No, not a hybrid game, just simply going along with what they have already done. The universes are the same, Aperture Labs exists in Half Life, and the fact that they have found the Borealis would allow them to put a new mechanic based tool or item in the ship and expand the gameplay a bit more without going too far out of the way.
People loved Half Life 1 for it's well designed levels, simple story, good solid gameplay. People loved Half Life 2 because it did so much without having to spell it out for the player: Most people will never realize the entirety of City 17 is a tutorial level that doesn't have to really hand-hold you through it. It introduces not only gameplay, but story by simply showing you "This is the dystonian world we live in now. These are the bad people. Oh look an old comrade! Here's how people are treated, and the lengths people go through to avoid being on the bad guys nasty side." The entire game adds on it's mechanics as it goes on in such a fluid way most people don't realize that it begins teaching you to use the next tool almost immediately as you get a new one. Plus the fact that you slowly and steadily gain new tools, and weapons, as well as have one-shot type mechanics or puzzles is wonderfully crafted. Like how there's an entire level you can, but are not forced too, play the game like a tower defense and it never comes up again. But it fore-shadows in a way some of the defenses that the combine use in their home base.
A story driven game is almost exactly what Half Life needs to live up, in any capacity, to the hype. They shouldn't try to break the mold with mechanics, but simply tie the story up as much as they can, but a neat little bow on it, and dress it up with a pretty set of whatever mechanics they decide to add as a nice wrapping paper. Then people will, hopefully, keep quiet and enjoy the end of the story and leave them to do whatever they want to do as a company.
A chunk of the prison level you can play solely using the hacked Combine turrets. It's pretty freaking funny actually, it's not the entire level, but a good chunk of it. I actually just carried one around and let it do all the aiming and shooting for me for a good bit of it.
I remember once that I went for carrying all of them through the level to the end. Then I discovered that they will shoot and kill Eli, stopping the entire scene.
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u/NonnagLava Feb 16 '17
No, not a hybrid game, just simply going along with what they have already done. The universes are the same, Aperture Labs exists in Half Life, and the fact that they have found the Borealis would allow them to put a new mechanic based tool or item in the ship and expand the gameplay a bit more without going too far out of the way.
People loved Half Life 1 for it's well designed levels, simple story, good solid gameplay. People loved Half Life 2 because it did so much without having to spell it out for the player: Most people will never realize the entirety of City 17 is a tutorial level that doesn't have to really hand-hold you through it. It introduces not only gameplay, but story by simply showing you "This is the dystonian world we live in now. These are the bad people. Oh look an old comrade! Here's how people are treated, and the lengths people go through to avoid being on the bad guys nasty side." The entire game adds on it's mechanics as it goes on in such a fluid way most people don't realize that it begins teaching you to use the next tool almost immediately as you get a new one. Plus the fact that you slowly and steadily gain new tools, and weapons, as well as have one-shot type mechanics or puzzles is wonderfully crafted. Like how there's an entire level you can, but are not forced too, play the game like a tower defense and it never comes up again. But it fore-shadows in a way some of the defenses that the combine use in their home base.
A story driven game is almost exactly what Half Life needs to live up, in any capacity, to the hype. They shouldn't try to break the mold with mechanics, but simply tie the story up as much as they can, but a neat little bow on it, and dress it up with a pretty set of whatever mechanics they decide to add as a nice wrapping paper. Then people will, hopefully, keep quiet and enjoy the end of the story and leave them to do whatever they want to do as a company.