PS: Great show guys, always entertaining to listen to!

Phillip said “How else would you suggest to get the listeners more involved”

First of all I had in mind you telling the listeners on the broadcast one of the mods you would be covering on the next broadcast, or does that require too much forward planning?

Just how much listener involvement do you want? Some of the good listener’s suggestions have received negative response and it’s no good asking for them if you are going to put too many restrictions on what you will accept. Being a die-hard HL SP gamer I can understand your preference for keeping the Podcast Half-Life, however, I see no problem with an ‘Off Topic’ segment which would widen the horizon for a short period. If there are some good Valve products for the SP gamers then it would be nice to know about them. The segment could also include what Phillip calls Total Conversions of which they are many great examples. For me Portal is not Half-Life neither is strictly only puzzle based mods, are you not going to talk about any future Portal development or releases, don’t you think you are in danger of being too restricted with your content?

@Riven: Thanks for the question and remember everyone to keep em coming!

-About the Horde type gameplay, I’ve added it to my list, good call. -Although I’ve never seen it done right in a custom map or mod before. (L4D does it beautifully though!)

-About Minerva, Yes, Adam Foster does use quite a bit of back-tracking in pretty much all of the maps. Even some areas (like the elevator to the underground scene at the beginning) don’t change when you come back through it. So how does it still remain fun?

-My analysis is this: Referencing the Elevator scene at the beginning: The player is told to go into the elevator already knowing that they must return to the surface. Once they press the button to unlock the gates around the Island, the player instantly knows what they have to do but not how they must do it. The degree of uncertainty leaves the player with a safe zone as they return to the surface because they’ve already been there. All they have to do is search for the newly opened entrance to the center of the island. I see the Elevator scene as a ‘Side Path’ -with the reward being the button push and the following action sequences. The back-track would be running around on the island back to the now open gate, but even this is not boring considering the new goal at hand. It was important to show the player the possible entrances so that they may now return knowing which one to go through. -So the level did change states once they returned to the surface, therefore giving a new experience.

-The last portion of the Minerva series has you running for your life out of the facility before it blows up. This hearkens back to what Thomas (I think) was saying about an area blowing up behind you and making it exciting as you backtrack through it. It works in part for scenarios like this such as when the player needs to already know which way to go, so they don’t get penalized for stopping to think. Having already been through an area makes it more familiar and easier to navigate.

/2 cents

I’ve been a big fan of lara..I mean tomb raider games since the start. I wasn’t too impressed with the last few games, but the remake was OK. This new one looks, from the demo, to have gone back to how the first games were all the myth and temples and gods and all that crap which I love about TR.

So CV, are you a fan of the old games and is ‘underworld’ shaping up to be any good in comparison?

In my opinions all the new abilities and stuff are adding so much to the game, I love how quick you can bounce about once you learn the basics. Pretty cool.

Anyway, yes HL…Half life is good.

SPOILER ALERT
In the second level (when you are on the cargo ship), you play through the first level making your way down deep into the ship; then the ship catches on fire and starts to capsize, so you have to make your way back… only this time you are walking all the walls and ceilings and using lara’s crazy acrobatics to get around. Awesome stuff. Great example of backtracking done right.