for being a failure, meanwhile Bad Cop is fighting because he doesn't want to be a failure that needs disposing of.

I want to see the kind of person who thrives in the society created by the combine. A killing machine that loves its job, not a family man looking for his daughter.

>Would not have been nearly as memorable if it was just silent overwatch man killing rebels and then it ends
I guess it was memorable in that I remembered how much I disliked the changes to his character and how much I wanted him to shut up. Which sucks because I really liked him in the first game.

>>729138152
No. I remember 2 being more fun, even though I don't remember much of either games

>>729139943
Having lots of variety is fun

Hl1's arsenal is fun because it has variety. It only has 1 machine gun because it only needs one machine gun. The rest of those slots are used for crazy wall piercing energy guns, ghost buster guns, rocket launchers, satchel charges, trip mines, snarks, bee guns, ghost buster proton packs, magazine fed crossbows.

The MP7's only saving utility in HL2 is as a grenade launcher, other than that its just a spare machine gun you use when the AR2 is out of ammo. In EZ 2, is even worse because now you have the MP5, which is more accurate and does more damage, and the MP7 has been nerfed with more recoil.

Perhaps the MP7's grenade function could have been replaced with a modified flare gun, or the explosive crossbow from Hl1 multiplayer.

>gravity gun is pretty boring honestly
It and the crossbow are the only fun guns in that game. Everything else is boring and utilitarian.

>>729139841
>That whole daughter thing was just dumb, it made him stupid for believing them, and his clone stupid for thinking he could blackmail them, and the combine stupid for not liquidating him when he killed a bunch of fellow officers.
I think you can easily argue that the combine "needing him human" is a bit out of character for the combine (though maybe you could consider it desperation, bad cop is effective, we need the borealis- fuck it, try it) but I think repurposing a threat instead of killing it makes sense for what the combine is, I mean it's literally in their name.

But Bad Cop being dumb is just the point. Anyone who earnestly believes the combine is "on your team" is retarded, but Bad Cop's edgy ex-prison guard "fuck humanity, fuck the world" persona is the kind of person who might genuinely believe it. Even a cool stoic sociopath would have to be stupid or overtly suicidal to want to "join" the combine by the time of EZ2.

I don't think EZ2 perfectly slots into Half-Life tonally, but I liked Bad Cop and Wilson's dynamic and I think as an immensely fanservicey half-life mod his character as being a wanky, cocky power fantasy with a melodramatic backstory works. I genuinely like a lot of his interactions with Wilson. I like a silent badass, but "genuinely stupid, villainous asshole" is a kind of protagonist we don't really get in games that I'd love to see more of and Bad Cop filled that niche for me.

>>729140220
Maybe its just me, but a large part of the fun of Half Life is the atmosphere, and EZ 2 has way less atmosphere than EZ 1.

>>729140423
funny that you say that because my complaint with the gravity gun is that it's boring and utilitarian. you don't really use it for fun shit in combat, you pick up a large, "heavy" object like a radiator or tractor tire and pulverize everything while also blocking bullets until it's time to move on. I remember Hunters being a really cool highlight enemy as a kid because they took a lot of punishment and made you use rare resources like AR2 balls or power ammo like the magnum/crossbow while also making you move around a lot to fight them. when i realized how cripplingly weak they were to the gravity gun it genuinely kinda ruined them for me.

>>729141073
The set design in the original is really poor. The outdoor sections in particular look so incredibly bad and thrown together. The intent was there and I respect it but the whole thing screamed that it was the creator's first mod to me.
It would really benefit from a redux from the dev with their current mapping knowledge.

>>729141073
ez2 has some extremely moody maps. what takes me out of a vibe is a character I don't like talking more than a character talking in itself, it makes sense that you wouldn't find it vibey if you really wanted bad cop to be a serious sociopath who guns down rebels without motivation the whole game

>>729138152

>friend recommends entropy zero 2
>uninstall after intro secquence where the MC is on headcrab duty and not biotic sterilization
>friend bitches at me that i should've continued at least until portal 2 part

jesus fucking christ how horrifying

>>729141026
>I think you can easily argue that the combine "needing him human" is a bit out of character for the combine
That's the one part about EZ 2 I actually did like. The combine are pragmatic more than anything, They kept Breen around and made him tinpot dictator of Earth because having a human face on all the posters made the population more docile. If a a more human soldier is what they need for a mission, then they'll use one.

>) but I think repurposing a threat instead of killing it makes sense for what the combine is
Yeah, but only if said threat can be controlled. If he kills his comrades when they piss him off then he's too unstable to use, at least too unstable without immediate mandatory brain scrubbing to make him more docile.

>But Bad Cop being dumb is just the point
And its a bad point to have.

>Even a cool stoic sociopath would have to be stupid or overtly suicidal to want to "join" the combine by the time of EZ2.
Not necessarily. If he has no morality or loyalty to humanity, thinks the human race and the earth are doomed, and that fighting the combine is a losing proposition, then of course he'd join them if joining means good food, good pay, better housing, and a free pass to kill people, and as a bonus if he does really good they'll clone him so he can be gunning people down while spitting one liners a million years after the sun has burned out.

> I liked Bad Cop and Wilson's dynamic
I hated it. I only brought him along on my second playthrough to see the other endings. As far as I'm concerned Bad Cop should be irredeemably evil and have no good justification for his actions.

>, cocky power fantasy
It doesn't work as a power fantasy if he's constantly crying about his daughter and then "learning to love" from a robot.

>>729141026
>"genuinely stupid, villainous asshole"
Yeah but his stupidity doesn't have to be insulting, you could just give him stupid desires. He wants to have nice things and likes to hurt people. The combine give him both of those things. Does he have to get lobotomized and have his dick chopped off to work for the combine? Yeah, but he doesn't care, they gave him a badass armored car, a gun that disintegrates people, and stimulate the pleasure center of his brain every time he completes a mission.

>>729141281
>you don't really use it for fun shit in combat, you pick up a large, "heavy" object like a radiator or tractor tire and pulverize everything while also blocking bullets until it's time to move on.
But that is fun. Especially when you get to find all sorts of new objects to kill enemies with. And if you find a really good object like a saw blade or a radiator, you'll then spend a lot of time finding inventive ways to keep track of it and take it with you so you can kill more enemies with it. Or when the manhacks show up and you use them to kill combine soldiers.

>>729141372
The outdoor sections look great in EZ 1. I'd say they're on par with anything in Half Life 2.

>>729141392
I don't want him to be serious, I just don't want him to be a marvel character with a sad backstory. I want an action movie villain, like Bennett in Commando.

>>729141686
what made bad cop really work for me is that he's less the sociopathic jin-roh death squad power fantasy and more the kind of guy who likes that kind of power fantasy.
like so many game stories about a bad guy turning good fuck it up by making the bad guy a decent dude form the start and then he has this big moment where he's like "i was... le evil?" and changes sides in a way that I don't know how I can be fucked to care about. Bad Cop is not that, Bad Cop doesn't have ANY good reason for doing what he's doing. He's dumb. He's deluded. He's just really good at killing people and blames everyone else for his problems. He is FORCED to change sides and even then they give you the choice to be a bitch and give in. He sucks in a way that I find likable and human. He's not a good person at all, he's a little obnoxious, but he's human, and I do think that at a minimum slots into Half-Life's loose themes about what's valuable in humanity.

I dunno. If Bad Cop was just a pragmatic sociopath, that could make for a good series of episodic boomer shooter-y things where he mostly exists as a vehicle for gameplay and one-liners but I'm not sure I would care about him since in the end he's just going to be discarded like a tool and doesn't have a scrap of humanity to mourn, while I'm actually interested in where the sequel to EZ2 is going if/when it ever releases because I'm curious as to what the fuck bad cop is even going to do now that he's broken up with the combine and stuck as a fucked up cyborg with no dick and no wife

>>729141662
Its a Portal 1 part, not Portal 2. Anyways, I don't know how you would avoid Portal stuff when Valve created Portal specifically to tie into the main gimmick of HL2 ep3, the Borealis.

>>729141991
I just don't find it that satisfying. spending a rare resource for a big result like a magnum headshot is more satisfying to me than "there is a radiator, the fight is already won." if there were more creative uses for the gravity gun like pulling a grenade directly off of a combine soldier's bandolier (something that they let you do in alyx i think) or pull a gun out of a soldier's hands, or limited it somehow to make it feel more like a force multiplier you have to use wisely, I'd like that. I do like using it against antlions actually, punting them and then swapping to something else to finish them off is a fun dynamic

>>729142136
>that could make for a good series of episodic boomer shooter-y things where he mostly exists as a vehicle for gameplay
That's what the entire half life series is.
> but I'm not sure I would care about him since in the end he's just going to be discarded like a tool and doesn't have a scrap of humanity to mourn
Again, that's the appeal of the series. Half Life as a series is about you being nothing more than a pawn in a much larger game. You're a tool, a gun with legs, which other characters have mistaken for a person with agency. Gordon Freeman isn't fighting for humanity's freedom or to save the world, he's trying his best not to die while powers beyond his comprehension keep shoving him into danger. Adrian Shepherd isn't a man of action stopping an alien invasion, he's a soldier who was left behind in a warzone, who only barely managed to escape by the skin of his teeth, and just so happened to stop an alien invasion in the process.

What makes Bad Cop special is that he's a pawn who eagerly embraces his role. His happy to let his superiors decide the complicated things like long term planning and morality while he gets to focus on the fun stuff like beating innocent civilians with a cattle prod.

I DO NOT want to hear the rest of Bad Cops story in EZ 3, at this point I only care about the gameplay, the set pieces, and the world.

>>729142279
>"there is a radiator, the fight is already won.
Its not that though. You don't carry a supply of radiators around in your pocket. You either have to lug that thing all the way through multiple levels, or you have to scramble around the combat zone looking for weapons to use in your environment. Sometimes that means killing a zombie with a paint can and a wash tub, sometimes that means hitting a combine with the man hack he just spawned, sometimes it means you found a brick and can go to town. And of course you usually lose your weapon after you use it, and have to find another one. And all the time you spend doing this is time your enemies are shooting you.

>magnum
its cool, but way too hard to hit with due to how every enemy strafes, and they give you way too little ammo.

>>729142720
>That's what the entire half life series is.
only to a very vague degree. they prioritize fun setpieces and gameplay, but half-life's significance as a shooter is that it was one of the first examples of marrying the story into the gameplay, and in Half-Life 2 they were EXTREMELY proud of stuff like facial animations and the interactive story sequences at the two labs and stuff. They really wanted you to give a fuck about these people.
like i said I don't think EZ2 slots perfectly into half-life's recurring themes but I think playing as a dumbass that would love to be an ice-cold operator instead of an ice-cold operator is a fun call for a half-life mod. I don't take his backstory that seriously, but I did like playing as him.

Like after the fucked up Gonome fight in the lab with Wilson setting up all the traps and you're running from it and trying not to fall into death pits and after you take it out bad cop's reaction is "Ohhhh ho ho... That was really something, wasn't it?" The way he says it you can tell he's just thinking "I'm so fucking cool." He could drop a heartless action movie one-liner or go "that was a close one..." but instead he's hyping himself up and it's great. I feel like I've played so many mods like Underhell where you are actually just the badass operator with the tragic backstory that making fun of it a little bit worked for me. There's also something deeply funny to me about an advisor, this inscrutable alien, having to be in direct contact with this idiot who is for some reason outperforming all of their normal infantry and increasingly losing patience with him. I just think the whole setup is fun and it never gets to the point where it feels like something is embarrassing or annoying by accident to me. just fun dynamics.

>>729143541
nah, if you think that "evil guy with less actual personality or motivation than caleb from blood" would've been a better direction I don't know what to tell you. if you desperately want a fantasy about being a cog in the machine the EZ2 prequel where you play as a combine assassin sounds like it'll probably be that.

>>729142901
it can be seriously close especially if it's an urban combat encounter. pick up radiator, slam everything in the building to death and move on to the next one. there are some parts of the game where there are conspicuously few heavy props because I think they didn't want you to do this.
>they give you way too little ammo
relative to half-life 1 but this is also part of what makes it feel strong, it's a big powerful hitscan gun that you only get a few shots for which makes being effective with it feel better than it normally would, likewise with the crossbow having 11 shots

idk i can't tell you how disappointing it was fighting hunters with props as is their intended weakness. little quick thinking with your resources, swapping guns, making the shot, you just find the big tire and bop them to death and they get staggered by big physics impacts so they often don't even get to do anything. that's how using the gravity gun feels a lot to me when you actually get physics objects in fights. no ammo management, no thought, just smash. it's less "i am improvising on the fly" and more "I am no longer mentally engaging with this fight"

>>729143324
>They really wanted you to give a fuck about these people.
But they also made sure to not do that with the player character. They make him as much of a non-person as possible, both for narrative and gameplay reasons. It helps the player get immersed without getting taken out of it by saying something they wouldn't want to say or agreeing to something they wouldn't want to do. But it also illustrates just how little agency the player actually has. Like I said before, Gordon Freeman isn't a person, he's a tool. He's not any different from your average combine soldier really. Just a human stuffed into a suit and turned into a weapon meant to be used against both aliens and his fellow man.

> I think playing as a dumbass that would love to be an ice-cold operator instead of an ice-cold operator is a fun call for a half-life mod
First of all, I think that was a very bad call. He was annoying, the whole game I just wanted him and wilson to shut up. Second, they delivered that terribly because I have only ever heard this interpretation delivered by you. Everywhere else people either think he is an actual stone cold badass, or think he's an obnoxious marvel character who's supposed to be a stone cold badass. If the vast majority of players never make this connection, and this is a connection that the player was supposed to make, then the game has done something horribly wrong.

>>729143636
this guy >>729143541 and me>>729142720 are two different people btw

>>729138152
The first mod actually felt quite cheap. I was very surprised it was so popular. I thought I must have had some old or bootleg version of the mod. The level design was also bad. I didn't even finish it.
EZ2 was a bit tongue in cheek, but it was consistent and actually pretty amusing, and the environment art and the visuals in general felt much more professional. I liked it enough that I might replay it at some point.

>>729143636
That's a woman though, its not the same. Plus, I seriously doubt they'll go back to stoicism now that they've crossed the marvel quip rubicon.

>>729143753
it's a mod, who cares? enjoy the story for what it is within its own rules. It's effectively high-production fanfiction either way and the basic concept of a badass overwatch soldier who mulches the entire resistance doesn't gel that well with the themes of hl2
not even valve cares about matching your personal definition of what half-life's vibe is, every game they've made has been increasingly comedic and focused on character moments. Their latest game casually retconned one of the most important moments in the series. It had a character that solely existed to be a constant injection of jokes, pretty far removed from hl2 giving you long swathes where you're completely isolated and alone in hostile territory

>>729143929
What about it was cheap?

>>729144072
>alyx wasn't spouting obnoxious reddit one liners every fucking waking moment
yeah instead Russell was completely disengaged from the plot and served absolutely no purpose whatsoever beyond being an outlet for the writers to tell jokes and desperately keep the tone from becoming anything approaching bleak. Russell annoyed me more at points because he has nothing to fucking add aside from annoying non-sequitur diatribes. he's not a character I want to see more of at all, he was basically a tool. didn't like him

>>729144180
>half-life alyx
I don't give a shit about that game, it was made by the same reddit retarda that wrote Portal 2, which also shit all over the original unique vibe of Portal 1 and turned into a boring comedy. We're talking about a mod for Half-Life 2, not about some VR tech demo.

>>729143734
Why would you use the gravity gun in urban encounters though, when you have loads of shotgun shells, smg grenades, and energy balls? The ar2 is good in the sewer and industrial sections where ammo is scarce and props are plentiful.

> it's a big powerful hitscan gun that you only get a few shots for which makes being effective with it feel better than it normally would
With me, I just end up wasting five shots because the enemy keeps dancing side to side while I'm trying to line up a shot. Then I reload, see I only have 8 rounds, and don't want to use them all up, so I switch to a machine gun or just grenade his ass. I use the crossbow a lot more than than the magnum in hl2. The magnum's low ammo capacity discourages me from using it. Instead of enjoying the gun, I'm just worried about running out of ammo, so I never use it. Same reason I never once used the magnum in RE 7, despite having it for the whole game.

>idk i can't tell you how disappointing it was fighting hunters with props as is their intended weakness
The natural predator of hunters is the bumper of your car.

>>729143989
Many levels had that old 2006 source mod vibe. I believe the problem stems from the levels looking amateurish. They use the HL2 textures, but a lot of the geometry looks off, so the end result is uncanny and oldschool in a negative way. I remember the game being a series of maps strung together that didn't feel fun to play, with a random Combine pod train thing at some point. One of the important rules of Half-Life games (for me) is never transport the player over a long distance into another area entirely, without giving him a controllable vehicle to cover the distance. The only exception to this is if it happens before the actual game starts.

>>729143962
>it's a mod, who cares?
I care
>enjoy the story for what it is within its own rules
I don't want to do that. I would just play a total conversion with no connection to the main game at all if I wanted to do that. I want a game that operates on the same rules as half life, which is why I'm playing a game that at least nominally claims to do that.

>not even valve cares about matching your personal definition of what half-life's vibe is
Yes and that's horrible, modern valve is horrible.

> Their latest game casually retconned one of the most important moments in the series. It had a character that solely existed to be a constant injection of jokes, pretty far removed from hl2 giving you long swathes where you're completely isolated and alone in hostile territory
And all of that horrible too. I understand that other anon is an ass, but "this is OUR game now chud" is also a very asshole argument to make.

>>729144460
When's the last time you played Half Life 2? None of the levels in Entropy Zero would look out of place in HL2 or Episode 1. That "2006 source mod" vibe is just what vanilla HL2 feels like.

>One of the important rules of Half-Life games (for me) is never transport the player over a long distance into another area entirely, without giving him a controllable vehicle to cover the distance
What an oddly specific rule, especially considering it doesn't even apply to the games. You get in a combine pod in the citadel twice, get teleported long distances multiple times throughout the series. And this is just a side note, but the vehicle sections are the worst part of HL2.

>>729144616
Oh and there's that tram ride in opposing force.

>>729143783
I am often with you but typically when I feel that way it's because I don't like the character I'm occupying.
Pretty much everyone that I've talked to about EZ2 that liked bad cop has been like "yeah, exactly" when I've mentioned my interpretation, they just might not have had the words for it. It's something that works a lot better, IMO, if you've played a lot of Half-Life mods and have interacted a lot with that community, played edgy military power fantasy mods and interacted with the kinds of people who honestly like them. I made that connection very quickly. I already said but there wasn't really a moment where I thought that there was something lost in translation where they were trying to make bad cop cool and I just didn't "get it," it felt like he was a tryhard. there were a few referential one-liners that felt like they were pushing it but him being somewhat obnoxious felt in line so I let it slide even if I think the game would be better off without them.
>>729144463
I didn't really perceive Bad Cop in EZ1 as being that serious of a character with his one-liners (which genuinely surprised me on my first playthrough because I thought it was going to be a much more serious game) and I'm used to mods not perfectly gelling with half-life because they're mods so it just didn't bother me. Combined with it having been ages since I played EZ1 I just didn't feel the massive change/'retcon' in character that you did, it felt like a weird character continuing to be weird to me.

>valve makes critically acclaimed half-life game
>immediately becomes paralyzed, burns itself out, abandons sequel project to do other shit

>breadman makes critically acclaimed half-life mod
>immediately becomes paralyzed, gets burned out, abandons sequel project to do other shit

>>729144706
>, if you've played a lot of Half-Life mods and have interacted a lot with that community, played edgy military power fantasy mods and interacted with the kinds of people who honestly like them
I've played a lot of half life mods, but I have never encountered the phenomena you describe. All the mods I play have little to no dialogue and tell their stories through environmental details and reused lines from the main game.

> Bad Cop in EZ1 as being that serious of a character with his one-liners
Its not that he's serious, its that he's a very different kind of character from the guy you play as a EZ 2. EZ 1 Bad Cop is just a jaded psycho and sadist who isn't taking any of the horrible atrocities he's committing seriously. This is just another day at the office to him. This is a job that he's doing for money and better living conditions, nothing more. And he doesn't care much at all about what's going on beyond the parts where people are shooting at him.

EZ 2 cop is this tragic character, who's also profoundly stupid and self destructive, and has a deeper humanity hidden underneath all that.

I wanted the jack booted sociopath from the first game, not the edgy idiot I got in the second.

I loved EZ 1. Its my favorite HL2 mod, and I loved Bad Cop in EZ 1, which is why this bothers me so much.

>>729145246
so this is sort of a far-flung method of making my point but there's a section late in resident evil 8 where you suddenly swap perspectives to a hyper-competent military operator who just guns down all the monsters that were after you the whole game with an assault rifle and laser-guided air strikes. if you aren't super into RE, you could judge this as being dumb, corny, cheapening the impact and threat of the horror and monsters, but if you are into RE you know that operator wank is part of the appeal of the series so it hits totally differently.

for me, I've played HL1+2 mods where you play as an operator with a melodramatic backstory, and I've been friends with the kind of people who really love authoritarian death squad kinds of groups like the combine, and bad cop reminded me a lot of them, so it felt like something I could relate to and enjoy. It's like how they shove Episode 3 plot points in your face like the Mossman raid you see in Episode 2 and the Borealis at the end. It's not this precision adaptation of the Half-Life setting, it's just gushing about Half-Life and the community in a really adoring way.

I'm sorry that Bad Cop 2 didn't line up with your interpretation of him, that's been me before and to be honest considering the same dude made both games it seems likely that you liked what you read into and the creator just didn't think that much of it. that has happened to me before and you're free to think what you thought of was superior

File: d32a496b80e9aa09c3db6afbc(...).jpg (99 KB, 720x858)

99 KB JPG

everyone in here is a fag for not suggesting this very simple detail that singlehandedly end the demand for half life 3

<being able to rape female combine/rebel assassins 4 moar health/shield>

>>729145778
FUCK IT DIDNT SPOILER NOW I MUST COMMIT SEPPUKU TO RESTORE MY HONOUR

GOODBYE CRUEL WO-ACK!

>>729145765
>, I've played HL1+2 mods where you play as an operator with a melodramatic backstory
Could you name them?
>and I've been friends with the kind of people who really love authoritarian death squad kinds of groups like the combine
I have too. Hell, even I think the aesthetic is pretty cool.

> It's like how they shove Episode 3 plot points in your face like the Mossman raid you see in Episode 2 and the Borealis at the end. It's not this precision adaptation of the Half-Life setting, it's just gushing about Half-Life and the community in a really adoring way.
You call that fan service, but I don't think it is. It all seems like perfectly reasonable tie ins to me, the same as riding the tram or nearly catching Gordon in Opfor, or being that one Barney Gordon passes on the tram ride in Blue Shift. Just because something ties into something else doesn't make it bad writing. If anything it makes it better writing since it gives it relevance to the main game.

> the creator just didn't think that much of it.
More likely he had a similar idea for Bad Cop in EZ 1 then just changed his mind for EZ 2. Bad Cop in EZ 1 was like Duke Nukem, just a badass with a gun meant to be a vehicle for gameplay, while occasionally spitting one liners. Bad Cop in EZ 2 is meant to be the central component of a character narrative, so they made him more nuanced and friendlier.

I personally hate when writers change their minds like this, and "retcon" stuff that wasn't ever explicitly said, but was obviously intended. This is just a personal creative philosophy. It pisses me off when anyone does it, and it happens a lot. I'm of the opinion that it should never be done.

>>729144616
>When's the last time you played Half Life 2? None of the levels in Entropy Zero would look out of place in HL2 or Episode 1. That "2006 source mod" vibe is just what vanilla HL2 feels like.
They absolutely would look out of place. Many of the areas don't look believable. Valve took great care to use real-world references, which is why their environments feel real and EZ doesn't. It's a free mod so I'm not complaining, but I have to be honest about my impressions of its environment design.
>What an oddly specific rule, especially considering it doesn't even apply to the games. You get in a combine pod in the citadel twice, get teleported long distances multiple times throughout the series. And this is just a side note, but the vehicle sections are the worst part of HL2.
Not odd at all. In HL1, the only disconnected movement into an entirely different area is the teleportation into Xen. It is a big disconnect, but unavoidable since it's a whole other dimension. As for HL2, there's more nuance to that one. Any new place you go to is reached seamlessly, but you do get teleported back to somewhere you came from. There's no mental disconnect when returning to City 17 via teleportation, because you already know how the route from City 17 to Nova Prospekt and vice versa. Valve made the game like this on purpose. However, the underground train ride in EZ isn't one of my top criticisms of the mod. Honestly, I just didn't like it because it felt like the devs thought "ah fuck it we don't know what to do, let's just make the player step into some never before seen Combine super bullet pod and emerge in the next area". It just happens to align with my belief that warping over large distances into new areas in singleplayer action games destroys immersion.

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>>729138152
Uprising mogs them both

>>729146259
It's been awhile but Underhell is the big one that instantly comes to mind. Pretty sure I've played sven co-op maps with similar premises. You don't have to take my word for it but "mod authors love edgy operator wank despite being huge dorks" is a constant in my mind.
I consider ez2 pretty fanservicey. Letting you drive the cut APC, giving you the cut mp5k, bringing back the gonome as a bombastic boss encounter inside a portal test chamber, the conspicuously lemon-shaped aperture grenades, letting you fight an advisor at the climax with the borealis as a backdrop despite episode 2 indicating that you can't really directly fight a psychic worm in a fair 1v1, bringing back pit drones with buildup just because you can, there's a wish fulfilment aspect to ez2 that is pretty strong, Imo.

>>729138152
>>729146629
glowing metro cop eyes are cringe

>>729146570
>Many of the areas don't look believable.
quantify that. Name an area and explain what makes it unbelievable.
> It just happens to align with my belief that warping over large distances into new areas in singleplayer action games destroys immersion.
So do you dissociate whenever you take a bus or a plane somewhere?

>>729146629
I'm 3 hours into it and its worse than both, the only saving grace is that the protagonist knows how to shut up.

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>>729138152
i liked that bad cop stfu more
that and they didnt YTP in mossman's lines, or anyone's really for that matter
>>729139195
>in EZ 2 and too many redundant weapons.
i didnt care for how they had the MP5k and the MP7 as well as the ar2 and ar2 but blue either but TBF not even vanilla HL2 had a good arsenal. They had a perfectly well tuned arsenal with HL1 and decided to copy paste onto a different game and combat system just to muck it up by having two smg's and a load of other weapons not worth using
>>729139943
>gravity gun is pretty boring honestly
its crazy to me the gravity gun wasnt the first weapon in the game then progress to more conventional weapons. The game could have very easily and naturally progressed from gravity gun<gravity gun abilities tied to the basic pick up function<super gravity gun/ability at the end game. Add that and being able to wield certain one handed weapons while using the ability and you'd have a waaaaaaaaaaay more interesting sandbox weapon

>>729146807
>Pretty sure I've played sven co-op maps with similar premises.
Who reads the plot of sven coop maps?

If this is all some insincere self aware parody of other mods, then its severely lowered my opinion of it. Nothing is worse than crouching what you want to say in irony or parody because you're too ashamed to play it straight. (apart from retcons, those are worse)

Fanservice is when the wish fulfillment is shoehorned in and doesn't fit. If it actually serves the story and fits well then its just good writing.

>>729146958
the ar2 but blue replaces the ar2 and is the best weapon in the game. It earns its keep and solves the redundancy problem. Its the MP7 that needs to go. Hl2 could stand to lose it as well. Just give the player a dedicated grenade launcher.

>>729146958
>, or anyone's really for that matter
they did it with the rebels

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>>729147234
>he ar2 but blue replaces the ar2
ah its been a while since I played
>Its the MP7 that needs to go.
agreed
so frustrating as well because the original concepts with the Mp5k could've worked if it was a burst weapon. Were it a longer burst or slightly less accurate it could've gel'd with the pistol which would retain its role as the accurate designated mine defusing weapon, or they could've replaced pistol outright with it and cut out the middleman. That'd leave the OICW or Ar2 as the full auto weapon with high spread and a grenade launcher while the Mp5k could be used as the cheap precision weapon

>>729146859
>quantify that. Name an area and explain what makes it unbelievable.
Sorry I can't praise your work on the mod man, I'm sure you've improved since then. It's not terrible, I just didn't think it was that polished or realistic. I can't find screenshots of the mod, but the city area is one that looks fake.
>So do you dissociate whenever you take a bus or a plane somewhere?
Slightly, but real life is different because the person being transported receives more context and visual feedback. Games where you hop between various areas through aircraft travel cutscenes do have a bit of a disconnect, but they tend to be RPGs where you get a ton of dialogue explaining where you are and why.

>>729146629
Dark matter laced truth nuke

>>729147461
>Sorry I can't praise your work on the mod man, I'm sure you've improved since then.
I'm pretty sure Breadman agrees with you on his work being sub par. I just think he's wrong, most artists usually get that way about their work at some point or another. Its the George Lucas effect. They change their mind on some details or their style changes and they start to view their older works as sub par because they are no longer what they would make.

I just think you're imagining things. The mod looks great, and HL2 doesn't look nearly as good as you act like it does. There's a lot of bad geometry and weird nothing corners, especially in the later chapters like Follow Freeman.

>Slightly, but real life is different because the person being transported receives more context and visual feedback.
What about trains? Underground rail isn't some sci fi alien technology, its commonplace in most of the developed world.

>>729148336
When does it get good.

I think I've figured out why I hate EZ2 Bad Cop so much. He's a parody of EZ 1 Bad Cop. He's meant to make of the "stone cold psychopath who spits one liners" character by being a guy who thinks he's that character. That's why it feels so wrong.

That and he's also just painfully unfunny.

>>729148718
The EZ1 character is impossible to sympathize with, but the EZ2 one is possible to at least laugh at because it's some old corrupted brain copy installed into a Combine soldier body

>>729138791
Retard alert

>>729139461
best HL2 mod ever

>>729149269
I sympathize with him on small things like thinking the ar2 prototype is badass or disliking people who shoot at me. I actually thought most of lines were really funny. EZ 2 just fucked up its attempts at humor.

EZ2 is the very definition of reddit.