Gordon of Arabia

Valve aren't doing enough. Yeah, Robin Walker is right in admitting "Right now, we're really, really good at making Half Life 2" but that's exactly why they should push it further than ammo crates and crowbars. Valve could be the developer that makes a game to really turn outsider's heads, who'd say, "If that's a computer game, I'll eat my hat. The one that says 'Games are limited stupidity for children' in big felt letters."

It's fine to stick with the same technology, it's by no means lacking, yet. But more of the same? Exactly the same? There's no excuse for such shameless stretching. The first game - Ok, so we want to make a really good first person shooter. Tick. Second game - Whoa, could we do it again? Next gen style? Look! We can add twiddly bits and re-define the genre! Tick.

The time is now, Gabe. You're riding on a wave of vast success; six Baftas, a publisher destroying distribution system, a huge, loyal audience base and a solid engine. If there's ever been a better position for a developer to do something really, really wild, I'd like to see it.

So carry on with Gordon and co, that's fine. But lets do something interesting with the content. Lets put in some seamless character interaction maybe. Lets make the escape out of City 17 and across the badlands into a vast epic. We can have some shooting along the way, defending the human convoy against the creatures of the flats, some hostile outback towns perhaps. But lets add some complexity.

You are the Shepard of the straggling survivors of the carnage. Alyx is injured early on and is carried in one of the makeshift wagons that make up the trail. More able citizens ride other machines or walk along side. Replacing destructive hardware, your default usage becomes an initially clumsy pair of hands. Actions like tying ropes, soldering metal or tending to the injured are managed with fluid, integral player-skill movements.* The various wheeled elements of your precession are physically governed - bits of scrap metal, armaments, tyres, perhaps even suspension can be added or swapped out of the wagons with rubbish you find on your travels. Each must be attached physically, and as best you can using the limited adhesives around you, again through the player-skill manipulation interface of dexterity.

Navigation across the open, barren (but far from empty) wastes is managed on the map screen. Send search parties looking for water, enemies, supplies, and outposts/settlements with simple commands, or do it yourself selecting members of your teams to assist you, riding your rag-tag, self-fashioned vehicles.

At the same time as manually adapting and maintaining your vehicles, re-supplying, planning your journey, scavenging, raiding and fighting off attackers, the recovering Alyx has to be tended to. How high your priority of defending and attending to the needs of Eli's daughter, as well as your performance in frequent, (subtle) optional choice dialogue scenarios attribute to her loyalty to you. Defend her not only from attack, but from Barney’s rival advances.

You could construct a tower on your flagship vehicle. Spread out the base with a longer axel you’ve found, then erect some piping, bit of structure, and a short ladder. You’d have a watch post to snipe or defend from.

Nights spent guarding the sleeping heroine in the rattling frame of her lightly armoured cart, threadbare curtains swaying with the movement and the dim light illuminating her strained features, you think about those trailer guide ropes that need replacing. Peering out from a viewing strip you made by re-attaching an upper corrugated iron slat with a gap between it and the lower one, you wonder: how many more miles for water? Ammo? Just then, she mumbles some sleep-bound incoherence. She just drank half an hour ago, you think. Food, maybe. A simple directional mouse gesture towards her nose with a spoonful of rice in your weather beaten (now gloveless) hands produces a slightly positive countenance. You move the mouse down a bit, she eats a few grains. For added effect you could mutter a silent 'Not far now,' or 'Nearly day light'.
Through the slats, you see a citizen jogs past, moving up the line. His face is barely visible for the dust guarding cloth around his head but he sees you as he passes, nodding an accustomed, "sir", on his way.

So yes. Gordon of Arabia, if you will. Nothing Source can't handle with some quick optimisations, and it’s not even far off the standard FPS mark. A year's concentrated work for Valve would be my approximation. I'd play it.




*On “fluid, integral player-skill movements”, I avoid the word ‘mini-game’ because that immediately suggests a dull formality - cute interface disguising a tedious pac-man or tetris clone.

I hazard using the term ‘gestural’, but that suggests more boredom, only synonymous with Black and White this time. These systems would be quick: painless but requiring practice to perfect. Also visually un-intruded by overlays or anything outside the standard view.