I mean look, no one can really claim explosive barrels are the peak of game level design. But the only interactions in the first 3 hours of that game were “Use pistol on headcrab/barnacle”. HL2 kept you to a pistol, but it also teased you into shooting the environment more than the cops, even if in retrospect they were being happily suicidal for Overwatch. It was a lesson in the kinds of variety other FPS’s tend to inject at around the 20 minute mark by giving you a shotgun at least.
That part where you slide them down for the barnacles to grab before you explode the barrels on them is such great game design
That shit made me kind of hate Half-Life: Alyx.
I mean look, no one can really claim explosive barrels are the peak of game level design. But the only interactions in the first 3 hours of that game were “Use pistol on headcrab/barnacle”. HL2 kept you to a pistol, but it also teased you into shooting the environment more than the cops, even if in retrospect they were being happily suicidal for Overwatch. It was a lesson in the kinds of variety other FPS’s tend to inject at around the 20 minute mark by giving you a shotgun at least.