Tieno said:
Finished the HL2 segment
When you guys started talking about the portal gun in Episode 3, combining it with combine/firefights it reminded me of the Portal 2 and Episode 1 and 2 commentary where it becomes really clear just how much attention they spend to teaching the player. A large portion of Portal is you learning the gun.
Now for Valve to introduce it in Episode 3, let alone layer it on top of the existing gameplay, can and will they assume that people played Portal and know the device?
They'll probably have to teach it to you before you get to do 'cool' stuff with it and it'd surprise me if they'd be able to do that within the span of a level/limited time like someone suggest it'd be if Valve put the portal gun in the game.
Well, as long as we're discussing the actual podcast. Warning: spoilers below of games nearly everyone in this thread has played.
On the feeling in many games of being in an artificial line of boxes, or being able to see the level design in an FPS as you play [Halo is famously the worst example of this happening in a great game]: I agree that the Half Life games avoid this feeling, for the most part. In part, I think it's because Valve does an excellent, excellent job with their art design, making every building look unique and solid--as opposed to Halo's "Ramp Style A, Turret Placement B" routine. But for me that only holds for Half Life when the game is set outside. I don't mean to re-start the debates over Episode 1, but I found the garage/elevator stuff in that game to be extremely frustrating, not because it was difficult but because it was so contrived. All I could think about while playing was the level designers choosing to put enemies or supplies in certain places, turn off the lights, etc. For similar reasons, I didn't care for the 'big bridge' puzzle in Episode 2. I was stuck for a minute, until I realized that it was a Half Life game, and that realization in itself told me how to solve the puzzle; every damn puzzle in the series, it seems, is a lever puzzle. Just sometimes they get dressed up differently [the grenade jump puzzle is a good example of this]. Since I was playing straight through Eps 1 and 2 in the Orange Box for the first time [I don't own a gaming PC], after playing Ep 1, I was very nervous about Ep 2's Ant Lion section, but that turned out about as well as it could have, I think. The emotional tension in that part of the story helped a whole lot.
I have all proper respect for the Half Life games, in part because I think that Alyx has become the best character in the history of games [she also blows away nearly every female character in movies and TV, not that that's saying much]. I just wouldn't put level design at the top of my reasons way. In penance for disagreeing with GFW on the reasons for HL's greatness, I shall now go write a glowing review on iTunes.
Edit: Review posted under a clever pseudonym.
