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Trying to imagine playing this, it sounds like they were struggling to get it "right", and it may have kept feeling like a poor cousin of other games. In compar

Trying to imagine playing this, it sounds like they were struggling to get it "right", and it may have kept feeling like a poor cousin of other games. In comparison to HL1 & 2, the plot seems a bit slow-starting, ends on an actual anti-climax instead of a cruelly-interrupted climax, and the game mechanics (snow/stealth, map phasing, time bubbles) seem to suffer from other recent games having done variations on these very well. Add the inherent disappointment of not having the portal gun that everyone's expecting to be in there somewhere, and it could feel like it was bound to disappoint. HL1 & HL2 did a very good job of switching genres and game mechanics from level to level, while still keeping everything clear and centred on a simple familiar mystery plot. The levels were able to establish their genres very fast -- usually from the first scene you saw as the doors opened or you rounded a corner. Everything was clear, and in both cases the motivating story was very simple, and the "plot" was setting. You've got to get help; you've got to get to Lambda Complex, We've got to get you through the portal to shoot what's on the other side... This HL3 plot seems to have got a bit "Lost" (sorry, tv series reference) as people's motivations are uncertain and there's exposition, and an attempt to partially unfold the mystery while always adding new ones... and still trying to make those bug-pod things work as a villain that didn't work in Ep1 or Ep2. Still, the bones of a good game are there. From my amateur eyes, it just looks like it needed to stop trying to resist/subvert the viewer's expectations, and just hit a few of the notes the player's been waiting for so they can have a note of satisfaction on the way to the new mystery.

hacker_9 9y ago
No game mechanics are mentioned in the story, so why wouldn't there be a portal gun? Extrapolating, if one is in a time travelling ship, the portal gun could actually generate portals between different time dimensions, and I can already think of a ton of gameplay ideas that could use this concept.
- Balgair 9y ago
  Using the portal gun to not only jump through space, but time as well? Ummm, YES! The 'structure' of the puzzles you could use that with would need to be very tightly controlled (enemy position vectors, amount you can travel backwards in time, maybe some sort of energy mechanic you have to pick up as you go along, etc). But still, WOW! Jumping back to the start of a level at the very end and you must manipulate time to accomplish the level, there is a LOT of possibility to talk about there. I have no idea what jumping forward in time would look like except if you went back, say 5 minutes, and then you could only go forward again up to that 5 min mark. However, you can't use this in a PvP manner very well, only co-op. Maybe you could have the players ALL jump back in time except the user of the time device who got to essentially teleport around. However, the cheesing of that mechanic would be frustrating in the extreme.
  - adamrezich 9y ago
    You should check out the Titanfall 2 campaign. They do a thing like this and it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a shooter.
    - Balgair 9y ago
      I wish I could!

hacker_9 9y ago

No game mechanics are mentioned in the story, so why wouldn't there be a portal gun? Extrapolating, if one is in a time travelling ship, the portal gun could actually generate portals between different time dimensions, and I can already think of a ton of gameplay ideas that could use this concept.

Balgair 9y ago
Using the portal gun to not only jump through space, but time as well? Ummm, YES! The 'structure' of the puzzles you could use that with would need to be very tightly controlled (enemy position vectors, amount you can travel backwards in time, maybe some sort of energy mechanic you have to pick up as you go along, etc). But still, WOW! Jumping back to the start of a level at the very end and you must manipulate time to accomplish the level, there is a LOT of possibility to talk about there. I have no idea what jumping forward in time would look like except if you went back, say 5 minutes, and then you could only go forward again up to that 5 min mark. However, you can't use this in a PvP manner very well, only co-op. Maybe you could have the players ALL jump back in time except the user of the time device who got to essentially teleport around. However, the cheesing of that mechanic would be frustrating in the extreme.
- adamrezich 9y ago
  You should check out the Titanfall 2 campaign. They do a thing like this and it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen in a shooter.
  - Balgair 9y ago
    I wish I could!