Ghostbusters game features Xen done right

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

This might be of interest to those wondering how to do a less-annoying version of Half-Life’s Xen.

Mid-way through the newly released Ghostbusters: The Video Game you end up in some kind of pocket dimension, made up of floating islands in a nebula-like void. (The floating islands are all parts of the building you were in previously, this is an extra-dimesnional view of that building, how the building appears to the ghost world, or something like that.)

It’s like Xen… without the annoying jumping puzzles! Unfortunately I haven’t gotten to take any good screenshots myself, I grabbed these from a walkthrough. Maybe later I’ll get a chance and I can show off some good screenshots of the background and all the floating stuff.

There’s one section that LOOKS like it’ll involve a jumping puzzle, but intsead you use your “slime tether” to pull islands close to yours and run across. Also, the game doesn’t let you fall to your doom. So floating island world is considerably less annoying than Xen.

Theres a section where the Ghostbusters get rather lost and try multiple teleport portals and end up going in circles, which rather reminded me of that irritating Lambda Core puzzle. :wink: Except in this case, you don’t get lost, only your friends get lost - you basically just follow a linear path and eventually get to the end. But you can use portals to your advantage in some fights - some areas have several portals on opposite sides of the room, letting you attack an enemy, then when they counter-attack you run through the portal and come out on the opposite side of the room, where you can then attack them from behind.

NOTE: This isn’t a thread for discussing whether the Ghostbusters game is good or not, just its relevance to Black Mesa in terms of inspiration. Of course, I imagine the devs have already worked on quite a bit of Xen already - we can’t be sure since they never tell us anything about Xen, but I’m sure they wouldn’t be so confident of a 2009 release date if they hadn’t started Xen. But… yeah. It’s interesting to note. Ghostbusters has a Xen style section, and I never found it irritating.

#2

Interesting, but I really fail to see any relation between this and Black Mesa.

#3

Damn, everyone’s playing Ghostbusters: The Video Game except me. :frowning:
I know what I’m getting at my next trip to the rental store!

#4

Er… in the past there’s been lots of debate on how Black Mesa should do the Xen levels. Some people have said that they need to be totally overhauled, since it was baffling and annoying that the last quarter of a semi-realistic first person shooter set on Earth turned into a super mario brothers experience of jumping between floating platforms and being attacked from all sides by teleporting monsters.

Ghostbusters features a world of floating platforms where you are attacked by teleporting monsters, and they managed to make it not suck. That’s the relevance. They did a bizarre-looking world with different laws of physics that doesn’t require you to suddenly develop a whole new set of skills and adjust to a new playing style.

Unfortunately, those are not very good screenshots as they mainly show the path that the player walks on, and not all the crazy stuff that is floating around elsewhere, or the way that your path crisscrosses over and under itself. When you first appear in the pocket dimension, the very first area looks especially Xen-like, but I have no screenshots of that.

On a more off-topic note… everyone knows Half-Life’s Gluon Gun is basically the Ghostbusters’s proton gun with a blue effect. (It’s even known as the “egon” in the game files, the name of one of the Ghostbusters.) Now Ghostbusters has its own blue beam weapon… here’s hoping Black Mesa’s gluon gun effects look as good as this “stasis stream”. I especially like the way the beam and muzzleflash has a dark centre rather than a bright centre, as if it is glowing with darkness.

#5

We already have a Proton Pack, why do we need the damn levels, too?

#6

I’m not saying copy the Ghostbusters level! I put this in the cafeteria, not the suggestions section.

I just thought it was interesting, since the old forum had a 100-page thread full of forum members doing Xen concept art and suggestions. I’m pointing out that Ghostbusters’ has its own Xen suggestion, and that it’s possible to do a floating island parallel dimension without tricky jumps or elevators.

Obviously, Xen wouldn’t be Xen with NO jumping, the HEV suit jump pack would become useless. But perhaps some Xen levels could be free of jumping, and instead use narrow paths, or teleporters.

Back when Prey was released, several people (including myself) commented on how Prey had some clever things that would be great for Xen, and one or two of the developers agreed that a couple of aspects could be a useful source of inspiration.

#7

If you could unlock an H.E.V suit, I would LOL.

#8

Looks cool. Gonna have to get this game. Twin, why don’t you try and get some more good screenshots of bits you think might be useful inspiration.

#9

Hmmm, I never really thought of getting Ghostbusters. But, I now have the sudden urge to go and buy it. :expressionless:

#10

Ha, I didn’t create this thread to be a Ghostbusters advertisment. :stuck_out_tongue: I’m a huge Ghostbusters fan so for me the game is awesome (it’s full of an insane number of in-jokes and references and details to delight Ghostbusters fans), but if you aren’t bothered about Ghostbusters then you might wonder what all the fuss is about. It’s no Half-Life.

I’ll have to finish the game first. :wink: I’m half way through the final chapter. The game uses a checkpoint/auto-save system, no manual saves, and although I can choose to replay an earlier chapter of the game I would lose my current auto-save and would have to restart the final chapter again.

A warning: the console versions are supposed to have great multiplayer, but us PC gamers have been shafted, there is no multiplayer in the PC version. (That’s why the PC version costs just $30.) I don’t have a 360 or a PS3, so I had no choice but to get it for PC, but if you have a choice then get it for Xbox 360. (The PS3 version has slightly inferior graphics, though they aren’t bad, just not quite as good.)

#11

Yeah it’s a nice idea which would make the game much more fun to play at the end.
I also found the Xen level a bit frustrating and when I was done with it I was more happy that I didn’t have to do that again, not like I felt a sense of accomplishment with finishing the game. Half-Life is still a kickass game though.

Half-Life 2 had a much better ending.

Also the Black Mesa developers didn’t say they were going to copy the original game verbatim. It is supposed to be a modern day Half-Life without getting modern as in “ruin the game”. It’s a fine balance but Xen being such a big deal in the game I doubt they can change it much.

#12

Am I the only one that liked the jumping puzzles? It’s good practice for hl:dm tau jumping.

#13

Maybe you can catch the g-man like a ghost.

#14

If someone is new to Half-Life and is playing through it for the first time, and they’ve just reached the final challenging levels of the game where they go to the alien’s domain to destroy the big boss, the last thing they are thinking is “this is really good training for multiplayer”.

Nowadays, if I replay Half-Life the Xen levels are no sweat - the jumps are easy, I can handle the enemies, I know where to go, it is no big deal. But the first time I played, back in 2000… THE HORROR.

“Where am I meant to be going? Am I supposed to let this fleshy thing shoot me up into the sky? Oh my god more of those flying things are attacking me… oh crap those guys that shoot insects… oh crap I fell… OH CRAP I hit quicksave instead of quickload, caught in a neverending loop of falling… aaaargh!”

#15

Quick somebody steam-gift me a copy of ghostbusters, :stuck_out_tongue:

#16

Except that Xen has room for porta potties.

#17

I’m not so sure this would work. You mean to take this as advice for how to correct Xen’s jump issues rather than the design of Xen itself?

If the former (I’d hope not the latter), it might be good to explain why exactly it works so well. I don’t plan on buying Ghostbusters and I doubt I ever will (no offence to Ghostbuster fans - financial situation more than anything), but it would be good to know more about it. I’m intrigued by the idea at the very least, but a long way from convinced.

#18

:what:

#19

It does. See:

800×600 75.4 KB

#20

That picture reminds how mysterious Xen is. I always wondered what’s behind that scary big and dark horizon.

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.