Hobie-wan wrote:
The problem is that it suddenly goes from FPS to first person platformer. When you can't see your feet that's a problem. Mirror's Edge is the only game that's really done first person platforming decently, and you can see your limbs there.
I like HL1, but the Xen jumping stuff is the least enjoyable part of the game.
There's that, and I think there's also a shift backwards in terms of game design. Part of what Half-Life did at the time was present things more logically. You weren't going to find a gun on a pedestal that rose up out of a giant pool of acid, or run over health vials sitting in the middle of the hall. If more soldiers appear, they're getting choppered in or something. Then they were fighting tactically, with AI that stood out.
Xen, or the alien stuff in general as you were getting there, had more of the older-style enemies spawning in behind you, mobs of enemies rushing you, that kind of thing.
Plenty of games seem to do that anyway, trying to throw off the player by shifting combat style, but it nearly always sucks. Mutants in Far Cry or aliens in Crysis, later-game enemy types in all the Uncharted games so far (less so in 2 and 3), etc.
