| sales2099 said: Now I hardly say this because of the responses, but I dont care much for Half Life story. The gameplay is solid in all respects, but I just think the story is lazy. Only Nintendo can pull off the silent hero. In a sci-fi PFS, a silent hero is just lazy. Its all overly vague and mysterious with Gman. Thats ok, but some answers should eventually come out. You still have no idea whats going on in the broader scope of things. With Halo, it gradually tells you about the universe. You learn of the Forerunners and Covenant in Halo 1. Halo 2 gives you a view into Covenant society, so now we understand them. The other Halos expand upon this. Foreunners are largely a mystery to us for years, giving us only bits about their culture and technology. Only recently have we learned far more about them with Halo 4 and the Forerunner Novel Trilogy. Master Chief also speaks. Not much, but he speaks. The novels tell you all about him and Halo 4 starts to bring out the more human attributes in him. Gordon not speaking at this point seems....lazy. If the lore and universe remains vague too long, it just means the developer doesn't know where to take the story, or doesn't care. |
Half-Life 2 adopts a very different approach to storytelling where everything is presented through subtle nuances, casual conversations and actions that appear during gameplay. It's not lazy (I'd argue it's actually the opposite) as all those little elements (and there are a lot of them) are put there for the player to absorb the information as Gordon Freeman. Rather than explaining everything to you on platter, the game is designed around leaving the player to discover the story as they play. This does mean that if you're distracted by something in the game, then you can miss some of that story.
This actually brings me onto the silent protagonist point. Gordon Freeman is simply an avatar for yourself. I find this actually works best in First-Person, especially when the viewpoint is strictly adhered to through the entire game. The fact that he remains silent allows the player to input their own imagination into Gordon Freeman. I actually find its a great way to improve immersion as you don't have a dumb marine voice blasting out of what is supposed to be your avatars mouth. It's not like they couldn't give Gordon characterization, their ability to do so is shown in all the deeply fleshed out NPCs, but it would ruin the game if they did.
Also, if you need novels to make a character relatable or to give the back story, then your game has failed in storytelling somewhere down the line.
