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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1821 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 10, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video Game Thread

What are you playing? Did you pick up anything great in the Steam summer sale?

I'm working my way through Half-Life (1998) and its expansions. It's pretty great even beyond the nostalgia, and I like the general feel of the engine and how you move around in it. Even the much-criticized Blue Shift is kinda fun. The engine was always one of the main strengths of HL and played a large part in its many mods' successes too, IMO. I'm playing with the 'original models' because I prefer how those weapons look and sound. I tried Black Mesa again briefly but I don't really like many of the changes they made. It's not a faithful remake.

I'm glad you're having the same experience that I did. I played HL1 stone cold for the first time in... 2009? Zero Nostalgia. Still loved every second. The magic was very much still there.

A Vtuber I watch who was born after HL1 played HL1 for the first time this year, and she liked it enough that she went right into HL2 and then the episodes, despite not being a big singleplayer FPS person. It's nice to see affirmation that the classics really are that good sometimes.

I'm surprised, since I would have held HL1 and HL2 as examples of a shooters that pushed the envelope at the time but aren't necessarily mechanically better than newer shooters. But if as you say she's not a big singleplayer FPS person, maybe it's a better intro to it than most since it's not expecting years of built up experience on other shooters.

What do you mean by mechanically better? And what newer shooters do you hold to be the best ones?

I mean that if I were fully unaware of any video games, and you put in front of me Half-Life 1 and almost any major developer's first person shooters since, I don't know, Far Cry 1? it would feel boring and simple­. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of Half-Life 1 and 2, because they were pushing the envelope at the time they came out, but those things they did that were groundbreaking are old-hat now, and when it comes to pure shooting mechanics of it, I feel like some older games aged better too (the Doom and Quake series, for instance).

As for better newer shooters, sadly single-player shooters are a stale genre nowadays, with pretty much nothing but Call of Duties. But some years back (oh god, ten years ago! I'm old!) my mind was was completely blown by the campaign on Titanfall 2; if you haven't played that I highly recommend it. It doesn't even lean on open world to differenciate itself, it does the same linear, spectacle as Half-Life does but it does it with everything pushed to the next level. Like Half-Life 2 did, there's so much creativity and skill at work here that they could create and discard gimmicks for single levels that lesser devs would make the entire game revolve around. If anything was able to push the envelope from that point after, I was not made aware of it.

What bout Prey (2017)? I haven't played it, but its Gloo gun seems like a spiritual successor to HL2/Portal's building the games around creatively using a gimmick weapon. It looks pretty neat.

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