Warp wrote:

>   I think the vast majority of games with different difficulty settings use
> just "fake difficulty", ie. some really cheap tricks such as giving the
> enemies more HP and/or reducing the damage of your weapons (some games
> simply spawn more enemies at higher difficulty levels, Doom being the most
> obvious example), rather than going so far as adjusting the enemy AI.

In most cases, yeah.

(It's kind of crazy playing Quake II on the highest difficulty level. 
You run up to some fleshy cyborg on put 4 depleted uranium slugs into 
him and he's not dead. WTF?)

I think the original HalfLife did this fairly well. On the lower 
difficulty levels, the enemies tend to just run at you, while on higher 
difficulty levels they seem to behave more tactically.

For example, the headcrabs. On Easy, they just wander towards you until 
you're in jumping range. On Hard, they tend to scuttle into corners and 
wait for you to walk past, and then ambush you.

Similarly, the marines on Easy just shoot at you a lot. On Hard, then 
throw grenades, duck behind things, and try to run round and flank you. 
(I must say, I didn't find anything "revolutionary" about the game AI - 
one of the things that was highly touted. It was good, but not fantastic.)

Of course, even in HalfLife, they still used the main principle of 
increasing the hitpoints of all the enemies, which is dull and annoying. 
But at least where they add extra enemies, they put them in strategic 
places. Indeed, walking round the level on Easy, you can tell where the 
extra enemies are probably hiding. "Oh look, a useless corner that 
doesn't go anywhere. I wander what *that* might be for?"

Having struggled to complete HalfLife 2: Episodes 1 and 2 on the very 
lowest difficulty setting available, I'm not sure I want to know what 
it's like on Hard. :-/

In particular, most of the hard things about HalfLife 2 and the two 
episodes are overwhelming forces. It started with Ravenholm, an entire 
level teaming with zombies and almost no ammo. Sure, killing zombies 
with only a crowbar is pretty damned hard. But it's not exactly 
"enjoyable" replaying the same 15 seconds of game hundreds of times over 
until you manage to get past.

In short, a game that's too easy is boring, but so is a game that's too 
hard, and Ravenholm was absurdly hard.

In HL2:EP1 we find Lowlife, a similar premise really. Except somebody 
thought it would be funny to turn off all the lights. It's not big, it's 
not clever, and it's not even remotely enjoyable. It's repetative and 
tedious, actually.

And of course, HL2:EP1 rounds off with a battle with an almost 
unkillable Strider. I mean, seriously. How many rocket hits does it 
take?? What the hell is it MADE OF?!

This isn't a challenge, it's silly.

HL2:EP2 is somewhat similar with the two antlion guards. It's basically 
a big soft squidgy thing which you never the less have to dump ludicrous 
amounts of ammo onto before it will freakin' DIE. Several times I played 
that section and actually ran completely out of ammo. As in, the only 
thing I had left was the crowbar. I had to go run outside like a crazy 
thing hoping there might be some ammo around somewhere...

Still, at least HL2:EP2 managed to be challenging in more interesting 
ways. Right up until the battle for White Forest... *sigh*

Post a reply to this message