The Armchair Game Designer

What better way to kick off the 100 Game Challenge than with what is arguably one of the best first person shooters of all time, Half-life 2? Let’s trade in our rusty old crowbars for gravity guns. Newton would be rolling around in his grave.

INTRO:

• Short cinematic logos
• Simple, minimalist approach to menu layout and options, all of which are very intuitive
• The menu background is an in-engine scene from the point in the game the player is currently saved to… a nice touch to get excitement about a certain area, but contributes a bit of unnecessary load time and should have been toggleable
• Actual intro to game very short as well… light on backstory and gives control to the player within the first minute of the game, and contains no ‘cutscenes’ outside of the player’s perspective, a definite plus for immersion; credits displayed in same minimalist fashion as game is being played

GETTING GOING:

• Masterful introduction sans enemies and weaponry gets the player into the atmosphere and offers context while still allowing the player to have control
• New controls and elements are presented only when necessary over the course of the game, and often accompany some sort of instruction from NPCs (the introduction of the gravity gun or the use of ‘bugbait’ are examples that are perhaps a bit long and “tutorial-y”, but still feel fun to play around with and feel like part of the game world)
• Goals were not immediately apparent, but I believe that was by design, since your character is dropped into an unfamiliar world and only later receives goals (usually from NPCs) about where to go next
• Being pushed or tasered by enemies early on creates an impression of oppression and clearly delineates them as ‘guys I will want to kill’, while masking the linearity of the introduction’s level design
• Being weaponless at the start of the game gave Valve a chance to evoke a feeling of panic and powerlessness as the player is chased and in peril

FUN:

• Constantly shaking up the approach to gameplay between combat, puzzles, and special tasks (i.e. vehicle sections) in a good ebb and flow; the game never slows down for long, but doesn’t seem utterly relentless either
• The process within each section seems to flow in this way: Exploration, Avoidance/Pursuit, Reversal/Reward, Revenge

• This formula works well to change up the emotional response to the game between wonder, fear, relief, and catharsis

VISUALS:

• Constant visual presence of the Citadel creates oppression and also reminder of ultimate goal; use of fog to obscure the top of the Citadel gives a sense of massive scale
• Pathways seem open until you get up close and are blocked off by forcefield, giving the impression from a distance of an unrestricted, full world
• More visual cues to properly direct the player would have been helpful, particularly in the fast-paced boat chase
• ‘Blinding light at the end of tunnels’ fading into the outer world, particularly to mask loading levels, felt cheesy and revealed the artifice… It’s a pretty and flashy effect, yes, but I would have instead integrated more curves in tunnels or a one-way ramp that launched the player to the other side, loading a new level immediately before landing

INTELLIGENCE:

• Enemies are suitably varied in intelligence, with dumb ‘zombies’ to smart aircraft that try to shoot down your rockets, to giant enemies that rely on tiny portable ‘eyes’ to ‘see’ you
• Combine troops seemed to run very basic attack patterns except in particular scripted segments, and all seemed interchangeable and faceless
• ‘Main’ allies are nicely expressive and have distinct personalities but generic allies are also interchangeable and dumb enough to get in your way (why oh why was the ‘use allies’ hook placed in a close-quarters, room-to-room combat section of the game?!)
• For the maniacal among us, unimportant allies should be killable by the player just like the scientist slaughter in HL1
• Once you realize that your important allies like Barney are nigh-indestructible, there’s really no sense of danger and urgency… “Oh, just let Barney take care of that room.”

IMMERSION:

• Very immersive experience with a huge time-suck capability
• Always dangles a carrot and with few exceptions never suffers from the ‘where-to next’ frustration… part of this, though, is the result of linearity (albeit done well)
• Feels like a fully-realized world with a unique setting; even sound effects (like the monotone female or Breen’s speeches) contribute to the sense of a ‘living, breathing world’
• Avoids feeling linear by offering multiple solutions to a linear problem, particularly in making creative (and personalized) use of the gravity gun
• Lots of little level loads, instead of a few large loads, only work (as they did in HL1) when the load times are short, but in HL2 they are long enough to suck you out of the experience for those crucial extra seconds

CAMERA:

• Standard FPS camera means no big problems, and no big innovations… never, ever leaves the FP perspective
• The zoom feature is good, but I found myself wishing I could use it in conjunction with various weapons to pick off enemies from a distance, instead of being limited to the crossbow’s secondary fire mode zoom

CONTROLS:

• Standard, good FPS controls
• The separate button for switching to the gravity gun was immensely helpful, but then pressing ‘last weapon’ hotkey twice returns you to gravity gun… it would’ve been better if the gravity gun was completely separate from the ‘last weapon’ system, so I could switch between two useful weapons and the gravity gun at will
• Responsive and consistent movement, always felt as though if I missed a jump, it was because I mistimed or didn’t have enough speed, not because of lax controls
• Interface is minimalist (detecting a theme here) but functional
• Auxiliary meter controlling sprinting, flashlight, and oxygen is economical in terms of what the player has to keep track of, but doesn’t exactly make sense, particularly since I can’t hold my breath for longer than a few seconds yet still require some sort of power source to do so

IDEAS:

• Most of the pure FPS gameplay is evolutionary, not revolutionary
• But far and away the biggest hook that has been copied from this game is the gravity gun and use of physics in gameplay decisions, fundamentally altering how a player can approach combat and offering a lot of fun, “Wow! I just totally did that!” moments
• Not much is customizable beyond that, however, and the game turns out to be a mostly linear, albeit exceptionally well well-crafted, FPS experience
• Kudos to Valve in making ‘hidden ammo/health caches’ seem a natural fit in the world and not just shoehorned, by capitalizing on the ‘hidden resistance movement’ justification for why there are stashes of helpful items around

MEMORY:

This game sucks you into its world and makes you hungry to unravel its cryptic plot details. I found myself wanting to complete more of the game to see how it would change next, and wanting to finally get to the Citadel, which seemed like an inevitable goal. I wanted to fight the striders I saw in the opening moments, and most of all, I wanted to tell my friends about how I cut zombies in half with the gravity gun and a sawblade, as well as other great gravity-based achievements.