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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*
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