Archive: 6 posts

---

Wow, this will be the third level I've reviewed for Voltaire now. Isn't he cool folks? Seriously though, I've been quite a fan of Voltaire's works. I was amazingly blown away by the first H.A.T.E., and Temple of Sun and Moon while not being nearly as good was still a sufficiently strong level nonetheless. At the end of the day, Voltaire is up there with xkappax and gevurah22 as patchwork artists that I carry a great deal of respect for. To this day, the original H.A.T.E. is still one of my absolute favorite levels ever to hit the online community for LBP. Everything about it was perfect. Great atmosphere, great music, excellent puzzles, perfect visual aesthetic, outstanding boss finish, and it managed to remain an amazing parody as it managed to perfectly imitate the "feel" of actually playing Portal but within a game that honestly carries close to no similarities. The original H.A.T.E. in many ways still feels like one of the few perfect thought processes behind level creation, the idea of taking the tools you have and maximize their effectiveness; and with that is already part of the reason I carry some underlying disdain for H.A.T.E.2 in which the mantra appears to have been replaced with "take a tool you've never used before, maximize its effectiveness and proceed to leave every other tool in the dirt." Over the course of MANY reviews I've given plenty of vain agitation directed towards the paint gun, so I won't bother going too much farther with that, but I seem to find new ways to say more or less the same thing: The Paintinator is merely an enhancement for level creation, not a replacement. Anyways, H.A.T.E.2 pretty much starts off where the first one ends; odd considering you blew up GlaDOS at the end of the first one, which makes one question the existence of a sequel at all. Well it turns out GlaDOS had a back up system or something and commands you through another series of tests. This time, the objectives and general direction of the puzzles, as well as a fair portion of the previous visual aesthetic, has been engulfed by the presence of the paintinator and the MGS pack. Now, that's not to say that the entire level has become a recreation of the MGS levels, but the similarities still stand and in their own ways provide mild hindrance. The same basic idea remains from the predecessor: enter a large numbered "chamber" and solve it's puzzles to advance. In between each room you will be given advice and congratulations from GlaDOS, all of which carries the same pitch black humor Voltaire was able to so perfectly imitate in the first level...sort of. Unfortunately the second coming of GlaDOS is one veered heavily towards a program that sounds more like it's training an assassin with the same mentality as Hit Girl (Kick *** was awesome by the way) rather than training a science experiment. This new side of GlaDOS actually ruined some of the experience for me, where I was still expecting purely sarcastic humor i received sarcastic humor with a an extra large heap of sadistic behavior, making the sarcastic humor less funny as a result. Where H.A.T.E. is a puzzle platformer, H.A.T.E.2 finds itself as being more of a puzzle shooter that occasionally just goes regular shooter. Some of the puzzle ingenuity has been lost in this second attempt, but by no means is it forgotten and although I gripe mildly at what the paint gun does to most levels I'm actually pretty impressed with how it was handled here. Most of the puzzles you have to solve involve shooting switches to advance or shooting blocks to get them into holes, and for what it's worth all the puzzles are still pretty darn clever. Also when I said it occasionally goes regular shooter I'm referring to a couple of rooms you enter in which all you have to do is shoot all the enemies to proceed and that's not exactly difficult to solve; it only makes it weird that those will occasionally be in-between regular puzzles, it'd be like asking someone to solve a Rubik's Cube, then another, then another, and finally asking them to lift a car. It just seems a little out of place at times. For me, the entire level was good, fun, clever, and altogether a top notch performance if ever I've seen one. Plenty of mistakes litter the ground like the beach on the 5th of July, the overall wisdom behind the puzzles has dropped from mostly intelligent to somewhat smart, the music hasn't changed much (though it seems to carry a stronger MGS theme), and aside from those few things it's truly a successor to H.A.T.E. and for a sequel it works fairly well. Also, I know I spent probably the entire review comparing this level to another, I honestly wasn't trying to do that so much but I did and here's why: Sequels are intended to outperform the originals. I know they never do (outside of a few cases here and there) but they really should. Think about it, why make a sequel when you could just make something entirely new? In a media expression such as LittleBigPlanet, people make sequels because they know they can take one of their old concepts and improve it enough to make something that feels old enough to resemble a classic and also new enough to not feel entirely like the same level. I call it New Nostalgia (I'm coining that term, anybody else says it they owe me a penny ). To all of those degrees, I think Voltaire succeeded. Not perfectly, but he still managed to recreate an existing project with a refurbished appearance and very differently handled gameplay, and the MGS pack in general accredits to that greatly. He was given a new medium and make something fairly new while still retaining the classic in a well preserved form. Final Score: 8.5 / 10 Bad direction is probably the only thing I can truly fault on H.A.T.E.2. Going from an intensively creative puzzle frenzy to the half puzzle half GUN frenzy is not the kind of transaction that I would have liked to see, but for all purposes it works. Voltaire, if you make H.A.T.E.3, please try to keep as much of that original level in as you can. Outside of switching gears, the level is absolutely fantastic. On a side note, never listen to GlaDOS. That glowey red stuff did not in fact give me bonus points.

2010-05-13 16:54:00 Author: Shining Aquas Posts: 353

---

You should have diffrent fronts and screenshot. Kinda boring to read a review consisting of normal text imho -.- Anyways, H.A.T.E.2 pretty much starts off where the first one ends; odd considering you blew up GlaDOS at the end of the first one, which makes one question the existence of a sequel at all. Well it turns out GlaDOS had a back up system or something and commands you through another series of tests. This time, the objectives and general direction of the puzzles, as well as a fair portion of the previous visual aesthetic, has been engulfed by the presence of the paintinator and the MGS pack. Now, that's not to say that the entire level has become a recreation of the MGS levels, but the similarities still stand and in their own ways provide mild hindrance. The same basic idea remains from the predecessor: enter a large numbered "chamber" and solve it's puzzles to advance. In between each room you will be given advice and congratulations from GlaDOS, all of which carries the same pitch black humor Voltaire was able to so perfectly imitate in the first level...sort of. Unfortunately the second coming of GlaDOS is one veered heavily towards a program that sounds more like it's training an assassin with the same mentality as Hit Girl (Kick *** was awesome by the way) rather than training a science experiment. This new side of GlaDOS actually ruined some of the experience for me, where I was still expecting purely sarcastic humor i received sarcastic humor with a an extra large heap of sadistic behavior, making the sarcastic humor less funny as a result. TLDR ( To Long Didn't Read) You should have paragraphs to make it easier to read and make the review " enjoyable ". You need to spend some time in the reviews so that people will give ur reviews a good review ^^

2010-05-14 18:48:00 Author: Unknown User

---

You should have diffrent fronts and screenshot. Kinda boring to read a review consisting of normal text imho -.- TLDR ( To Long Didn't Read) You should have paragraphs to make it easier to read and make the review " enjoyable ". You need to spend some time in the reviews so that people will give ur reviews a good review ^^ Since when did anyone read a review for fun? I see nothing wrong with SA's format.

2010-05-14 22:12:00 Author: qrtda235566 Posts: 3664

---

bunch of stuff Trust me, I would love to upload pictures. I have absolutely no means by which to do that right now. Honestly though, this style of reviewing has worked perfectly well for me the past year and a half. Reviews aren't necessarily supposed to be fun but are supposed to be entirely informative. And I try to make it interesting to read by writing in what I believe is a fun style. I think if you are looking at a long paragraph and decided it's too full of content to bother reading it, this section of the site is probably not for you.

2010-05-15 01:54:00 Author: Shining Aquas Posts: 353

---

It is allways fun to read a level being trashed, but it is hard when the front sucks. Take a screenshot ingame, export it to the harddrive ( Ps3 ) use a USB wire to transfer the files to ur mp3/gadget/mobilephone and then use the same USB to get it to ur pc. Then once that is done upload the picturs and use the http:// http://www.pollsb.com/photos/o/48183-fat_albert_cartoons_available_minisodes_online_dem and.jpg

2010-05-15 17:25:00 Author: Unknown User

---

...Um, I think you may have pushed the send button a tad early there bud. You can export pictures to the HD? Since when? That's awesome.

2010-05-16 09:55:00 Author: Shining Aquas Posts: 353

Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

Aus dem Archiv wurden alle persönlichen Daten wie Name, Anschrift, Email etc. - aber auch sämtliche Inhalte wie z.B. persönliche Nachrichten - entfernt.
Die Nutzung dieser Webseite erfolgt ohne Speicherung personenbezogener Daten. Es werden keinerlei Cookies, Logs, 3rd-Party-Plugins etc. verwendet.