A very long time ago, I picked up Half-Life for the PS2. I loved what Gearbox had done with Blue Shift and Opposing Force, and am always on the lookout for a good co-op game. For the longest time, it just sat there. I have a history of buying co-op games and extra controllers in the vain hope of having anyone to play with. But eventually I got my brother to co-op through the game with me. It was a special experience.
If you've played through any of the other Gearbox expansions, you know that they tell stories parallel to Gordon Freeman's, often referencing or giving a different perspective on memorable moments in the original game. Decay is no exception. I felt very lucky to have played through such a unique piece of Half-Life history, not that the game itself was perfect. The PS2 controls were pretty unpleasant. And there's that one level that's long and difficult and forces the players to wait through a chunk of narration every time it restarts. Yeah. That level sucks. It still sucks, even with mouselook.
The reason I know this is because some modders extracted the resources from the game and made a Half-Life mod out of it. I played through it with Matthew on Sunday night. It's mostly easy with proper controls, and there are a few bugs in the mod, but it's still fun. Games with combat and puzzles designed explicitly for two person co-op are pretty darn rare. When it's done well, the feeling of working as a well tuned team is very gratifying. Once in a great while, I'd find a TF2 team that gave a similar feeling. But that was even rare during the beta, when the most serious players were playing. And Left 4 Dead is designed to feel out of control, so it probably won't do it either. If anyone else wants to play through Decay, just drop me a line.
In another brother related gaming incident, I ripped the CD of one of his bands (Radio Orangevale) and played through it in Audiosurf. I'm the only person in the world who has, I believe. Once again, my brother delivers the most esoteric gaming experiences. :)
I enjoyed the original Mercenaries. Some of the missions were a pain, but mostly it was fun to shoot guys, sneak through enemy territory by stealing vehicles, and blow up buildings by calling in air strikes. The demo for Mercs 2 on PC is a bit of a mixed bag. Explosive weapons have crazy blast radii, which makes dealing with enemies that use them a pain in the patoot.
You can't carry much RPG ammo, making the RPG good for dealing with a few enemy vehicles and not much more. This is compounded by the fact that you don't automatically pick up ammo you run over. In a game that plays so fast and loose with reality, forcing the player to manually scrounge ammo is a pretty bizarre choice. You also can't carry much in the way of demolitions, so you have to call for an air strike or an air drop of C4 with every building you want to take out. Plus the enemies never drop C4. Long story short, there's a lot of stuff that slows down the game. And the controls are pretty terrible. Mostly it's just that the game is obviously designed for thumbsticks and feels painfully clunky with a mouse.
All those niggles (and more) aside, it's hard to go wrong with co-op exploding things. I don't think the game is worth full retail, but I look forward to someday playing through it with someone. I'll get in a car and pretend to be a harmless civilian. Then you distract them while I run them over. :)
While I don't think anything will top the thrill of discovery of Chapter 4, Yakuza continues to deliver interesting experiences. I'll write them up in another journal entry.
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