Playing Half Life 2 for the first time.

Below is a copy of the post Richie made on his personal blog about playing through Half Life 2 for the first time.

Looking at Half Life 2 with new eyes

—or—

How come I can’t play games the way I used to before I started developing…

Well I started a blog. Then I did not write anything for months.

I am not sure if writing this article will jumpstart my blog activity again, but I am compelled to write something after finally playing Half Life 2 for the first time.

Some things to mention before I begin.

I have never played the original Half Life.
I have missed out on most of the PC gaming culture in my life, other than Jeopardy for Dos. (Great game!)
After playing Portal and HL2 this past week, my Valve gaming experience is now Portal, HL2 and Left For Dead.
I have played all of these games on Xbox 360.

note: HL2 is a fairly very large game. And I assume there are countless articles out there about HL2. My interest is to discuss one specific aspect of the game that I found one of the most successful and detrimental to my experience.

HL2 gives the player a wonderful feeling of choice and freedom for such a linear experience. There are numerous ways the game elicits this, a few being: branching paths where all lead to one place or only one path/option moves the game forward, the choice of whether to fight or run (no corridor waves for me thank you) and finally the confidence Valve gives me, that I can solve the puzzles without them holding my hand.

This last characteristic of HL2, the confidence in me as player, is what I find the most intriguing aspect of the game. To expand the thought further, I am given a somewhat ambiguous situation and asked to hypothesize what I need to do to progress and then find a way to interact with the world to realize my hypothesis thereby discovering the answer.

To illustrate this point I will use 3 case studies from the game and discuss their relative strengths and weakness.

Case 1: A simple test in buoyancy

Somewhat early on in the game the player is traveling through the viaducts on a waterboat. The player gets to a point where the path forward is blocked by a wall. A ramp must be used to jump the wall, however the ramp is out of position. To solve the problem the player must collect a number of floating barrels in the water and place them under the ramp to reposition it and move forward.

Strengths:

HL2 does a great job of introducing ramps before this point both as a way to become airborne and then as a method to progress forward.
The puzzle is in a fairly small area, and does not require long traversal to test the hypothesis “can I use these barrels”
A path next to the ramp leads to a lone barrel which overlooks the puzzle, giving importance to this barrel as something necessary and framing it in the location it needs to be used.
Swimming has already been established.

Weaknesses:

The area leading up to this puzzle is quite large and takes a while to fully explore.
Many times the player must find a small entrance or climb something to progress. In such a large open space the player may feel overwhelmed as to what the answer is and spend an inordinate amount of time driving around looking at walls.
The idea of swimming down with a barrel, and barrels ability to modify the game world, has not been established. (At least in my playthrough)

Overall I felt this puzzle worked fairly well. I did not backtrack and instead investigated the area solving the problem rather quickly. Because the game gave me the freedom to discover, the payoff was very rewarding to me.

Case 2: I actually operated a tower crane once!

Later in the game the player is driving a buggy. This area feels very similar to the waterboat sequence. Both feature large open spaces gated by areas that must be “completed”. At one point in this game sequence, the player finds themselves forced to leave the buggy and proceed on foot as it is the only option to progress. A depot with enemy soldiers stands in between the player and their goal and a large crane stands prominently in the scene. The solution is to use the crane to knock over a bridge and then lift the buggy up onto the platform.

Strengths:

The player has already seen one of these cranes, how they operate, and that they can lift the buggy up onto and off of platforms.
Because the bridge is up, the player is effectively led to the crane ladder and subsequently the crane.
The payoff of discovery is very rewarding. Knocking over the bridge and lifting the buggy are nice gameplay one offs.
Operating the crane is very enjoyable: it presents a different perspective on the world and a different game mechanic.
Operating the crane gives the player power not otherwise experienced–moving objects normally too heavy to move.

Weaknesses:

There is a lot of area to traverse if the player is unsure of what to do: i.e. considerable amounts of running with little to no action.
As a player used to contemporary games, I did not think to pick the buggy up with the crane because it seemed too “far fetched”. By this I mean many FPS games I have played recently explicitly tell the player what to do, which I guess has conditioned me to eliminate options that do not seem “reasonable” (whatever the hell that means ?!?)
It can be a bit tricky to operate the crane which means the time it may take a player to test a hypothesis is quite long.

Overall this was one of my most memorable events from the game. I wasted a good bit of time after knocking over the bridge running around before realizing I needed to use the crane to pull the buggy up. I chalk this down to two things: One is that I just assumed the game would not have me do that, (it requires a bit of faith by the developers) and two the area above the crane did not look buggy friendly and so I assumed the buggy could not be there. Once I did solve the puzzle I had a great feeling of accomplishment and respect for the way the game lets me play it.

Case 3: WTF

Okay. I know HL2 is from 2004. And I know making games is a tremendous endeavor. I also know that what I am about to harp on is a progression technique we are using for the game we are developing for the University of Kentucky. All things considered…

Sometimes I felt the free nature of puzzles and progression in HL2 was its greatest curse. At one point in the game I was storming the prison, Nova Prospect. Alex was leading me through and I got to the point where I was clueless as to what to do and ran around for a considerable amount of time. Turns out all I had to do was pick up a damn turret.

Strengths:

Again the game gives the player the freedom to play it.
Turrets have already been introduced as something to pick up and place.
The area is not very large, so trying to find possible solutions exhausts itself in a reasonable amount of time.

Weaknesses:

I found no reason to pick up the turret. Alyx was leading me and established that role of order and obey. She did not order me to pick up the turret (unless I missed it) and no enemies were around or incoming so I felt no motivation to set up defenses.
There were a few areas that were hard to access but could be accessed with the gravity gun and crates, which I spent a great deal of time trying to access as I thought these places were the way forward.
Picking up a turret to move the game forward when there is no reason to pick up the turret just sucks 🙂

This last case illustrates my major issue with the way HL2 gives the player freedom through developer confidence. By this point in the game I had come to expect 2 things: One that any possible solution should be considered and two, that generally solutions make logical sense. I found this case to be problematic because of the first rule and break the second rule. I had used so many devices to solve puzzles up to this point I was trying every possible means to move forward. I saw the turrets early on but because I found no reason to set them up I did not consider this the way to move the game forward.

Numerous times in the game my sense of immersion and enjoyment was broken by a confusion on how to progress which devolved into me running around looking in every corner, stacking every box, retreading ground over and over to find the one thing necessary to progress.

As a game developer my takeaway is the question of balance. How can I design game situations for the player to minimize the fracturing of immersion while presenting the freedom of playing the game as I want to, as opposed to the developer forcing me to play their way (even if it is mostly an illusion).

I found HL2 to be an amazing game. I am critical because I want to be a better developer and game designer. Writing this helps me work out thoughts in my own mind. I also hope some others may chime in for feedback, comments, criticisms.

Hats off to you Valve. Just don’t make me pick up a hat to progress a story without logical reason.

Pjchardt