I found at least three ways to die in the tutorial! I did all of them by accident - not even looking for ways to die
Oh come on, I’m strafing up and down those ladders while being asleep (but seriously: I’m sure I have dreamed a lot about HL in my past).
Btw., I recently heard a podcast with Jeri Ellsworth. I didn’t know what awesome stuff she did in the past (cars etc.) and also no details about her more recent activities at Valve (except the AR glasses): Part 1 Part 2
Is this some kind of competition? Well I’ve played a Lucasarts inspired aventure game recently and managed to die in the tutorial.
You’d think this shouldn’t be possible in such games anymore but later in the game I died again!
Also after. 
But yeah, this is a typical classic game that depends on save scumming. Of course I often wish that save scumming were possible in modern titles lacking previously standard saving at will, but I considered it as annoying then as I do now. It’s worse because HL implements some kind of autosave system that initially tries to fool you into thinking you don’t need save scumming.
Just as an example of me messing up the scripted events, near the beginning there’s this facehugger hanging out by a shelf that’s going to fall over because of an explosion. It’s very easy to die there by being too quick at the game when it’s supposed to be helpful and cinematic at the same time. But when I’m being careful it’s blatantly obvious that I just triggered an invisible tripwire, while if I’m being a shooter player I die in the cinematic in ways that have nothing to do with my skill or lack thereof. It’s just about whether I know what’s coming. And that right there is the problem with an awful lot of post-Half-Life games in a nutshell. You have to stand a little further this or that way to avoid the scripted explosion.
I guess part of my issue with the game comes from it trying to hide it being a game yet still having all of the same mechanisms. In Doom I don’t mind health management too much because it’s just a thing alongside ammo management. In HL they do this thing with “natural” first aid stations and I think it does the exact opposite from what they were going for.
All a realistic first aid kit does is keep me from bleeding out. Making it more “realistic” makes me painfully aware of the fact that I seem to be gaining health.
I also have some tangential issues that probably didn’t bother me at the time. Like scrolling through weapons requires an attack action to actually switch. Back in '99 I didn’t even have a scrollwheel, so switching was done by numbers. I don’t even like switching weapons by scrolling that much; I still use numbers too and it doesn’t bother me in older games without scrollwheel support, so I was somewhat surprised to see this bother me. But it does.
[Edit: same issue with numbers actually. Just annoying.]
To be fair to HL, the ladders were also a bit finicky in Ion Fury.
Exactly why mid-'90s shooters made it so that you could easily commit suicide by not going exactly straight on a ladder was never clear to me. I guess you need at least a Pentium 3 for non-lethal ladders.
I like Counter-Strike though. 
Huh, I thought you were kidding but apparently the “correct” way to traverse ladders is… by strafing. It seems to be a lot less risky than the alternatives. That feels like a bug. Strafing on ladders should get you up half a second faster with greater ladder skill requirements while speed running, or something.
You’re a nerdy physicist…
I do find the part quite natural to role play
I never go in guns blazing in these kind of games anyway and never waste ammo (which I just ran out of btw)
Just like fire extinguishers, there is a rule to have one in every coffee corner or close by open radioactive sewers?
I found the whole interface very intuitive (it even autodetected and remapped the WASD to ZQSD to match my regional keyboard setting). Not sure if it is the best way, but I found that to switch weapons, you need to press a number followed by ENTER/RETURN. Your way sounds like you’d waste a bullet each time?
I’ve had no issues at all with the ladders, not up or down. Of course I do the same thing as in real life and also the ladder when descending…
I dunno, there’s a stark contrast between you and the other guys. Feels like you’re playing William “B.J.” Blazkowicz.
You don’t.
Of course I exaggerate, but with the Steam controller they’re actually quite tricky!
Also save scumming is really no big deal. F6, F7, let’s go.
But the platforming is much better in Duke 3D.
PS On the keyboard I discovered Q is an important key. Switch last weapon works how you expect weapon switching to work.
I’ve always played with hud_fastswitch 1, does this make it better?
Since you now have a scrollwheel just bind quick save/load it to mousewheel up/down!
Yes, lastinv is the best way to switch weapons (I still have a lot of commands memorised as it seems…).
I already panic now each time hitting F7 instead of F6 or vice versa (especially while falling down a long elevator shaft)
That’s why I said to use your mousewheel: Just tattoo save and load on the appropriate (upper/lower) part of your finger…
But seriously: I never use default bindings. Regarding quick save and load I typically bind them to F6 (save) and F9 (load) and my muscle memory just hits the correct key. Having them right next to each other + in the middle of a block just asks for trouble…
The Bridge is quite fun. Just completed two storylines. Or chapters. Or whatever they are called.
Headspun was released on 2019-08-28 and is currently available for free (or more) for the next two days:
Negative Steam reviews are mostly about bugs, so hopefully the current version is in a better state.
Looks like it’s already not free anymore. 
Likely it’s been free over the weekend only. I did get it, but I’m not really in the mood to play it right away. Probably will go for Beautiful Desolation next, but I’m holding out for the Linux version.
Anybody want 50% off RE2 and/or DMC5? I already have those games and I just grabbed this Humble Bundle for some Mega Man.
They’d still be €20 a pop, not sure I’d consider that worthwhile. DMC5 is one of the best brawlers I ever played, yet the first few hours are terrible. Unearned cutscenes, gameplay interruptions, etc. RE2 is even worse and remains worse. There’s a lot of vastly superior stuff to be had on GOG for that amount of money.
But anyway, if you’re not interested in Mega Man but you want those coupons, let me know. 
(The games are okay once they finally get going, DMC5 becomes great, RE2… eh, whatever. Maybe not.)
Edit: never mind, I don’t think I can actually gift those coupons?
I’ve been curious about Driver 4 — I mean WATCH_DOGS. Do we have any mods for full-quality PC graphics yet? It’s infamous for being made ugly on purpose (so as not to make the brand-new consoles look bad) and the high-quality textures literally being in the game files.
Captain Disaster and all other games of that author are now free on itch for a limited time: https://itch.io/s/28988/isolation-helper-giveaway
