Running away from bad men who wear scary masks. Half-Life 2 is something of a conundrum, a confusing expedition into the mind of Gordon Freeman, a character entirely of the player’s imagination. Every character gives him context, but no characters define him quite so much as your actions. Thus, a blank slate who has a name and a mission of some significance, you set out to stop the evil corporation with your rag-tag band of social justice pioneers. Or perhaps you would be social justice pioneers, but there’s an alien invasion to watch over and a scenario of characters who need rescuing, so maybe the social justice thing can wait.
Well, try not to think about the actual goal of the character too much, as the storytelling is not quite so interesting as the story-acting, which is to say that the actions of Gordon play little role in defining the linear path. While everything eventually plays out, the game is entirely about exploring what is within the game more-so than the exigencies of the characters. Thus, how to jump, how to steer, how to do silly physics puzzles, how to use the Gravity Gun as a projectile vomiting destructoforce, and how to stand in place while non-player characters spend time beaning you with exposition at various intervals.
Much of what the player is ultimately doing, in some sense, is waiting, acting, thinking and repeating the process. Which is to say that the game has a lulling process which is intentional and used for purposes of pacing. It works quite well and is an interesting choice for a first-person shooter, but being a gun-toting scientist feels out of place. The game is comfortable in an arbitrary space that, retrospectively I’m not sure I entirely understand, seeing as how so much of it makes so little sense.
Often I’ve stated that games are fine without stories, but telling a story of science fiction in a half-baked manner troubles me somewhat. The game puts the player in often awkward situations, where their only real activity is flopping around as the silly avatar that you are. In a sense it’s refreshing, yet at the same time it’s a bit unnerving. I suppose the one thing I really wanted to do as Gordon was sit down in that lab and drink some coffee, potentially entering an Earthbound-like coffee break trance, but that moment never really happened. It was on the verge of happening, seemingly at all times. A return to a sense of normalcy even in times of extreme circumstance. Somewhat sad that those vignettes never stretched themselves out.
Recommended: Yes