Gears of War 2, Black Mesa

Gears of War 2 felt somewhat unbalanced to me. Keep in mind the meat of the game for me was its single player campaign and i also played through it on the Hardcore difficulty setting. So like, the death ruts i would get stuck in were more or less exclusive to scripted sequences and vehicle sequences.

I agree with Shawn Elliot when he says: "Trial-and-error gameplay isn't inherently evil", it's just that it's somewhat jarring to die to a scripted sequence when you have a firm understanding of your characters capability's in relation to the capability's of your enemy. I understand that i should always keep an eye on the space behind me to fall back on incase a boomer closes in on me, I don't understand the specific timing required to dodge a falling pillar that abides by the developers timed script. If said pillar were bound by the in-game physics on the other hand, i might stand a better chance of knowing when it would fall since I am familiar with the games physics vs. the developers intention on when the pillar should fall and when it shouldn't.

I'm not condemming scripted sequences, after all, what is Half-Life without its trip-wire like scenes? It's not the worst thing in the world, but like i said, it's jarring, it brings you out of the simulation because it does not follow the rules of the world.

I REALLY enjoyed everything else in the game, exploring the locust caves was a blast, the increadable vistas in the game required several minutes to take in, I wish i had a HDTV to fully appreciate the amount of detail Epic put into the inside of that giant worm (the coolest moment in the game in my opinon).

I watched the Black Mesa trailer yesterday, i've held out on playing the first Half-Life specificaly because of this mod. Everybodys been saying this; but i honestly can't understand why Valve hasn't bought this yet, i'd easily pay money for this.

Watching the 2 small gameplay clips they put into the trailer it "almost" looks like they added head-bob to your movment. It's hard to tell if it's trailer magic or if it's simply being caused by getting shot at/explosions, but if they did add it all i can say is "good". The one thing that's always bothered me about Half-Life is the fact that your a set of floating hands, even then, when you add vehicles to the mix you're not even that (seriously, Valve couldnt add some freaking hands to hold the steering wheel?). Of course if the Black Mesa team did actually add head-bob it wouldn't be true to the original or any other game in the series, so i'm putting my bet on it being trailer magic.

I've been following this mod for a long time now and I honestly can't wait to get my hands on it, i'm more exited for this mod than I am any other release, and the fact that this team is making this "game" almost entirely through the internet makes it all the more amazing. I'd love to hear what Valve thinks of it once its done.