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 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.