Little oxygen...

[tehsolace]

In HL2 I noticed that you don't have as much time to swim underwater as you did in HL1... and then I remember reading something about how the combine made the air on earth harder to breathe or something? Am I putting two and two together correctly, or did they just change your oxygen-time lower for gameplay?

 

[kupocake]

Well, it was probably a gameplay point. HL2 doesn't have big expanses of water, or at least, big expanses of water you actually have to traverse (think HL1's Dam or the flooded sections of Aprehension). In order to make suffocation still a hazard, they therefore had to give you less time underwater to complete your tasks. Also, HEV auxilery power for Sprinting, Oxygen and the Flashlight is as one... it kind of makes sense, but it's actually kind of annoying (Dark underwater tunnels + hazardous submerged time = problems. That said, it's not as if there's actually anything underwater that can kill you).

Still, the air being harder to breathe plot element would cover as a reason for why you get less oxygen in the water, but it's not entirely clear whether this is still the case anyway. The quality of the air appears to be linked in with Eli's Briefing scene and, more importantly, the Air Exchange plant. With both levels cut, the air quality concept doesn't appear (as far as I remember) in the game. Could still be true, after all the Combine certainly appear to be doing nasty things to the earth: water levels have fallen hence why all the docks are dry, giving Valve a nice excuse for the lack of the long stretches of water mentioned above, and the Citadel definately eats up the cities in some kind of resourcing capacity...

 

[tehsolace]

Well, it was probably a gameplay point. HL2 doesn't have big expanses of water, or at least, big expanses of water you actually have to traverse (think HL1's Dam or the flooded sections of Aprehension). In order to make suffocation still a hazard, they therefore had to give you less time underwater to complete your tasks. Also, HEV auxilery power for Sprinting, Oxygen and the Flashlight is as one... it kind of makes sense, but it's actually kind of annoying (Dark underwater tunnels + hazardous submerged time = problems. That said, it's not as if there's actually anything underwater that can kill you).

Still, the air being harder to breathe plot element would cover as a reason for why you get less oxygen in the water, but it's not entirely clear whether this is still the case anyway. The quality of the air appears to be linked in with Eli's Briefing scene and, more importantly, the Air Exchange plant. With both levels cut, the air quality concept doesn't appear (as far as I remember) in the game. Could still be true, after all the Combine certainly appear to be doing nasty things to the earth: water levels have fallen hence why all the docks are dry, giving Valve a nice excuse for the lack of the long stretches of water mentioned above, and the Citadel definately eats up the cities in some kind of resourcing capacity...

Yea you have good points... it could very well been purely for gameplay when you consider the types of water moments you have in the game.