Over the past 15 years (1995 – 2010), pc gaming sure has changed a lot.  As I look back, I also realize I miss some of those old games and the fan made modifications from the 1990s.  That time era was for games such doom, quake, diablo, diablo II, quake II, quakeworld, quakeworld  team fortress, capture the flag, half-life,,,,, you know, the epic kind of games.

In todays gaming market, rarely do I see a modification that gets the attention like what capture the flag, rune quake, quake world and rocket arena did. Its as if the fan made modifications get very little attention. And thats really sad, because modifications like Fortress Forever are truly great games.

I miss the days when games actually worked when they were released. Take left 4 dead 2 for example – it suffered from crashing to desktop bugs for 2 weeks after it was released.

Take a look at the quake series – Quake all the way to Quake 4:

Quake – no story plot, but still a great game.  One of the first games to feature atmosphere sounds and moving clouds.

Quake II – no atomosphere sounds, no moving clouds,,, it was like Quake II went backwards in time.

Quake III – no single player story plot, no story plot at all except deathmatch.

Quake 4 – 1/2 a story plot and a poor quality game.

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What made games like Doom, Diablo, Command and Conquer, Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, Halo and Left 4 Dead great games? They offered quality content, unique gameplay, and at an affordable price.

Quality content -A good story line, a good story plot that develops over the course of the game.  Even though Doom did not really have a developing story plot, it was described in the manual that came with the game.

This is also where the atmosphere of the game comes in.  How well does the game pull the player in?  Is the person simply “playing” the game, or are they being part of the game?  Does the play think about the game as simply “a game”, or do they think about how cool it would be to do that in real life?

Unique Gameplay – Something that has never been done before. Take Doom for example, when it came out, there were no other games like it on the market. Take Diablo, when it came out, there were no other games like it on the market. Take Left 4 dead, when it came out, there were no other games like it on the market.

Doom, Quake, Diablo, Left 4 Dead – all offered unique gameplay that has never been done before.

Quality Price – where can you spend $40 – $50 and get 6+ months of enjoyment?  Well, there are not many places you can do that.

What does not make a great game?  Marketing, eye candy, reusing the name from a great game.

Marketing – Valve marketed team fortress 2 for a long time, and its a sorry excuse for a team fortress game.  tf2 has turned into a role playing game, but still wears the team fortress name.

Eye Candy – Quake 4 has some great eye candy, but the level design is confusing.  Having to backtrack is an outdated game concept.

Just because a game “looks” good, does not make it a good game.

Reusing a name – Doom 3:Resurrection of Evil is probably the worst Doom game that ever came out.  Instead of making a quality game, the developers put something together, and relied on the Doom name to make the sales.

Post your comments in the What Makes a Game Great thread of the forums.

Steam has Serious Sam HD: First Encounter on sale through March 2nd. Regular price was $14.99, its on sale for $7.49

The 4 pack was $44.97 regular price. Until March 2nd, its on sale for $22.48.  $22.48 for a 4 pack seems like a pretty good price to me, except that the game has a metacritic score of 68.

The system specs are kinda low, which is good for people with older computers.  The recommend specs include an Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and only 1 gig of memory.

I just dont know, $7.49 for a game with a metacritic rating of 68. Is it worth it or not? Post your comments in this thread about Serious Sam.

Here is a random youtube video about Serious Sam

Has Counter-Strike died at the hands of Left 4 Dead?

While in a game of Left 4 Dead a few months ago, two of the guys on my team were talking about the state of the Counter-Strike community.  It seems that they were gaming buddies that played several online games together.

They were saying, that just last year it was easy to find full counter strike servers. But ever since the original left 4 dead caught on, the Counter-Strike and the Counter-Strike:Source communities have been slowly dieing. Instead of being full of human players, the servers are full of bots.

One point needs to be addressed, has the era of Counter-Strike come and gone? Has the game gotten so old, that people were losing interest and already moving on? If so, this would not be the first time that a gaming community has been killed by a new game.

Quake II killed Quakeworld and NetQuake
Half-Life killed Quake II
Team Fortress Classic killed Quakeworld Team Fortress
Left 4 Dead 2 killed Left 4 Dead

Regardless of how great a game is, its time comes and goes.

Doom, probably the greatest PC game of all time, now mostly lives in the memory of those that played it.

Quake and Quakeworld, probably the greatest deathmatch game ever made, is now only a memory.

Half-Life, one of the greatest single player games of all time, now only a memory.

Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike:Source, two of the greatest team based games to ever grace the internet.  Are they slowing dieing because of L4D and L4D2, or has their time passed and they were already on their way out?

CS and CS:S have had had a good run.  They were 2 of the most successful muti-player games to ever grace the internet. But like all other games, their time has come and gone.

Post your comments in the Left 4 Dead killed Counter-Strike thread of the forums.

In the epic battle of terrorist and counter-terrorist VS zombies and survivors, it looks like the zombies might have won.

For some strange reason, I’am starting to miss the original Left 4 Dead. Last night I was playing through a versus game of L4D2 The Parish and thought to myself “I should go play some left 4 dead 1.” Then, I thought, “why am I thinking about l4d?”

Some of the things that I miss about the original Left 4 Dead:

How dark it was – the darkness added to the atmosphere of the game. To me, there is nothing in l4d2 that compares to the “eeriness” of the subway in No Mercy. There is just “something” about being inside the subway map of no Mercy,,, I dont know exactly what it is. Maybe its the darkness, the massive hordes that come out of nowhere, I just can not put me finger on it exactly.

Its not just the No Mercy maps, its all of the original Left 4 Dead maps. There is just something about them that adds a whole level to the game. This is something that left 4 dead 2 has failed to do.

The hordes that came out of the darkness – it was like the zombies were in the darkness waiting for you, waiting to attack, waiting for that boom, waiting for the signal to attack, waiting to tear you limb from limb, waiting to stomp your head in while your laying on the ground,,,, waiting for their lust for blood to be satisfied.

The characters of l4d had character – the new characters of l4d2 seem stale and do not have any “character. Its as if Valve software had some ideas for new characters, but that was about it.

The stuff that francis and bill would say in the elevator would crack me up.

Bill – “if I start to turn into a zombie, yall go ahead and shoot me” – or something along those lines.

Francis – “how about if your beard starts to turn, can we shoot that?”

Hearing the monologue of the characters not only added some humor to the game, it developed the characters personality.

In left 4 dead 2, all we hear about it the rock band, the race car driver, that thing is riding him, watch out for the smoking thing,,,, it gets really boring listening to stuff like that. Its a “smoker”, not a smoking thing – get the names straight please.

I miss having more then 1 hunter – If there is one thing I liked doing in the original l4d, that is getting 2, 3 and maybe even 4 hunters and team pouncing the survivors. Its one of those AWESOME moments when the whole other team is taken down in seconds.

Why cant we have 2 hunters, 2 chargers, 2 boomers, 2 smokers, 2 jockeys,,,,,. Could you just imagine the damage that 2 chargers could do?

I miss those “oh crap, I’am gonna die” moments: In l4d2 it seems that you go down rather quickly, but you die slowly. I kinda miss watching the survivors limping along, barely alive, knowing that the end is close.

In away, I kinda miss those black and white moments. Where you are really fighting to stay alive – knowing that just one more hit and your dead.

In l4d2, it seems that more rounds are won by the team being down, then being dead. You might be taken down by the spitters acid, but then you linger until your picked up or killed. Its that “lingering” that I really dont like.

Maybe I’ll play some of the original left 4 dead tonight?

While your here, be sure to visit the Left 4 Dead Forum.

For all of you BioShock fans out there, BioShock 2 is available for pre-purchase on Steam. Regular price is $49.99, but its on sale for $44.99 for a limited time.

It looks like 2K Games learned their lesson the first time around and decided to include multiplayer in Bioshock 2. But, I winder if the multiplayer is going to use Gamespy or Steam? Will LAN support be included, or just internet?

Post your comments in the BioShock 2 available for pre-purchase thread of the forums.

The Steam Holiday sale has come and gone – it was fun while it lasted.  There were some good deals, and some not so good deals.

The ID package still does not have Quake 4, or Quake Wars – so its not a complete ID package.

There is no real Command and Conquer package to speak of.  When are we going to get C&C Gold, Red Alert or Red Alert 2 on Steam?

Painkiller: Resurrection 38 metacritic rating – why is that game even being offered on Steam? Surely there are some standards that games have to meet before their sold to the public?

The Unreal package seemed like a good buy – 5 games for around $13.  That one was difficult to pass up.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was on sale for $2, so I snatched that one up.

Now its time to start saving up some money for the 2010 – 2011 Steam Holiday sales.

It seems that ever since Left 4 Dead 2 has been released, the people at Valve have been running sales, and Christmas time is no exception.  For the next 22 hours and 31 minutes, Left 4 Dead 2 is on sale for 33% off the regular price.

The sale is supposed to end sometime Christmas morning, so if you have ben holding out, now might be a good time to pick up L4D2.

Post your comments in the Steam Holiday Sales thread of the forums.

Lets think something just for a minute. Think back to when Quake was released in 1996, and the number of modifications that were released shortly after.  Then lets consider what Valve software did with Left 4 Dead, and Left 4 Dead 2, and the lack of modifications.

Valve software releases l4d, almost exactly a year later, l4d2 is released. This should have been when the modifications started to come out. Lets not pick on Valve, but they might be setting a poor example for other game companies to follow.

Lets go back and take a look at Quake:

Quake was released in June 1996
Team Fortress was released in August 1996
Threewave Capture the Flag was released sometime in 1996 – 1997, can not find an exact date
Rocket Arena was released sometime in 1997
Quake II was released in December 1997

Just with Quake alone we had 3 major modifications within about a year.

Now lets look at Left 4 Dead:

Left 4 Dead was released November 17, 2008
Left 4 Dead modifications?
Left 4 Dead 2 was released November 17, 2009

Where are the modifications for left 4 dead? Sure we have maps, but “where” are the total modifications? Am I missing something here?

With the quick release of left 4 dead 2 there is little need to develop full blown modifications.

My opinion, releasing a sequel so fast is going to have long term affects on the modding community – and not for the good either. In the long run we are probably going to see less modifications made, and those that are made are probably going to be of low quality.

Just in the past 5 – 6 years I have seen a massive downturn in the amount of fan based modifications that have been released.

Please post your comments in the fan based game modifications thread of the forums.

This sure did not take long.  Left 4 Dead 2 is less then a month old, and the first add-on (or expansion as some people might call it) is already announced? Something just does not seem right.  What happened to the good ole days when it took 6 months – 1 year for an expansion to be announced?

http://store.steampowered.com/news/3237/

“”The Passing” Brings L4D1 Survivors Down South

December 14, 2009 – Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the first game add-on for its co-operative zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2), is in development and targeted for release in early 2010.

Dubbed “The Passing,” the first game add-on for L4D2 brings the original Left 4 Dead (L4D1) Survivors down south for a meeting with the L4D2 cast, while delivering new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay for the PC and Xbox 360.

Targeted for release in early spring, “The Passing” takes place just after the Dead Center campaign of L4D2. Set in a small town in rural Georgia, players assume the role of the L4D2 Survivors as they meet with the L4D1 characters.”

I wonder if its going to be a free expansion, or if its going to cost? I’am betting its going to cost $9.99, or somewhere around there.  The same price the new Borderlands expansion cost.

Is this going to be a full blown expansion like episodes 1 and 2, blue shift and opposing force. Or is it going to be a couple o maps like crash course?

If its anything like crash course, Valve can keep it.

Ok, and now get this next part,

“”The Passing will become the most important campaign in the Left 4 Dead story, as all the Survivors are being called together in one campaign,” said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. “It will also be a huge offering of new gameplay content, with something new for every game mode plus a new uncommon common and weaponry.”"

The news release clearly says “all survivors” – its going to be really cool to see the first 4 survivors back in action.

Now for the big question, are there going to be 8 player teams?

Post your comments in the Left 4 Dead 2 add-on announced thread of the forums.