Half Life 2: A Complex Story

The Guerrilla Gamer in PC Powerplay (yes, I cancelled my subscription, but I stupidly picked up a copy) is at it again. Claiming that Half Life 2 boasts a complicated story.

I am sorry, it does not. It is, in fact, becoming a completely cliched story which really required no thought at all. Essentially people are being repressed (help, help I am being repressed - Monty Python) by a "superior" race of people/beings and controlled or exterminated for what ever reasons. The story has been used in many stories, "1984" and "Brave New World" were the two books which pioneered stories along this theme. "1984" is the often misquoted book which was written by George Orwell as a means for him to convey what he truely thought about Communism (I am sorry, it was not a forecast about our future but a statement about our present at the time). It was called satire and was related to Orwell's experiences with the communist party where he fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. "Brave New World" is another misquoted book which talks about a future dystopia where people are controlled based on a program of selective breeding and emotional programming similar to a caste system. Further to this we have a number of movies which have created such worlds. Matrix, Island, Gattaca, Aeon Flux, V for Vendetta, Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes (to a degree), Metropolis, Demolition Man, The Running Man, and many others. Plus you have other books based on the theme. Fahrenheit 451 is a classic by sci fi legend Ray Bradbury. You can't tell me that it is not overdone. It may be that it hasn't been overdone in games, but I would disagree. There are many games based on the theme.

Besides the betrayal in the game by character Judith Mossman and then her return to the "good" side nothing really happens. Freeman is placed in a dystopian world where he moves from the train station to the citadel. Having a character progress through a landscape is not story progression. It is character movement. People are being processed for some reason, but that is all you know. These things put together don't make a story. There are no reasons and no progression with the characters and their plight. By placing something in an environment (like those people fighting for the resistance) doesn't mean that their story is told.

I suggest Guerrilla Gamer reads some classic sci-fi to find out how story telling can work. Read some of Philip K Dick's classic novels (The Man in the High Castle, Valis, A Scanner Darkly (one of my favourites), Ubik) or try some of the classic early cyberpunk (William Gibson) and find out how dystopian societies can be portrayed and stories told. Just because a game is created that has some form of progression doesn't mean that a story has been told. It just means that time has passed and you have performed some tasks. Stringing together a number of tasks doesn't create the basis of plot and character development.

The story is so understated in Half Life 2 that the story was not told at all. The characters have no back story. You as a participant in the story have no reason to sympathise with them except that you may have a common past, but what is that past? For there to be emotional attachments to characters you have to have emotional links to them first. Gordan Freeman's actions are not really quantified beyond the premise that he has been chosen for this task?

There's more to his column that I found stupid. To the point where I don't think he reads his own magazine. "PC Powerplay has a historical problem when it comes to backing a certain kind of game. If a game exhibits some very particular characteristics, we tend to give it a very high score [Say what?]. Those characteristics include such things as non-linear storytelling, exemplary levels of player choice, emergent gameplay and AI behaviours, and a setting we haven't already experienced sixteen thousand times before." These are not the things that rate highly in PC Powerplay. To use Half Life 2 as an example (which he does). The game does use non-linear storytelling (it is so non-linear it doesn't exist). Half Life 2 does not present exemplary levels of player choice. The gameplay is entirely linear and offers the players no choice. There is no emergent gameplay as the game is a scripted, corridor shooter. There is no emergent AI in the game. All of the Stalkers are completely scripted. The unscripted AI was stupid (compared to Far Cry at the time which was excellent). Friendly AI would often block your path and make passage through the linear game impossible. A setting we have not experienced 16,000 times before. Freeman is the man who saves the world. Sounds like a setting we've heard of before. Yet, Half Life 2 received 10 out of 10.

So, whatever you reckon Guerrilla Gamer you get paid for your opinion so it must be worth something, right?