Archives for 2007

• Please note that these are publication date on this site, NOT the actual release date of the maps and mods

About A series of simple rooms linked via lifts where, with the help of Combine soldiers, you need to clear the rooms. There’s very little else to say about it except that the author is building a second version and wants feedback. Reader Recommendations5 recommendations, average score: 1.6 (out of 5), standard deviation: 1.44

The first SP FPS game I played from start to finish was Unreal and the default playing character as prisoner 849 is female. This never bothered me and I didn’t change it to a male, but as Single Player games get more and more storyline-complex and the cut-scenes become more and more realistic will there come a time when it does make a difference? This week’s (late!- Sorry) poll question is:

Is the gender of the playing character important?

About This is a collection of Doom/Quake-style maps. There is no story and the objectives are to simply move onto the next room. The maps were originally released separately but I have collected them into one file. Play time is around 5 to 10 minutes for each map. Installation Copy the .bsp files into your [...]

What’s the first thing you often learn about a mod? Probably its name. The name should instill anticipation and desire. It could also explain a little of the story or objective. This week’s poll question is simple:

Is the name of a mod important?

About You are Adrian Shepard, in stasis since the debacle at Black Mesa. But fortunately for you, a situation occurs where you come of use again. And so the G-man comes back to bring you out of stasis. The events in this game happen a bit before Gordon arrives in City 17, the player will [...]

About Your objective is seemly simple; run to the sewers. You will face a number of obstacles on the way, including fences, a sniper, fire and Antlions. Phew! if you make it you are a good player. This is a beta release and the author is looking for feedback, so keep it useful! Reader Recommendations5 [...]

Many hobbies change a person’s life, some good, some bad. I want you to think carefully before voting this week. Take a day to really consider the question and its implications.

This week’s question:
Has Gaming Changed You?

Story You are a mad scientist, whose mission is to save your colleague in Xen. That has been captured by the U.S. Army , he is hidden some where out there , you will have to find him and he better be alive !!! You have a rendezvous at the last teleport center on the [...]

I don’t often talk about other game genres here on PlanetPhillip.com, but today’s Poll Question is exactly about that. Defining exactly what is and isn’t a game genre is interesting but out of the scope of this post, so for now:

How many other game genres do you regularly play?

Steam certainly made aI change the way we think about buying games. Plenty of people, including many PP readers, are not too happy with the concept as it is currently implemented.

To keep the question a little simpler imagine that you want to buy a game and it is the same price vis an online distribution system or through normal retail.

Do you prefer online distribution systems or normal retail?

I believe Unreal Tournament featured something called adaptive difficulty (Not sure if that’s the correct name). Instead of setting a difficulty level the game itself would adjust the skill level of the bots to ensure that the player encountered enemies that almost matched his or her skill. So this weeks question is this:

Do you prefer having a pre-defined or adaptive difficulty setting?

About I’m fascinated by chase scenes in movies and real life. My fascination comes from the decision making process. I used to imagine myself as a film director and saying to the actors: “Okay, this is the chase scene. I want you to just flee. The camera will follow you where ever you go. Somebody [...]

I think it was Asimov that wrote a short story that featured a scientist who used a multi-vac super computer (Cool name, huh?) to research jokes. I’m sorry to spoil the story for you but the outcome was that jokes were an alien experiment on humankind.

After they became aware, all jokes stopped being funny. I thought it was a cool way of looking at something.

Valve and its content form a big part of PlanetPhillip.com’s content. We, generally speaking anyway, love what they do. There are many things I dislike about they way they have done things in the past (and probably will dislike in the future!) but you have got to admit they do a fantastic job. So, here is this weeks question:

Would you prefer Valve continue making Half-Life-related games or create a completely new and fresh I.P.?

About This is a single player map for Half-Life (published in Joystick n°128) It was the author’s first finalized and completed map. It is short but interesting, it is not a succession of rooms with monsters in each; moreover there is little combat. It is from this map that the desire to create Mad crabs [...]

About This is a story of a citizen who escapes a few cops. He runs to an alley and finds a hole in the ground that leads to the drainage. The cops doesn’t follow him but now he’s trapped in the drainage and have to find a way out. Reader Recommendations7 recommendations, average score: 5 [...]

I’ve been trying to upload some music for Alpha Prime but have been having trouble. It got me thinking about my favourite game music. I decided to limit the poll choices to the most popular modded games. My personal favourites are Chaser and Unreal Tournament , and I play them in the car all the time.

What is your favourite game music?

The Story So Far: You’re Gordon Freeman (surprise!). You got captured and the combine imprisoned you in a re-education centre. They have been putting you through reality simulations for the past few weeks. At first these were relatively benign. But on Day 13 things hotted up when you were placed into a violent combat trial, [...]

Intro “Good morning, Agent Freeman. You”ve been ordered here because for days we have received no word from our scientific colleagues. Our company placed 21 top-class physics specialists at the government”s disposal to work on a highly secret research project. For days now, all our efforts to get in contact with them have been blocked. [...]

About This is a single player Half-Life 2 mod, being made by just one person. His name is Thomas “Stadric Gonzalez” Kelley and there are currently two beta maps available for you to test. As always the author is looking for some insightful and intelligent feedback, so please play the maps and post your comments [...]

I’ve been thinking about the different types of environments and settings for single player levels. Which one I like, which ones I don’t and why etc. And I was specifically thinking about which ones have been over used. This week’s poll is about levels in single player games, specifically the setting.

What environmental setting has been over used the most in SP levels?

Introduction It’s happened to me many times before but yesterday it really annoyed me. Put simply I wasn’t smart enough to save some bullets for a particular gun. My fault you say, I agree but here’s what I want…..

About Zombie stress is a Half Life 2 Single Player modification, which instead of giving you some complicated story or long winded puzzles to over come gives you what you want… zombies! Reader Recommendations4 recommendations, average score: 4.75 (out of 5), standard deviation: 0.19

I’m a little embarrassed because this week’s poll is very, very similar to the one currently on ModDB.com! In my defense the actual poll was decided on a while ago. Anyway, onto this week’s question.

What the most important aspect in a great Single Player Game?