Half-Life As A 2D Side-Scroller?

Allen Varney writes "Why wait for Half-Life 2 when you can wait instead for Half-Life 2D? 'Codename: Gordon' is a free, fan-produced jump'n'run side-scroller adapted from the original Half-Life. It'll be done in a month, but for now there's screenshots and a two-minute gameplay video."

Comments

Re:Zero comments

[DeDmeTe]

3D doesn't make a "good" game. I'd still much rather play Super Mario World and Zelda on my old SNES than the 3-D crap they put out for the N64. It's a matter of gameplay, and I think that with a gamepad(vs mouse/kbd)... it's still easier to play 2D games. It's also a lot less confusing. Ever played Brave Fencer Musashi for PS???? IMHO, it would have played A LOT better in a 2D environment. I hate games with camera/view problems... ugh!

Re:Zero comments

[trompete]

I really haven't ever been a fan of the 2D games converted to 3D (basically, all of the sequels that came out for N64). We still play Bomberman 2 (SNES) and its clone at LAN parties. I don't think that 3D ports themselves sucked, but their gameplay was so much different than the originals that they lost their following. Bomberman 64, Zelda 64 (whichever ones), and Mario 64 are great, but they still aren't as fun as their SNES prequels.
A 2D version of a 3D game:.....I guess I haven't seen that before. With the slashdot effect, I guess I never will.

To counter the slashdot effect...we should seriously get some coders together and do a google cache kind of thing to prevent the slashdot effect. It wouldn't have to be mandatory. It could just be for sites that can't handle the traffic.

Re:The truth of the Slashdot effect.

[simoniker]

In this case, if the site went down, it was probably a combined Penny Arcade (who featured the project this morning) and Slashdot Games effect, since this isn't actually a mainpage post. From my very un-scientific pokings, I've noticed that a Slashdot Games-only post can generate enough traffic to kill some smaller sites, but on its own, relatively rarely smashes better-hosted webpages.

2D games

[Henry V .009]

Anybody else sorry that 2D games died the death when the consoles all got 3D engines? I like first person shooters, don't get me wrong, but it seems like they have far less possible variety than the old 2D games. 2D seems far better suited to our screens. Games have gotten better as systems have progressed, certainly, but I don't know that they have lived up to their potential. Compare the new 3D versions of Metroid and Zelda to their 2D forbearers. Does the 3D add that much to the game? If the makers had continued on the 2D track with those games would we be better off? Just look at all of the effort that went into Warcraft 3 to make it 3D -- in my mind that effort could have surely been spent better elsewhere.

Re:2D games

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

First of all, 2D games are not dead. There are still 2D games released for all the major consoles each year. And why do you think that a 2D game can have more variety than a 3D game? I mean, anything that can be visualized on screen in 2D can be visualized on screen in 3D. Perhaps the first person shooter market has been flooded with a glut of dark-hallway games but that's not a limitation of the dimensions offered in the game; it's just a lack of creativity from the people who greenlight games and a lack of clamoring for anything but dark hallways by gamers. You may also want to note that a first person shooter is not the same as a 3D game. For instance, Doom is a first person shooter but is only 2D. So in your comparison, you're mixing things up a bit.

And I think that if you look at a game like Mario 64 and compare it to Super Mario Bros., you can see that the extra dimension adds quite a bit to the game. If you disagree, I'd be really surprised. Now, you may say that the majority of 3D games released today aren't as good as the original Super Mario Bros. but that has more to do with the fact that SMB is an all-time classic game. The NES market was flooded with tons of uninspired side-scrollers that were not innovative in any way - sad copies of SMB. The same is true today except that we've got uninspired fighting games with movie licenses.

So, in short, yes - an added dimension can add to the gameplay experience but it does not guarantee it. But just because a game only has 2 dimensions does not mean that will be a good game. So the next time you want to harken back, go get on your horse and buggy and think about those great days of the Atari.

Re:2D games

[Henry V .009]

All modern first person shooters are 3D, and more than that, it's the fps viewpoint from that 2D Doom that is the basis for how most 3D games are organized today.

I had the opposite feeling about Mario 64 that you did. I thought the extra dimensions took quite a bit away from the game. I bought it right when it came out, and I recall that a lot of people at the time agreed with me.

Your last argument is a straw man. All I said was that the 2D game style has a lot more room for innovation than the 3D. Adding that extra dimension means a lot of design compromises because of the extra freedom that you are allowing the gamer. The only game that I can think of which has overcome it well and created a feeling that harkens back to the old button smashers is Serious Sam. There are others, surely, but not too many.

I guess a lot of it boils down to 'aim and click' style versus 'manuver' style. There are certainly games that can overcome this, but it's hard.

retro.c

[Andy Smith]

<include "warm_and_fuzzy.h">
<include "recommendations.h">

if (game_status==AVAILABLE_NOW) {
download();
enjoy();
} else {
recommend("Download NeoRAGE emulator");
recommend("Download Metal Slug NeoGeo ROM");
recommend("Enjoy!");
}

// Those screenshots look great!

Horror of horrors.

[Ayanami Rei]

It's a side scrolling game written in flash.

::faints::

On the plus side I can run it on my *nix boxie.

2d to 3d

[Reapy]

Moving from 2D to 3D games was more then just a change in graphics... it was the dump of a whole genera. The playstyle in any 3d game is much different then the 3d, if not just for the fact that in 3d you have to fight with the camera.

Done well, a 3d game is a lot of fun and can look great. But games that handle the 3d camera properly are few and far between. But you miss stuff in a 3d game. I recal watching my friend play half life, missing out on some great scripted sequences because he was looking the wrong way.

2D is just great with no camera hastles, not missing any content, and the gameplay can be just all around fun. Like was mentioned above, the snes zelda was the best. Zelda was awesome for that top down view, moved to n64, and gc, it was ho hum.

Really, they should make more games ala donkey kong, creating the world in 3d, then generating the sprites from the renders. I really enjoy that look to a game.

Anyway, this reminds me of the old duke nukem games which I loved, this should be fun :)

It's Bionic Commando withouth the Bionic Arm

[Metroid72]

It's HL inspired, but I see a lot of Bionic Commando in there too... Don't you guys think?

I'll play in a year...

[cbuskirk]

When someone posts the Counter Strike mod.

Nice, but I was hoping for an actual Half-Life mod

[grahamwest]

Not to take anything at all away from the people working on this, because it certainly looks pretty cool, but when I read the headline I was thinking someone had made a side-scroller using Half-Life itself (like Pandemonium, for example). A modern 3D game provides a lot of stuff that is useful for making 2D games too. Maybe when Half-Life 2 comes out someone will make a killer side-scroller using all the animation and lighting and physics systems of the core game?

How much longer until...

[M3wThr33]

How much longer until someone makes a 2D version of Metroid Prime?

Re:Nice, but I was hoping for an actual Half-Life

[paradesign]

ah, like Duke Nukem Manhatten Project. THe game came with my new grafx card and appears to be the quake 3 engine made into a sidescroller... but with all duke's badassery. i wish more games like this would come out. thje only other one that comes to mind is Super Smash Bros.

Re:mmm, siiidescrollers...

[saladpuncher]

Abuse was released to the public domain when crack.com went bankrupt. You can download it and play the full version from underdogs and not even worry about stealing :)
It works on 98/XP just fine. Of course if you hate Microsoft then the source code can also be dug up with a little googling allowing someone to make a linux version.

Possibly short-lived?

[exick]

How long before Vivendi gets word of this and sues these guys for IP infringement?

Re:mmm, siiidescrollers...

[WWWWolf]

I think this is the first and only time a major game release was made using this language. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

Actually, most of Abuse was written in other languages. According to SLOCCount, 115799 lines (91.45%) ANSI C, 6792 lines (5.36%) C++, 2066 lines (1.36%) Lisp, and the rest is shell script and assembly. (I just realized I always have the Abuse source tree ready, for some obscure reason... I haven't even read much of the code =)

It had a Lisp interpreter for interpreting creature AI code / game logic / whatever, but, well... it wasn't actually that huge part of the game. It was good for writing mods.

And yes, it's probably a first commercial game to feature a Lisp interpreter... but not the first game ever to be written in Lisp. I'm pretty sure all of the games in Emacs predate it =)