Named characters should all have unique skins

nokori3byo

nokori3byo

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Yeah, I know it's not a huge deal, but I'd like to see characters like Sheckley and Leon given skins that don't look like any of the generic skins. It would just make them feel more special, IMO. It's widely agreed that the HL2 games bring their NPCs to life better than other games and seeing the skins of named characters reappear on generic ones undermies that effect just a tad. Roughly how big of a hassle could it be to scan a few more faces?

{SORRY! This was supposed to be a poll, but I bungled it and didn't manage to add the options in)
 
yes

what more did you expect

If frigging Cubbage got a custom skin, the others deserve some as well.
 
Maybe they expected you not to notice the bland skins, so they stuck them on characters to make them stand out and make you look at them anew.
 
I agree completely. Sheckley and Leon especially should have had custom skins.
 
Narvi said:
If frigging Cubbage got a custom skin, the others deserve some as well.
Click to expand...

I know you were probably just using Cubbage as an example. But the reason he has a custom skin is he was originally "intended for a HL2 character known as Odell. Odell was the engineer of an ice-locked research ship known as the Borealis...the Odell model went into freefall until the role of Colonel Cubbage came into being." (Raising the Bar)
Another tidbit for ya, Cubbage was modeled after a Valve team member's martial arts teacher. (Also from Raising the Bar)
But I agree with ya, if the character had a name, they should have had a unique face....
 
Not too much of a big deal to me...I can get along. But, it would be really really cool. :)
 
The Resistance are a major problem in Episode Two. Even if named characters don't deserve new skins, they should at least widen the gene pool among the wider cast, and get Resistance members out of their City 17 Streetwar 'whatever I could grab' clothing and into other looted Combine stuff. And then they should do a massive rework for the AI, which was never impressive and looks worse with every installment.

When will they stop attacking Helicopters with Machine Guns?
 
I would like special skins for characters like Sheckly, Leon, That mechanic guy that leads you to the Chopper battle after the car asplodes. But I would rather see I mean hear new voices. I hate hearing that same guy all the time.
 
I could live without them, but more custom skins would be great.

I remember Soldier of Fortune having lot of different skins for their enemies. Sure, they inevitably repeated themselves. But the sheer impression of variety was great.

More skins couldn't hurt.
 
Exactly. Electronic gaming is an evolving art form and that "impression of variety" is one of those things which should be de rigeur by now. We didn't complain about seeing the same pedestrian skins over and over again during the GTA 3 triology, but we'll be expecting something a little deeper this time around, won't we? Similarly, the HL2 games are so meticulous that I find their failure to use different skins on speaking characters to be rather non-plussing. I mean, they've done something remarkable in creating a sizeable amount of top-notch dialogue for these characters, why don't they just take it a step further and give them more distinctive faces? There could be like ten recurring characters who are as well loved as Barney Calhoun.

Well, no there couldn't actually, but you know what I mean...
 
I agree with the wider variety of skins. It would be nice.
 
Yes. More skins variety = awesome. It confused me as to why the Zombies in Episode Two still were refugees... in antlion burrows. It would make more sense to have had Rebel Zombies. And female Zombies. And just plain different skins.
 
Nibwoddle said:
Yes. More skins variety = awesome. It confused me as to why the Zombies in Episode Two still were refugees... in antlion burrows. It would make more sense to have had Rebel Zombies. And female Zombies. And just plain different skins.
Click to expand...

A rebel combat-gear-clad zombie would certainly be a nice touch...as would female zombies for that matter. Still, not holding my breath.
 
Haha. That's where the joke in The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman comes in. Everyone just happened to be wearing white shirts at the time :p
 
nokori3byo said:
A rebel combat-gear-clad zombie would certainly be a nice touch...as would female zombies for that matter. Still, not holding my breath.
Click to expand...

I believe they have a good reason for not adding female zombies.
 
I remember reading somewhere, like an old interview from around the time od 2003's E3, when someone from Valve was asked about repeating human models in the game, and he said they have a technology that makes everyone look different, that you'll never see the same NPC model's face twice.

Can't recall where I read that, but I'm 97% sure I didn't dream that up ;)
 
Like CryEngine 2 (Crysis), you can make FaceGen part of your engine and use it create random faces...but Half-Life is not a that kind of game.
 
I would really love some more Resistance skins/models.

Same thing ala normal zombies. I don't know about anyone else but it kind of breaks the immersion (and supposed scariness) of the zoms. It looks pretty bad when six normal zombies rise out of murky water with the exact same shirt, blood stains, trousers... attack of le clones.
 
Hmmm, yeah, the worst place for that is just before you enter the central auto-gun area in Ep. 2. Identical zombies just trapesing into your path, seemingly at timed intervals. Godd if your fishing for the "Bonebreaker" achievement; bad if your fishing for an immersive gaming experience.
 
I agree completely about having unique skins for named minor characters. And yeah, I've always wondered why Valve didn't create half a dozen skins for the zombies to break the monotony up a bit. It would just make sense on so many levels. For one, zombies usually appear in groups, so it's painfully obvious when they all look exactly the same. Further, zombies are probably, all in all, the most common enemy in the game (maybe after Combine soldiers), which only exacerbates the problem. How much effort could it have been, really, to create a few more skins and have the game randomly choose between them when spawning a zombie NPC? Say, a zombie resistance member with camo gear, a zombie with the blue citizen overcoat on instead of the white undershirt, etc.

test said:
I believe they have a good reason for not adding female zombies.
Click to expand...
Breasts? I'm sure they could have found a way to avoid zombie nudity if they put a little effort into it.
 
Personally, I feel Ep. 3 will have to shed a lot of its HL2nes to feel truly next-gen. Changing up the skins in the ways metnioned above will be one of many thing sthey'll need to do to achieve this.
 
Druckles said:
I think shooting women, even in a zombie form, has many more moral implications
Click to expand...

I always thought it was because toothy boobs are bad.

I do recall shooting lots of assassins. In the face.
 
Yeah. When there's rebel corpses around in Ep2, there's Refugee zombies. It just doesn't make sense.

It would help quite a lot to add random skins, even if there were only minimal amounts like the citizens are.
 
I've been killing women in my games for ages.

I honestly just think this was an oversight on Valve's part.
 
Narvi said:
I always thought it was because toothy boobs are bad.

I do recall shooting lots of assassins. In the face.
Click to expand...

Yeah, forgot about the assassins :/

But somehow they were exempt from my category of "females". I can tell you that I have trouble killing women in Splinter Cell. It just seems... wrong.
 
Druckles said:
Yeah, forgot about the assassins :/

But somehow they were exempt from my category of "females". I can tell you that I have trouble killing women in Splinter Cell. It just seems... wrong.
Click to expand...

Thats ridiculous, shooting men, shooting women, they are all human. There is equality while you have a shotgun aimed to your face, too.
 
FrostXian said:
Thats ridiculous, shooting men, shooting women, they are all human. There is equality while you have a shotgun aimed to your face, too.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about unarmed women. I don't have the same problem killing unarmed men. And it's fine if the woman is butch, annoying, or as you say "has a shotgun aimed to my face". But if I could, I'd prefer to avoid a confrontation with an armed woman.
 
MattyDienhoff said:
Breasts? I'm sure they could have found a way to avoid zombie nudity if they put a little effort into it.
Click to expand...

I generally stick to popular/acceptable theories, so here is my explanation: all the headcrabs are female and they only latch on male.
 
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