YOU ARE GORDON FREEMAN: How the Half Life Series Keeps Players Invested [Video Essay]
269A video essay in which I discuss the gaming juggernaut series Half-Life, and how the methods used to tell it's story to the players is unique and captivating, even to this day.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:58 Somewhere in New Mexico
06:50 Somewhere in Eastern Europe
12:59 Somewhere Else in Eastern Europe
20:38 Outro
♫Music Used: ♫
♫Various Songs from the Half Life Soundtracks (HL1, HL2, HL2-E1, HL2-E2) all by Kelly Bailey♫
♫Windows96 - Near Death Experience (How To See Through Walls)♫
I AM NOT CLAIMING OWNERSHIP TO THE MUSIC USED
Unlike probably any other first person shooter from the late 1990s that you could name, half life opens in a fairly mundane way. Gordon Freeman’s commute to work isn’t the most attention-gripping intro out there – but this is done intentionally. Most other FPSs of the time had intros designed to ensnare the attention of their players – much like how youtubers these days rely on cheap clickbaity phrases for a similar effect. Half Life’s intro notifies the player that the game is a bit more focused on story than your average game from that time period. That being said, I wouldn’t call Half-Life story-focused. The story is merely there to serve the gameplay, and make the world feel more rich, which it does quite successfully. Throughout the game, there is an obvious lack of ‘quests’ and other storytelling traps which many contemporary games regrettably fall for – instead, the game’s ‘story’ is dictated through the player via simple and brief dialogues with guard and scientist NPCs. The panicked residents of the Black Mesa facility have no interest in spouting exposition or providing information of questionable necessity to the player. Rather, notifying Gordon of his objective is the purpose of their brief dialogues. Get out of the labs. Find the rocket. Launch the rocket. Restart the generator. The surface level of the game’s story is all you’re directly provided with, and it’s enough to keep the player posted on where they’re supposed to go – but also not enough information such that would be tiring or hard to remember. This makes the player cling onto every thread of information provided by the surviving NPCs.
The story is another massive jump up from the first game. The thing is, Half Life 1 didn’t really have ‘characters’ – aside from Gordon himself, (who is, of course, completely silent), and, I guess, tutorial lady (oh, don’t forget this guy) {glitching footage showing the G-man} the game’s story is only populated by nameless, faceless guards and scientists. This make’s Half-Life 2’s ability to contextualise events from the first game all the more impressive. Most of the characters you meet will reference their time at Black Mesa with Gordon, time spent either competing for grant money or escaping the horrific events that took place after the Resonance Cascade.
The opening sequence in Half-Life 2 is nothing short of a masterclass in indirect storytelling. It’s been 20 chronological years since the ending to the first game, and suffice to say, the world has changed significantly. Just by walking throughout the train station, players can comfortably infer what has happened to humanity and earth in the past 2 decades.
Oh hey! You're at the bottom of the description! You actually read it! Well, congratulations, I guess. Most people just kinda skip the description.
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*sips coffee* Still here?
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Half-Life 2 Statistics For Freddo Films
At this time, Freddo Films has 3,097 views for Half-Life 2 spread across 1 video. His channel published less than an hour of Half-Life 2 content, less than 0.61% of the total video content that Freddo Films has uploaded to YouTube.