Thank you very much for your review! I'm glad you've enjoyed your playthroughs, seeing people enjoy my work/team work is exactly why I make things and my ultimate goal. Indeed, V2 version of HL2MMod will be a much more focused experience, with majority of options being forced on and pretty much every single post processing option removed, due to putting a bit of strain on the engine and being obsolete due to ReShade being able to replicate and surpass many of HL2MMod additions. This will also allow easier porting to Linux and subsequently to Steam Deck like devices. Thanks to reviews like this one and player feedback we now know what works and what doesn't, feedback and criticism are important to us. It's also being worked on from ground up, meaning almost everything will be brand new. I would also love to put it on Steam, hopefully it'll be easier than putting HL1MMod on Steam, where I had to make a gigantic fuss about it before being noticed by Valve with the help of community. I cannot spend a lot of time on my projects like I used to, so I'm not even sure when you'll see the first footage of V2, but it's been in prototyping stage for couple of years now. Personally, I'm much more proud of HL1MMod, it was quite a challenge to make it in the first place, especially since it has around 4 times more additions than HL2MMod. It was difficult to work with such an old engine and it was difficult to maintain the balance of adding new things and logic without overdoing it. HL1 fanbase is much more dedicated and less forgiving when it comes to tinkering with the OG game and I'm glad you have found most of the stuff to your liking. Thank you for bringing attention to my story too, means a lot to me. I find it quite difficult to work on something that requires being creative these days, that part of me simply stayed in the ruins back home, but I still hope that v2 of HL2MMod will surpass the first version in terms of quality and being more true to HL2 design.
It's very unlikely that you may read this reply, but I think a lot of people (myself included) would prefer you somehow kept the post-processing options in, rather than have us all use Reshade if we all want that sort of stuff. It just feels a lot more natural to have it properly built into the game rather than for use to external software that can end up being more buggy and having undesirable effects. I can understand your reasoning for removing it in v2 of HL2MMOD, but it'd be nice to have it be kept in for those who want it, somehow.
You mention ReShade, but one thing that really kills it is the fact that it can't discern between the game and the HUD, meaning effects get applied to the UI as well, which kinda sucks. Sure, this is apparently fixable with a certain ReShade addon, but I've never gotten it to work properly on any game.
That addition just honestly makes me mad that the Tau cannon was dropped in the base game. I love HL2 but sometimes it feels like the game was overpolished and cool ideas were dropped for no better reason than to simplify it.
it also has the gluon gun, it's unfinished but with some addons you can add it to maps, make it have an original model and make it so its icon fits with the others
4:35 I don't agree with this, Gordon is NOT meant to be powerless in HL2. He's painted as a savior who almost single-handedly tore his way through the resonance cascade and is tearing his way through the earthbound combine. He's seen as a legend, the game does everything it can to give the player power and tools so that you're always on top. In Half-Life 1 Gordon was just another scientist, in Half-Life 2 he's a living legend.
I guess the word he should have used is "underdog" rather than "powerless". Gordon is resourceful and skillful, this makes up for his initial lack of brute force, wich is supposed to be point of the Half-Life franchise.
@@aubrey5577 You either glaze Mr.Freeman or have The Combine staple someone's balls over your nose and your limbs turned into stumps just so you wouldn't think that everything is sunshine and rainbows.
Im honestly all for the increased customization we've seen in mods recently. Hell, I'm already customizing the game by downloading a mod in the 1st place, right?
I mean, from Gordon's perspective the time between the resonance cascade and the death of Eli Vance was about six days (even though he was in stasis for 20 years and in a teleport for a week, to him he didn't experience time like that), so I imagine even though his vision is probably poor he might not need new glasses.
i never liked the stunstick's implementation in mmod. it just felt like you got the crowbar and then 2 minutes later it got completely replaced (plus the way it comes after the gravity gun in the hud makes it mildly infuriating to look at ur inventory before getting the gg) i think it wouldve been better if rather than just giving the stunstick a straight damage upgrade (except underwater where using it hurts you), it did more damage to enemies but was borderline useless against inanimate things like boxes. or mayhaps it could have, well, _stunned_ enemies while dealing little-to-no actual damage, making it serve as more of an escape tool than a weapon
Projectile bullets are way better. They encourage movement as Combine can be both accurate but not instant health draining hitscanners. It also requires more skill to lead targets
6:37 As someone who likes to have lots of options to the point of ridiculousness, the answer to this that should please both sides of the debate is simple. Have a "Developer intended settings" config that is very clearly labeled as such. That way you get an auto config for the experience the people making the game _think_ you should have, and if you disagree with any bit of that, the ball is in your court to change it. Heck, even have a "Are you sure? You may get a suboptimal experience as the game was not as thoroughly playtested for these settings!" and then you can click "Yes, I'm sure."
Absolutely, coming from a mainly RTS and city builder background, the "custom" difficulty opening the big tweaking page is likely what has been the foundation of half of my playtime of these games since it allows for so much replayability in by shaking things up in interesting ways. the Sniper Elite series is also pretty good at this, letting you for example have deadly and highly skilled enemies to reward stealth gameplay, but still have full scope assistance for your rifle if you're not into wind guaging. More options in the players' hands, even stuff like easy moddability through XML data files and such, is always something I consider a positive in a game, but should absolutely never be considered the baseline for someone's first playthrough, and be clearly marked as an unintended experience.
6:08 My brother in Christ, did you just see Alyx about to get blown to smithereens by a Zombine grenade, then turn around and just assume she'll be fine without your help? Truly you are the Freeman!
12:25 "He's also working on a new version of Half Life MMOD" I wonder if this is the non-canon version he was once working on that would've had stuff from the beta like the OICW and AK47. I would still like to see more for 1's MMOD though, like more chapters being redone (Xen!) but also fixing up some stuff like the Alien Grunts AI being glitchy
@@dualfallen the last media updates on the ModDB page have already confirmed that the Combine sniper, Desert Eagle, and Gluon Gun are coming in V2. These updates were from 2019 though, so I don’t know how plans may have changed.
6:30 I learned about those options in TLoU while researching about games with accessibility options for blind people. It sucks that they get rid of important mechanics, but if it enables someone to experience the game more fairly, I think it's pretty neat!
6:37 Accessibility is super important. Having choices on how to cater your game experience can be the difference between someone still playing and putting the game down. Having options isn’t a bad thing. It can actually allow players to experiment with different mechanics and see what suits them. It isn’t even strictly about making something easier or difficult; players could be trying to replicate a certain feeling such as slowing the pace of the game down or replicating other games of the same genre. Devs are beholden to creating a game of their vision and push a way of experiencing it but they need to realise that not every player is going to be on the same level nor want to experience it the same way others do. There are certain games I’ve soured on in the past because the devs gatekeep progress or attempt to guilt trip the player if they use accessibility options and it just screams childishness on part of the dev team. For me, personally, in this context just let people choose what makes them comfortable and happy. If they want a challenge, they’ll make one. It’s too much mental energy to be meticulous about how people experience games.
I actually really like the projectile bullets in MMod. It's not just because it is a bit more realistic. I think it's a gameplay enhancer. It kind of addresses an issue you noted earlier in the video, that being the fact that fights between you and the Combine are just you two trading damage with each other. With projectile bullets, you now have to lead shots on distant moving targets, and it is also possible for you to dodge their shots by strafing. This encourages the player to use their mobility, and it rewards aggressive play. It adds a certain layer of skill to the game. Projectile bullets already exist to some extant in Half-Life 2, being applied to the snipers, who fire projectiles that take time to reach the target. And honestly, I prefer Half-Life 2's projectile based snipers to the aimbot snipers in Half-Life 1. So, I see no issue applying it to all enemies.
@@yuuki671 What do you mean by that? I decided to quickly open up Half-Life 2 just to be sure I am not wrong, and... I don't think I am. The bullets have travel time. You can use the timescale command to slow down time and better see it for yourself. I even tested to see if you can catch the bullet in mid air with a prop or your body AFTER the sniper fires, and you can. It's definitely a projectile. I believe you're mistaken.
Thank you, I love projectile bullets in MMod. I agree with you when it comes to the snipers, but that's because they're barely in the game. The snipers in 2 feel like an actual Obstacle rather than a SURPRISE, DIE! moment.
@@xxfalconarasxx5659 according to him, the sniper first fires a fake bullet (the bullet tracer you see) then an invisible hitscan bullet right after an appropriate time has passed
6:41 while i think a more focused experience is good, i also don't think it should trump accessibility, i think the best way of handling this is to make clear that additional accessibility options aren't and intended part of the core experience, and exist for the sake of inclusivity
I think texture filtering looks horrible cause it just muddies up any intentional detail created, so much detail is lost just to make something that looks "clean" but ends up looking undeliberate and wrong
The big argument I've always heard against the accessibility stuff in Psychonauts 2, TLOU2, and Celeste has been that it represents developers compromising their vision for the sake of (mass appeal, people who aren't good at games, disabled people, the woke left, take your pick), and I don't agree with that. Accessibility is explicitly part of the vision of those games. Those menus tell the player "what is important is that you reach the credits and see the cool stuff we made for you along the way. How you get there is immaterial." Now I play fighting games, I play Dark Souls, I play crusty, fricative, heavy 16 bit action games, and those are my favorite types of games, but I don't think anything outside of that sphere is invalid, and I don't think that completing a video game "the right way" really matters at all. My experience playing Celeste would not be improved by knowing that someone I will never meet got frustrated and gave up at the hotel level.
I've always been the sort of person that enjoyed having more capacity to customize how a game plays, but I still want to have the option to play through it they way the developers intended the first time.
Yeah he focuses in on the health chargers 'looking wrong' while ignoring how the rest of the game looks like a blurred muddy mess, there's good reason why most classic game fans prefer texture filtering off and why Valve added the option to turn it off in the menus of the base game
He even contradicts himself by saying the unfiltered textures are shit even though he just said it himself that he's more of a purist literally 30 seconds ago
@@Jo-uy5vf yeah the textures were in HL like that from the start and you know.... When purists review mods better not to listen to them cuz vanilla will ALWAYS come on out on top
"accessibility" options are great, and its even better when they're clearly marked as such. nobody's confused when they see "assist mode", "invincibility", or "no enemies/story mode difficulty". but lazily designed difficulty options and other optional features just being thrown into the mix with no clear indication can be pretty bad actually. we've all played games that make you pick from easy/medium/hard right from the outset with little to no context. sometimes its more like 5 difficulty options, or even up to 7! you're mostly just picking one at random; and sometimes you can't change the difficulty without making a new file or maybe you're gonna lock yourself out of achievements if you dare try a lower difficulty for a few minutes. even without those restrictions, many players are bound to either be bored to death or extremely frustrated for at least a good while, if not outright hating the game and quitting over a terrible first impression that was thrust upon them. even a game like halo can clearly state "heroic difficulty is the main way to play". but that doesn't mean the other difficulties are somehow well-designed, just stupid stat tweaks haphazardly slapped on with little consideration to the standard gameplay. and oftentimes the "standard" difficulty isn't much to go home about either, since they clearly weren't focused on heavily polishing one single difficulty curve to make it as fun as it can be. options are just one more tool in the game designer's belt to improve an expeirence. tweaking a few variables at the last minute and calling it a day because you need to broaden the appeal of your game is the bare minimum and it usually sucks. there are way better ways to address difficulty and accessibility by coming up with a creative solution that uniquely fits your game. optional challenges, dynamic difficulty, bonus content, noob-friendly alternate playstyles, skill-rewarding point systems; all of them can be much more effective at adapating a game to the player's enjoyment when used at the right place and the right time. but you just throw a million things at the player and say "fix it yourself"; and well, they're typically going to be wrong. that's why its YOUR job to design the game for them.
6:30 . There's a middleground where the settings are set to what the developer intends the experience to be, and changing them prompts the player about this, and to change the settings only if the player needs to in order to access the game.
That's pretty much what Pathologic 2 does. You have the developers' intended difficulty on by default, but you can choose to start changing difficulty values for an easier (or harder) experience. There's even an ingame 4th wall break that touches on that.
I feel like fully customizable settings are perfect for second or third play-throughs (which is what mods basically do). Like, the developers create what they intend the experience to be, but after experiencing that they allow the players to alter it to their liking. It could also allow developers to track what settings people play with more so that it can be factored into future games.
On the topic of customizing the gameplay experience I'm totally down to give the author's intended experience an honest chance because like you said that's gonna be the most cohesive experience, but at the same time there are some games I just can't be bothered to deal with certain mechanics, and they run the risk of putting me off of the game entirely. It's the same with adding mods to a game - sometimes the developer's artistic vision doesn't *quite* mesh with me for one reason or another and I end up enjoying the experience more if I do some work under the hood first.
yeah accessibility options are not the same as normal customizable gameplay. having assist options is basically the only way my friend with CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) can experience many games and i see no reason why including them should harm anyone else
Agreed. I like when games have a "true ending" kind of mode that the game is meant to be played on, and a tooonn off accessibility options! Those options don't need to be changed, but changing the way a game works does allow someone to play who couldn't normally. It's good that these kinds of options are added!
I think custom difficulty and accessibility/assist options are two different things. You're right, the more you let players customize exactly how hard the game is, the more you're asking THEM to basically balance it for you. On one hand, developers can't know how good a player is, and they still want everyone to enjoy their games. On the other, how is the player meant to know that more than the developers? They didn't make the game, they don't know how difficult it can be or what would make it easier. Psychonaut's assist features however are something else. Those exist more for players that don't really care about playing the game and just want to get through the story. Or people that really aren't good at games whatsoever. I see these as completely valid, same as Nabbit in Mario games completely negating any and all damage. That's not forcing players to balance the game for themselves, that's allowing them to forego things they already know they don't want. Also, those mods always go SO overboard with the weapon sounds, to the point where they don't sound "satisfying" or "powerful", but just make my ears hurt. They just crank up the bass and volume and voilà, so realistic! Brutal Doom is a big offender in this regard, since if there's a lot of gunfire going on, you can't even hear the music anymore. And those detail textures in HL1 are just bad. They just lay one entire texture over the entire thing, which doesn't make sense if the texture consists of different materials. You can see it well with the pinboard at 8:48, where even the paper has wood grain on it. More detail =/= better. This just reminds me of that "realistic video game characters"-trend.
6:37 I think the rise of modular difficulty settings and mechanics like this is actually a very good thing, because it extends a lot of agency to the player to define what would make the experience actually enjoyable for them. After all, the whole point of a video game is for the player to be able to enjoy themselves, and if they know what aspect of the default experience is preventing them from enjoying it, why not respect their intelligence and let them fix that, rather than telling them they're not enjoying the game the *right* way by calling those cheats or locking them behind a dev console, if you even provide that at all? Sticking to an inflexible, undilutable vision doesn't really benefit the player at all, and only really benefits a developer who can't see the bigger picture. Celeste and Soulsborne games are great examples of this. Celeste's default vision is going through each level grabbing the challenging strawberries, and the controls are tightly crafted to benefit that very challenging experience. But it also gives modular difficulty options to players who want to make the game easier or even harder, both baked into the gameplay itself (levels being significantly easier when not going for the strawberries, including extremely challenging B-side and C-side levels for expert gamers) as well as through the assist mode. I've met a lot of players who never even got into platformers at all, let alone ones that are designed in a Super Meat Boy-esque way, and were able to get a lot of personal value out of Celeste because the assist mode allowed them to enjoy all of the storytelling, theming, and exquisite art/music that Celeste offers. If you can make the game enjoyable for so many more people without compromising the core vision for 90% of players, why not do that? And contrary to popular belief, soulsbornes like Dark Souls and Elden Ring have offered extensive modular difficulty options within their games. They've never really been about being hard as balls boss fights or what not, they're only just hard enough to make you have to think and hit a difficulty sweet spot for yourself. And they give a lot of ways for you to hit that sweet spot; you could go with just the default melee build as the game is advertised around, or you can integrate all sorts of ranged attacks, spells, and buffs into your arsenal to give you an edge against a lot of hallway encounters or bosses. You can spend time leveling up or upgrading your weapons, find a boss's weakness, or even make it harder for yourself by purposefully *not* leveling up (SL 1 runs) or using weaker weapons. In Dark Souls, there's AI summon signs available even in offline mode against many of the toughest bosses in the game such as Bell Gargoyles, Quelaag, Ornstein & Smough, and even Gwyn himself that can trivialize the bosses on a first attempt if you're particularly stuck on them so you can enjoy the rest of the game. Elden Ring goes all-in on this by integrating this into the Spirits Summon system and giving all sorts of options for how effective that summon is, whether it's just as a distraction like a pack of zombies or as a full-on second player or boss fight like the Mimic Tear or Omenkiller. Systems like these are why so many people have played and enjoyed Dark Souls to the point of it becoming a household name. Sekiro is what happens when those modular difficulty options *aren't* there, as there is no player agency at all. The prosthetic weapons are severely neutered to having extremely little impact for your personal playstyle compared to Dark Souls' weapons and spells, the advertised stealth is entirely underbaked, and almost all of the other systems that soulslike games are known for are missing; if you're stuck on a boss, there's nothing else you can really try out or do elsewhere to make each attempt feel more rewarding, your only path forward is to just slam your head against the wall for 20-50 attempts in the exact way the game wants you to play. And it just feels miserable as a result.
That's a big part of the reason I didn't pick up Sekiro. I liked the Soulsborne titles because they're modern-day dungeon crawlers with a lot of build flexibility and player expression, not because "game hard make my dick feel good." It really bums me out too, because Sekiro's world-building, art direction, and characters seem super neat, but I really wish I could be playing my own character rather than Wolf. If I wanted to play a character action game, I'd play Devil May Cry or Bayonetta or literally any other character action than Sekiro.
6:37 Bro why is this even a question? You can tweak it or just let at default values for the original experience lol This is like asking to color-blind/deaf people: "do you like playing the game as intended or adapted to your deficiencies?" And then complain about the existence of subtitles and color-blind options to them
"projectile bullets are a crime against god" , "no texture filtering is an abhorrent crime against all that is holy" , said nobody ever in the history of shooters except this guy right here. what the fuck?
Also being weirdly proud of playing Doom 3 BFG edition, a game that is far more egregious when it comes to making graphical changes that make the game worse off, the old 2004 version isn't even hard to get running at modern resolutions if you know how to edit a config file, bet he plays Halo CE with Anniversary graphics on because that's the default
i love purplecolonel but yeah he does say some pretty braindead shit sometimes. He tends to speak in absolutes a lot of the time, which whether or not that's just him joking or trying to add flair to his script it comes across and snarky and cuntish
Well when it comes to HL1 and texture filtering hes kinda right, texture filtering enabled is the "original" look for this game - it was and still is what it used by default unless you used the software renderer (or manually turned it off with some config thing). Whether you personally prefer it that way or not is subjective of course.
@@olnnn we always turn it off in quake, did the same in hl and it of course looks better. But yeah I can understand this about half life being the default. But not wanting projectile bullets is straight up the opposite of what everyone's been asking forever, literally never heard anyone saying I want enemies to hitscan me until I'm dead.
While I always believe in playing the base game first (unless it's particularly egregious gameplay issues), but MMOD is a fantastic addition for a replay. Hell, HL1 MMOD _almost_ got me to replay Xen even.
For gameplay options in games, I feel like it's good to have options, but you need to make sure the default settings make for a great experience. Anything that's in the default untweaked settings are fair criticism, since a majority of players likely won't change settings.
I haven't played HL2 MMod yet, however I've played HL1 MMOD about 5 times now. It is one of my favorite games, period. The guns feel so good to shoot and the gameplay is top notch and I really hope we can get more games using this version.
My favourite part about HL 1 MMod is the HECU/Assassin fight in the beginning of Lambda Core that replaces the regular Assassin fight in the original. It's such a good set piece through its world building and storytelling without any cutscenes or exposition on these guys. At this point, any Marines that haven't escaped Black Mesa after the HECU "pulled out" are just trying to survive like everyone else and these Marines have grouped up with the Black Ops Assassins to setup a sort of "base" to hold out until the foreseeable future. You can even see injured Marines on stretchers. It's a great encounter that builds upon the story and does so as well as the original Half Life games. I love how in the original Half Life 1, during Forget About Freeman, you fight a lot more Alien Grunts and Vortigaunts and you can see more of the Xen Military taking control over the HECU (Snark Mines and that 1 Xen Turret). A great use of story telling to show the player how the Xen Military is overtaking the facility. This extra encounter in MMod's Lambda Core really showcases the last of the Marines and their attempt to hold out just a bit longer alongside with the Black Ops Assassins. (Also I know that the Black Ops and the HECU are supposed to be enemies as introduced in Opposing Force but in Half Life 1 the 2 factions are programmed to not fight with each other. Also are you telling me that Freeman being ambushed by Marines right after the initial Assassins fight in Apprehension is a complete coincidence and that the HECU and Blacks Ops were always meant to be enemies despite having the same goals. Honestly the whole Black Ops vs. HECU plot in Opposing Force really felt stupid to me and just makes more sense if they were allies.)
talking shit about projectiles is wild dude, literally the worst part of half lifes combat is the hitscan trading, the absolute best part of mmod is the projectile bullets, distance, movement popping out of cover and ballistics all actually play a part in the game and affect you and the enemy the same, its the one reason above all others to pick it up
I’m honestly a fan of games having all these types of settings, it makes coming back around to mess with them a lot more fun. That being said, it would be nice if more games had better descriptions of which settings the devs thought was the most enjoyable way to play the game.
I prefer a focused experience but I also prefer excessive customisation, my hardware has only recently seen an upgrade so I've spent a solid chunk of time in options menus tweaking things to how I prefer them to be, I can not tell you just how many games I'm certain I would have quit if I couldn't turn off motion blur or view bobbing or excessive particles, there's a focused experience and then there's realising that people will probably think it's pretentious garbage if you don't provide the appropriate level of adjustments, you could of course make the mod split into parts you take out and put in as you see fit and scrap the menu but sometimes you have to be in the moment to know what you like and what you don't. I don't mind the cheat code standins that modern games do but it would be neat to bring back the actual cheat code aspect and provide a means of legit unlocking like older lego titles or something. Edit: my personal favourite tweaking mods are the ones that adhere to the limits and resources of the time and seek to refine what we got instead, sometimes hindsight is all you need after all.
Hl1 with mmod and reshade almost feels like a full remaster with the better gameplay and Tweeks of mmod and reshade making general stuff like lights, glowing goo and everything look more vibrant and makes the dated lighting look way better while not being too taxing on low end hardware like rtx would
6:36 I feel like flexible game options are a bit better than predefined difficulties, even at a cost of a less distinct experience. It's annoying when Game mechanics are locked or predefined to select difficulties. Like if you *have to play* Halo 2 on heroic or legendary for boss fights that don't end in 3 seconds, but then have to deal with its unfair difficulty. If you don't want villagers dying to zombie infections, you *have to play* on hard difficulty. which ballons the damage output of mobs to an unfair degree. It would be nice for those games if you could play on a normal or easy difficulty but still have the options only seen on hard.
MMod for Half-Life 1 would be perfect if not for one mechanic: silencers. They make the Glock and MP5 overpowered, both being able to kill enemies without being noticed. It’s comical seeing a grunt scream “medic!” but otherwise remaining still as you pick him off from afar.
I'd argue the pistol is already busted from having semi automatic mode with no firerate cap. The silencer is only an issue because you get it immediately, instead of as a drop from assassins, or as a pickup manually placed somewhere by the map editor. The mod's MP5 shouldn't have gotten one at all.
Screw it, I'm going to throw in my messy 2 cents on the whole options matter: Ultimately, if we're talking ideals, I think in a way, more options IS a good thing. Especially for PC games. The ability to count for different builds with graphics settings... Providing more accessibility (whether for difficulty, or, even better, accounting for disabilities like color blindness)... Etc It can be done wrong. One can go overboard. etc And looking at the HL2 MMod menu again... yeah I do think that's kind of messy. (This is why I wish more games had Advanced Options tucked away in stuff like sub-menus, and just better options organization in general) I also kind of at least agree on the original vision point. I mean I myself have been going soft-purist when approaching games in recent years, to see how they ticked and felt under original circumstances. And you can easily lose what made something what it was in odd ports, remasters, remakes, etc... Still, done right, I think it's insanely valuable. Ultimately, I feel it's very case-by-case, and dependent on execution. But I love seeing games that strike the perfect balance towards providing a strong, confident, not-so-muddied vision, and the ability to offer some extra control to those who want or need it. There is the usual conundrum though: Art is a vastly varied, and nearly everything about it based in subjectivity. Meaning there is no true right way to go about stuff like this. Just what the largest amount of people find to be agreeable, and/or suits the artist's vision the best.
We had these 'assist' features in game for a significant amount of time; cheats that were more common in games until the late 2000s rolled around and developers discovered you could nickle and dime customers. Moddability and toggleable options are the peak of agency and preference for players. Looking at this philosophically is not productive when preference, ability and experience are objective factors.
I have nothing against these "assist features" because they're optional. Don't like 'em turn them all off or adjust them the way the devs intended their game to be played. But if you either suck or just wanna enjoy the story or whatever, do as you like. As much as I think games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring should stay the way they are, as they have options in game to make it slightly less difficult,. I still think accessibility is important.
i hate them because they always tempt me to make it as easy as possible when i know i could take a challenge (since i have 3ag in celeste that took months)
I will say this - THE BEST and MOST sincere updates and renditions of the game goes to MMOD. I am never a fan of "mods" that excessively changes the game, but i am completely ALL IN for anything that actually improves, optimize and INCREASE the replayability of the game - that completely wins me over. MMod does an EXCELLENT job at giving me reasons to even re-play older games that i have already completed and already know the ending. (for me it gets dry to play the same game again when i already know and seen the ending multiple times.)
I played Half-Life on PS2 before a friend gave me his copy of the original for PC. I never had an issue with the models, nor felt they deterred from the source material. Like in thay exact thumbnail of the two guards, the HD gaurd is modeled to look more like Don Knotts, and I dont have to explain why that isnt really a bad thing. Kids these days prefer black mesa anyways so its a free-for-all. Its not like Doom elietism where its just quantities of monsters in maps used as metrics to stroke egos. Which isnt even that bad in the doom scene.
MMod is my absolute go-to for replaying HL2. I love the new animations, sounds, and particles. And the new weapons are fun additions. I’m going to disagree on your point about too much customization being a bad thing. MMod isn’t a new game, it’s just an enhancement for an existing one, so suiting the enhancement to your expectations and playstyle is nice. I like no ironsights and projectile bullets, just because that’s how I prefer to play the game. If either my preferred settings or your preferred settings were the default, and couldn’t be changed, one of us might enjoy the mod less than we do currently.
I think having default options for the intended experience while also letting the player tweak things to their liking is for the best, kinda like how you can have a "normal" difficulty option but still give players the option for a harder or easier experience
I like games that have more choosable options. Since becoming an adult I no longer play games to challenge myself, now I play to just get lost from reality for a moment. I also am not as good as them as I used to be. And if that means playing on easy rather than hard, or with choosable options to make the game more comfortable I can gladly accept that
Been playing HL1 fan since 1999. MMod is now my go-to way of playing HL1 nowadays. I've also added in the more nostalgic menu from HL1's Anniversary Update to kinda make it look like a legit update of the OG HL1. If only we could make other HL1 mods compatible with MMod.
project HL2 MMod reanimations plus animated immersive HEV helmet is a GOD tier combo also setting your viewmodel_fov to around 70-90 makes a huge difference
My opinion on twickable difficulty is pretty much your opinion on mods. For a first playthrugh I'll want to play on a "canonical" difficulty. Maybe change an aspect only if it's particularly imbalanced (too boring, or so hard it's ruining the rest of the game for me). For replay, everything goes.
it should be worth noting that there are some bugs ive experienced with Mmod for HL2, notably Lamars animations didn't play when she disrupted the teleporter in red letter day, and theres an unavoidable soft lock when your knocked out and wake up to meet Aylx in point insertion. also all voices seem quieter than normal
6:30 I see it like a great addition, useful if someone just wants to enjoy the story, maybe skipping "that part" that you hate when you replay your games or even making farming super easy and fast. In battle network collection, "buster max" is useful to farm chips super easy if you are looking to get chips fast so you can pvp decently.
5:15 adding million settings is actually nice, because when you clearly mad about something you want to get rid of it, and creating a setting that could remove it or change it to something else, is a good thing, really. if you don't touch it, the dev sets what he thinks are the best for his own vision as default setting, and he understands that somebody will disagree with him and wants certain things to not be changed
Military Conflict Vietnam is a blast! Been on their discord for over a year and there is almost always at least a gun game match going on in the game! It's getting updated constantly.
your point on difficulty is a very interesting one. I often go back too dunkeys videos on difficulty as they have very good insight into the thought excersize.
I never finished HL2 MMod myself. I'm a diehard SMOD fan, and I was far more interested in the "less canon" or something version of MMod that was teased. It never released, but maybe this new MMod you mentioned at the end is what I'm looking for. I doubt it'll supplant SMOD, but it should still be fun.
I have been playing the vr mod for half life 2, since its world is so heavily interactable even compared to some physics based games it maintains a high level of immersion throughout, its one of the best ways to play the game imo
@@chillingchill6823 Don't use settings that add more spread because that will make projectiles suck. I loved projectiles in alot of FPS games like Halo CE's bullets and Doom Eternals.
i used mmod with project hl and added some reshader with half life alyx props and enemy models it was one of the best gaming experiences i have ever had
I also think the “assist menu” options are a great way to do it-makes it clear that the intended experience is without the assist options, but gives them to people who need them to enjoy the game
games can certainly go overboard with them, but i think a few carefully selected options that mark your save file (the way Celeste does it) offer a lot of value without marring the vision of the game
currently doing a new playthrough of the HL2 games as a concious adult instead of a little kid with no concept, I'm gonna be switching to this because it looks great, hopefully I can figure out how to port my save file if I need to
MMod was the first thing I did after buying HL2 on a Steam sale lol and it ran pretty well with a bunch of decent settings on my potato. I just play Black Mesa instead of HL1 proper, but I plan to give it a try eventually
i remember half life as the first game that uses the mouse to look which was the smoothest experience ever even with 25 fps or whatever. all shooters ive seen before were keyboard only
HL1 MMod is very fun because the strong-swing on the crowbar is just as valid a combat choice as guns in many a combat scenario. Turns fighting the alien races into a hack-n-slash crawler like Zelda rather than a corridor shooter. (Also I personally prefer the unfiltered textures specifically when playing HL1 MMod. Something about it felt fitting with the changes to the style - accentuates the "so retro boomer shooter" vibe something like this unintentionally has, thanks to being an enhancement of a turn-of-the-millenium shooter to have a more modern lick of style, but not in an intrusive way.)
I’m so confused I really liked the fact that with some of the things it says that you actually use the red dot site but for some reason when I zoom in it just zoom in it doesn’t like anything else I don’t know why it’s like that
I think options in remaster-style mods are the way to go. The old game as it existed and the vision of the remaster should be the most easily accessible ways to play the game, but if I want to experience anything inbetween, why not let me?
I don't think it will replace Half-Life for me. I am such a weird freak who just loves replaying these games time and time again, jankiness, age and poor replay value be damned. But I gotta admit. MMod FUCKS hard.
Me and my partner have just finished playing through psychonauts 1 and 2 and I would like to say I see no issue in adding accessibility options. There are people who want to enjoy the story while also taking their time, being in the game as opposed to watching someone else play and going "no go back I want to see that are you went past!!" and stuff like that. I find no issue with giving the player customization options because I dont see them as much different than the difficulty selections of old. It's just now more developers and people acknowledge that it's beneficial to have more fine customization options because you cant always land a "easy, medium, hard ..." set of presets to actually fit everyone. Certain people may dislike combat in a game even if they get how to do it well and just want to have the hassle removed. Other people have motor issues and would like certain mechanically demanding segments (button mashing, quick time events) removed or simplified because it draws away fun from the game for them.(warframe for example lets you choose between mashing or holding buttons and only uses these things sparringly). I also appreciate how a lot of modern games that are successors to older games or genres improve upon implementations. I always become upset when I voice complaints about L4D or valve games in general, because I point out the special valve-brand style of jank they have and how they suffer in areas like player feedback, not explaining certain mechanics and quirks, the feeling of weapons and it gets hand-waved away as nott an issue or the generic "Valve's perfect design" argument. Most of the time I get this with people who have grown up playing all valve games (my partner for example, whereas I only began when I was 11 with TF2). In contrast, I prefer games like Deep Rock Galactic over L4D(2) because there are things I find to be better: enemy marking, clearer callouts, much better feedback on actions, and the possibility to actually curate your difficulty and improve at your own rate(Im talking to you, director of last section of The Passing). Even then, I want to talk about the "vision" of the old games especially in relation to valve, because I find it a bit misguided to say that the games in the form we have are the proper original vision of what the developers wanted you to play. The games were iterated upon until initial testing, then playtesters went through to give feedback on the feeling of the game. Valve themselves stated that at some point they started having QA Fridays? (sorry if I am mistaken here) wherein they would play through what was developed during the week to iron out quirks. The feedback of people always was taken into account to make sure the game would work for as many players as possible, it never was purely an endeavour of vision. I don't find this much different from how we do it today, be it through playtesting, live updates or just letting people customize their experience. I also see no issue in discussing these things. It is possible to explain or go through how the game feels using certain settings (like you have) without being exhaustive - I doubt anyone expects to be exhaustive when so many customisation options are available. Not only that, certain games were praised in the past for allowing the player to change things. You yourself have placed system shock in the category of games that fit very well with your preference, and that game was noteworthy on release for allowing you to customize the combat, whether or not you wanted to have the timer etc. All in all, I really don't think it is detrimental to the game or the players to have options to customize their experience. The developers' vision will still exist, most games usually show you what the recommended experience is, and may or may not allow you to change certain aspects of it. If anything, it allows more people to enjoy the game you make, since certain people seek joy in certain parts of art, others in other parts, and I think it's for the better to keep this trend going forward. I don't find that it's an issue if you don't want to let people curate their time, most respect that (a lot of people enjoy games like Noita where you either learn the rules or suffer for it even if they dont play them all the time) Mods especially are great because they let you play the game in other ways you might like. It doesnt have to be better or worse, it's just for you or not for you, and that's fine.
Black mesa is the best way to play half life 1 I hope crowbar collective does a hl2 remake. The work they did to make the source engine look as good as it did, and play as well as it did was, well, it was INCREDIBLE. It literally felt so immersive I felt like I literally was there, I cannot understate how absolutley incredible it was.
I think there's two styles of games: Ones for which accessibility should definitely be a thing because it helps you experience things you wouldn't be able to otherwise. Games that tell you a story but the gameplay isn't intrinsically tied to it. And games that are casual fun that focuses only on mechanics but doesn't try to achieve a particular vision. And then there are games which should exist in only one version. Games that teach you frustration but also the joy of innovation and experimentation. Games that challenge you in a variety of ways to force you to constantly evolve your playstyle. It could also be games where the mechanics are heavily tied into the story. Where you struggling again and again is something that tells you more about the world and characters and reflects their journey. I believe the courier mechanic in Death Stranding, where the difficulty and strain of keeping the post apocalyptic connections alive and make them thrive is relegated to the player, is a good example of that. Dark Souls merciless difficulty at release is another. I'm sure you can think of a bunch of other examples. These games are 'interactive experiences' and the engagement of playing them derives from that rather than just following a story or goofing around. Neither type is inherently better. The former is great for if you just want to sit down, enjoy something or experience a great story and characters. The latter is better if you want something that tries to move something inside you on a fundamental level. It's also a lot harder to do right. But including accessibility options beyond things like colour blind mode for those games is doing a disservice to both the game and the player who might be tempted to just circumvent the moments that are _meant_ to be difficult. It also goes counter to the expectation that every game exists to be beaten.
i like high levels of customisation i just wish presets were normalised. one of the only things overcharged did right lol like if instead of going thru 1049034823489237984328849230 options to make the game fun specifically for me, if i could just get headstart and change like 3 things, i would die happy. ive done this w/ gmod alr where i have a specific set of server options preset
Thank you very much for your review! I'm glad you've enjoyed your playthroughs, seeing people enjoy my work/team work is exactly why I make things and my ultimate goal.
Indeed, V2 version of HL2MMod will be a much more focused experience, with majority of options being forced on and pretty much every single post processing option removed, due to putting a bit of strain on the engine and being obsolete due to ReShade being able to replicate and surpass many of HL2MMod additions. This will also allow easier porting to Linux and subsequently to Steam Deck like devices.
Thanks to reviews like this one and player feedback we now know what works and what doesn't, feedback and criticism are important to us. It's also being worked on from ground up, meaning almost everything will be brand new. I would also love to put it on Steam, hopefully it'll be easier than putting HL1MMod on Steam, where I had to make a gigantic fuss about it before being noticed by Valve with the help of community. I cannot spend a lot of time on my projects like I used to, so I'm not even sure when you'll see the first footage of V2, but it's been in prototyping stage for couple of years now.
Personally, I'm much more proud of HL1MMod, it was quite a challenge to make it in the first place, especially since it has around 4 times more additions than HL2MMod. It was difficult to work with such an old engine and it was difficult to maintain the balance of adding new things and logic without overdoing it. HL1 fanbase is much more dedicated and less forgiving when it comes to tinkering with the OG game and I'm glad you have found most of the stuff to your liking.
Thank you for bringing attention to my story too, means a lot to me. I find it quite difficult to work on something that requires being creative these days, that part of me simply stayed in the ruins back home, but I still hope that v2 of HL2MMod will surpass the first version in terms of quality and being more true to HL2 design.
Thank you for your work, chief
It's very unlikely that you may read this reply, but I think a lot of people (myself included) would prefer you somehow kept the post-processing options in, rather than have us all use Reshade if we all want that sort of stuff. It just feels a lot more natural to have it properly built into the game rather than for use to external software that can end up being more buggy and having undesirable effects. I can understand your reasoning for removing it in v2 of HL2MMOD, but it'd be nice to have it be kept in for those who want it, somehow.
You mention ReShade, but one thing that really kills it is the fact that it can't discern between the game and the HUD, meaning effects get applied to the UI as well, which kinda sucks.
Sure, this is apparently fixable with a certain ReShade addon, but I've never gotten it to work properly on any game.
HL1 MMod was your magnum opus, it improved the game in every way.
Thank you for your impressive work, and I hope your life is a lot better now
mmod is my favorite way of playing hl2 because it adds the tau cannon. it gels with the thin-walled level design of hl2 like butter on bread
That addition just honestly makes me mad that the Tau cannon was dropped in the base game. I love HL2 but sometimes it feels like the game was overpolished and cool ideas were dropped for no better reason than to simplify it.
it also has the gluon gun, it's unfinished but with some addons you can add it to maps, make it have an original model and make it so its icon fits with the others
i just started playing hl2 mmod it has the Tau Cannon?!
@@tacticaljunk1608The tau cannon made it all the way to the font weapon icons only to be removed…
@@Eyepoke42 Yep! You can take it off the buggy.
4:35 I don't agree with this, Gordon is NOT meant to be powerless in HL2. He's painted as a savior who almost single-handedly tore his way through the resonance cascade and is tearing his way through the earthbound combine. He's seen as a legend, the game does everything it can to give the player power and tools so that you're always on top. In Half-Life 1 Gordon was just another scientist, in Half-Life 2 he's a living legend.
I guess the word he should have used is "underdog" rather than "powerless". Gordon is resourceful and skillful, this makes up for his initial lack of brute force, wich is supposed to be point of the Half-Life franchise.
Gordon Freeman glazer
you dropped this 👑
Gorden Freeman really be actin like Jesus in HL2
@@aubrey5577 You either glaze Mr.Freeman or have The Combine staple someone's balls over your nose and your limbs turned into stumps just so you wouldn't think that everything is sunshine and rainbows.
Im honestly all for the increased customization we've seen in mods recently. Hell, I'm already customizing the game by downloading a mod in the 1st place, right?
Talking about Gordon's glasses, it's a wonder they've stayed on for this long.
Wonder just how bad his eyesight actually is.
He taped them to his head after the resonance cascade.
@@tinyengineshed34probably around Office Complex come to think of it.
He’s got one of those string things so they don’t fall off
I mean, from Gordon's perspective the time between the resonance cascade and the death of Eli Vance was about six days (even though he was in stasis for 20 years and in a teleport for a week, to him he didn't experience time like that), so I imagine even though his vision is probably poor he might not need new glasses.
@@GGPlex_ I sometimes forget glasses have those. I'll probably get that if I ever need glasses.
Best thing about MMod. The MP7 has a grenade tube that count actually fit a grenade
But it's mounted wrong.
*can
i never liked the stunstick's implementation in mmod. it just felt like you got the crowbar and then 2 minutes later it got completely replaced (plus the way it comes after the gravity gun in the hud makes it mildly infuriating to look at ur inventory before getting the gg)
i think it wouldve been better if rather than just giving the stunstick a straight damage upgrade (except underwater where using it hurts you), it did more damage to enemies but was borderline useless against inanimate things like boxes. or mayhaps it could have, well, _stunned_ enemies while dealing little-to-no actual damage, making it serve as more of an escape tool than a weapon
The crowbar actually already does more damage to boxes than the stunstick.
Just make the stick use suit's charge as ammo, lol. That way you still retain a powerful melee option, but at a cost.
@@worminator314 really? i distinctly remember the stick one-shotting crates, while the crowbar would take 2 or 3 hits
woaaa strollin stu pfp, that used to be mine before i made it a kitty
I would prefer the Entropy Zero 2 stunstick, as is work kind of like the wrench from Opposing Force.
Projectile bullets are way better. They encourage movement as Combine can be both accurate but not instant health draining hitscanners. It also requires more skill to lead targets
6:37 As someone who likes to have lots of options to the point of ridiculousness, the answer to this that should please both sides of the debate is simple. Have a "Developer intended settings" config that is very clearly labeled as such. That way you get an auto config for the experience the people making the game _think_ you should have, and if you disagree with any bit of that, the ball is in your court to change it.
Heck, even have a "Are you sure? You may get a suboptimal experience as the game was not as thoroughly playtested for these settings!" and then you can click "Yes, I'm sure."
Absolutely, coming from a mainly RTS and city builder background, the "custom" difficulty opening the big tweaking page is likely what has been the foundation of half of my playtime of these games since it allows for so much replayability in by shaking things up in interesting ways. the Sniper Elite series is also pretty good at this, letting you for example have deadly and highly skilled enemies to reward stealth gameplay, but still have full scope assistance for your rifle if you're not into wind guaging. More options in the players' hands, even stuff like easy moddability through XML data files and such, is always something I consider a positive in a game, but should absolutely never be considered the baseline for someone's first playthrough, and be clearly marked as an unintended experience.
6:08
My brother in Christ, did you just see Alyx about to get blown to smithereens by a Zombine grenade, then turn around and just assume she'll be fine without your help?
Truly you are the Freeman!
well she does have 80 constantly regenerating health.
..and she did survive
@@gamertypeawesome it’s the PRINCIPLE, dammit! Lmao
Ok but I genuinely hate Alyx what should I do then
@@cactusgamingyt9960sv_cheats 1
ent_remove_all npc_alyx
@@cactusgamingyt9960 Stop playing the series at Half-Life 1 hahaha
12:25 "He's also working on a new version of Half Life MMOD"
I wonder if this is the non-canon version he was once working on that would've had stuff from the beta like the OICW and AK47.
I would still like to see more for 1's MMOD though, like more chapters being redone (Xen!) but also fixing up some stuff like the Alien Grunts AI being glitchy
He might add new weapons, but that was an earlier version of MMod. Newer version wouldn't really do it unless the new weapon fits the roaster.
@@dualfallen the last media updates on the ModDB page have already confirmed that the Combine sniper, Desert Eagle, and Gluon Gun are coming in V2. These updates were from 2019 though, so I don’t know how plans may have changed.
Half life *2* MMOD*
6:30 I learned about those options in TLoU while researching about games with accessibility options for blind people. It sucks that they get rid of important mechanics, but if it enables someone to experience the game more fairly, I think it's pretty neat!
6:37 Accessibility is super important. Having choices on how to cater your game experience can be the difference between someone still playing and putting the game down. Having options isn’t a bad thing. It can actually allow players to experiment with different mechanics and see what suits them.
It isn’t even strictly about making something easier or difficult; players could be trying to replicate a certain feeling such as slowing the pace of the game down or replicating other games of the same genre.
Devs are beholden to creating a game of their vision and push a way of experiencing it but they need to realise that not every player is going to be on the same level nor want to experience it the same way others do.
There are certain games I’ve soured on in the past because the devs gatekeep progress or attempt to guilt trip the player if they use accessibility options and it just screams childishness on part of the dev team.
For me, personally, in this context just let people choose what makes them comfortable and happy. If they want a challenge, they’ll make one. It’s too much mental energy to be meticulous about how people experience games.
I actually really like the projectile bullets in MMod. It's not just because it is a bit more realistic. I think it's a gameplay enhancer. It kind of addresses an issue you noted earlier in the video, that being the fact that fights between you and the Combine are just you two trading damage with each other. With projectile bullets, you now have to lead shots on distant moving targets, and it is also possible for you to dodge their shots by strafing. This encourages the player to use their mobility, and it rewards aggressive play. It adds a certain layer of skill to the game. Projectile bullets already exist to some extant in Half-Life 2, being applied to the snipers, who fire projectiles that take time to reach the target. And honestly, I prefer Half-Life 2's projectile based snipers to the aimbot snipers in Half-Life 1. So, I see no issue applying it to all enemies.
i heard from desinc that the sniper shots are apparently still hitscan bullets with the illusion of being a projectile
@@yuuki671 What do you mean by that? I decided to quickly open up Half-Life 2 just to be sure I am not wrong, and... I don't think I am.
The bullets have travel time. You can use the timescale command to slow down time and better see it for yourself. I even tested to see if you can catch the bullet in mid air with a prop or your body AFTER the sniper fires, and you can. It's definitely a projectile. I believe you're mistaken.
Thank you, I love projectile bullets in MMod.
I agree with you when it comes to the snipers, but that's because they're barely in the game. The snipers in 2 feel like an actual Obstacle rather than a SURPRISE, DIE! moment.
@@xxfalconarasxx5659 according to him, the sniper first fires a fake bullet (the bullet tracer you see) then an invisible hitscan bullet right after an appropriate time has passed
That reminds me why I don’t watch this guy often. He’s kind of a hypocrite with a stick up his bum about some of the tiniest details.
6:41 while i think a more focused experience is good, i also don't think it should trump accessibility, i think the best way of handling this is to make clear that additional accessibility options aren't and intended part of the core experience, and exist for the sake of inclusivity
I think texture filtering looks horrible cause it just muddies up any intentional detail created, so much detail is lost just to make something that looks "clean" but ends up looking undeliberate and wrong
The big argument I've always heard against the accessibility stuff in Psychonauts 2, TLOU2, and Celeste has been that it represents developers compromising their vision for the sake of (mass appeal, people who aren't good at games, disabled people, the woke left, take your pick), and I don't agree with that. Accessibility is explicitly part of the vision of those games. Those menus tell the player "what is important is that you reach the credits and see the cool stuff we made for you along the way. How you get there is immaterial." Now I play fighting games, I play Dark Souls, I play crusty, fricative, heavy 16 bit action games, and those are my favorite types of games, but I don't think anything outside of that sphere is invalid, and I don't think that completing a video game "the right way" really matters at all. My experience playing Celeste would not be improved by knowing that someone I will never meet got frustrated and gave up at the hotel level.
I've always been the sort of person that enjoyed having more capacity to customize how a game plays, but I still want to have the option to play through it they way the developers intended the first time.
8:37 you're wrong. You're just wrong.
Yeah he focuses in on the health chargers 'looking wrong' while ignoring how the rest of the game looks like a blurred muddy mess, there's good reason why most classic game fans prefer texture filtering off and why Valve added the option to turn it off in the menus of the base game
He even contradicts himself by saying the unfiltered textures are shit even though he just said it himself that he's more of a purist literally 30 seconds ago
@@Jo-uy5vf yeah the textures were in HL like that from the start and you know.... When purists review mods better not to listen to them cuz vanilla will ALWAYS come on out on top
"accessibility" options are great, and its even better when they're clearly marked as such. nobody's confused when they see "assist mode", "invincibility", or "no enemies/story mode difficulty". but lazily designed difficulty options and other optional features just being thrown into the mix with no clear indication can be pretty bad actually.
we've all played games that make you pick from easy/medium/hard right from the outset with little to no context. sometimes its more like 5 difficulty options, or even up to 7! you're mostly just picking one at random; and sometimes you can't change the difficulty without making a new file or maybe you're gonna lock yourself out of achievements if you dare try a lower difficulty for a few minutes. even without those restrictions, many players are bound to either be bored to death or extremely frustrated for at least a good while, if not outright hating the game and quitting over a terrible first impression that was thrust upon them.
even a game like halo can clearly state "heroic difficulty is the main way to play". but that doesn't mean the other difficulties are somehow well-designed, just stupid stat tweaks haphazardly slapped on with little consideration to the standard gameplay. and oftentimes the "standard" difficulty isn't much to go home about either, since they clearly weren't focused on heavily polishing one single difficulty curve to make it as fun as it can be.
options are just one more tool in the game designer's belt to improve an expeirence. tweaking a few variables at the last minute and calling it a day because you need to broaden the appeal of your game is the bare minimum and it usually sucks. there are way better ways to address difficulty and accessibility by coming up with a creative solution that uniquely fits your game. optional challenges, dynamic difficulty, bonus content, noob-friendly alternate playstyles, skill-rewarding point systems; all of them can be much more effective at adapating a game to the player's enjoyment when used at the right place and the right time. but you just throw a million things at the player and say "fix it yourself"; and well, they're typically going to be wrong. that's why its YOUR job to design the game for them.
6:30 . There's a middleground where the settings are set to what the developer intends the experience to be, and changing them prompts the player about this, and to change the settings only if the player needs to in order to access the game.
That's pretty much what Pathologic 2 does. You have the developers' intended difficulty on by default, but you can choose to start changing difficulty values for an easier (or harder) experience. There's even an ingame 4th wall break that touches on that.
I feel like fully customizable settings are perfect for second or third play-throughs (which is what mods basically do). Like, the developers create what they intend the experience to be, but after experiencing that they allow the players to alter it to their liking. It could also allow developers to track what settings people play with more so that it can be factored into future games.
On the topic of customizing the gameplay experience I'm totally down to give the author's intended experience an honest chance because like you said that's gonna be the most cohesive experience, but at the same time there are some games I just can't be bothered to deal with certain mechanics, and they run the risk of putting me off of the game entirely. It's the same with adding mods to a game - sometimes the developer's artistic vision doesn't *quite* mesh with me for one reason or another and I end up enjoying the experience more if I do some work under the hood first.
Accessibility is important. I think having options to reduce the difficulty is an absolute benefit
yeah accessibility options are not the same as normal customizable gameplay. having assist options is basically the only way my friend with CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) can experience many games and i see no reason why including them should harm anyone else
Agreed.
I like when games have a "true ending" kind of mode that the game is meant to be played on, and a tooonn off accessibility options!
Those options don't need to be changed, but changing the way a game works does allow someone to play who couldn't normally.
It's good that these kinds of options are added!
Sounds like a skill issue to me
I don't mind easy modes but I don't get invicibility in assist options
@@theblob1716 Sounds like you can't or won't empathize with people who have disabilities
I think custom difficulty and accessibility/assist options are two different things.
You're right, the more you let players customize exactly how hard the game is, the more you're asking THEM to basically balance it for you. On one hand, developers can't know how good a player is, and they still want everyone to enjoy their games. On the other, how is the player meant to know that more than the developers? They didn't make the game, they don't know how difficult it can be or what would make it easier.
Psychonaut's assist features however are something else. Those exist more for players that don't really care about playing the game and just want to get through the story. Or people that really aren't good at games whatsoever. I see these as completely valid, same as Nabbit in Mario games completely negating any and all damage. That's not forcing players to balance the game for themselves, that's allowing them to forego things they already know they don't want.
Also, those mods always go SO overboard with the weapon sounds, to the point where they don't sound "satisfying" or "powerful", but just make my ears hurt. They just crank up the bass and volume and voilà, so realistic! Brutal Doom is a big offender in this regard, since if there's a lot of gunfire going on, you can't even hear the music anymore.
And those detail textures in HL1 are just bad. They just lay one entire texture over the entire thing, which doesn't make sense if the texture consists of different materials. You can see it well with the pinboard at 8:48, where even the paper has wood grain on it. More detail =/= better. This just reminds me of that "realistic video game characters"-trend.
detail textures overlays was a feature taken from unreal 1 where it did the same thing, at least it is era appropriate
6:37 I think the rise of modular difficulty settings and mechanics like this is actually a very good thing, because it extends a lot of agency to the player to define what would make the experience actually enjoyable for them. After all, the whole point of a video game is for the player to be able to enjoy themselves, and if they know what aspect of the default experience is preventing them from enjoying it, why not respect their intelligence and let them fix that, rather than telling them they're not enjoying the game the *right* way by calling those cheats or locking them behind a dev console, if you even provide that at all? Sticking to an inflexible, undilutable vision doesn't really benefit the player at all, and only really benefits a developer who can't see the bigger picture.
Celeste and Soulsborne games are great examples of this. Celeste's default vision is going through each level grabbing the challenging strawberries, and the controls are tightly crafted to benefit that very challenging experience. But it also gives modular difficulty options to players who want to make the game easier or even harder, both baked into the gameplay itself (levels being significantly easier when not going for the strawberries, including extremely challenging B-side and C-side levels for expert gamers) as well as through the assist mode. I've met a lot of players who never even got into platformers at all, let alone ones that are designed in a Super Meat Boy-esque way, and were able to get a lot of personal value out of Celeste because the assist mode allowed them to enjoy all of the storytelling, theming, and exquisite art/music that Celeste offers. If you can make the game enjoyable for so many more people without compromising the core vision for 90% of players, why not do that?
And contrary to popular belief, soulsbornes like Dark Souls and Elden Ring have offered extensive modular difficulty options within their games. They've never really been about being hard as balls boss fights or what not, they're only just hard enough to make you have to think and hit a difficulty sweet spot for yourself. And they give a lot of ways for you to hit that sweet spot; you could go with just the default melee build as the game is advertised around, or you can integrate all sorts of ranged attacks, spells, and buffs into your arsenal to give you an edge against a lot of hallway encounters or bosses. You can spend time leveling up or upgrading your weapons, find a boss's weakness, or even make it harder for yourself by purposefully *not* leveling up (SL 1 runs) or using weaker weapons. In Dark Souls, there's AI summon signs available even in offline mode against many of the toughest bosses in the game such as Bell Gargoyles, Quelaag, Ornstein & Smough, and even Gwyn himself that can trivialize the bosses on a first attempt if you're particularly stuck on them so you can enjoy the rest of the game. Elden Ring goes all-in on this by integrating this into the Spirits Summon system and giving all sorts of options for how effective that summon is, whether it's just as a distraction like a pack of zombies or as a full-on second player or boss fight like the Mimic Tear or Omenkiller. Systems like these are why so many people have played and enjoyed Dark Souls to the point of it becoming a household name.
Sekiro is what happens when those modular difficulty options *aren't* there, as there is no player agency at all. The prosthetic weapons are severely neutered to having extremely little impact for your personal playstyle compared to Dark Souls' weapons and spells, the advertised stealth is entirely underbaked, and almost all of the other systems that soulslike games are known for are missing; if you're stuck on a boss, there's nothing else you can really try out or do elsewhere to make each attempt feel more rewarding, your only path forward is to just slam your head against the wall for 20-50 attempts in the exact way the game wants you to play. And it just feels miserable as a result.
That's a big part of the reason I didn't pick up Sekiro.
I liked the Soulsborne titles because they're modern-day dungeon crawlers with a lot of build flexibility and player expression, not because "game hard make my dick feel good."
It really bums me out too, because Sekiro's world-building, art direction, and characters seem super neat, but I really wish I could be playing my own character rather than Wolf.
If I wanted to play a character action game, I'd play Devil May Cry or Bayonetta or literally any other character action than Sekiro.
6:37 Bro why is this even a question? You can tweak it or just let at default values for the original experience lol
This is like asking to color-blind/deaf people: "do you like playing the game as intended or adapted to your deficiencies?" And then complain about the existence of subtitles and color-blind options to them
"projectile bullets are a crime against god" , "no texture filtering is an abhorrent crime against all that is holy" , said nobody ever in the history of shooters except this guy right here.
what the fuck?
I know right!
Also being weirdly proud of playing Doom 3 BFG edition, a game that is far more egregious when it comes to making graphical changes that make the game worse off, the old 2004 version isn't even hard to get running at modern resolutions if you know how to edit a config file, bet he plays Halo CE with Anniversary graphics on because that's the default
i love purplecolonel but yeah he does say some pretty braindead shit sometimes. He tends to speak in absolutes a lot of the time, which whether or not that's just him joking or trying to add flair to his script it comes across and snarky and cuntish
Well when it comes to HL1 and texture filtering hes kinda right, texture filtering enabled is the "original" look for this game - it was and still is what it used by default unless you used the software renderer (or manually turned it off with some config thing). Whether you personally prefer it that way or not is subjective of course.
@@olnnn we always turn it off in quake, did the same in hl and it of course looks better. But yeah I can understand this about half life being the default.
But not wanting projectile bullets is straight up the opposite of what everyone's been asking forever, literally never heard anyone saying I want enemies to hitscan me until I'm dead.
While I always believe in playing the base game first (unless it's particularly egregious gameplay issues), but MMOD is a fantastic addition for a replay. Hell, HL1 MMOD _almost_ got me to replay Xen even.
For gameplay options in games, I feel like it's good to have options, but you need to make sure the default settings make for a great experience. Anything that's in the default untweaked settings are fair criticism, since a majority of players likely won't change settings.
I haven't played HL2 MMod yet, however I've played HL1 MMOD about 5 times now. It is one of my favorite games, period. The guns feel so good to shoot and the gameplay is top notch and I really hope we can get more games using this version.
My favourite part about HL 1 MMod is the HECU/Assassin fight in the beginning of Lambda Core that replaces the regular Assassin fight in the original. It's such a good set piece through its world building and storytelling without any cutscenes or exposition on these guys. At this point, any Marines that haven't escaped Black Mesa after the HECU "pulled out" are just trying to survive like everyone else and these Marines have grouped up with the Black Ops Assassins to setup a sort of "base" to hold out until the foreseeable future. You can even see injured Marines on stretchers. It's a great encounter that builds upon the story and does so as well as the original Half Life games.
I love how in the original Half Life 1, during Forget About Freeman, you fight a lot more Alien Grunts and Vortigaunts and you can see more of the Xen Military taking control over the HECU (Snark Mines and that 1 Xen Turret). A great use of story telling to show the player how the Xen Military is overtaking the facility. This extra encounter in MMod's Lambda Core really showcases the last of the Marines and their attempt to hold out just a bit longer alongside with the Black Ops Assassins.
(Also I know that the Black Ops and the HECU are supposed to be enemies as introduced in Opposing Force but in Half Life 1 the 2 factions are programmed to not fight with each other. Also are you telling me that Freeman being ambushed by Marines right after the initial Assassins fight in Apprehension is a complete coincidence and that the HECU and Blacks Ops were always meant to be enemies despite having the same goals. Honestly the whole Black Ops vs. HECU plot in Opposing Force really felt stupid to me and just makes more sense if they were allies.)
so you like blurry textures that make everything look flat?
Mm... Kentucky Fried Headcrabs...
FULLY-MODELED-
Finally... sex
god please no
NO
DEAR GOD NO.
Thank you for this utterly original joke
talking shit about projectiles is wild dude, literally the worst part of half lifes combat is the hitscan trading, the absolute best part of mmod is the projectile bullets, distance, movement popping out of cover and ballistics all actually play a part in the game and affect you and the enemy the same, its the one reason above all others to pick it up
Your videos are always a treat to watch they are so good
I’m honestly a fan of games having all these types of settings, it makes coming back around to mess with them a lot more fun. That being said, it would be nice if more games had better descriptions of which settings the devs thought was the most enjoyable way to play the game.
I prefer a focused experience but I also prefer excessive customisation, my hardware has only recently seen an upgrade so I've spent a solid chunk of time in options menus tweaking things to how I prefer them to be, I can not tell you just how many games I'm certain I would have quit if I couldn't turn off motion blur or view bobbing or excessive particles, there's a focused experience and then there's realising that people will probably think it's pretentious garbage if you don't provide the appropriate level of adjustments, you could of course make the mod split into parts you take out and put in as you see fit and scrap the menu but sometimes you have to be in the moment to know what you like and what you don't.
I don't mind the cheat code standins that modern games do but it would be neat to bring back the actual cheat code aspect and provide a means of legit unlocking like older lego titles or something.
Edit: my personal favourite tweaking mods are the ones that adhere to the limits and resources of the time and seek to refine what we got instead, sometimes hindsight is all you need after all.
Hl1 with mmod and reshade almost feels like a full remaster with the better gameplay and Tweeks of mmod and reshade making general stuff like lights, glowing goo and everything look more vibrant and makes the dated lighting look way better while not being too taxing on low end hardware like rtx would
6:36 I feel like flexible game options are a bit better than predefined difficulties, even at a cost of a less distinct experience. It's annoying when Game mechanics are locked or predefined to select difficulties.
Like if you *have to play* Halo 2 on heroic or legendary for boss fights that don't end in 3 seconds, but then have to deal with its unfair difficulty.
If you don't want villagers dying to zombie infections, you *have to play* on hard difficulty. which ballons the damage output of mobs to an unfair degree.
It would be nice for those games if you could play on a normal or easy difficulty but still have the options only seen on hard.
MMod for Half-Life 1 would be perfect if not for one mechanic: silencers. They make the Glock and MP5 overpowered, both being able to kill enemies without being noticed. It’s comical seeing a grunt scream “medic!” but otherwise remaining still as you pick him off from afar.
I asked Gunship and they don't do that fort now. They're mostly for aesthetics.
I'd argue the pistol is already busted from having semi automatic mode with no firerate cap.
The silencer is only an issue because you get it immediately, instead of as a drop from assassins, or as a pickup manually placed somewhere by the map editor. The mod's MP5 shouldn't have gotten one at all.
@@XenoSpyro I’d argue that the pistol’s firerate is balanced out by its bloom and low mag size
@@EvilNMessedUp also the pistol in mmod is not 100% accurate.
It also does nothing to buff the shotgun at all. To be fair to the mod, the MP5 in vanilla Half-Life is way too weak.
I'm a control freak, i always prefer tweaking everything to my liking so seeing sliders and such is always welcome for me.
Screw it, I'm going to throw in my messy 2 cents on the whole options matter:
Ultimately, if we're talking ideals, I think in a way, more options IS a good thing. Especially for PC games.
The ability to count for different builds with graphics settings...
Providing more accessibility (whether for difficulty, or, even better, accounting for disabilities like color blindness)...
Etc
It can be done wrong. One can go overboard. etc
And looking at the HL2 MMod menu again... yeah I do think that's kind of messy.
(This is why I wish more games had Advanced Options tucked away in stuff like sub-menus, and just better options organization in general)
I also kind of at least agree on the original vision point. I mean I myself have been going soft-purist when approaching games in recent years, to see how they ticked and felt under original circumstances.
And you can easily lose what made something what it was in odd ports, remasters, remakes, etc...
Still, done right, I think it's insanely valuable.
Ultimately, I feel it's very case-by-case, and dependent on execution.
But I love seeing games that strike the perfect balance towards providing a strong, confident, not-so-muddied vision, and the ability to offer some extra control to those who want or need it.
There is the usual conundrum though:
Art is a vastly varied, and nearly everything about it based in subjectivity. Meaning there is no true right way to go about stuff like this. Just what the largest amount of people find to be agreeable, and/or suits the artist's vision the best.
We had these 'assist' features in game for a significant amount of time; cheats that were more common in games until the late 2000s rolled around and developers discovered you could nickle and dime customers.
Moddability and toggleable options are the peak of agency and preference for players. Looking at this philosophically is not productive when preference, ability and experience are objective factors.
I have nothing against these "assist features" because they're optional. Don't like 'em turn them all off or adjust them the way the devs intended their game to be played. But if you either suck or just wanna enjoy the story or whatever, do as you like.
As much as I think games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring should stay the way they are, as they have options in game to make it slightly less difficult,. I still think accessibility is important.
i hate them because they always tempt me to make it as easy as possible when i know i could take a challenge (since i have 3ag in celeste that took months)
Nice video man, massive L take about the projectile bullets and lack of texture filtering imo but still a solid vid
I will say this - THE BEST and MOST sincere updates and renditions of the game goes to MMOD. I am never a fan of "mods" that excessively changes the game, but i am completely ALL IN for anything that actually improves, optimize and INCREASE the replayability of the game - that completely wins me over. MMod does an EXCELLENT job at giving me reasons to even re-play older games that i have already completed and already know the ending. (for me it gets dry to play the same game again when i already know and seen the ending multiple times.)
Omg, finally Ironsights!
I played Half-Life on PS2 before a friend gave me his copy of the original for PC. I never had an issue with the models, nor felt they deterred from the source material.
Like in thay exact thumbnail of the two guards, the HD gaurd is modeled to look more like Don Knotts, and I dont have to explain why that isnt really a bad thing.
Kids these days prefer black mesa anyways so its a free-for-all. Its not like Doom elietism where its just quantities of monsters in maps used as metrics to stroke egos. Which isnt even that bad in the doom scene.
MMod is my absolute go-to for replaying HL2. I love the new animations, sounds, and particles. And the new weapons are fun additions.
I’m going to disagree on your point about too much customization being a bad thing. MMod isn’t a new game, it’s just an enhancement for an existing one, so suiting the enhancement to your expectations and playstyle is nice. I like no ironsights and projectile bullets, just because that’s how I prefer to play the game. If either my preferred settings or your preferred settings were the default, and couldn’t be changed, one of us might enjoy the mod less than we do currently.
I think having default options for the intended experience while also letting the player tweak things to their liking is for the best, kinda like how you can have a "normal" difficulty option but still give players the option for a harder or easier experience
I like games that have more choosable options. Since becoming an adult I no longer play games to challenge myself, now I play to just get lost from reality for a moment. I also am not as good as them as I used to be. And if that means playing on easy rather than hard, or with choosable options to make the game more comfortable I can gladly accept that
Unfiltered textures are amazing
8:36 you should check out Voices of the Void, i think it does that unfiltered pixel aesthetic perfectly
Been playing HL1 fan since 1999. MMod is now my go-to way of playing HL1 nowadays. I've also added in the more nostalgic menu from HL1's Anniversary Update to kinda make it look like a legit update of the OG HL1.
If only we could make other HL1 mods compatible with MMod.
Hl2 mmod. Level where you gotta protect alyx while she downs the shield. On hard it's next to impossible
project HL2 MMod reanimations plus animated immersive HEV helmet is a GOD tier combo also setting your viewmodel_fov to around 70-90 makes a huge difference
Half life 1 and 2 MMODS are some of the best mods, but not if your looking for something like EXTREME y;know like uhh cinematic mod
My opinion on twickable difficulty is pretty much your opinion on mods. For a first playthrugh I'll want to play on a "canonical" difficulty. Maybe change an aspect only if it's particularly imbalanced (too boring, or so hard it's ruining the rest of the game for me). For replay, everything goes.
it should be worth noting that there are some bugs ive experienced with Mmod for HL2, notably Lamars animations didn't play when she disrupted the teleporter in red letter day, and theres an unavoidable soft lock when your knocked out and wake up to meet Aylx in point insertion. also all voices seem quieter than normal
6:30 I see it like a great addition, useful if someone just wants to enjoy the story, maybe skipping "that part" that you hate when you replay your games or even making farming super easy and fast.
In battle network collection, "buster max" is useful to farm chips super easy if you are looking to get chips fast so you can pvp decently.
Never hears of HL1 MMOD but know I'm pretty tempted to check it out. Good vid 👍
5:15 adding million settings is actually nice, because when you clearly mad about something you want to get rid of it, and creating a setting that could remove it or change it to something else, is a good thing, really. if you don't touch it, the dev sets what he thinks are the best for his own vision as default setting, and he understands that somebody will disagree with him and wants certain things to not be changed
Military Conflict Vietnam is a blast! Been on their discord for over a year and there is almost always at least a gun game match going on in the game! It's getting updated constantly.
Can't wait for Portal: MMod
Never criticize modularity, it's essential, especially for mods.
In mods sure, in actual games its pretty shit
Projectile bullets are great actually.
Especially for the first game
your point on difficulty is a very interesting one. I often go back too dunkeys videos on difficulty as they have very good insight into the thought excersize.
4:24 Skibidi-Toilet 2 is crazy 🤣
I never finished HL2 MMod myself. I'm a diehard SMOD fan, and I was far more interested in the "less canon" or something version of MMod that was teased. It never released, but maybe this new MMod you mentioned at the end is what I'm looking for. I doubt it'll supplant SMOD, but it should still be fun.
I swear I watched this video like 3 months ago
I have been playing the vr mod for half life 2, since its world is so heavily interactable even compared to some physics based games it maintains a high level of immersion throughout, its one of the best ways to play the game imo
Great video, very comprehensive. I love your voice!!
If there is a mod to make the combine act like the HECU Marines then my life it theirs
Projectile bullets and the semi auto spas-12 are the best way to play.
Not really, I liked projectile bullets at first but then some encounter becomes unbearable to play
@@chillingchill6823 Don't use settings that add more spread because that will make projectiles suck.
I loved projectiles in alot of FPS games like Halo CE's bullets and Doom Eternals.
higher difficulty on MMod absolutely sucks though because combine are very bullet spungy which kind of ruins how the new AI handles combat.
For the customisation issue you relayed: I would add "developer presets" that would be truly best of both worlds
This was a pretty great video! I enjoyed mmod a lot more than vanilla, though I still love the originals ofc
3:11 That is how i play Half-life 2 normally, it makes it much more fun
4:20 Love Skibidi Toilet 2, one of my all time favorite games.
i used mmod with project hl and added some reshader with half life alyx props and enemy models it was one of the best gaming experiences i have ever had
Hair Life 1 with the recent Valve updates feel just perfect for me. Excellently smooth around all the edges. HL2 however, feels and looks very dated.
I prefer to smudge my glasses and play half life so I can emulate gordon's POV more closely
I also think the “assist menu” options are a great way to do it-makes it clear that the intended experience is without the assist options, but gives them to people who need them to enjoy the game
games can certainly go overboard with them, but i think a few carefully selected options that mark your save file (the way Celeste does it) offer a lot of value without marring the vision of the game
currently doing a new playthrough of the HL2 games as a concious adult instead of a little kid with no concept, I'm gonna be switching to this because it looks great, hopefully I can figure out how to port my save file if I need to
MMod was the first thing I did after buying HL2 on a Steam sale lol and it ran pretty well with a bunch of decent settings on my potato.
I just play Black Mesa instead of HL1 proper, but I plan to give it a try eventually
Long story short:
It is.
I dont want to waste your time :3
i remember half life as the first game that uses the mouse to look which was the smoothest experience ever even with 25 fps or whatever. all shooters ive seen before were keyboard only
besides black mesa which is the definitive half-life, mmod is a close second, i love it, genuinely rly fun
HL1 MMod is very fun because the strong-swing on the crowbar is just as valid a combat choice as guns in many a combat scenario. Turns fighting the alien races into a hack-n-slash crawler like Zelda rather than a corridor shooter.
(Also I personally prefer the unfiltered textures specifically when playing HL1 MMod. Something about it felt fitting with the changes to the style - accentuates the "so retro boomer shooter" vibe something like this unintentionally has, thanks to being an enhancement of a turn-of-the-millenium shooter to have a more modern lick of style, but not in an intrusive way.)
mmod better then cinematic that's obvious, only thing cinematic has is arkham knight soundtrack and good looking maps
I’m so confused I really liked the fact that with some of the things it says that you actually use the red dot site but for some reason when I zoom in it just zoom in it doesn’t like anything else I don’t know why it’s like that
Phantasmagoria 2 reference? cool. 0:38
I'm a fake fan, I've only seen Ross's game dungeon
@@PurpleColonel I can't lie, same.
I think options in remaster-style mods are the way to go. The old game as it existed and the vision of the remaster should be the most easily accessible ways to play the game, but if I want to experience anything inbetween, why not let me?
I don't think it will replace Half-Life for me. I am such a weird freak who just loves replaying these games time and time again, jankiness, age and poor replay value be damned. But I gotta admit. MMod FUCKS hard.
"it kills a balance but... It's a mod and who really cares?"
I do
gay
Me and my partner have just finished playing through psychonauts 1 and 2 and I would like to say I see no issue in adding accessibility options. There are people who want to enjoy the story while also taking their time, being in the game as opposed to watching someone else play and going "no go back I want to see that are you went past!!" and stuff like that.
I find no issue with giving the player customization options because I dont see them as much different than the difficulty selections of old. It's just now more developers and people acknowledge that it's beneficial to have more fine customization options because you cant always land a "easy, medium, hard ..." set of presets to actually fit everyone. Certain people may dislike combat in a game even if they get how to do it well and just want to have the hassle removed. Other people have motor issues and would like certain mechanically demanding segments (button mashing, quick time events) removed or simplified because it draws away fun from the game for them.(warframe for example lets you choose between mashing or holding buttons and only uses these things sparringly).
I also appreciate how a lot of modern games that are successors to older games or genres improve upon implementations. I always become upset when I voice complaints about L4D or valve games in general, because I point out the special valve-brand style of jank they have and how they suffer in areas like player feedback, not explaining certain mechanics and quirks, the feeling of weapons and it gets hand-waved away as nott an issue or the generic "Valve's perfect design" argument. Most of the time I get this with people who have grown up playing all valve games (my partner for example, whereas I only began when I was 11 with TF2).
In contrast, I prefer games like Deep Rock Galactic over L4D(2) because there are things I find to be better: enemy marking, clearer callouts, much better feedback on actions, and the possibility to actually curate your difficulty and improve at your own rate(Im talking to you, director of last section of The Passing).
Even then, I want to talk about the "vision" of the old games especially in relation to valve, because I find it a bit misguided to say that the games in the form we have are the proper original vision of what the developers wanted you to play.
The games were iterated upon until initial testing, then playtesters went through to give feedback on the feeling of the game. Valve themselves stated that at some point they started having QA Fridays? (sorry if I am mistaken here) wherein they would play through what was developed during the week to iron out quirks. The feedback of people always was taken into account to make sure the game would work for as many players as possible, it never was purely an endeavour of vision. I don't find this much different from how we do it today, be it through playtesting, live updates or just letting people customize their experience.
I also see no issue in discussing these things. It is possible to explain or go through how the game feels using certain settings (like you have) without being exhaustive - I doubt anyone expects to be exhaustive when so many customisation options are available. Not only that, certain games were praised in the past for allowing the player to change things. You yourself have placed system shock in the category of games that fit very well with your preference, and that game was noteworthy on release for allowing you to customize the combat, whether or not you wanted to have the timer etc.
All in all, I really don't think it is detrimental to the game or the players to have options to customize their experience. The developers' vision will still exist, most games usually show you what the recommended experience is, and may or may not allow you to change certain aspects of it. If anything, it allows more people to enjoy the game you make, since certain people seek joy in certain parts of art, others in other parts, and I think it's for the better to keep this trend going forward. I don't find that it's an issue if you don't want to let people curate their time, most respect that (a lot of people enjoy games like Noita where you either learn the rules or suffer for it even if they dont play them all the time)
Mods especially are great because they let you play the game in other ways you might like. It doesnt have to be better or worse, it's just for you or not for you, and that's fine.
Black mesa is the best way to play half life 1
I hope crowbar collective does a hl2 remake.
The work they did to make the source engine look as good as it did, and play as well as it did was, well, it was INCREDIBLE. It literally felt so immersive I felt like I literally was there, I cannot understate how absolutley incredible it was.
I think there's two styles of games:
Ones for which accessibility should definitely be a thing because it helps you experience things you wouldn't be able to otherwise. Games that tell you a story but the gameplay isn't intrinsically tied to it. And games that are casual fun that focuses only on mechanics but doesn't try to achieve a particular vision.
And then there are games which should exist in only one version. Games that teach you frustration but also the joy of innovation and experimentation. Games that challenge you in a variety of ways to force you to constantly evolve your playstyle. It could also be games where the mechanics are heavily tied into the story. Where you struggling again and again is something that tells you more about the world and characters and reflects their journey. I believe the courier mechanic in Death Stranding, where the difficulty and strain of keeping the post apocalyptic connections alive and make them thrive is relegated to the player, is a good example of that. Dark Souls merciless difficulty at release is another. I'm sure you can think of a bunch of other examples.
These games are 'interactive experiences' and the engagement of playing them derives from that rather than just following a story or goofing around.
Neither type is inherently better. The former is great for if you just want to sit down, enjoy something or experience a great story and characters. The latter is better if you want something that tries to move something inside you on a fundamental level. It's also a lot harder to do right. But including accessibility options beyond things like colour blind mode for those games is doing a disservice to both the game and the player who might be tempted to just circumvent the moments that are _meant_ to be difficult. It also goes counter to the expectation that every game exists to be beaten.
i like high levels of customisation i just wish presets were normalised. one of the only things overcharged did right lol
like if instead of going thru 1049034823489237984328849230 options to make the game fun specifically for me, if i could just get headstart and change like 3 things, i would die happy. ive done this w/ gmod alr where i have a specific set of server options preset