Yodasplat

Excellent. Thanks!

Hum, ok, so if I have the US version, this is the patch I should get? 1.07?

http://www.laserwar.co.uk/ That looks like funnnn!!!

Half life 2 is still the best game ever in my opinion. Love the whole HL series from the beginning. Who can forget the first time I faced one of those crabby thingies coming out of a dark corner in HL1? It was right after Black Mesa blew to $hite and I had been going from room to room looking for an exit from the core. I knew that this being a FPS game, monsters a-plenty were waiting for me and sooner or later I was going to dispense violence upon them. So the fact that it had been now a good five minutes of me going further and further away from the initial level, and that I had been unable to find a gun … a slingshot, anything at all yet, seriously worried me. Then I round a corner and I am STILL without a weapon and the first crabby thing squeals and jumps at me. I squealed in return, jumped on my chair and spastically jerked the mouse around and pounded on the keyboard squirming my way away from the hellish beast all the while screaming in a shrilly girl-voice: “Get the f#ck away from me! Don’t touch me!†Ah … memorable moments. Then HL2 came along and City 17 and the giant tripods just blew my mind. Then HL2 Episode one came along and … well … I am still 1/3 of the way through it but I am already utterly impressed by the attention to details these guys have put into the game. Specifically I was impressed by a few incidents that really caught my attention. In one specific incident, after an horrendous train wreck (train of which me and Alyx were passengers), I notice something weird on her face. I thought it was a graphic glitch but then zooming on her face … I notice it’s not. It’s a cut. She cut her eyebrow in the train wreck. So what’s the big deal you ask? It’s the attention to detail that really strikes a chord with me. A cut … a small cut on an eyebrow. It didn’t take them long to do it I bet but it’s a nice detail that definitely increases immersion and gives a nice touch to the whole story. Somebody did spend the time and the attention to come up with it. The other incident happened when we were in a section of the underground that was utterly and totally BLACK. Pitch black. Couldn’t see in front of your nose and those crab zombies were coming from every direction but Alyx (and me obviously) could shoot only at what I could shine my portable light on. We were getting attached from the back and sides too and I have to say .. it’s a bit disconcerting getting hit but the side, whipping around only to shine the light on the face (err … whatever) of a zombie, so close to you, it could practically kiss you. After a few minutes of this uncomfortable situation the whole scene falls in one of those quiet, spooking moments HL is so good at rendering. You go from a feverish battle to quiet in the space of few seconds and now, fresh after an insane gunfight you jump at every shadow. I see a room on the wall and light is pouring out of it. Some health packs are inside and I badly need one. So I walk in. As soon as I step in, I hear Alyx’s voice uttering the grunt and growl of one of the head-crab zombies. It sounds EXACTLY like a head-crab zombie … only with Alyx’s voice. First off I would feel sorry to see Alyx go … I kinda like her. Second, I now have a head-crab zombie right behind me … So I whip around, expecting to see her struggle with a head crab or to see her pretty face already hidden and half eaten away from one of the head crabs. Instead … there she stands. Grinning from ear to ear … She chuckles and she says “Gotcha!†I stared at the screen for a good 10 seconds thinking two things … 1: “You stupid b1tch!! I was a tenth of a second away from blowing your brains out†2: I just love the HL developers. How do they come up with this crap? It’s insane to see them play with jokes like these and pull them off so smoothly. This joke totally worked on me I have to say … I did think about blowing her head off anyway … just cause she did scare the crap out of me!!! Yeh … the HL series is still the best.

I think this is a great idea buddhiraja73. I am sure it's unlikely it will ever happen but an open-ended military shooter, with maps as big as OFP and a world environment structured like Oblivion (or Grand Theft Auto for that matter) is an excellent point for replayability. After all I am still firing up Oblivion or GTA from time to time even if I am not actively following any stories or quests. The point is, when you have an open world to play with, you can go back to the game 3 months later and pick it up and just roam around and make a mess of things .. and then pick up any open quests just for the heck of it. Granted, military action is structured: you go in, you shoot things, you get out. The end. There is no roaming around generally ... unless you are Spec Ops, dropped behind enemy lines and you need to survive and often wait around and try to either avoid contact or find food or catch drops from air support, etc. in between missions. Until somebody assigns a mission (quest) to you and you gotta carry it out. IMO that’s not that different that Oblivion/Morrowind in a sense. Oblivion is the story about a spec-ops guy isn't it? But that’s probably just me seeing the similarities … since I like both GRAW and Morrowind.

it would have been nice to have a practice mission with no enemies and just a range to shoot stuff at different distances to practice. It seems to me that there's il logic behind the way the grenades (launched or hand grenade) work but it takes practice to grasp what that logic is. A range "training" mission would have helped this greatly but in the absence of that I took the time to practice in a "quiet" moment during mission one and kinda got the hang of it. The only solution to this is really just to find a spot where there's no baddies and then practice against cars and develop some sense for where the grenade is gonna hit (then restart the mission so you have full ammo again). That's what I did and I generally have no more problems handling grenades..

Same here. Installed the patch, game now doesn't start ...

If you mean Falcon Allied Force, yes you are probably right. I did hang out in the Falcon forum for a bit and I played it (and still play, of course).

the SCAR-L is pretty much my favorite gun to this point. I used a lot the under-barrel grenade launcher in old GR but in GRAW I am noticing that the launcher is reducing accuracy a bit too much. It's certainly useful but in close combat it gets in the way. Are you guys equipping/using the grenade launcher at all?

I was actually about to start a topic about HL2 vs GRAW but not regarding the technical aspects or graphic differences. I am more interested if anyone noticed similiarities between the "creepiness" factor of GRAW and HL2? In the demo (it's the only thing I have played so far ... I don't have the game yet) I definetly got some HL2 flashbacks ... Creepy empty urban environments. Far away, inexplicable echos and sounds that seem anything but friendly. Then all of a sudden you round a corner and you find yourself face to face with ... well more than a couple of times I totally expected to see one of those tripod-thingies squatting to take a dump, swivel around startled to look at me, then rear up, roar and fire that disgusting gun of his at me. Instead I found myself facing mexican soldiers, but yet ... the adrenaline dump was there all the same. Did anyone feel the same sense of "the next corner we turn we are getting hammered?" The passage between spooky empty streets and a plaza or an alley where they are shooting at you from every direction is a real rush and I loved each one of them. Yes ... technically GRAW and HL2 might be different but what about ambience? creepiness? excitement of the hunt? the rush of going from silence and quiet to a full-fledged storm of bullets??? I think that GRAW conveys "the hunt" (who's the hunter and who's the hunted) feeling damn well! What do you guys think?

That was a load of fun guys. Thanks! You'll surely see me again!

Cool let me know how it goes Well ... I installed the patch and now I can hear breathing, steps, gunshots .. the works. But no voices. Is that normal? I am actually thinking it is normal ... You know how in OFP you would hear a voiceover saying "enemy soldier at 2 o'clock" or some such? Is VBS1 supposed to do the same? Unimportant to me ... just curious. Just wanting to make sure I got at leat this problem fixed.

Thanks! I'll try to install the patch. See what happens. You guys play online a lot? PS: flying is going good. Been pretty busy with that lately. About 2/3rds done with my Instrument Rating ... flew yesteray in the clouds for the first time ever. Pretty freaky not to be able to see your own wingtips. I can't believe how thick clouds are. You really can't see squat in them.

Howdy-doody folks. Long time no see. I finally got off my ###### and installed VBS1 after a few months it's been sitting on my desk doing nothing ( ). Yes you can call me a dummass ... I don't mind. I am too busy to pay attention to what I buy. Game is installed (ALMOST all of it) but I have a bunch of pbo files that are not installed and I don't really know what to do with. I really just want to play online with you guys. I don't particularly care about special goodies or funky mods. Whatever i need to get online, is all I care about. Let's start with a couple of examples: hummer files and fast rope files. Do I need those? There's no readme file or installation instruction so I am a bit at a loss about what I should do. Also, I am experiencing a "funky" problem: I installed (among the other 20 things) the USMC mod. Then I tried one of the USMC mission and while the mission played smoothly and I had no sound other than ambient sounds. I could hear the wind, the rain, far away sounds like roosters, crickets, leaves whistling ... you get the point. But no gunfire, no voice overs, no steps. Any idea of what could be causing this? Thanks! Hope to be able to see you online someday!

Ya better not be afraid now. ← That's what my wife said: "No more excuses buck-o. You went on that Death Trap, you are taking me on Medusa next."