Original Videoessay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VbDeVNIRAo&feature=youtu.be
Introduction
It`s been half of a year since march twenty third – a date of Half-Life Alyx release, first game in Half-Life Series in more than a decade. The Game shocked the whole world with its announcement, but it couldn’t be possible without its predecessor – Half-Life 2.
Oh…
Half-Life 2…
Damn.
So many years passed by, but let my lord burn me to the dust if it isn’t still an extremely decent, high-quality product of video gaming industry. Its seamless gameplay makes the process so fleeting and breathtaking that it drags the player into an almost endless cycle of replaying over and over again, as not many games do, even by today's standards. Characters in the game aren`t more iconic maybe only than its own monsters and locations. Its dystopian world had remained in the players’ memory forever, while its prophetic picture has imprinted on the fate of one famous country with a terrible pattern of panel houses in the greasy mud of tyranny…
I was familiar with Half-Life, the first game I had, from an early age, but I didn't get close to it quickly, until I got to my twelfths, when I finally starts appreciated it. I remember now, when I finally finished Half-Life 1 & 2 with both Episodes in 2010: the 6th grade, the first school friends, the first real dreams and my first attempts to write my stories - an successful attempts. Many of you, if not all of you, have had such moments in your lives that you can easily remember from a single piece of media – a music album, a movie, or a game. For me, it was half-life. A fresh, top-notch action adventure with the most lively personalities, filled with a thirst to explore the unknown in a compartment with awakening forces of the man...and plus to it, the video game that reflected this beautiful piece of time in itself.
As I grew up, I carried my attachment to the series through the not very pleasant and most terrible and truly apathetic events of my life, going through the game over and over again. Even when the only bright year of my childhood was gone, blurred in my memory against the background of serious mental health problems for eight years – if not by real desire, then at least in the form of a ritual, I still plunged into the journey of Gordon Freeman on his continuous path…Where I had stopped for real for the first time.
What is the path about? – there was a question - And where it leads?
Looking ahead, I will say now the very thing that this essay exist for:
the path of main character and player does not lead anywhere
because the game series itself does not lead anywhere
because Half-Life Franchise is work of art that doesn`t exist.
Chapter 1. First signs and trouble times
Okay.
What a mess of words that was right now
That`s what the deal about: every Half-Life game tries so hard to succeed in absolutely everything that it can't even figure out its own main priority. A cocktail of absolutely everything that people like, in truth, may well turn out to be really delicious, although, most likely, by accident. Glued together by effort, with a considerable amount of luck, both from similar and close, and from completely inconsistent parts together, any Half-Life game and especially Half-Life 2 shot successfully in many ways because of the variation of very decent ideas it included. But when it came time to move on, the series just got stuck, as if it had lost its specific emotional-thematic direction that it didn't really have at all from the beginning.
I remember well how my path of learning the true nature of Half-Life Series marked its big progress because of the work of Doc Barford. Perhaps it was his essay that inspired me to write my own, it`s hard to remember. Its title «Why Half-Life 2 Doesn't Live Up To Its Predecessor». Great essay, all links in the description.
I will just go through the main points of it, try to reflect what was reflected in me.
The first thesis immediately seems no longer relevant at all, but, in truth, it still remains literally prophetic:
«… You’re probably wondering what’s taking Valve, a company with nigh-infinite resources, forever to make Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Or you’ve given up on that and you believe it’s going to be called Half-Life 3. The sad truth is that we will never see another Half-Life game from Valve, and for one very good reason: its most important character is dead.
“But, Doc,” I hear you saying, “Gordon Freeman is alive and well!” While this is true, I have another shocking revelation to make: Gordon Freeman is not the most important person in Half-Life! Incredible but true.»
Doc talked about Eli Vance as the main and only tool of plot movement in Half-Life 2. Eli Vance appears also in Half-Life 1, but in fact as character he was written in a script only during development of Half-Life 2 with Isaac Kleiner. The main thing here is that in Half-Life 1 Eli pushes us forward only once, at the beginning of the game, but then all the way we are accompanied by two important elements from which «Half-Life’s greatness comes from».
The first is in game tricks that effortlessly moves the player through fictional world, which is perceived realistically even after so many years due to the seamless narrative - and this is the second.
«…one of the things that enhanced the realism were the game’s other characters. Sure, they were two-dimensional stick figures, but they showed up when it mattered. As the game opens, they’re kind of mean to you; you get the sense that people resent Gordon’s presence. It characterizes Gordon too: he seems to be perpetually late, and nobody seems to value his skills all that much—his job amounts to “push a cart into a very dangerous energy beam.” Apparently, they didn’t want to risk anyone else doing it, because they made everyone wait until he showed up to do it.»
The game becomes voluminous and alive because of the raised stakes in the gameplay and plot, as well as because of the perceived growth in the eyes of both surrounding "colleagues" and enemies, who seem to deliberately let their troopers get stronger and stronger, feeling like You are becoming a real hero from a simple scientist.
«As Half-Life progresses, people bestow upon you more and more responsibility. Go get help. Kill the giant monster. Go meet the scientists at the Lambda Complex. By the time you get there, the scientists have gone from “ugh, Gordon,” to “Gordon, we’ve been watching you on the monitors, and we believe in you.”
Here, Half-Life 2 makes the first and the biggest Mistake - it begins on the highest note.
From first minutes of gameplay the main character is a star, a symbol of struggle and freedom, which causes nothing but reverent trembling from the whole city of absolutely strangers – for the Resistance Freeman - an icon, for the Combine – a number one enemy. And the loudest ovations Gordon gets from his "friends", in particular, from Eli Vance, who blesses Freeman on his path and then pushes to revolve the entire plot of Half-Life 2 and both Episodes: Eli gets captured, and we save him so when he will get caught soon again he could be saved by us and then be caught so on so on…
«So. Let me get this straight. A 27 year-old guy shows up almost 20 years after he disappeared, without having aged, and his appearance heralds an attack on the Resistance base that sees its most important member, daughter, and assistant kidnapped. Nobody knows Judith is a traitor, because only you, Alyx, and Eli, who were all in Nova Prospekt know this. Most rebels, I’m betting, are pretty paranoid, which is what’s kept them alive for so long. Most paranoid people I know would see all the evidence and assume this “Gordon Freeman” character is an impostor whose sole purpose was to destroy the Rebellion’s leadership.»
What do people end up doing? While you save the leader of the resistance, who does not really prove WHY he is the Leader and why he is worthy of salvation, the Resistance, in the absence of organization and command, attacks the usurpers, push them off the streets, and destroys the city. Ordinary people with guns and grenades in a week beat the space invaders after 20 years of their rule, and the main character, who should be the leader and symbol of the resistance, appears only in the final act of this war, and then he again disappears by devious ways in search of the lost Eli Vance. The race for Eli is the entire Half-Life 2, Episode One, and even Episode Two, right up to its last chapter.
«Half-Life 2: Episode 2 is broken up into three sections. In the first section, you save Eli’s daughter. In the second section, you escort Eli’s daughter to Eli. In the third section, you attempt to defend Eli, who promises to finally tell you what he was going to tell you, presumably, after you toyed with the gravity gun that was something like twelve years ago.
AND HE DIES.»
The plot, which literally exists only because of Eli, who we have to help all the time, ends where we were never able to help him and never found out what it was for.
«You know what? I think the problem is that Valve never really knew why YOU were there. I think they never really had anything beyond “go fight some Combine»»
At the end, Doc discusses the fate of Half-Life, and in particular the seething of internal kitchen of Valve, from which there was a massive leak of footage from 2013 to 2017. Along with fired workers, a decent number of maps, concepts, and gameplay developments went online, including materials from non-less than four spin-offs from outside developers. Then, Marc Laidlaw, the main screenwriter of all Half-Life Franchise at that time, after leaving in 2017, had posted that famous script of Episode Three. The script even had the real ending of the entire series, although again not capable of at least scanty specifics and completing the path of the main character in the pitch darkness of ignorance, among a huge pile of unanswered questions. As a result, none of the many developments have been implemented so far, no matter how creative and breakthrough they were, and despite the fact that cutting off more for the benefit of less is a natural part of a long creative process, it is incredibly strange to hear that Valve just took and cut off all possible lines of development of the most progressive FPS series of our time.
People in the company seems like they`re really didn`t know what to do with Half-Life, although now it does not seems so at all – the well-known game according to the well-known formula has already conquered a new for itself VR platform. And everything should be fine, because finally, after so many years, Valve has succeeded!
But…
What if they`re not?
All doubts seems useless now, aren`t they?
Now, when the game, as in the good old days, conquers the technological heights - this time in the field of VR – is preparing to immerse us in its world, as always, with maximum depth, which is why the VR orientation of the game only wins. In addition, Half-Life with the subtitle "Alyx" is a child of fresh-blood parents – the team of Campo Santo, which showed a refreshed gameplay wrapped in a good picture. And it all looks and sounds just fine. Just as it was every time with each game in Half-Life Series. Just as it was with a huge base of fan-made mods and any fan-creation related to the game. Made with love to franchise, with attention to detail and with all the dedication – whatever it was, everything aspired to the greatness of …And after all these years, while the series existed, while it was drowning in unsuccessful attempts to reborn, while it was literally dying in front of the whole world - along with large-scale leaks of its futile attempts, which would not help it any way. The only thing the series continues to do is trying to repeat the success of Half-life 2 in the most obvious ways.
As a result, the "seamless journey", an ageless classic, now reincarnating in one of the many imitators of itself, becomes outdated in absolutely everything and lost not just against the background of dozens of obviously higher level games, but also disappears in itself, in an eternal hurricane of incredible expectations of the outcome against the inexorably growing suspense. In a hurricane that long ago tore itself to pieces, left only a vague memory of itself. One of the most successful, famous and influential game that changed the game industry, solidified in the memory of millions of people...and became something important for me - so suddenly, so treacherously silent, like its main character, as if it had never spoken, because it got nothing to say about. It was never and it is not capable to say anything even now.
Chapter 2. the Flaw Kingdom
What Half-Life is definitely capable of is endlessly surprising with its strangeness. All Half-Life games, and especially Half-Life 2, in addition to the intended (or not) innuendos, is full of very strange details in its plot and lore. They would be harmless and would pass for the features of a work of art if they did not brain freezes you when you just try thinking deeply than usual, which means that sooner or later we will have to think about them anyway.
For me, the main stumbling block here is the immeasurable almightiness of the Combine. A super-developed civilization crushes the military resistance of the armies of the ENTIRE EARTH in SEVEN HOURS, then holds humanity in its fists for 20 years, pumps earth's resources, tortures people with medical experiments and tyranny, so after all that people could just rise up against the usurpers...and defeat them in less than two weeks with the power of simple machine guns and custom explosives.
How?!
Although this plot hole can be easily closed by saying that in the weekly absence of Freeman, the Combine forces were simply demobilized: the explosion in Nova Prospekt, which, according to Kleiner, gave citizens the signal for the beginning of the uprising, could be a nuclear one, and therefore the electromagnetic impulse from such an explosion could just cut off many of the Combine technologies in City 17, which the Rebels could use… Despite this, the overall picture stays in same condition anyway, because it's not about Freeman, whom people on the other side of the world shouldn't have known (abut that Barford already said), or even not about that they went after him and just crushed the Combine like worms. The process of overthrowing Combine is stretched to the entire storyline of Half-Life 2 & both Episodes and leaked script of Half-Life 2 Episode Three makes it clear that the fight against the Combine all this time was totally meaningless, because ABSOLUTELY ALL the player's efforts at the very end suddenly end up seeing an enemy which doesn’t lost even a bit of his powers after all our attempts to fight it. What could we do next with it? There`s no answer, folks, cause even Mark Laidlaw, the main writer of the Half-Life Series himself did not know what to do with the plot and saw the best way to end everything on the darkest note. And this is not a bad decision at all –Dead Space 3 ended in a similar way, when the entire game universe led to this – dark, hopeless, creepy. In Half-Life, all this is taken out of nowhere, but it works well for the game experience, and not against it. If you think about it, Half-Life is made entirely of such things.
And this is just the beginning of the game's oddities.
The gameplay, or rather, its shooter part, of all the moments of Half-Life 2 had outdated firstly, even out of time being, perhaps, the most oddly balanced in all the genre. Half-Life 2 is initially aimed at realism, focusing on it with physics of objects and photorealistic textures, but it also has the most unrealistic weapons with an incredibly awkward balance, which personally has always caused me a real Ludo-narrative dissonance. The damage contrasted with the weapon's ammunition constantly jump from kid-size to xxx (compare a pistol and a revolver, a machine gun and a shotgun), the recoil and spread are not regulated in any way by aiming or pauses between shots. And such a strangely made firearm is all that remains of the huge variation of weapons from the first Half-Life, each of which had at least the rudiments of character and tactical affiliation.
Here is one more, guys: Barney Calhoun, one of the key characters in lore, one of the main members of the resistance after the events of Half-Life 2 Episode One just disappears from the game script and no one even remembers him, because no one else knows what to do with him. In fact, Barney's role in the universe is the same as role of legendary Gordon Freeman`s Crowbar.
In Half-Life this is really a Symbol that opens boxes with vital supplies at once while Barney being a guard in his blue shift opens important doors for us.
In Half-Life 2 then the need for a weak Crowbar "symbol" is soon exhausted by more powerful and effective firearms and a gravity gun, while Barney now helps us in the gameplay only a couple of times in Half-Life 2 and Episode One, and then goes to scrap, replaced by a funny old grumbler Magnusson.
Reliving experience of movies and games, it is impossible to ignore the soundtrack, because the composer always gives the music character and tone of the current artwork, making the sound picture as fulfilled as it possible, so even just listening music album apart from movie or game You could be conceived through the author's experience. The Soundtrack of Half-Life Series, according right to the game, for no reason throws from one extreme to another. The soundtrack does not consist of compositions that flow into one another maintaining the dynamics and tone of the game, but it had composed of fragmentary musical sketches of some artist worked apart of the development team, who does not understand what exactly he needs to portray: dark ambient, electro-punk or progressive rock. As a result, although this is not the fault of composer Kelly Bailey, the whole Half-Life Franchise step by step following it`s soundtrack, which not without a reason once was called "Half-Dead" by leading musical critics.
Chapter 3. Wrong men in right place
But one asset can't be taken away from Valve anyway
It`s main protagonist, Gordon Freeman.
And can the main protagonist passed through all game`s problems without a scratch – is a rhetorical question.
In Half-Life, no one else would fit into the role of the main character more organically than Gordon Freeman.
In Half-Life 2, Gordon Freeman is absolutely out of place, and not according to the idea of the script, but according to the script consistence itself. Yes, G-Man does said the famous phrase "The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world", although most likely addressed not to Freeman at all, but to Eli Vance, and then it doesn’t add any meaning to Gordon to be the main character here. As Doc Barford wrote, all the most important events of Half-Life 2 take place without Gordon's active participation, and if we won`t count his actual role in the game, strange, far-fetched with the help of his "long-standing friendship" with the characters or "hero status" among citizens, he should not be in the game at all as a stranger, not a person, but a character. It's like putting John Watson in the Justice League without Sherlock Holmes. Watson, no doubt, is cool, so if the League, because there are Batman and Wonder Woman with Superman and others, but Watson, even with the help of a perverted fantasy of fan fiction authors, cannot be in Justice League either by genre, by character, or by the style and tone of the character along with his soul. Someway maybe you can do it, but it will be obvious that for the famous colleague of the great detective there is simply no place - as there is no place in Half-life 2 for Gordon Freeman.
He is a young theoretical physicist, a former scientist, and now an inveterate survivalist who has passed through portals and monsters. His "Arch", if I may say so, in the first Half-Life began with a delay for a new job for him, which he still did, listening to more experienced colleagues, which is why the whole plot spun in the course of which the hero had to fix what he had done wrong, even if only indirectly. The arc continued as Gordon went from being a late errand boy to being the only one who could possibly stand up to the final boss-Freeman's last assignment from the science superiors. Gordon "drags" this "cart", and then in the end he is again taken to work, which he will not be late for and which, most likely, can lead to even more trouble than even the simplest task "push the cart" at the beginning of the game.
In Half-Life 2, G-Man does not give him any work (in the usual sense of the word), and without G-man, this work also simply does not exist. For a character who is positioned as an Anticitizen One to the greatest enemy of Humanity, there are not even tasks from the rebel group to undermine the regime of this enemy, but even if there were at least one such thing...why would Gordon have to do it when there is Barney with his long-standing undercover work for the Combine, or Eli Vance himself with his magical inexplicable significance, or Alyx who much closer to the status of liberator from the tyranny of dictators? Gordon is just a scientist, even if he's been through hell. This character by nature solved riddles, applied non-standard battle tactics and used the innovations of science for SURVIVAL and only. And that`s who Gordon Freeman IS.
The person who is IN the SCRIPT(but not truly by HIS actions) begins an ideological struggle against the dictatorship, raises an uprising that in a week breaks to hell everything that the enemies have built and maintained for 20 years – this is not Gordon Freeman and he can't be Gordon Freeman in any way.
But then who, if not Freeman?
Perhaps some new character (may he look a bit like Adam Jensen, let's call him Guy Smith after the main characters of "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451").
He was the victim of many years of torture by the Combine, which for 20 years tested all the developments of prostheses and implants mostly on him, the newest and most advanced of which the Combine used to maintain the order later, till that Guy continued to play role of a lab rat without permission to die. But Guy Smith had survives and now stand against the Combine. Our new main character little by little (and not immediately out of nothing, like Gordon) would raise the level of respect and trust of Rebels to him, simultaneously revealing the positive aspects of the Combine to himself and in the end would become the true Symbol of the Rebellion and Enemy Number 1 for the Combine. The original characters - Kleiner, Barney, Eli - get to know the main character for the first time, which is already perceived organically, in contrast to the strong friendship of these people with Freeman that came just from first meeting. Now it was Barney who organized the arrival of Guy Smith in City 17 after working undercover for a long time and finding out about a half-dead man stuffed with prosthetics of the Combine, and his hatred, which could be useful against dictators. Barney is thus not immediately our old friend, but only gets acquainted with the main character and really wants to make friends, while experiencing not just sympathy, but the actual need for Guy Smith, because only he has the strength and will to lead the Resistance. And he leads. Guy saves Eli, then saves Alyx, and finally saves citizens, and at this time he is watched by G-Man, who at the end of our version of Half-Life 2 tries to take Guy with him as the new prime advantage, but Guy appear to be saved by Vortigaunts, seeing in man exhausted by Combine their brother in common grief (who, unlike Gordon, did not kill any Vortigaunts for his life). Vortigaunts save Guy and Alyx and then they go through the events of both Episodes together, until at the end of Episode Two, when Guy defeats the Combine and the last remaining Advisors kill Eli, ending the Half-Life 2 series.
But Gordon did the same thing, right?
Of course.
Then what's the difference then?
The difference encased in fact that Guy became a walking corpse in a metal frame by the Combine actions, so it`s HE who had been punished his torturers and destroy them. According to the lore, the Combine did with the Earth same thing tey did with Guy Smith: they mutilated cities with their buildings as well as Guy's body with implants, steal vital resources from people as well as took the remnants of Guy's personality.
As a result, Guy Smith logically the main character and the player fits in his shoes for a reason.
Gordon Freeman, abandoned by an unknown person in an unfamiliar city, met with unfamiliar people who call him a friend just like that, without any adjustment and recognitions to each other, ALREADY is the star of rebellion and not doing anything that does not make the rebels themselves(except alarming main ruler of the Combine IN ONE SCENE and again by the same accident), goes from a star to the same star and ends up losing just because someone wanted to.
But wasn`t this the main idea of VALVe?
Of course, this is most likely the case, but it don’t change the fact that the measure point of player in Half-Life 2 to be in the skin of Gordon Freeman is still equal to ZERO, as well as number of reasons for Gordon Freeman himself to be in the plot is also same zero.
And we have maybe the main reason for all that.
Chapter 4. Almost Lost
The Half-Life script most likely was written on the same principle as the J J Abrams’s Lost, the series – Gabe Newell did communicate precisely with Abrams about the Half-Life film adaptation not without a reason, because Lost was written literally on script improvisations.
In Lost, Abrams always first took and showed all the most interesting ideas in the most exciting way, and the combination of these ideas with each other and their purpose in the plot and story, he thought out later.
"What's in the mystery box?"
"Nothing."
Very similar with one famous game universe, don't you think?
"Come up with an interesting question, and worry about the answer later" – JJ
But how the series, where the jungle bunker, the polar bear, the black smoke-human-eater, all Masson stuff, in fact, until the end of the plot, SIMPLY existed TOGETHER without any understanding of their essence by Abrams himself? How did this series not just live for 6 seasons, every year exciting the audience more and more, but persistently developed and revealed itself from unexpected sides, albeit in a controversial ways, reached its finale and managed to remain logical, leaving behind even more questions than it asked when it appeared on the screens?
A reasonable question: it turns out that Half-Life is Lost, the series of the game world?
No, it`s not.
Half-Life has never been and can never be Lost, the series, because even if Abrams's creation is made up of insanely cool and just as insanely weakly meaningful concepts as Half-Life, all this feast of plot twists and script ramifications holds on to a single hook, which Half-Life still does not have.
Characters.
And what if I told you that in the whole Half-Life Series there is not a single one character at all, but only images –incomplete, unchangeable, preserved, they were crafted of cool outfit design, plot explaining replicas and…that’s it. In Lost characters were stand on real references, had their weaknesses, different sides of personalities and inner conflicts. Of course, the Series had lot more time and much comfortable form to show all shades of every character but they did it. And now look closely at Half-Life Characters and try to describe their personalities, conflicts, passions – any of it, just a bit. But be careful because you can easily take the bait of characters exterior which doesn’t push the Plot or doesn’t change other characters, like Mossman who was good then betrayed us and then just stand for us in the final. Ok, she`s the one. Or maybe not. Father Gregory. This one of the most famous characters appears really cool being crazy monk among zombies by saying…did somebody remember what he exactly saying? Because every iconic character among those who able to speak has his iconic words…Ok, he`s not about saying anything but prays or something like that, but his actions…well. He just helps us and follows us like all other characters. Barney! Barney owns us a beer! Everybody knows him – this funny…not so actually…this brave…not his theme…this helpful…damn.
You see that too?
In all 4 main games only Alyx Vance shows us her character, but even she could only change a little bit in the beginning of Half-Life 2: she meets Gordon (and the Player of course) – absolutely new guy with not fully trust, but in the 5 minutes of game without any reason just trust him whit fixing teleport in which she`s standing right now. Then she`s as everybody around just stays your friend to the end and that’s all. Even comic-relief Magnusson who shows to you mostly his disgust just helps you like he hadn’t any disgust at all.
Of course, we can say that along with the gameplay and graphics, «showing fully functional characters » in old Half-Life games is outdated – the thing «you can't compare old games with new ones (even if our game is at least 5 years ahead of its time)» or sort of - but we remember Deus Ex, Doom, Metal Gear, Max Payne, Mafia. All these games came ad same period as Half-Life 1&2 and all of them knew what they were about and what they were for, how they must use the Genre and gameplay - even Mario and Doom: they were extremely simple, yes, their plot fit into one sentence and still expressed the whole guts of the games: kill all the demons or save the Princess. Half-Life from the beginning planned much more complex than that and it turned out as complex as it planned on release, but the game still doesn’t understand, should you kill all enemies or save the princess or do something else and that’s because Characters made Conflict and if we got no Characters we got no Conflict and then no reason for all then just will of screenwriter.
Then what about all mysteries of everything that happens in the half-Life universe?
Can't they just continue to function as successfully as they did before?
They can and they will - until they completely exhaust the entire resource of waiting and patience of fans and ordinary players.
Of course even in darkest days for the franchise, Half-Life should never go to the path of Twin Peaks.
We all remember how the series always kept the bar for the most mystical and inexplicable plot with the most lively and interesting characters, but after countless fan letters demanding "show who killed Laura Palmer", the audience's pleas came to life and instantly disappointed them totally.
It is the right balance between the suspense of the unknown and the thrill of the opening curtain that creates the most profound and sensual experience, and each author has the freedom to expand as he wants EVEN THIS THESIS. But when the probability that the answers to riddles will satisfy the audience is rapidly decreasing, new concepts simply do not fit into the plot, and the game universe for 20 years of existence still has nothing to show except digital technologies, even JJ Abrams has the right to throw up his hands.
In this case, it is the characters - multi-faceted, conflicting, changing, alive -who the middle of an endless flight of fantasy and a marathon of brilliant puzzles without an answer that create and push any story. It is likely that when Gabe Newell was looking for a way out for Half-life, which had wandered into dead end, he seriously decided to transfer game concepts into a movie, hoping that he finally found the way out in a motion picture form for the franchise which could finally pull it out. It is quite understandable from the arguments above why Newell came to Abrams. It is now clear why the movie based on Half-life Franchise, one of the most cinematic games in history(I mean here the feeling of seamless gameplay) has not yet been filmed and most likely will not be filmed.
And if it does, then to the level of Lost, even in the worst days of the series, the game does not have enough distinct, at least somewhat voluminous characters, on the development of which it would be possible to build plots for sequels or film adaptations, and therefore sooner or later Valve will have to make a choice:
-To come up with new images which will suit to the old, the plain ones, otherwise they won`t fit in Half-Life;
-To develop the old characters that will make them, living without any development from their foundation, "out of character";
-To bring whole new characters team inside the old franchise, that will break the entire Half-Life Series, which holds only by the Eli Vance;
That was too rude: maybe I was wrong with it.
Maybe Half-Life need just to continue to be as it was and everything will be fine.
Chapter 5. What it could tell about
Maybe the Flaw King of the series, Half-Life 2, had got something deeply to show us anyway. Paola Volkova, a well-known Russian professor of arts, once said: “whatever you create, if there is no philosophy included - it will be nothing to output than garbage.”
Maybe we need to search for those who had already found something.
«…seek and you will find.»
On the portal kanonerka.com Ivan Zhukovsky in his essay wrote about Half-Life 2 as a specimen of both representational and conceptual art – it means that the game on one hand just shows "things" and on the other hand shows deep meaning, in particular, as a question of Freedom. Because in the game you can find "talking" details: can, which you could choose to thrown into the trash or to throw to the enemy`s face(and…in fact that’s all freedom we got here). The struggle of the main character, whose name is "Free man", in a city besieged by the Combine or in prison in general acquires more than one facet. Ivan correctly noted how controversial are the ideologies of the Resistance and the Combine: where the totalitarian government, which takes away any rights and freedoms from citizens, works for progress and transhumanism, there the resistance stands for freedom to choose conservatism and everything more "simple".
So, what place this philosophy takes in game? Combine invasion and war with them, rescue of kidnapped people, physics scientists, good humor and all this in a wrapper of beautiful sound and graphics…Something's wrong. We need to formulate the questions and topics that the game touches on – not the actual events, but what is behind them.
Another similar essay I found was dedicated by architecture student Aaron Kot to Viktor Antonov, main designer of Half-Life 2 - "City 17: Through War, We Remember". It reveals the same legendary city under occupation, assembled from a combination of" old "and" new": technologies of the Combine are as mundane, realistic and understandable as possible: wires, trains, towers, shields-everything seems to be assembled from existing parts, although brought from another world. Aaron compared Victor's approach to Lebbeus-Woods principles of rebuilding post-war cities, and specifically, the third principle: a post-war city must create a new one from the damaged old one.
" The objects in 17 — mainly the Combine ships, technology, and architecture — embody this sense of rebuilding. They look like they’ve been running from something, like they’ve already embraced Lebbeus third principle and used the remnants of previous suffering to build their current image. If they didn’t do it literally, by using recycled pieces in their architecture and equipment, there’s a definite nod to a time when things weren’t as… successful as they are now…
…
…Using the Third Principle allows a people to move on from a disaster by accepting what has happened and assimilating it into their everyday lives.»
OK.
Half-Life 2 is a shooter in the Post-Apocalypse, where monsters from outer space together with soldiers in gas masks are torment people. An evil Combine keeps people behind walls and tortures them, so that...humanity must rise up and defeat everyone in order to...free Itself…It's weird. Nothing in Half-Life 2 can happen "just because". We need to try again.
In the video "Half-Life 2's Invisible Tutorial | Teaching Players" from Game Maker's Toolkit, the author talks about the perfection of teaching gameplay directly through the gameplay itself, which made game brilliantly realistic – no hints in the menu or in the corner of the screen. You learn here and now, right on your path, and it is this kind of gameplay that keeps you in the moment, forcing you not just to listen or view, but to live the plot, that made Half-Life an Icon and imprinted it on the map of videogame history. The author says:
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«…But it's still uncommon, and today's games far too frequently fall back on the bog standard teaching mechanics that either break the flow of gameplay or completely patronise the player. Yes, some games may be too complicated or open-ended to copy Valve's solution. And not every developer has the luxury to spend years on play testing. But I hope that more developers are influenced by the way Valve teaches it's players and not just its physics puzzles, its dystopian future, and those damn train ride intros.»
In Half-Life 2, you can ... you can free yourself from tyranny! In Half-Life 1 you had escaped from the underground prison, and in Half-Life 2 from under supervision and control! The game tells you how to break the system and get free...but why? I have nothing to hold me down except the game itself. All the characters are only at face value in captivity and only "in captivity", and the main character…Why is he here? Not in the sense of an in-game question that needs to be answered, because this question doesn't seem to exist at all, although it should be…
Do you see where it`s going?
Aren’t those design choices, philosophy rudiments, all art decisions which we seen in Half-Life 2 must hold on characters growth and plot progression?
Chapter 6. What is really lack of?
Let me be straight: everybody knows how art speaks with us. If you don’t see it, you feel it, and it work the same way from other side: authors working together to imprinted ideas, mood, style which, that`s obvious, working together in this piece of art – on purpose or just because of consequences of long creation proses.
Bioshock would be a great example to remember. The game shows us the contradictions of the man, about the nature of the outcasts who wanted a better world, but created a terrible dystopia where violence only ends in more violence, no matter how many times people try to refute it. If Andrew Ryan's expression «a man chooses, a slave obeys» is true, then how do you know whether you are a slave or a man? How to resist what is imposed from the outside and find a way to choose, even if only once in your life.
The Last of Us will be great example too – Neil Druckman's creation is in mine and in yours top favorite not without a reason. In it`s memorably beautiful, but so insensitive world, characters on their long journey lose loved ones, the memory of the past and everything that can be clung to, except for survival, which eventually turns them into animals. How difficult it is for them to survive a loss, to accept a new person in their heart and continue to live even if they are the last of us…
The relationship between father and son in God of War 2018 is initially deep and dramatic, sprouting in breadth and distance, making us feel the hard path of the characters. While father Kratos, the God of War in the flesh, experiences the death of his beloved woman that only hardens his character, his son Atreus needs an understanding and sympathetic mentor and he does not even suspect how much his harsh and cold father needs repentance and redemption himself. Now father and son, so near, but so distant, have to overcome all obstacles to finally understand and accept each other and themselves. The characters here are ahead of everything in the game - they drive the plot, and changes in them turn the action in a different direction and push them against each other, creating a conflict, the resolution of which becomes the culmination.
Where can you feel more simple and humane than in Firewatch – an indie game from Campo Santo, those particularly guys who had been bought by Valve and later create new chapter in Half-Life Franchise? In the woods of Wyoming, where all pain and fear will be lost, you can enjoy a moment of peace until the past finally reminds you that no matter how far you run from it, it will bring you back.
All of examples, the list of which you could continue pretty long, work well because they are all Stories.
Story, as we can interpret this term if you don’t mind, is an emotional connection of causes, actions, and consequences, which reduces every element of storytelling to a single emotional-thematic direction. The feeling when you choke on the sensual awareness that everything, even the most insignificant and unrelated things all this time led characters along this particular path to its final – that’s the sign that Story work as it must.
We need stories to transform imaginary experiences into real ones on an intuitive level. If you notice yourself performing in the skin of some fictional character in a particular life situation – are you angry or happy, scared or excited – this is normal and very cool. But why is it so difficult to cross real life with Half-Life? While almost any other title of the same level of quality of exterior and interior implementation, gives us very vital role models of behavior created by characters and situations that we perceive vividly and close to the heart, Half-Life embodies itself as an example of a completely live perception of the gameplay, but it is simply not able to become alive from story perspective cause it hasn`t one.
The Conclusion
My examples are just the tip of the iceberg, just a litmus test, just numerous symptoms that in fact would not make sense to even being touched, because Half-Life is still a favorite game for many, including me. The problem is, Half-Life acting like your old school fun-loving friend. At a time when all the others have found themselves a long time ago and developing themselves right now, he is still able to distract you from everyday problems with his old and familiar jokes, cheer you up and captivate you with his charisma…But this is all that he is capable of in his life. He still lives in the past, refuses to develop and grow, either out of fear or laziness, eventually covering up a deep inner emptiness with an assumed slyness. Of course, he's not a bad individual. He just never really became the Individual, and most likely never will. Like Half-Life, which never became a work of art before it even started being one. Until the end of this essay, I thought that I discovered half-life only in the 6th grade of school, but the truth turned out to be much simpler: I didn't understand from the very beginning, but I felt the whole essence of Half-Life, which was reflected for me in the name of a game I incorrectly translated in early childhood.
Half Life.
The entire franchise doesn't have and never has the face, there was no emotional-thematic direction, no reason at all. Doc Barford in his essay claimed that Valve "did not know why the game needs a player," but the essence of things is much simpler: the game itself does not know Why It Needs Itself – all its elements, its creatures and characters, its atmosphere, its gameplay, no matter how beautiful, simply exist without a single goal, and therefore are not tightly connected with each other, and this means that the replacement of ANY of the components of the artwork will not change anything so all of them useless.
This Is Half-Life.
That’s still a good game, no doubt, but the real, alive artwork how the game still presents itself, can't develop without the one core, without the main idea, without the direction. And since none of this was originally in Half-Life, it is quite possible that the game series was never born and did not really live.
And now the new development team, which has already shown an exemplary work with Firewatch, centered around the emotions of the characters, directed the entire game to reveal one main theme, had made a new Chapter of the same Half-Life. The same thing. In the same location, with the same characters, the same atmosphere, and everything else, served in the form of the most accurate recreation that could be achieved. Recreation of just one part of the Half-Life Franchise that didn't even begin to be the Artwork.
There is nothing wrong with the fact that the game will continue to be the center of media attention, and will satisfy fans, immersing all of us in its world again and again. The problem is that existing only in the most familiar and beloved form of itself, it will never become what it could have become - something far more than just some half life.
But
How “far more” can we reach?
Well see about that