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Comment by aequitas | Hacker News Reader

I can advise anyone to (re)play these games with the developer commentary on. It goes into a lot of details on technical and game design stuff and really lets you experience the game with a whole different view. Like how certain parts of the map are setup to teach certain mechanics and the huge role gametesting played in determining the final layout of the game.

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The part in the dev commentary that during play testing they found that players tend to never look up unless prompted is ingrained in my brain forever. I always look up now :)

In games or in life? There are so many skylights and other things that I've missed for years in a real life building and then one day I look up. On multiple occasions I'll ask the person I'm with if that skylight, chandelier, etc has always been there.

For games this one surprised me given just how many times I've stood right under it... https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/3g6dh9/has...

A friend of mine used to be a rather... prolific graffiti artist and he once explained to me how, once he's up on a scaffold somewhere, he can basically do whatever he wants because nobody bothers to look up. So I'd say it's true in real life too.

Both!

Of course I don't walk around staring at the sky or anything, I'm sure I miss stuff all the time too. Always a 'whoa' moment when you do remember though.

I used to live smack-bang in the middle of the Red Light District in Amsterdam on the 3rd floor, and no one ever looked up. I guess if you put enough action street level it doesn’t cross their mind to consider looking up. Made for some great people watching.

I noticed that tourists and people new to the area are the only ones looking up. I sometimes force myself to look up, which helps me appreciate the beautiful city around me.

As Half-Life 2 itself did not have a developer commentary, I personally recommend checking the book "Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar," and, if you really want to do a deep and lengthy dive into the particulars of HL2's level design, check out Robert Yang's commentary-driven playthrough of HL2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VheYcG2T5qw

I would LOVE to play with that. How do you turn developer commentary on?

I believe it is an option in the settings or during start of the game in main menu. During the game speechbubbles will appear with which you activate the commentary.

There is also the Lost Coast 'episode' which is more of a tech demo instead of a game but really worth to play through as well.

https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Developer_commentary

Enjoy!

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