HL2 - Silent treatment

Half-Life Series
#1

Hey guys,
For my university course, I am studying the way that half-life deals with cutscenes, for my dissertation. Please get involved in the following discussion and see where it leads (discussion not strictly questionnaire) Thanks!

silent treatment
In the half-life series, the player character, "Gordon Freeman’ doesn’t talk, the camera never turns to see the player and the game never splits into a cut-scene.
Some games make a distinction between ‘story line’ moments and ‘action’ moments. How does losing control of your character during ‘story line’ moments affect your view of the ‘story line’ part of the game?
In contrast, half-life deals with story by allowing you to always control your character from first-person, during every part of the game, How does this freedom make you feel?
Gordon freeman famously doesn’t speak. Do you feel like this allows your to transplant your own personality and internal voice onto the character, or do you feel like it makes the story lack clarity and make it frustrating?

#2

Personally I hate first person games that jump into 3rd person for any reason. I find it really immersion breaking and rarely play them.

#3

It is cool that you have always the control of the character instead of cutscenes. You can see what is happening from any point of view you want.

Maybe what is kind of annoying is the fact that gordon doesn’t talk. I don’t know, it makes people think theories and stuff (some stupid and mindfucking like Catatonic Syndrome)

#4

I find that being allowed movement in those scenes helps to keep me immersed in the character. for example, in the tentacle scene, you are able to move, but you are still forced to do nothing, which helps you to become tense and (at least the first time) try to help people to change what happens in the scene

#5

I like HL’s style. You’re always Gordon, you never turn into a camera. I like the silence because it means that you can predict who Gordon is, instead of him being whoever the writers decide you are.

#6

In car adverts, you most often don’t see the person driving the car. This is a psychological thing so that people can imagine themselves driving it. Same applies to Half-Life. I don’t want the character who I control (and I feel like I am that character) to say or do things beyond my control.

I think that Half-Life does a good job at being realistic: the notion of time, space, and actions are all as realistic as they can be. If there were cutscenes, it would decrease credibility and realism, because in real life, there are no cutscenes.

The only parts where you don’t have control over the character and you have a cut-scene-ish scene is when the G-Man talks to you, especially in the beginning of HL2 and in the middle of Episode 2: you then see various locations that the G-Man mentions, but you are not actually there and you cannot move and look around. I think these can still be explained as being realistic, as it is implied that the G-Man has supernatural abilities and he can freeze time, thus these are not necessarily cut-scenes.

#7

I like your way of thinking higgsboson.

I to find it better to stay in control all the time and not having some lame actor ruin my personal view of Gordon.

#8

lolwut.

Fair points though. :smiley:

#9

I agree higgsboson

#10

higgsboson pretty much covered all of my bases.

The entire game, the only time you can’t move is when you realistically couldn’t move.

The G-Man sequences are quite notable as one of the few instances in all of gaming that control is taken away from the player, and immersion is not at all broken. G-Man is metaphysically powerful enough to immobilize you, and put images in your mind. On top of that, he speaks to you directly, to your face, and by name, never letting you forget your identity long enough to remember you’re looking at a screen.

#11

I always wondered why doesn’t gordon have a body and why he is a flying camera which can mind control weapons and other stuff.

Also Explain the hud, the gordon’s glasses and the lack of helmet

also wtf are healthkits? are they processed Xenian waters? I know there were pools in Xen which increased your health.

Half life saga has so many weird stuff. So when someone asks you how did a creature evolve to control another creature without even being in the same environment, you just say “SCIENCE!”

#12

ITS A GAME :hmph:

he does have a body but you cant see it
hes not a flying camera, its a perspective
he cant mind control weapons and other stuff, you cant see where/how he gets them
the hud is a GAME ELEMENT (lack of helmet is not proven, and is fucking stupid to even think about)
healthkits are a GAME ELEMENT

#13

I like how the game designers force the player to watch the cutscene while still giving the illusion of control. They can predict how players will act (e.g. hear a voice below you in the vents and look down to see two soldiers chatting about something important, a tunnel constricts your vision so you end up looking at a bridge, or have an NPC point to a cinematic event, etc.)

I think the illusion of freedom is nice, and Gordon’s silence is too in a way because sometimes I end up catching myself responding with my own voice and words Freeman’s Mind style.

#14

that’s all it ever is. A GAME.

I don’t care if there’s cut scenes or not, because in all truthfulness, I know I’m not gordon freeman. I am completely aware that freeman is a fictional character, and if he doesn’t want to talk,then so be it. I honestly don’t care if there’s cut scenes, or silence, or any thing like that.

it’s a fucking game, so stop pretending that you actually feel like him.

cutscenes or not, I don’t care.

#15

Gordon Freeman doesn’t speak so I always say what I think he would say.

#16

i just play the game

am i weird?

#17

^Yes.

[unrelated]
I love Ross Scott’s Freeman’s Mind, so I just imagine what his Gordon Freeman would be thinking.

#18

Gordon is Gordon.

#19

No, you’re not weird :stuck_out_tongue:
but the garg who said you were weird probably has problems.

#20

I like when cutscenes have way better visuals than what is actually rendered in gameplay and they’re all pimped out with gaussian blur and lens flares.

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.