Poll Question 176 – What would you do if the reviews for Ep3 said it sucked?

11th June 2010

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

Now I know that nobody reading this even remotely believes that Episode Three will be anything but incredible BUT I can’t get the thought out of my head.

I have been watching more TV shows than I usually do and I’ve been thinking about new seasons of some shows I like. I am a HUGE fan of Dexter and normally wait until a season is finished before watching it in a few days (there’s no way I can watch shows once a week, I just don’t have the patience), and for some reason I thought “What if my friends say it’s not so good, don’t bother.”.

I still can’t get the sour taste out of my “TV mouth” due to the ending of The Sporanos. I will NEVER watch another TV show by David Chase. The ending has somehow overshadowed all the good episodes and scenes I remember.

So, imagine that happened to Episode Three. If playing it ruined your memories of the series would you want that. Would you just wait for the community maps and hope they do a better job?

The Poll


39 Comments

  1. k00pa

    I would not read any reviews from anybody before I have played the game. Only place where I would get information about the game would be valves own webpages.

  2. Hardcore

    Hey I’m a huge fan of dexter too! It’s the best TV show I’ve seen so far

  3. HL TOTALLY FAN

    Sorry but this is totally out of cuestion, ep3, sights to be a really good game, c’mon, finally we’re going to see a kind of a grand finale, or maybe a huge surprise we just cant imagine, thats logical because the developers in valve are taking lots of hours and days in this big enterprise, I dont think ep3 its going to suck just like that.

  4. jgoodroad

    I have never seen a poll with a 100% answer…

  5. I’m a huge Half-Life fan and thus it would be impossible for me to do anything else than play a game set in Half-Life universe, even if critics and the community would say the game suck. So yes, I’d definitely play it even if reviews were abysmal.

  6. AI

    For one I’m old enough to make up my own mind! I don’t tend to read other comments other than yours ๐Ÿ˜‰ and other established mod/map makers, who know what they are talking about, some others just jawjack!! I’m looking forward to E3, I think it will answer alot of questions!

  7. Soylent Bacon

    Even if I believe the bad reviews, I would want to play it to see why it sucks, and to get some closure to the story. It’s less of an experience on its own and more like the game version of a series finale. Surely you wouldn’t get really into a season of Dexter and not watch the season finale just because you heard it sucked? You would still at least want to see what happens.

  8. Reviews are for learning something about a game you don’t know anything about. There are a few reviewers I trust and I read their reviews to have an opinion about games, but that’s just for learning some details I need to know (is story good, is gameplay good etc).

    In EP3 case, that makes no sense. I don’t need to read a review to learn what EP3 is going to offer me. Because I already know it. Like I know what are Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 3 (if there will be one) going to offer me. Portal 2 is a yes yes, Left4Dead 3 is a no no, EP3 is a hell yes. And those choices has nothing to do with how good those games are. I know L4D is a good game but I hate multiplayer shooters. That’s all I need to learn from a review. How fun will it be? Well, that’s my business.

  9. I cannot vote.
    As with all 3 retail HL2 releases so far I’ll be buying and playing before anyone has the time to write and present a proper critique.
    After I have played to my hearts content, I will be interested in the reviews and comments of mappers and players whom I respect and esteem.

  10. Miigga

    Even if it turned out to be the worst game ever, I would play it at least three times.

    It’s a Valve game and I am a huge fan of the Half Life series. I could not possibly skip that game.

  11. Like jasper, I will be buying this game and pre-installing long before there are any reviews. Likewise Portal 2. It’s Valve, innit!

  12. J-Man

    I would not pay attention to opinion’s about the game, I think there will be those who will not like it and a GREAT deal of people who will like it. I think EP3 will be nothing short of incredible..with the game being DX11, it’s going to be AWESOME!! people will always be opinionated..so with say that, there will be a percentage of those that wont like it..and give a bad review..

    1. J-Man

      But to answer the question “what would I do if the reviews said that it sucked” I would play it because I’m a HL fan for life + all the great mods that will follow it..

  13. Well I tend to get my reviews from my nephew who thought ” HL2″ was, in his words, “pants”, (English term meaning – not very good). But I loved it and took more than ten times longer to complete it than he did!

    So I will be getting Ep3 when I finish Ep2. Yes it takes me that long!

    Episode 3 will be a bit of a let down as we have all waited so long that our expectations have had ample time to rise to unrealistic heights. But we all know it will be fantastic and more importantly, playable on Steam โ€” ing pile ofโ€ฆโ€ฆ.. Sorry venting!

    But I seriously doubt it will best the “Half Life” remake “Black Mesa”! “Half Life” was and is an epic game.

  14. Even if the game did somehow (no matter how unrealistically) manage to suck, there would still be the game engine mods to make it worth getting.

  15. Zekiran

    I’d definitely play it anyway, because at the very least it’d be some kind of closure.

    I don’t know that I’d read reviews of it because of spoilers, which man…. when the game does come out, there will be such horrible things going on online. I don’t even know if I’d be able to click on half my favorite internet hangouts. ๐Ÿ˜€

    I can’t imagine it sucking, though. I think we all agree on that. ๐Ÿ™‚

  16. MNM

    Play it anyway 100% (51 votes)

    Oh wow ๐Ÿ˜›

  17. Gypsy Jim

    I didn’t hesitate for a second with my vote…..

    What I want an answer to though is the old “Ep3 vs HL3” enigma. I for one still cling to the hope that there will actually be BOTH and that Ep3 is only another step, albeit an epic one, along the Gordon Freeman saga……..

  18. Good bye review, hello Episode 3

  19. Stratofarius

    Waited too much to even care about reviews.

  20. CrowbarSka

    It’s a good question actually. At first I thought “well I’d obviously play it anyway” and hastily voted accordingly. But now I’ve thought about it, and I’ve remembered how the end of Lost made me feel, and I don’t want to feel that way about Half-Life. I have great confidence that it will be amazing, but if it isn’t… I just don’t know what I’ll do!

    1. but if it isn’tโ€ฆ I just don’t know what I’ll do!

      EXACTLY! That’s what I am trying to get at. I would hate to be disappointed.

  21. Kasperg

    I would play it anyway.
    I really don’t think Episode 3 can have the ability to dissapoint me. Story-wise, I have to say I don’t find the Half-life series to really be up there. It’s really the actual narration method and settings (how HL2 starts with that 1984 feel to it) that put it above the rest, not the actual story (evil aliens invading us through portals! yay!). In that sense Episode 3 will just be better than what we’ve seen so far. The incredible delay kind of makes this mandatory.
    As I said I don’t expect much from the story (just the way I didn’t expect much from the LOST finale) after seeing how little Ep1 and Ep2 really advanced it: Citadel goes boom, we launch satellite rocket, advisors kill this guy. END.
    Gameplay is where it’s at, and I think Valve gets that right everytime even if there’s little innovation. There’s no need to radically change what works so well for a lot of people.

  22. zag

    Most of the reviewers are console retards anyway..so I dont give a crap what those babies say about the best game in the world

    1. Yeah, but what if every reviewer you respected said it sucked?

  23. Halo

    I think half life is one of the few things that’s guaranteed not to disappoint.

    1. But with Valve’s new games and updates… there’s going down, don’t you think? And they could take Half-Life with them to the bottom.

      1. The Pengu

        It all started to go down hill when EA got involved

        1. Kyouryuu

          That’s nonsense. EA and Valve’s partnership isn’t a publisher-developer relationship. Valve is in full control of what they produce and EA merely distributes it through their EA Partners program.

          However, for whatever reason, Valve chose to outsource PS3 development of the Orange Box to one of EA’s studios. You can pin that on EA. Even though the PS3 is a notoriously difficult machine to program for, there was no excuse for why a 2004 engine struggles to run on that console.

  24. Anon_222469

    I would still play it, but would not pay top price.

  25. The Pengu

    Why is sulk in a corner not on the poll? ๐Ÿ˜›

    It would be my choice

    But yeah, I would play it anyway.

  26. Kyouryuu

    The only caveat to getting it day one – and even then I’d be waiting rather than not buying – is if some enormous technical issue bubbled up. It’s not unprecedented. Back when Episode 1 came out, that thing crashed every time it attempted to autosave. And then Valve went into their typical “maintain radio silence” mode about it and fans had to devise their own solutions. Days passed and someone figured out that running the game in DirectX 8 seemed to remedy the problem at the expense of the visuals. At some point, Valve did fix the problem, but it was long after I finished the Episode.

    But I mostly trust Valve to deliver a functional product on the PC, the SDK woes notwithstanding. X)

    1. The only caveat to getting it day one

      Same for me. I don’t think I’ve bought a HL game within the first 6 to 8 weeks of release.

  27. Pyro

    The result speak for themselves.

  28. geekofalltrades

    “The reviews” also consistently said that Led Zeppelin sucked.

  29. hosndosn

    I would quickly travel back to my own dimension.

  30. Muzzow

    I voted “Play it anyway”.
    I’m very interested in reviews when it comes to a HL-mod or a brand new game. The new Tomb Raider, for example, or if the new Mass Effect 3 will be as awesome as the other two parts, or if Crysis 2 will suck again.
    But I don’t care much about reviews when it comes to VALVe’s work. There will be always people who love something – may it be a certain part of the plot, one of the characters, the puzzles, the action – that other’s don’t like so much or even not at all.
    So I’m going to play it, and, as I know Valve, the game will be interesting and lots of fun. So much fun in fact, that I’m becoming aware of things I really don’t like (Alyx in EP2, just because she was “always” part of the Episode and that Barney, my favorite character, was completely missing) only after playing EP3. ๐Ÿ˜€

  31. SPY

    as far as I know did Valve not even start with the developing of ep3, so how can there be bad revieuws of it. the last time I read about it somewere valve said they still didn’t start with it, and that is about 6 months ago.

    and all in all, ep3 to me is not a new game,
    its just again, another short episode.
    i really hope that valve stops with the eps and start with making a HL3.
    i see the eps as just making money, because they are way to expensive for what they offer, (qua gametime I mean, the content if ofcourse ok).

    1. as far as I know did Valve not even start with the developing of ep3, so how can there be bad revieuws of it.

      This is a hypothetical question, not asking if EP3 is or will be bad.

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