Race X

[el Chi]

Yes, I think we know that's your opinion by now, el Chi. Care to state why you think they were rubbish?

No, no I wouldn't. You should just accept that I'm right - ok?

Okay, maybe calling them flat out rubbish is a bit unfair, but they weren't, in my opinion, as good as the Xen beasties and I'd rather they didn't make a second appearance.

1. The Voltigores were badly designed, looked silly and I didn't find them particularly satisfying to fight. They exploded when you killed them, but it never seemed rewarding.

2. The Shock Troopers were quite good, but I really preferred the Xen Grunts. Their design looked a bit too comical for my liking (mainly to do with the eye more than anything else).

3. The Shock Rifle was good fun as a weapon although I didn't use it too much, to be honest. The idea of them detaching themselves from the Trooper after it died was a good one, albeit a bit tiresome after a while.

4. The Pit Drones I liked a lot, to be honest. The Worm thing too - that was pretty good.

5. The main boss was really bad. One of its main weapons was bad breath for God's sake.

Its teleporting vagina would have made an interesting party trick but I didn't think it made a good enemy.
Also, the way you had to kill it was incredibly irritating - you couldn't use your own weapons properly. Shoot one eye with rubbish mounted laser turret, skip over with Barnacle to other turret, shoot in eye, shoot rocket in vagina, repeat until done.
Avoid flailing limbs, avoid bad breath, swap uncomfortably from one side to the other, shoot in vagina - sounds more like a bad encounter with a disgusting prostitute.

6. My main problem with Op4's enemies - and ok this isn't technically Race-X - was the SuperZombies. They were absolutely appalling - they threw bits of themselves at you like angry lepers, they ran around like demented retards on speed and growled like tigers. What!? Also, their speed made them seem much less like zombies and I felt as a result they had zero character. They just pissed me off. I really hope they're not in HL2.

Apart from that, Op4 was tip-top!

 

[Asknoone]

I agree with el chi, except i didnt like the stupid worm.

I just didnt see why there should have been another Alien race? why why why?

 

[Brian Damage]

Well, el Chi, I disagree with you on every negative point you have there . My opinions are almost completely the opposite of yours. Which saves me typing them out .

Why, why, why, Samon?

Variety, variety, variety!

Without the variety, OP4 would have been much worse and scored much less. BS is considered only vaguely good because it was basically what you seem to want OP4 to have been: Nothing new.

 

[Asknoone]

I dont see how race x made OP4 special...it could have been great even with xen aliens...just another adventure in Black Mesa.

Race X was not needed.....IMO.

I despise it, i hate it, i have never ever liked it, it sucks, it stinks, it shouldnt even be there, why it is i do not know.

You have to say that as if it was a poem

A bad one.....

 

[Brian Damage]

I dunno... Race-X was interestingly different, from the living heavy weapon, to the military behaviours of the Shocktroopers. OP4 wouldn't have been as interesting without them.

But we must agree to disagree, or I'll be up until 4AM...

 

[el Chi]

Well, el Chi, I disagree with you on every negative point you have there . My opinions are almost completely the opposite of yours. Which saves me typing them out .

Why, why, why, Samon?
Variety, variety, variety!
Without the variety, OP4 would have been much worse and scored much less. BS is considered only vaguely good because it was basically what you seem to want OP4 to have been: Nothing new.

I totally agree with you on the fact that they had to be there though! I just think they could have been done slightly better, that's all. I stand firmly by my criticisms of the vagina monster. Did you really find fighting it to be fun? I thought it was tedious, especially compared to the scenes before; the Black Ops fighting Race-X was a sight to behold.
BS's problem was that it provided nothing new and Op4 did. Which is a Good Thing.

 

[Brian Damage]

Actually, I enjoyed fighting the Gene Worm more than I did the Nihilanth. Guess it's just One of Those Things...

 

[NeLi]

Blue SHift was shit.

 

[Brian Damage]

I'd say "middling".

 

[NeLi]

I'd say it was shit.

Too short

No new experiences


It kinda goes against everything an expansionpack should be,

 

[Asknoone]

I would say it was a ton better than OP4

 

[el Chi]

Actually, I enjoyed fighting the Gene Worm more than I did the Nihilanth. Guess it's just One of Those Things...

Well, I'm going to be stubborn and crude and continue to refer to it as the vagina monster. I just deeply objected to the fact that you couldn't kill it with your own weapons - not properly.
Unless you're talking about the thing you had to pour nuclear waste onto?

I agree with you that Blue Shift was "middling." It was a nice perspective to play from, and it was nice to see more of BMRF, but some new weapons/beasties would have been nice also. The ending made me cry tears of blood. But I see now that it appears to have served a purpose.

And there was no way it was better than Op4. No way.

 

[Asknoone]

I thought the ending was exellent myslef, for blue shift that is.

Both OP4 bosses were terrible, the worm thign was ok...

 

[Brian Damage]

Heh, no, the toxic waste worm is the Pit Worm, el Chi. He was cool too.

I personally regard BS as "closure". A bit like The Hobbit, but at the end of a series of stories, instead of at the start.

 

[Asknoone]

The pit worm was too at home, it looked like some space alien that lived in that exact place...it fitted to well considering it teleported there

 

[NeptuneUK]

to all the BS preffererers, adrain shepard has that pwnage gasmask though! you cant get class like that!!!
*admires avatar* hehehe shiny... *returns to retarded style state of dumb laughter*

 

[Brian Damage]

Well, Samon, the Race-X creatures had no accidental teleportations like the Xenians did. The Pit Worm was most likely put there on purpose, maybe as some sort of organic resource collector...

 

[Asknoone]

Now stop making excuses brian for gearbox's stupidity

 

[Brian Damage]

What ? My explanation made sense...

 

[el Chi]

Now stop making excuses brian for gearbox's stupidity

Kind of ironic that you should be calling Gearbox stupid when you're having major gripes about the placement of one monster in one game.
Would you say Valve are stupid for the Tentacle?

 

[Asknoone]

No, because as seen in xen the tentacles naturally grow out of the ground, and from the looks of things when you drop down the blast pit the tentacles have burrowed thier way up.

The pit worm looks like something from star wars, like the diagona (i think thats what it was called) that luke, han, chewie and lie faced in the sewage dump on the death star...it belonged in that enviroment.

 

[el Chi]

:hmph: Perhaps. Even so, I think you're reading way too much into it

 

[Brian Damage]

"Dianoga", or "Garbage Squid".

And as I said, it's supposed to be a Race X creature, so it was probably intentionally "dropped" into the waste facility by them...

 

[Asknoone]

:hmph:

Wait till i think of something to go up against you brian

 

[Brian Damage]

Meh, it passes the time until the game comes out, and it all becomes academic...

 

[alehm]

I thought Race X just didn't have the Valve feel like the Xen aliens. They aren't aweful, but just won't stand the test of time like a headcrab or alien slave.

I think what will sum up that opinion best is to compare the the Super Zombie, Gearbox's idea of the "next stage" mutation that threw damaging flesh at you, to the ones that will be in Half Life 2 and you will see the difference in Gearbox's vision to Valves.

Of course you will have to wait for HL2 to come out to see them.

 

[Feath]

I think there definately should've been more scientist talk about Race X. Undeadscotsman really gave me new insight into them.

I loved Blue Shift though. I don't see why people didn't. I loved the back story it gave and it explained how Xen was discovered. And it was only a tenner.

 

[Yuri]

Sci: "Wow, I have never seen that race before!"

Barney: "Don't worry sir, I can take him!"
...
"AHH"

Sci: "I don't want to die!!! AHHH!" *ZAP!!*

...

Otis: "Poor bastard."

And that was the extent of it

 

[Brian Damage]

I thought Race X just didn't have the Valve feel like the Xen aliens. They aren't aweful, but just won't stand the test of time like a headcrab or alien slave.

I think what will sum up that opinion best is to compare the the Super Zombie, Gearbox's idea of the "next stage" mutation that threw damaging flesh at you, to the ones that will be in Half Life 2 and you will see the difference in Gearbox's vision to Valves.

Of course you will have to wait for HL2 to come out to see them.

I see a few possible scenarios:

VALVe keep the OP4 Gonomes (I hope so).

VALVe design their own superzombies.

VALVe have only the normal kind (though this seems unlikely, as I'm sure I remember a quote from them saying we'll see the next stage after the Gonome...).

 

[el Chi]

I see a few possible scenarios:

VALVe keep the OP4 Gonomes (I hope so).

VALVe design their own superzombies.

VALVe have only the normal kind (though this seems unlikely, as I'm sure I remember a quote from them saying we'll see the next stage after the Gonome...).

Valve do have their own "Superzombies" - those decayed ones we're to see in the graveyard (remember the E3 2004 vid with Father Grigori?).
I'm not sure if that's a phase after the Gonomes or not - I doubt it - but here's hoping the gonomes aren't in it, eh Brian? :cheers:

 

[Brian Damage]

No, they come from a different sort of headcrab: rounder, with spindlier legs and yellower flesh (look at the screenshots). Peoples have been a'callin' them the "Deadcrabs"!

And I quite liked the Gonomes.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

No, they come from a different sort of headcrab: rounder, with spindlier legs and yellower flesh (look at the screenshots). Peoples have been a'callin' them the "Deadcrabs"!

And I quite liked the Gonomes.

Hehe, people are still using "deadcrab" as a word.
Yup, that's almost definitely a new sort 'o crab there.

Also, I really liked the gonome too. They were pretty frightening the way they'd run at you while flailing wildly. They seemed insane and chaotic. And the growl was a very good sound effect. I wished there were more of them.

Still, Valve should give the Gonome a makeover to fix the things people don't like. Compare the HL2 zombies to the HL1 zombies. There's a pretty big difference there. If they made similar changes to the HL2 gonome, they're set.

I also liked Race X a lot, especially the shock troopers. The main thing that's keeping them from being more accepted by the HL community is definitely that there's so little we know about them.

They just show up and start kidnapping people and shooting at a garg. Pretty much everything else we "know" about them is assumption-based.
I bet, however, that we'll see a better explanation of X's origins and motives in HL2. Mostly because any bit of info is more than we know now.