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I like the original xen bcs it was bizzare alien world
Also i like xen in some hl1 mods
Gabe Newell in a Reddit AMA said he was not satisfied with certain things in Half-Life, quote:
"Anything in a game is a sacrifice of things not in the game. I just feel those more personally about Half-Life for a bunch of reasons. And Xen.."
Nihilanth sucked, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdwNJCJzRQc&list=PLDmcwfn8y0lMtlqcpUhggk0FB1EC2i3iB&index=2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izT5i2nFY-w&list=PLDmcwfn8y0lMtlqcpUhggk0FB1EC2i3iB&index=6
there is more i think
but these 3 vids tells you that valve didn't just create xen
their concept was great
but the maps were kind abit unlikable to the fans
Also marphyblack ftw bcs he explained a lot about details in hl games
Nah man, Xen is awesome. :)
The platforming in the first Xen map is not for the impatient. If the platforms were stationary, it wouldn't be so bad, but since they move around you have to constantly wait for them to get into the ideal position or risk losing health due to the falls.
I absolutely HATE the fight with Gonarch. Everything about it is so wrong in my opinion and it's my least favourite part in the game. She has an absurd amount of health (I'd venture to guess even more than Nihilanth), which means the battle takes forever, there are periods where she's completely immune to damage (wasting your time), and you're constantly distracted by dodging/fighting those incredibly annoying baby headcrabs and dodging the Xen trees, which will otherwise deplete your health for not looking out for every single thing in the maps. Chasing the mama isn't fun in any sense, either. It's not hard, just really aggravating to me for some reason.
While Interloper has mostly good parts, it suffers substantially from its beginning. The opening part where you have to get shot out of one of the alien sphincters or ride an ascending phallus and then long-jump between alien rays to the arbitrary floating teleporter feels like a beta placeholder map. It should've been completely redone or scrapped entirely. It's about ten times worse than the first Xen level and serves absolutely no purpose. If it were removed entirely, Xen would only be better for it. Other than that, I really enjoy Interloper, aside from maybe riding up the gears in the factory, which is slow and plodding.
The battle with Nihilanth isn't as much a blatant waste of time as Gonarch as much as it just promotes a ton of quick-save scumming to avoid getting teleported to other sections of the map unless you need health or ammo. Admittedly the teleporting can be useful in case you're low on supplies, but more often than not you'll have to fight enemies there anyway. Plus, having to climb up that one map with the spiral "staircase" while fighting alien controllers is liable to be worse off than just fighting the Nihilanth. The idea of getting teleported around isn't necessarily bad, but it was employed poorly. It doesn't help that the teleporter homes in your position. If you're supplied though, there's no reason not to quick-save every chance you get off massive damage and then quick-load if you get teleported.
I hope it's clear from the above what I value in video games: not having the game hold you back or waste your time, which the Xen levels do in spades (another example might be the health pools, which refill you up to 100 HP but take forever to do so).
Wait until you go to the skill.cfg file and check the gonarch's health. It's... weird
Yet again, good idea, poor execution. You're actually supposed to find a cave entrance, fight your way through the inside of the platform, then you end up at the top of the island where you platform down to ride a manta to the exit. It's kinda cool how you fight through the surface, interior, and above the island, but the difficulty in finding that cave ruins it, and most people end up using the method you described.
Here's how it's supposed to be done; https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HetdkovUKH4
Personally, I think part of the problem is that the boss itself lacks the kick a good final boss is supposed to have. The teleportation attacks kinda ruin the pacing (the biggest offender of which being the first area, which is the one you mentioned), and while the sort of "midair ballet" style of the boss work s well enough initially, it never quite tries to increase the tension.
There's a lot wrong with it technicaly, but I think they nailed the tone.
I found this to be a pretty neat summary of some of the major problems with Xen as a whole. I figure I'll throw in my own personal 2 cents into this discussion too.
I was actually one of the few team members who used to actually like the original Xen (though this was a long time ago at this point). This was largely before I actually tried to design it for Black Mesa. As I started to analyse what it did from a design perspective, and in the context of the rest of the game, that was really when it started to all fall apart.
What Xen does well is provide is a relatively interesting, alien, and abstract environment, very different to what players have been used to throughout the game. That's a major point of variety and interest and I think, for some, masks the enormous gameplay issues that are present. It's immersive in the sense that it aims to present a weird alien environment, and definitely does so. But...gameplay wise? It doesn't do much.
When you think about Earthbound as a whole, it offers an interesting variety and progression in its mechanics and combat as you progress throughout it. A lot of that gets stripped away when you go into Xen. It basically is boiled down to incredibly simple combat and platforming, which are things the game has already done, but done better previously. The combat parts which are cool (such as Gonarch) are mostly just a missed opportunity. The rest is just kind of tedious and undeveloped.
I've always thought the constant teleports were one of the reasons why Xen didn't resonate with a lot of players. Everything felt so random and undirected. You appear near this random Xen island (which is really cool). Nice. You teleport to Gonarch's Lair. You kill him. Nice. You teleport to...the Interloper Factory. Then you teleport to Nihilanth. It just feels like you're randomly jumping around with no real goal or direction, and that you happened to stumble onto Nihilanth. The teleports provide no real frame of reference - you could literally be teleporting to the island next to you, or you could be teleporting across the whole damn universe each time and never know about it. This means that players don't really UNDERSTAND their journey even though they're living it. Now, that could potentially be cool, if you think about it, but I think the negatives outweigh the positives because it makes Xen feel like what it really was - kind of just a string of random levels put together quickly.
I think it's that lack of a tangible sense of purpose and direction that hurts the original Xen, in my opinion. The only map where you really feel like you're progressing somewhere because you're driven forward by a desire to reach the destination is literally the first map, Xen, because that island is so cool and you want to get inside it. Everywhere else is moving from Point A to Point B because there's nowhere else to go. That seems like an odd criticism to make of a linear game, but generally for the rest of Earthbound for example, the player's forward progress is driven by a desire to accomplish something, with forward progress being clearly indicated and understood somehow. It's something Valve does really well. Now I can sympathise with Valve on this for Xen. Xen is a SERIOUS challenge because there are basically no outlets for exposition, without harming the feeling of desolation and alien-ness. Any story or need to drive the player forward pretty much has to be told by the environment at that point, and it's really, really hard to do that. It's something we've struggled with in our interpretation a lot. And we've had YEARS for this. This is basically why most modern games have objective markers, characters dumping exposition on you, menus where you can check the objective, minimaps, etc. Doing it the "old fashioned" way can be really challenging in some circumstances.
I'm happy to dish out more and more ramblings about the original Xen, if people are interested. For now, I'm curious to hear what peoples' thoughts are on my take!