ArcadeStickMonk
Member
What he's talking about is that in both Halo and Doom3, the developers have balanced enemy behavior against your weapons to produce crafted and reliable tactics.Foreign Jackass said:The fact that you're bringing DOOM3 in the core gameplay conversation pretty much brings forth the fact that you absolutely don't know what "depth" is. The AI in DOOM3 is pretty much RUN TOWARDS THE HERO for 90% of the monsters. The combat is deep? There are mostly 2 enemies at once, and they're used in cheap spawning ways where there's always an enemy spawning behind you. That's not DEEP sir. That's freakin cheap.
And what that means is that, if you want there to be, there is more to your combat with an enemy then standing there and shooting each other. I guess it's best to lead by examples.
Halo
- Letting a Hunter whiff past you exposes there vulnerable orange area, after which they can be killed in one shot where assualting them head-on gains nothing.
- Shields are dropped by plasma faster, health is dropped by bullets faster. Hitting an Elite with a charged Plasma Pistol and then following with a quick automatic burst provides a much cleaner and quicker means of killing them then just laying in with the assault rifle. Jackal's shield can be disipated the same way.
- Killing Elites causes grunts to scatter.
- The Plasma Rifle freezes enemies while dropping thier shields, making them very vulnerable to a melee
Doom3
- Pretty much hinges on the shotgun. Most enemies have openings ripe for a shotgun blast that can be exploited. Every enemy in the game (save for bosses) can be easily dispatched with a shotgun and knowing when to hit them, even the hell knights.
- You can duck under a tentacle soldier's attack, and in fact this is about the only way for them not to hit you. If you stay too long he will kick.
- Imps will fake you out at times, seeming to release their fireball and causing you to jink, only to release the attack late and catch you by suprise.
- The plasma gun destroys the rockets from the Revenants, eliminating their primary attack. Alternately, you can kill them with two shotgun blast if you stay close enough and dodge their rocket before it starts to track. Cacodemon blasts are also destructible.
So what all this is supposed to instill in the player is that there is a more satisfying alternative in combat than shooting at the first enemy you see with the weapon in your hands when you see them. Halo and Doom3 both have crafted, per-enemy strategies in them. That is the depth that Dark10x is reffering to.
This is not to suggest that HL2 is devoid of these features. I know I enjoy catching a man-hack in my grav-gun and slamming it against a wall. But we feel that HL2 does not contain enough of these strategies and we found that a bit dissapointing after two Halos and Doom3.