Hidden and Dangerous 2

[|iR|Focalor]

For Xmas gifts I received Quake4 and Hidden and Dangerous 2. Quake4 is awesome. Quake3 was always a little disappointing to me as far as single player mode, there wasn't much of a difference between single player and multiplayer. Fun, sure, but no mission-based gameplay for single player mode like Quake2. Of course everyone's heard of Quake4, tons of people have it, tons of people play it. I'm sure once I beat the single-player mode a few times and get bored with that, I'll always be able to play it multiplayer mode deathmatch on servers for years and years to come... as this community pretty much proves.

But Hidden and Dangerous 2??? I've never heard of it. Anyone else here ever played it? Any thoughts on it? It is any good? Does it suck royally? Anybody ever played it online?

I'm probably going to trade it in for Doom3. I figure since I've never heard of Hidden and Dangerous 2, and I'm sure tons of people play Doom3 online, I'll get more bang for my buck in the long run with Doom3 anyway. For example: I have Soldier of Fortune 2. I love it. But I've beat the game already. No one has any servers for SoF2 online, otherwise I'd play it. So now... it just sits in the case collecting dust. But Quake2 is even older than SoF2, and the devil knows I still play the crap out of it.

Do you think this would be a good trade? Or should I ditch the Doom3 idea for something else that I'm likely to get even more online play out of for years to come?

[Whirlingdervish]

ETQW?

 

[peewee_RotA]

Of course everyone's heard of Quake4...I'll always be able to play it multiplayer mode deathmatch on servers for years and years to come
...
I'm sure tons of people play Doom3 online

Not sure which statement is funnier.

[|iR|Focalor]

ETQW?

 

I'd like to, but the price tag on Hidden and Dangerous 2 was $19.99, and Doom3 is now going for $19.99. I haven't tried a demo version of ETQW yet, but I have tried the demo version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. If I were going to drop an extra 30 bucks, I'd probably go with CoD4.

Of course everyone's heard of Quake4...I'll always be able to play it multiplayer mode deathmatch on servers for years and years to come
...
I'm sure tons of people play Doom3 online

Not sure which statement is funnier. 

Ummm. Que? Exactly what is funny? I have a pencil. Is that statement funny too? While you're at it, decode all the "comedy" in every current ABC sitcom, because I don't see what's so funny about that shit either.

The point I was making is that lots of people play it and will continue to play it online for many years, whereas these other non- ID Software titles typically dry up and blow away from the internet within a year or two of their release. If I didn't make that point clear then...
 

[Whirlingdervish]

I think he's referring to the fact that not a lot of people play q4 or doom3 in multiplayer as compared to some other titles like any of the various counterstrikes or halos or cods or fear etc..

I'm not so sure why this is funny tho. Its more like dissapointing to me.

 

[|iR|Focalor]

I think he's referring to the fact that not a lot of people play q4 or doom3 in multiplayer as compared to some other titles like any of the various counterstrikes or halos or cods or fear etc..

I'm not so sure why this is funny tho. Its more like dissapointing to me.

 

Really!?! DAMN! So far I've only tried connecting for multiplayer with Quake4 twice and it found about 350 servers... but most of them we're empty. I didn't pay it much attention though seeing as how it was about 3 or 4am ET when I did it.

[lidz]

You will find most Q3 and Q4 servers are empty in the game browser.  Always a million servers, but no one plays.  Many servers are known by the name, so you should do a web search - I found some busy servers that way.

There was a website that graphed the number of Q4 versus Q2 servers and players, Q2 was over loaded compared to the Q4 servers.  People stick with the best....like my cock!

From what I hear TF2 is a fun game.  I may buy that orange box.

[[BTF]DeathStalker]

Yes, Xfire agrees, Q2 rocks, Q4 and DOOM3 sunk like a rock.
Waaaayyyyy more people can be found on Q2 over Q4, Q3 does still have alot of players though.
F.E.A.R. is your one and only true SP AND MP choice for 19.99

[RailWolf]

While you're at it, decode all the "comedy" in every current ABC sitcom, because I don't see what's so funny about that shit either.

 

[peewee_RotA]

Blah blah blah , trash peewee for no good reason.. blah blah blah

I'm not reading any of this but I will explain my comments:
Doom 3 requires a valid serial in order to play multi. Threads at the no longer existent Qdevels shows just how unpopular Doom 3 deathmatch was within the first year. It had maybe 4 deathmatch maps, and most features of the game were disabled in deathmatch in order to allow systems to run semi-smooth. Not only was this the sole reason that the turok series never made a good deathmatch (counting rage wars as a major glitch made completing in coop impossible), but it introduced to the world the game in which video lag out did actual network lag. You could have a ping of 40 and still freeze and be killed based on video lag. The only real feature that was included was the direct polygon collision detection. If this did not exist in updates, it sure existed in version one. I really enjoyed this feature. Doom 3 was a very strategic style of deathmatch similar to quake 2. You know how much damage each shot will do and you know when someone has picked up a powerup so you can very accurately judge your opponent and fight accordingly. However this feature ticked off CS fans and anyone else that can't really aim but pretends to in their FPS/strategy games. Doom 3 was a single player and based on it's tiny level of multiplayer support (especially the removal of coop which was one of the biggest Doom 1 and 2 multiplayer features) it really had little to no multiplayer community upon release.

In fact Doom 2 remakes, such as ZDaemon, had a bigger online community than doom 3. Which was fine because the single player was FREAKING AWESOME!

Now Quake 4.

Quake 4 in all its nostalgic glory, with every opportunity to bring back great features from Quake 1 and 2 and really put out a fantastic game with no equal.. MADE A LITERAL COPY OF QUAKE 3 IN IT'S DEATHMATCH!!!! It featured a failed remake of the hyper blaster and called it a nailgun, but that was the END OF THE NOSTALGIA. That was it. Literally IT! No more nostalgia than a bad nailgun that caused so much video lag that your screen could freeze at a ping of 10. Take that DOOM 3 DEATHMATCH!

Supposedly some patch came out to "fix" deathmatch but so much of the community was ticked off from the Quake3-2 style deathmatch that it didn't matter. Also the patch is bigger than quake 1 and quake 2 combined. I understand 30 mb q23.21 patch was big at the time. But the quake 4 patch is about 500 MB. That's not a patch. That's an entire game. In fact I'm pretty sure UT, Quake2, Quake1, Duke nukem 3d, Redneck Rampage1-3, and most of the mechwarrior games put together don't equal the size of a single patch. That really hurt the community.

Other than that a lack of original weapons, absence of the BFG and "super shotgun" which are nostalgic names never missed since Doom2, and literally no difference between quake 3 play and quake 4 play made the community smaller than one would expect. Raven, who has a history of original weapons based games like hexen, couldn't pump out interesting weapons. Don't get me wrong, the single player was awesome. But keep in mind that besides the partial strog transformation, there was not a single original Idea in the whole game. I wasn't even willing to play through the game a second time.

Like I said it's worth the money entirely, and the single player is some of the best mapping I've ever seen. However doom 3 and Quake 4 were simply movies with a mouse. Saying that their multiplayer is going to live on forever is like when I justified buying mario 64 because I thought it would take a year to beat. (2 days of after school play)

[|iR|Focalor]

I appreciate the responses so far. Apparently I was very wrong in my assumptions. Just because it's a Quake or Doom title... doesn't neccessarily mean it's going to yield kick-ass deathmatch play like Quake2. When I had the demo version, I tried out multiplayer and instantly noticed the lag. I tried setting the video to lower detail and resolution, but there was still a bit of lag. One feature I did like was the user-tweakable mouse smoothing effect. I was using a really sensitive wireless mouse at that time, and it helped to make aiming a lot more smooth and natural, not everyone has the luxury of owning a good USB mouse. Obviously I haven't played it a whole hell of a lot yet... but I have to agree with the general consensus: Quake2 does make for better multiplayer than Quake4. You can use jumps to quickly enter an area and ambush someone, whereas in Quake4, jumping will probably make you move even slower. Having to reload your weapon certainly introduces an interesting twist to gameplay, and probably an annoying one for the guy who always forgets to grab a full magazine before attacking someone, hehe.

I guess I was right about one thing though, no one HAS heard of Hidden and Dangerous 2, no one has breathed a word about it so far. The screenshots on the box make the game look rather unattractive. The characters appear to lack the intricate lifelike details displayed in other games (fewer polygons used in the models I suppose). I seem to remember reading a review about it (or maybe Hidden and Dangerous 1) being nothing more than a poorly done knock-off of some popular Tom Clancy game.

[peewee_RotA]

To answer the original question, Go for Pain Killer. It has a moderatly large online community, has a great original single player (although no tangible story line and a complete liniar game play may turn away some people), and is built on interesting and original weaponry. For example the wooden steak launcher does moderate damage up close, but at a distance the steak catches on fire and can burn your enemies.

[weezuschrist]

all i want is quake 2 with enhanced graphics

ID should just release the same coding of q2 with a new engine and have it compatable with regular q2

[|iR|Focalor]

Yes, Xfire agrees, Q2 rocks, Q4 and DOOM3 sunk like a rock.
Waaaayyyyy more people can be found on Q2 over Q4, Q3 does still have alot of players though.
F.E.A.R. is your one and only true SP AND MP choice for 19.99

To answer the original question, Go for Pain Killer. It has a moderatly large online community, has a great original single player (although no tangible story line and a complete liniar game play may turn away some people), and is built on interesting and original weaponry. For example the wooden steak launcher does moderate damage up close, but at a distance the steak catches on fire and can burn your enemies.

I've never heard of F.E.A.R., but I seem to remember seeing an ad for Pain Killer somewhere and thinking "that looks pretty cool". I'll have to see if I can track down a demo version of both of those and give them a spin. Thanks a bunch for the suggestions guys! 

[PANTONE 7717C]

About H&D2 (I've played both games btw) : The original H&D reminded me of the Commandos games but then in 3D, very tactical and interesting. H&D2 is basicly a squad-based tactical ww2 shooter with some RTS and RPG elements, how you accomplish missions is down to you. For the most part it's a very tense but slow-paced Singleplayer game which can get pretty frustrating and hard but also is very rewarding, much like the Commados games. However the cool add-on 'Sabre Squadron' includes coop mode and has more emphasis on multiplayer.
It's been a few years but after looking for some screenshots I remember I really enjoyed the singleplayer part of the game, not in the least because I always enjoy looking at the scenery and atmosphere of the maps in these type of games . But if you quickly run out of patience while playing games and don't really pay attention to the scenery I would suggest trading it in for something else.

http://i.boomtown.net/pics/4/6/6/39664/org.jpg
http://i.boomtown.net/pics/4/1/9/39914/org.jpg
http://img.hrej.cz/04/d673d3dbc8d3fb3df8b3b3d72f1007.jpg
http://medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/screenshot_108715.jpg
http://edu.kajaani.fi/~ktuovine/random/reviews/screens/hidden2.jpg