swaaye wrote:I've noticed the freezing issues too. Besides saved games it also doesn't seem to like all resolution settings and might lock when loading regardless of whether it's a save or a new game. Yet more "good old days" PC gaming hardware/software bug joy.
I never had it crash when loading the game or when loading a save for the first time after loading the game. It was only when I tried to load saves after having played the game for a while. It seemed like loading in some areas was more prone to crashing than others. For example, The first Drudge Lord that you meet is in the sewers in a room at the top of a staircase. Every time I tried to load a saved game in that area the game crashed, but if I moved back a couple rooms, it seemed to work fine. Of course this was kind of a pain in the neck and you could never tell what areas were dangerous to load in.
swaaye wrote:The gameplay is definitely nothing special. I'm sure it's actually a step down from the original game. But I don't really mind. It has some interesting locations and I like seeing the early Lithtech engine. It can be frustrating, due to AI insta-aim, but many old shooters have this problem...
I agree that the plot and a lot of the locations were nothing special, but I definitely preferred the Lithtech engine over the original Build engine. After playing through Blood, it was such a pleasure to be able to freely look up and down, and to be able to snipe enemies that are sticking out from behind objects without the shots hitting an invisible wall. I loved the atmosphere of the original game, but the limitations of the engine often had me pulling out my hair in frustration.
One thing I did like more in Blood, was the weapons. One shot from the Napalm Launcher would usually clear out a whole room full of lesser enemies and one direct hit was enough to kill anything with the exception of the boss type enemies (giant spiders, stone gargoyles, etc). It was really annoying in Blood 2 to see even human enemies take a direct hit with the Napalm Launcher and barely even flinch!
swaaye wrote:Apparently Blood 2 was a sort of side project for Monolith, developed in parallel with Shogo. Shogo is clearly the more refined, more advanced game of the two. It's a shame because I'm far more into the dark Blood universe than Shogo's anime.
I really liked Shogo, however I wish they had left out the human levels and just concentrated on the giant robot combat. My only other complaint with the game was that the city levels felt really constrained. I realize that's probably a limitation of the engine, but it broke the illusion to realize that each part of the city was basically just a large room with miniature buildings in it.
I did like the anime feel of the game though. It was great fun to zip out and unleash a barrage of rockets at the enemy.
Davros wrote:Dont forget Blood2 has 2 maybe 3 endings
Different endings? I hadn't heard that before. What determines the outcome, using a different character?
To get back to the original topic...
I liked SiN. I initially played the demo back around the time it first came out, but I was using a 233Mhz system and the demo took forever and a day to load. I wasn't used to FPS games and didn't know to invert the mouse, so I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I never went back to it because of the loading times. I tried the demo a few years ago, on a much faster system and really enjoyed it, so I bought a used copy of the game from a local store. I enjoyed it quite a bit, although I did experience a few bugs;
I found three locations where you can't save the game or it will screw up. One is in the warehouse after meeting the foreman and then jumping down into the furnace room. Saving near the large door (either side) triggers the bug. Saving near the valley with the falling rocks in Jungle Pass 2 also triggers it. Finally, I think it's at the end of Jungle Pass 2 where you have to follow a narrow rock ledge as pieces break loose. Saving there is a bad idea. What happens is that when you re-load a save made in these locations, the screen never leaves the main menu. You can hear the game playing, but you're stuck looking at a frozen copy of the menu screen. You have to have the proper sequence of key presses memorized to even quit the game.
I encountered the Darwin Chamber bug where the door to the third chamber didn't open and I had to use the NoClip cheat to get past it. In one of the jungle levels you come to a large security door and on the other side is supposed to be a security checkpoint building, but on my first time through the game, it looked like it had been blown up. I could also hear a gun being fired, but couldn't find it. When I first entered the sewers I came to a gate that had a wall of water behind it, which wasn't supposed to be there. Re-loading the game and restarting that level seemed to fix it.
I've also played through the add-on, Wages of SiN, which was good, but I preferred the original game.