OXCGN:
"Cast your mind back to 2003. Remember seeing those amazing E3 videos of Half-Life 2 with a Combine gunship shooting a car the player was hiding behind?
You know, where the doors would swing and the whole car would lurch on its suspension under the impact.
It was at that time that the buzz was officially started for the so-called physics revolution.
Yet here we are 6 years later, with fancy schmancy new hardware (360/PS3) and what is there to show for 6 years of tech exponentially improving in game physics?
For the most part, just a few more boxes that can fall off shelves. Yay."
Discover 10 timeless video games from the past that remain absolutely playable today. From Chrono Trigger to DOOM, these classics have aged like fine wine!
Hot damn that's a good list. The only one i never played is AOE2 and i never finshed Chrono Trigger but it was damn good.
Speaking of what's old but holds up amazingly well and plays like a dream.. i played Symphony of the Night for the first time in 2019.. yep that's right. It became one of my favourite games of all time that i replay almost every year. I couldn't believe how good it was. That is almost impossible for me with newer games let alone older ones. Truly a special gem.
The only one I’d disagree with is doom. It shows its age badly I think. After 5 minutes of play these days you put it down.
If Half-Life 3 ever happens, what big innovation would justify it in Gabe Newell's eyes?
Innovation doesn’t always have to be a VR game, look at one of the rumours for HL3 that someone was saying earlier last week
"Procedural generation (ie. L4D Director) and advanced AI will be pushed by HLX. "
"“The 'procedural generation' in HLX does not relate to terrain or roguelike-ish mechanics but something like the Left4Dead director made "significantly more powerful". Doors, physics props, enemies, enemy types items, NPCs of any kind will be influenced by said director"
That to me is pretty significant if it's done well, that along with better enemy AI, physics and the like are what games should be evolving more but they always choose graphics mostly. The fact that it keeps circling back to only VR is the way forward when it comes to Valve is silly in my opinion.
VR can be a choice but it shouldn't be "VR only because VR is the only innovation we have left"
Just go back to what made Half-Life 2 special: the physics.
At the time, it was groundbreaking and arguably influenced a wave of other games that started to experiment with more interactive and dynamic environments. For a while, physics-based gameplay became a trend. But if you've played any first-person shooters in the last decade, you've probably noticed that most developers have either abandoned those ideas entirely or significantly toned them down. The focus shifted away from immersive world interaction toward faster pacing, scripted set pieces, and visual spectacle.
And while you're at it, ship it with a robust modding tool. That’s another thing most developers have completely given up on. It could offer a much-needed alternative to the current AAA landscape, which feels increasingly trapped in a cycle of cinematic universes and safe, homogenized content. In a world of "Marvelized" blockbusters, a game that draws inspiration from the experimental spirit of the late 1990 and mid-2000s wouldn’t just be nostalgic,it would be genuinely fresh. Ironically, looking back might be the most forward-thinking move a studio could make right now.
Here's something innovative, finish the God damn story. Wow, a concept! Locking a series behind forced innovation is stupid, and stupidity is not innovation.
They can have the game be slightly less linear but not too open. HL2 had parts like that, then Episode 2 did it a bit more.
That and expand upon the physics & AI system and further increase the graphics over Alyx and that's pretty much all they gotta do. I hope they release a separate multiplayer part after if not immediately as well, like they did shortly after HL2 released.
1. Dynamic AI for NPC - Supporting character AI that responds to your voice in real-time. Imagine getting pinned down and then just say "Alyx, throw a smoke grenade and give me covering fire!" and then she does it after responding "OK!". How about having a conversation with Alyx?
2. FOV graphical render using NVMe SSD - A graphics rendering feature that is built-in the game engine so that your GPU and CPU only renders what player is seeing. Current graphics engine renders the world beyond the FOV because of hardware limitations in immediate rendering as you pan your camera/view. Having a graphics rendering system that renders graphics instantly and only what you're seeing allows for richer, more detailed worlds or less RAM usage.
The project codenamed HLX, which is thought to be Half-Life 3, is reportedly being widely playtested ahead of a Summer reveal and Winter release.
The second option hopefully. I haven't played Alyx VR since the VR goggles hurt my eyes.
VR as an option - Totally fine.
VR Only - No thanks
I've been a Half Life fan since the original and have waited since 2007 for a sequel, it was already a kick to the nuts to have Half Life Alyx, a game which changes the ending of Episode 2 and will clearly be required to understand the story going forward in HL3, be a VR only title so I don't want a proper, full on sequel to be VR only aswell, it would be highly unfair to the HL fans who either don't like VR, can't afford it or can't do it for whatever reason.
Luckily going off the rumours, HL3 is a more traditional game.
Sybau! Lol jk but please only the option. I’m still not buying vr today lol
It'll probably be VR exclusive with full body tracking sensors and a treadmill required to play
I wonder if the rumours are true - that it has a highly destructible environment and very reactive with hot/cold with realism placed on wind and other physics, I guess it makes sense, HL2 was very impressive at the time and it carried over into GMOD. That's what I really liked about it, everything built into the engine.
The only thing that might slightly disappoint me is if they don't upgrade the graphics more. I like that Source and Source 2 has such a clean look, I just hope they push it so it's more like Source 2.5 if they haven't budged it up to Source 3. Being (supposedly) the game to finish the original story I hope they go all out if they can while maintaining high frame rates with modern hardware.
We haven't seen the best of Source 2, yet.
No really.
Checked some threads, many features are still WiP.
It just seems so impossible that after so many years and so many false leaks and rumours this might be it.
I don't know how to feel about this the game has so much weight on it in terms of expectations now half life alyx was amazing so I think they can do it but they would be feeling the pressure
Physics in a game really contributes to immersion...nothing worse than shooting 3D objects that act like painted pictures.
I get really excited with destructibility and when things act realistically when hit, falling down, catching fire or whatever.
It's like realistic lighting too...all these elements add to the atmosphere of exploring more 'real' environments.
Great article. I think we have reached a point where strictly graphical improvements will become less and less apparent, but physics are still trailing behind.
Perhaps next gen we will see a huge leap in physics calculations?
Can't really read the article as the internet is too slow to load on my phone.... but, I really like that Nvidia added PhysX into their drivers etc to make the PC market a bit happier.
PhysX is pretty cool to play around with. In Mirror's Edge for example, you get nice, realistic cloth physics, a lot of glass particles when windows shatter and some other realistic elements like rubber and debris in the wind. I think it was a pretty cool step in the right direction.
I also enjoy the PhysX mod for UT3 where maps are modded to add things like hail (probably one of the coolest things I've seen in a video game - to use the Shock Rifle only to have the thousands of hail pellets cyclone around the shock beam.
I imagine computing power will have advanced enough in the next 8 or so years so that we can have semi-realistic fluid dynamics.
Some great physics were in BLACk on the 1st-gen xbox just before the release of the 360.
ANyone that has played will understand the huge amount on environmental interaction and damage and the physics around that from the game.
Plus it was a great game to play.