You walk up to a holographic interface, buzzing with life as a woman in a HEV suit welcomes you to the training course. You’re new, and before you get your hands dirty dealing with the otherworldly experiments in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Half-Life’s story, you have to know the basics. For a scientist in a top-secret facility underground in New Mexico, far off the beaten track, that means handling a 🉐gun, diving under giant pipes, and learning to use a state of the art jump pack. It’s a bit extreme for an egghead, but you don&rsqu🧔o;t want to crack under the pressure.
Half-Life’s opening is a br♏illiant tram ride through a facility to show that this isn’t just another arena shooter with a vague plot stringing together rooms full of demons, but a living, breathing world. However, we’re still a blank canvas protagonist who can conquer insurmountable odds despite being 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a 𓂃completely ordinary person w💧ith a ponytail. The training course gives that opening more context and subst⭕ance. He’s prepared and knows how to handle a top-of-the-line arsenal, so it’s no wonder he so readily picked up a crowbar and went to town on those headcrabs.
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Four mandatory tutorials off the bat sur💧e is a way to open a game.
We see where one of the missing HEV suits has gone, learn the ins and outs o♋f gameplay, and get to see another side of Black Mesa before it’s under siege by a fleeing alien army. It lets you peer into the satirical tone before the world comes crashing down, preparing you for the story as much as for 💯which buttons to push. It’s how a tutorial should be - an organic introduction rather than a hand-holding string of lessons clearly directed by the developers.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Helldivers 2 is the closest a tutorial has come in 26 years to capturing Half-Life’s spirit. Clearly inspired by Starship Troopers, the war ꧅effort against the bug swarm is getting out of hand and foot soldiers are desperately needed. There’s no time to spend years training the best, so rookies are thrown into haphaza⭕rd obstacle courses, barreling through the basics, and hoping it’s enough.
Where Half-Life has scientists peering in from windows, scribbling notes as Gordon fails the same jump ten times, Helldivers 2 has the training sergeant yelling comma🍌nds like an over the top Full Metal Jacke🐎t parody. It sets the tone of a clear satire on the military-industrial complex, poking fun at the macho bravado of the soldier life.
We’re introduced to a cardboard cutout squadmate who, with a glint in their fiberboard eyes, says they’re happy to meet us. Only to be blown up moments later as the drill instructor gleefully teaches us that our friends will die.
A tutorial could all too easily fall into the trap of laying out commands like a robot, telling us X does Y and having us do it three times to complete a quota🦋. Well done, you’ve learned something. But Helldivers 2 uses this moment to teach us how to revive𝄹 fallen comrades by calling for reinforcements, while simultaneously setting the stage for its world.
Here&rsquo🍌;s your REAL lesson, soldier: squadmates can and will perish tragically all the time.
The callousness of the people in charge sending countless newbies to die on the frontlines, telling us to get over it and bury our feelings, immediately clues yoꩵu in on Helldiver 2’s personality. Like Half-Life, we’re learning about💞 the world as much as we are the mechanics, and it’s far more memorable than a pop-up telling us what to do.
The sergeant brings so much to the table, much as holographic Gina did, remarking that this obstacle course is definitely realistic and absolutely training us for the real deal, because alien bugs stand still and are kept in enclosures so that we have timꦰe to hurl grenades at them. It’s a level of self-awareness that fits Helldivers 2’s narrative, matching the cutscenes and news broadcasts littered throughout its story.
The last thing you want from a tutorial is to be bored. They should ease you into a game but still entertain, otherwise it’s a slog you’re dragged through before you get to the action. Like anything in life, first impressions for a game are vital, and a slow patronising crawl doesn’t instil hope. But all these years later, I have fond memories of Half-Life’s tutorial, and I’ve no doubt I’ll cherish my first time on Helldivers 2’s obstacle course, because both made the mundane a𝕴n interesting part of their worlds.
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With so many great games on the horizon but no generati💫on defining classic waiting in the wings, GOTY 2024 could be the closest race yet
