By John Walker on December 19th, 2007 at 4:07 pm.
The handsome fellows at PC Gamer have posted my interview with David Speyrer – project lead on Half-Life 2: Episode Two – up on their website. You may remember a few weeks back we posted the bits that were left over. Well, here’s the cream of the interview for your eye-based enjoyment.
Illustrative excerpt:
That seems like quite an achievement. Companions tend to be infuriating. How did you avoid this with Alyx?
Speyrer: Alyx doesn’t generally dictate the pace of your forward progress through the game. When she does that, it feels like she’s playing the game and you’re the tag-along. We learned this in Episode One, and applied it in Ep Two as well. The player should dictate the pace of moving through the game.
Read the rest here.
Wait.. does that say ‘it’s annoying when Alyx dictates the pace, so we applied that to Episode 2 after it’s success in 1′? I’m confused :(
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I like my Minerva approach – if the player isn’t going quickly enough, INSULT THEM SOME MORE!
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Garth -> play with the commentary mode on.
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I think it’s more a case that Alyx vocalise’s the intention ‘Gordon we need to get to blah’ but it’s you as Gordon that dictates the route. Interesting interview though. :)
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Hey Cargo Cult, are you saying you made a Half-Life mod then?
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As much as I adore the Minerva approach, it simply wouldn’t work for Alyx because she has to be likable for the game to work.
I suppose Minerva is likable as well, but in a different way…sort of. I really should play Metastasis again. Minerva is one of the most interesting and best written characters in any game.
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@John Walker:
What, you don’t know Minerva: Metastasis?
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