Half Life 2's story is awesome

[kingcomrade]

It's hardcore, because you have to go read the half life 2 wiki to read the conjecture by random people on what it might all be about. It's really deep. For example Gordon Freeman is a metaphor for menstruation. Think about it. The Conclave is like a controlling mother, and Gordon makes it bleed by killing its soldiers (who bleed blood when shot FYI)

 

[Konjad]

Please, leave.

 

[relootz]

Can it still post coherent things?

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

Yeah, Half-Life story fanboys are pretty annoying. I don't pretend that the storyline is anything special but I do appreciate that Valve at least tried to use the visual aspect of video games to tell the story as much as dialogue.

Were Half-Life 2 a Bioware game, you'd reach Ravenholm, meet Father Grigori, and be treated to a 5 minute monologue, progressing one achingly slow line and camera angle at a time, in which he relates the following:

"We used to be a peaceful mining town, proud and prosperous. Then, the Combine came."

(Dramatic cut to an extreme close-up of Gordon looking concerned in an uncanny valley, impassive way.)

"We tried to resist the Combine but they were too powerful. They laid siege to the town, cutting off all escape."

"We prepared for their inevitable assault, but strangely it never came. Several days went by quietly."

"Then one night we woke to a horrific thunderclap, followed by another, another. It wasn't thunder, but artillery, firing shells out of a nightmare."

"We weren't hit with high-explosives -- no, that would have been a kind of mercy the inhuman Combine is incapable of. We were hit with headcrab dispersal units."

"There was a lull in the firing. Several men, the leaders of our militia, rushed out to assess the damage and get ready in case this shelling was preparatory to a Combine assault. They were first to fall to the headcrabs.

"We heard screams, a shout of 'Headcrabs!', a few bursts of gunfire, and the silence. With horror, we at last realized what the Combine was prepared to inflict upon those who resist."

"The days that followed can hardly be described. The memories are so overwhelming that I can't even begin to recall them."

"Suffice it say, one by one we fell to the headcrabs, hideous ghouls rising where our friends had fallen. Soon, only I remained."

"It is good to see another face, but you cannot stay here: it is far too dangerous. Let me help you, and I can see you to the exit of this tomb; my tomb."

Instead of that long winded crap, Valve just created a ruined mining town, filled it with headcrabs and headcrab zombies, and left head crab dispersal units allover the place. Anyone with two braincells to rub together will then realize that the Combine shelled the shit out of this place, so it must have been resisting, and now it's teeming with zombies.

Using visuals to tell a story in a visual medium: who would've thought it possible?

 

[kingcomrade]

Oh yeah, I don't have any real beefs with the actual game.

 

[Gragt]

Well, at least you succeeded in summoning a Valvefag.

 

[racofer]

Check this page out KC:



Yes it is that gay. On the link I provided it goes straight to the timeline but there's a lot more of faggotry in there than the wiki.

 

[Malakal]

Oh yeah, I don't have any real beefs with the actual game.

This. A nice shooter with nice grafix and interesting enemies. Nothing more.

 

[Rhalle]

Instead of that long winded crap, Valve just created a ruined mining town, filled it with headcrabs and headcrab zombies, and left head crab dispersal units allover the place. Anyone with two braincells to rub together will then realize that the Combine shelled the shit out of this place, so it must have been resisting, and now it's teeming with zombies.

Using visuals to tell a story in a visual medium: who would've thought it possible?

Yep.

All that long-winded crap is exactly right, and it's exactly how your typical RPG maker and player thinks it should be done. They talk you to death with that high-flown, wistful adventure-game boilerplate-- now with cinematics-- that they've gotten so expert at that it seems automatic. Economy of description is not what they do, much less showing instead of telling. And, frankly, good old Bioware has made doing it that way the coin of the consoletarded realm. The first RPG maker to jettison it for a more HL-like visually told story, instead of telling through that invariable High Fantasy Narrative Voice, will be responsible for the next real revolution in RPGs, if one ever comes.

Anyway, an interesting thing-- it always seemed to me, at least-- is that Valve learned to show instead of tell, not from other visual mediums, but from old text adventures, popular with proto-nerds of that generation. In HL/2 I always felt like I was playing Zork or something, that just looking at the screen and into the gameworld was somehow the same as typing Look [insert whatever here]...You look [whatever] and see...etc. etc. etc... They were able to design it in such as way so as to create the illusion that the game was always talking to you, telling you what to do through a sort of text-- despite no text, a mute protagonist and virtually zero narrative exposition.

It's fucking genius.

It saddens me that the Episodes lost that quality in order to make Alyx a virtual girlfriend for consoletards. But what makes Portal awesome is the fact that it participates in that same old Valve silence.

This. A nice shooter with nice grafix and interesting enemies. Nothing more.

Did you play HL when it came out in 1998? I did.

I have never played another game in my whole life-- just old enough to have played them since Pong-- that, while I was playing it, I was overwhelmed with knowing that the game I was experiencing was something very rare indeed. In that regard no other game has come close.

HL/2's story exists, but that it is nebulous and ambiguous doesn't matter a jot. In fact it's better for being just out of reach of many gamers-- as well as totally reachable by no one-- instead of cliche shit tied up in a little package of narrative interpretability.

 

[Gragt]

'Hey, Gordon, wanna sleep with my daughter?"

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

All that long-winded crap is exactly right, and it's exactly how your typical RPG maker and player thinks it should be done. They talk you to death with that high-flown, wistful adventure-game boilerplate-- now with cinematics-- that they've gotten so expert at that it seems automatic. Economy of description is not what they do, much less showing instead of telling. And, frankly, good old Bioware has made doing it that way the coin of the consoletarded realm. The first RPG maker to jettison it for a more HL-like visually told story, instead of telling through that invariable High Fantasy Narrative Voice, will be responsible for the next real revolution in RPGs, if one ever comes.

I really can't play Bioware games anymore for that very reason. I am increasingly suspicious that their writing staff has only ever read Forgotten Realms and Star Wars novels. The only thing they know how to do is plot, plot and more plot. Since the only way they know how to use dialogue is for plot exposition, the characters never have the wonderful opportunity to show who they are by what they think and say. And when the writers do try flesh out a character they still can only think to do it by having another plot dump. Characterization in a Bioware game doesn't come from characters thinking, speaking, and acting in certain ways; it comes from them spending 20 minutes telling you how their daddy molested them as a child. It's just garbage.

For a studio that prides itself on storytelling and "emotionally engaging experiences", they sure no jack shit about writing a story.

 

[roll-a-die]

Hell bethesda, is better at graphical story telling than bioware. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

 

[cutterjohn]

It's hardcore, because you have to go read the half life 2 wiki to read the conjecture by random people on what it might all be about. It's really deep. For example Gordon Freeman is a metaphor for menstruation. Think about it. The Conclave is like a controlling mother, and Gordon makes it bleed by killing its soldiers (who bleed blood when shot FYI)

in before *kingcomrade* !!

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Hell bethesda, is better at graphical story telling than bioware. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Well yes. It's one of Bethesda's stronger points. They did it particularly well in Fallout 3 where many areas had little throwaway stories if you were paying attention. I remember one where it was something along the line of a ramp in the train tunnels, a skeleton underneath a pipe going across the ceiling past the ramp, and then a motorcycle a bit farther than that. Silly shit like that helps make up for some derp.

 

[Metro]

I actually do think the story is fairly interesting -- not to be confused with whatever nonsensical tangent you're going off on with metaphors and such.

 

[DraQ]

Yeah, Half-Life story fanboys are pretty annoying. I don't pretend that the storyline is anything special but I do appreciate that Valve at least tried to use the visual aspect of video games to tell the story as much as dialogue.

*blablabla*

Using visuals to tell a story in a visual medium: who would've thought it possible?

This.

 

[Malakal]

@Rhalle

Yes, I did play HL when it first came out. It was impressive but not because of gameplay but because it was the first FPS I played that tried to have a story. But here we are talking about HL2, that is one thing, and secondly the story wasnt very good anyway, but it was there in the first place.

 

[Squirly]

Who the hell holds a crowbar like that?

 

[Lyric Suite]

The original Half Life was awesome. It had that show, don't tell mechanic developed to perfection. The sequel was inferior in almost all respects and would have been quite worthless as a game if it wasn't for the high production values. The most impressive thing about Half Life 2 was the facial animations, which are still the most realistic i've seen in a game since. Valve has some the best designers in the business, they just lost their inspiration after the first game. Everything in the sequel just feels forced and contrived.

 

[DraQ]

I had only 3 gripes with HL2+Eps:


1. Extreme linearity.

2. Poor weapon diversity

3. Bits of consolish faggotry - LED grenades, pattern attacking bosses, beeping floaty mines, and player withstanding extreme amounts of damage.

Despite all this I really enjoyed it, but a weaker title would be utterly demolished by those drawbacks.

 

[Luzur]

well there are some guys remaking Half-Life with the HL2 engine.

 

[Gragt]

Yeah, they are almost done.

Here, have some ammo!

 

[Rhalle]

I like both, and think they are nonpareils in the genre, but I will admit that HL2 doesn't have much to recommend it in the shooting department.

None of the weapons feel good. They all feel castrated. They all suck.

Well, except the gravity gun, I guess.

 

[DraQ]

I like both, and think they are nonpareils in the genre, but I will admit that HL2 doesn't have much to recommend it in the shooting department.

None of the weapons feel good. They all feel castrated. They all suck.

Well, except the gravity gun, I guess.

Mostly this.

I wouldn't say that none of the weapons feels good, but they are all very generic.

Crowbar, pistol, revolver, shotgun, SMG with GL, RPG and hand grenades are mostly straight carryovers from HL1. Ok, hand grenades can be rolled now. There is also a rebar crossbow replacing the crossbow from the original.

All the remaining weapons consist of pulse rifle which is essentially an SMG++ with freaky altfire, genuinely cool gravgun, and squishy antlion testicle which is not exactly an actual weapon.

The original, on the other hand also had laser trip mines, satchel charges, gluon cannon emitting blue beam of concentrated rape, gauss cannon with extreme penetration capability and tendency to ricochet, organic hornet gun and snarks.

If we count OF expansion, there also was M249, displacer, shock roach, and spore thrower (as I don't count revolver being replaced by DE).

 

[Serious_Business]

All that long-winded crap is exactly right, and it's exactly how your typical RPG maker and player thinks it should be done. They talk you to death with that high-flown, wistful adventure-game boilerplate-- now with cinematics-- that they've gotten so expert at that it seems automatic. Economy of description is not what they do, much less showing instead of telling. And, frankly, good old Bioware has made doing it that way the coin of the consoletarded realm. The first RPG maker to jettison it for a more HL-like visually told story, instead of telling through that invariable High Fantasy Narrative Voice, will be responsible for the next real revolution in RPGs, if one ever comes.

I really can't play Bioware games anymore for that very reason. I am increasingly suspicious that their writing staff has only ever read Forgotten Realms and Star Wars novels. The only thing they know how to do is plot, plot and more plot. Since the only way they know how to use dialogue is for plot exposition, the characters never have the wonderful opportunity to show who they are by what they think and say. And when the writers do try flesh out a character they still can only think to do it by having another plot dump. Characterization in a Bioware game doesn't come from characters thinking, speaking, and acting in certain ways; it comes from them spending 20 minutes telling you how their daddy molested them as a child. It's just garbage.

For a studio that prides itself on storytelling and "emotionally engaging experiences", they sure no jack shit about writing a story.

Well said. I appreciate your litterary standards

But of course, as you know, they can get away with it exactly because their audience never read anything else other than forgotten realms and star wars novels. Dark spawn aren't orcs, after all. This is the new shit, a whole new generation of readers who think they are literate... because after all, they read. And that's that, the general de-valorisation of high culture for the sake of consumerism (intellectual consumerism is still consumerism). Damn that was fucking generic of me, but I still like to say that shit on a daily basis, makes me feel good about myself really. Seriously aren't you pissed off thinking about this? All that pompous ignorance, damn I just want to go


ahh feels good man

 

[Spectacle]

The story in the original Half-life is pretty much a carbon copy of Doom, with a few minor twists:

Demons/aliens enter from hell/strange dimension because of an experiment gone wrong, and wreak havoc. The protagonist battles through them and then puts a stop to things by traveling to where they came from and killing a giant brain.

In the sequel, it is revealed that it was all for nothing since Earth has been taken over by monsters.