HalfLife themes and a request

[Lukasz]

I remember reading an article about some of the deeper themes of Half-Life 2, but I lost it and Google isn't helping, so if anyone else knows what I mean, please post it. The article talked about the parallels between Gordon Freeman and the player through the game - as a video game player, your goal is to complete the 'objective' of the game, and move on to the next objective. You can't have a lot of exposition like a book, because of how interactive the 'video game' medium is. The player doesn't even really need a goal for what he's doing, he's doing it for the sake of doing it. Same with Gordon Freeman, he's thrust into this weird Kafkaesque situation where he doesn't quite understand WHY he does things, only that he has to. Neither you (the player) nor Gordan Freeman can choose 'not' to play the game, because that would defeat the whole point of the video game as a medium. This ties back to the whole imagery of trains in HL and HL2, and the idea of being 'on rails' - there's only the illusion of choice for you and for Gordon, all the important choices have been made on your behalf and the only way to go is blindly forward. I think the ideas may have been a bit different to what I'm describing but I am wondering if anyone know where I can read it again.

One thing I've noticed because of that article is that almost everyone seems to be on "it" but you, the player, Alyx, Gordon, and a few other characters. By "it" I mean Gordon being sent by the Gman to do a job. We know now the Vortiguants and Eli know of the Gman, but others do to. In Half life2 when you see the Gman on the TV near the rebel and vortigaunt they shut it off quickly. It seems they are responsible for getting Gordon to move on to the next task. The vortigaunt states something(forgot) that might reveal this and the rebel is angered and just tells you keep going. Something similar happens later when you meet Cubbage (who has also talked about the G man) Breen knows about "it" too.
(sry for long post)
Anyways, the other point of this is to discuss the themes in this series. (Besides the obvious dysatopian theme)

 

[kineaesth]

What you're talking about might be from Raising the Bar.

It's correct, of course. Everyone thinks that Gordon knows what he's doing, and you, the player, is sitting there, worried shitless about what's actually going on. There's a Marc Laidlaw quote about it somewhere.

 

[ríomhaire]

I don't know the article you're talking about but lack of choice is certainly a prominent theme in the HL series. The g-man even mocks you for it a little bit in HL2 when he mentions "the illusion of free choice." This is a reference to the only major choice you're really given in the series (to work for the g-man or die at the end of HL1) which turns out to not be a choice at all as HL2 simply ignores if you refused and goes on as if the player had accepted.

 

[Syme]

pretty much like real life. u just kinda do things cause u have too, not because u want too. well for most people, excluding homless and extremely rich lol