Again, like I said earlier, HL1's AI was impressive back in the day, we didn't have any pseudo-intelligent humanoid enemies in these kinds of games yet, or alien creatures as unique and interesting to behold and deal with, but not very long after did we start pumping out more impressive AI. Obviously small details are rarely appreciated it seems and while I do love small details they can become a gimmick if a game is counting on you noticing them and being fooled by the clever scripting when the AI is like I said not much better than Doom or Quake. Theming is very important yes, HL's setting and the way it conducted itself with narrative-driven gameplay and seamless level progression and the pretense that 'anything could happen in this game!' was born. While the rest of the game was fleshed out, the combat is unnaturally stiff and clunky, and unbalanced on hard. The last part wasn't the fancy AI to blame for my demise, for what the enemy lacked in impressive performance it compensated in high damage to the player on average and its overly increased HP to soak up ammo, typical of mid-late 90s 3D shooters at the time. Unreal did this too but each difficulty gradually increased it in increments and it never felt unfair, unless you were on the highest mode in the late game portion where it took me by surprise last time.

I guess I would agree, for a non-videogame example, I love the Wizard of Oz novels. But after the sixth, it's very obvious the writer stopped giving a crap and is only writing it because he needed the money. (The first six were gems, the later ones weren't bad per say but didn't have the same charm...)

I'm on the tenth book Rinkitink of Oz, and not only is it incredibly dull, but it wasn't originally intended to be an Oz novel at all but the writer shoehorned it into the continuity. So I'm at this point thinking that really, why do I even need to finish this one when I can go back and re-read the fun ones I actually enjoy <3

Don't even get me started on the balance issues it has on Hard. Especially Opposing Force, dear god I almost put a bullet in my own head. It sucks when Normal feels too easy but Hard is unfair bullshit, In HL on Normal I can tear right through it no sweat, but on Hard the enemies become complete bullet sponges on TOP of their retardation.

Another great example of this is FEAR 2. On normal it's a cakewalk, but on hard? Enemies can one shot kill you from across the map. Balancing issues are a whole 'nother can of worms though.

Also, it's not so much the fact "This game is boring... why am I playing it?" but rather "I love this game, it's fun, but it's starting to seriously feel repetitive... when will it end already...?"

No, Half-Life was just one of the first games (if not the first - I sure don't know of any before it) to properly implement what Valve at the time called "schedule-driven state machine". Yes, it was based on state machine, just like any AI of the time - except this was the first time such features as squad behaving like a squad, chatting with each other, cooperating on taking down a single entity (not just the player), fetching reinforcements was implemented in a game. What does AI in FEAR do, exactly? Dodge when you aim at it, use ladders, or what I just mentioned above? But your eyes didn't see! Well, here you go - check out "squadmonster.cpp" and "hgrunt.cpp" in particular. It's actually easy to read with just a rudimentary understanding of C. What you have or have not seen in the game is entirely irrelevant when it comes to technological innovations, it's the actual implementation that matters. Jeff Orkin (developing AI systems for Monolith at the time?) makes direct comparison to Half-Life on several occasions. Hell, let's not stop at FEAR - it takes effort to find books concerned with coding AI which do not mention Half-Life, especially when dealing with squad AI, that's how "inconsequential" it was.

Except it naturally is significantly better than Doom or Quake. But I do agree about difficulty cheese, many opponents in HL used hitscan weapons and used them with perfect accuracy. Irritating design and one of the major reasons as to why have I enjoyed Unreal a lot more.

It's interesting you enjoyed Unreal more like I did, I used to think it was boring until late 2008 when I finally beat it for the first time and was extremely impressed with the scope of its single player.

HL1 isn't by any means a bad game but it's definitely not a great game anymore, it just simply hasn't aged well at all. The Xen levels are horrible and like me and CARRiON said the AI is mostly garbage to fight. I realize we're all entitled to our opinion, some more so than others, but games during and shortly after HL and well beyond HL have had more entertaining AI to deal with that don't do stupid things as much, if in some cases at all, while still being convincingly intelligent.

I would argue that that's where it ends - when it's not fun anymore and instead gets tedious. I do think it's fine to press onwards for a little while even after it gets dull just to see if it might pick up steam again but let's be honest here: most games don't really pick up steam once you hit that point when it gets dull. Sure, sometimes it helps to take a break from a game that may last days or weeks but other times it doesn't.

I'm not trying to tell you how to enjoy your games but i will say that for me finishing a game just to say you finished it or for an achievement is pointless and a waste of time - and unless you are an immortal then we all have limited time here on this blue earth so just keep that in mind.

That's me too. Even for games where there are no story reasons to play the earlier games, I feel I want to at least try out the earlier games too, for historical value. Like Civilization series, Total War games, Freespace (everyone suggest playing Freespace 2 with mods, but I preferred starting from the first Freespace vanilla).

This is a bit of problem with e.g. the TES series. What I really wanted to play was Morrowind, but yeah I just had to start from Arena... Finished it already, now on Daggerfall but I am just not enjoying it that much due to the twisty dungeons and odd/complicated skill and level up system. I guess I've seen enough of that game, time to jump to Morrowind I guess.

Sometimes I deviate from that though, e.g. for Wizardry series Wizardy 7/Gold is the first one I've really played (I've actually seen the first Wizardry being played in my childhood), and for Might&Magic I started from M&M 6. Maybe it was simply because at the time I didn't even have access to the earlier games in the series, so it was kind of an easy decision to make.

As for games with story, I am reluctant to start from sequels if I haven't seen the story in earlier games too. Even though I found it a bit boring for gameplay, I am still glad I played e.g. the first Baldur's Gate + expansion before continuing to BG2. Similarly I am happy I played e.g. System Shock before SS2, or Thief Gold before Thief 2.

I have a similar problem with TV series, if there is some ongoing story that goes through episodes and seasons. I don't really want to jump in to The Walking Dead or Farscape or Babylon 5 or Game of Thrones in between, I want to first see what happened before and how it all started, what is the history with all characters, why do those two hate each other etc.

With TV series where the episodes' stories are disconnected (even if there may be some side-story that goes there too), I don't mind. So it isn't like I need to see House from the very first season, or McGyver, or The Simpsons, or even South Park.

The dungeons were ridiculously huge, but I don't get your complaint about the skill/level system, as it's been used in every main series game except Arena. Albeit it gets more and more simplified each sequel. I can only assume you've only played up to Daggerfall, but as I said, they simplify very slightly with each game onwards if that's any consolation.

Isn't daggerfalls level up system the same as every other TES game except arena?

I totally understand :D and to keep in mind, it's not that big a deal, especially with some franchises like "Fire Emblem" or "Tales Of" in which 50% of the series was either never released in North America or many entries are so old that you can't find them anywhere unless they get put up on various stores for digital download. (This is why I love GOG so much)

But then again, those two series' are a bad example as they are "almost" never in the same continuity. (While Fire Emblem jumps back and forth between three of four different universes, to the point that the creators themselves got confused after a while... )

I still need to snag morrowind on here sometime.

(Daggerfall dungeons) It's really not the size that is the problem, but navigating in them due to the useless 3D automap system. When I wander in a dungeon, the automap is useless trying to figure out where I should be heading in order to e.g. reach places which I haven't explored yet. No wonder there are tips in FAQs how to try to explore the dungeons, like the "right hand rule" like always taking the right turn etc. etc. Seems I was not the only one completely lost in them.

Also those underwater parts in dungeons... am I supposed to explore them too? Currently that is impossible too as I can hardly move in water, and I drown very fast. I guess I should train some swimming and diving skills by repeatedly spending time in water.

Arena dungeons were kinda big too but since they were basically square 2D dungeons divided into levels (plus some tunnels), it was quite easy to know where you should be heading to explore more, or in order to reach the exit. After awhile I just basically speedran the Arena dungeons, fighting only if necessary.

Yes, I've only played Arena (finished) and Daggerfall (several dozens of hours, not sure if even hundred hours or more, how to count that exactly), only having played shortly Morrowind mainly to see how it runs. My irritations with the Daggerfall skill system (partly probably me misunderstanding many parts of it):

- Too detailed. it sure seems to have a separate skill for everything, almost like having skills for using a fork, or a spoon. I hear these are reduced in the later games, which to me sounds like a good thing. Sometimes too many options is too much.

- Training skills by using them sounds nice in theory, but it favors actions like "keep jumping and running whenever you move anywhere" (in order to raise those two skills slooooowly) or "keep climbing a wall in an inn to practise your climbing skill safely" or "create an empty spell which trains two or three spell casting classes, and keep casting and cancelling it".

- Related to that, what the heck is with those training options in guilds? I pay a hefty sum... only to get one skill advanced by one measly percent? And I can do that only once per day? That doesn't sound very useful, much better idea to train for free by doing silly things repeatedly, as mentioned above.

- The same irritation I had with Arena, ie. whenever you level up, it is randomized how much extra HP and extra attribute points you get. This makes it a very good idea to keep reloading the game just before the level up, in order to get the max numbers in both. It also breaks the illusion, reminding me this is merely a game.

- Many things in advancing in the game are just... oddly complicated, with too many moving parts that I feel are necessary. Like how I kept performing dozens of Mage's Guild missions in order to use their more advanced services like summoning of daedras (I think you need to be level 6 or 8 in the guild for that)... yet I seemed to be stuck in level 2 (Journeyman?). Only later I learned from the manual or some online FAQ that on top of performing said missions, you are also supposed to practise specific spell casting skills in order to reach higher levels in the guild. Damn, I had endured countless dungeons trying to do this and that, all seemingly for nothing because I hadn't practised certain skills at the same time.

If the later TES games have made things like these less complicated and more straightforward, all the better. I might enjoy Daggerfall more if I had reached a doctorate in the Daggerfall skill system, and knew exactly what things I should be doing to reach this and that (like that higher levels in the Mage's Guild).

Personally, while I feel Daggerfall is probably the most complex game in the series in terms of dungeon crawling and everything you said. One thing I will always praise it for, is it's custom class creator. That is the BEST I have seen in an RPG period. As the options seem almost limitless, Among many other things, I can choose my hero's fears, complete control of what armour and weapons and material of armour and weapons they can use (Choosing incompatibility with some or most will increase leveling up speed, as well as self-imposed challenges) as well as being able to regenerate magic in sunlight or darkness, or even choose to take damage in sunlight or holy places without even gaining vampirism. (Again, self-imposed challenge, but seeing as most places are only open during the day, the "take damage in sunlight" seems like outright suicide, as well as making your character afraid of the Undead, which in turn creates a handicap against them, as undead contain the strongest enemies in the game and are among the most frequent)