why do people say half-life has a plot?

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trizzm

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i don't really see a plot in half-life... there is no real character development, it is just a string of events in a catastrophe in which nobody at all knows that the hell is happening, neither the scientists or the marines and even the g-man probably didn't get it all, so i don't know, i see no story in half-life, just a great game that opens the door to storytelling like it's expansions and sequel will do. am i wrong or what? sure there is the story development inside the facility, but all it does is provide a reason for the next map. no npc talks long enough to reveal enough content.
 
its not a complex plot by any means but atleast it unfolds nicely.
 
and you develop connections with the characters if you concentrate hard enough ;)
 
Perhaps if you looked closer, you'd see a plot. They leave most of it up to your imagination, but give you enough details to work out what happened. I'd give you a synopsis, but I'm tired, and I want to go read. Just got The DaVinci Code
 
It doesnt have a great plot by any stretch of the imagination, but back when it first came out it was way better than most other fps on the market (except SS & SS2). There was actually a reson for going all the places, rather than just warping you to one room, run around and kill everything then you get warped to another room, then to a Boss that doesnt really have much purpose other than to see how strong your bfg is.
 
trizzm said:
i don't really see a plot in half-life... there is no real character development, it is just a string of events in a catastrophe in which nobody at all knows that the hell is happening, neither the scientists or the marines and even the g-man probably didn't get it all, so i don't know, i see no story in half-life, just a great game that opens the door to storytelling like it's expansions and sequel will do. am i wrong or what? sure there is the story development inside the facility, but all it does is provide a reason for the next map. no npc talks long enough to reveal enough content.
Click to expand...

Are you high?
 
[Dragoon] said:
Perhaps if you looked closer, you'd see a plot. They leave most of it up to your imagination, but give you enough details to work out what happened. I'd give you a synopsis, but I'm tired, and I want to go read. Just got The DaVinci Code
Click to expand...
Damn good book

Also you can get quite a plot from Half-Life if you listen carefully to what the scientists are saying throughout the game, also listen to the voice talking to you on Xen. That gives you quite an idea about what could be going on in Half-Life and (possibly) in Half-Life 2
 
Do you expect an NPC to go off on a huge speech explaining everything to you every step of the way? That would be more than a little silly while you're trying to escape from a research facility that is overrun with aliens and hostile soldiers.

Character development? There are two unique human characters that are around throughout the entirety of Half-Life: Gordon and the G-Man. One is you and the other is supposed to be very mysterious. The rest of the characters are just extras that are only with you for a few minutes at the most. Half-Life is like Kill Bill Vol 1 (mostly action with little glimpses of the plot) while I expect Half-Life 2 will be more like Kill Bill Vol 2 (the plot and characters get much deeper... but there's still enough action).

Half-Life has realistic plot development considering the situation that Gordon Freeman is in after the resonance cascade. In the game there are very few people that know what is happening... and you're not one of them. You start off with no information whatsoever. You learn about Black Mesa during the tram ride. You learn a little about the experiments going on before the accident. After that you're just trying to survive for a while, then the plot starts to pick up gradually until the cliffhanger ending.

Another reason that some people don't think Half-Life has much of a plot is because they are used to having the plot force fed to them. In Half-Life, since you're viewing everything as if you are Gordon, you have to do all of his thinking for him. You have to pick up bits and pieces of information from people and events throughout the game and make the connections on your own. If you approach it as a shoot-em-up game you won't come out with much.

Seeing everything from Gordon's eyes also means that you won't see all of the story in one game. Opposing Force and Blue Shift fill in the gaps of the events going on at the same time as Half-Life. Then, Half-Life 2 will answer a lot of questions that you have from Half-Life while leaving more to be answered in Half-Life 3 and the Half-Life 2 expansions. The more parts of the Half-Life series you play, the more you learn about the story.

Marc Laidlaw supposedly wrote a total of around 1000 pages of story/information that comprises the Half-Life universe. I bet it's in there... but a lot of it just isn't making sense to us yet.
 
Compared to the average FPS these days, Half-Life had a great plot to it.
 
DaVinci Code is an excellent book, but the end is a complete rip off. You have been warned.
 
Sparta said:
Also you can get quite a plot from Half-Life if you listen carefully to what the scientists are saying throughout the game
Click to expand...

see? you were not supposed to shoot them as soon as you saw them! :)
 
Give me an FPS with a complicated, involved, interesting storyline, and I'll give you an FPS that is in desperate need of more action.

While a storyline enriches the game, makes it a lot funner and more involving, too more story and not enough game makes for a lousy game. Games like Halflife did a pretty good job getting the two to get along.

If you want a more detailed storyline, go read a book and pretend you're shooting things at the same time.
 
[Dragoon] said:
Give me an FPS with a complicated, involved, interesting storyline, and I'll give you an FPS that is in desperate need of more action.

While a storyline enriches the game, makes it a lot funner and more involving, too more story and not enough game makes for a lousy game. Games like Halflife did a pretty good job getting the two to get along.

If you want a more detailed storyline, go read a book and pretend you're shooting things at the same time.
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Call of Duty.
Unbelievable plot, so complicated, I mean the first time I relised the russians was in on it as well, mind-boggling twist! Awesome!
 
well if people want it i could give a quick synopsis of HL cos there is quite a story there, all u gotta do is listen (to everyone!)
i wont write the synopsis if no one wants it though
 
Half Life has a great plot, maybe not for a movie, but definately for a FPS.

One of the best things about HL is that there are plot twists. For example, you spend the beginning of the game under the impression that someone will be coming in to save you. You get hints that something different is going on from paranoid scientists along the way, but you still feel your salvation awaits you on the surface.

Bam. As soon as you see a military guy, you get to watch a scientists meet his demise. That pretty much shatters the hope that they're here to save you. (Especially: "Save me! I'm the one man who knows everything!" = Bang.) You then realise that you really are on your own.

This get reinforced when you finally reach the surface. It's a harsh realisation that where you've been heading throughout the game isn't the way to freedom. (In some half-assed way I was expecting maybe a fade to black, or a cutscene of Gordon stepping out of the doors to cheering crowds, with the sparkly words 'You Survived!' appearing magically on the screen. Not so.) I think I ran around for ten minutes before I grudgingly admitted I had to go back into the facility.

Skipping ahead to the ending, I think it is the best ending to any FPS I have played. When you kill Nihilanth, what are you expecting? Congratulations? A free trip home? Disneyland maybe? I was definately expecting something good, but then the Gman appears. That suspicious looking man in a suit thats been looking out for you throughout the game. Then he offers you a choice. The Gmans speech at the end was a masterpiece. It was the first FPS that makes you realise what you've done, basically wiped out an entire species, and allowed mankind to conquer alien worlds. ("Quite a nasssty piece of work you managed, I am impresssed."). Half Life was the first FPS that actually made people question what they had done. I certainly found myself wondering how I would have reacted if it had happened in real life. And if thats not a great plot, I don't know what is.

Sorry for the long post. I love talking about HL! :bounce:
 
There's no plot, no story, nothing. But the storytelling is fantastic.
 
iamaelephant said:
DaVinci Code is an excellent book, but the end is a complete rip off. You have been warned.
Click to expand...

Yeah it was an anticlimax wasn't it, but its not like they know where it is
 
Let me put it like this: if you can explain the plot of HL to me, I'd be mightily impressed.
There is a big story behind it all, but it depends on how far you look into the game to see it, some just might see an accident that makes aliens invade and then shit hits the fan, but if you play every expansion for it, then you'll find out there's a whole lot more to it than just an accident.
 
PvtRyan said:
Let me put it like this: if you can explain the plot of HL to me, I'd be mightily impressed.
There is a big story behind it all, but it depends on how far you look into the game to see it, some just might see an accident that makes aliens invade and then shit hits the fan, but if you play every expansion for it, then you'll find out there's a whole lot more to it than just an accident.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I suppose it depends a lot on how far you look for the plot. I mean, someone could just see Gordon as a hero who must save the world from an alien invasion. That's it.

Although that would be pretty boring.
 
It is called the Hero's Journey... Many well known directors, writers, game developers... George Lucas's Star wars and Valve's HL both use some form of the hero's journey which is broken up in parts.

We are introduced to the ordinary world: This is where we meet Gordon in the tram, we learn information about him and get to see how his normal work day looks like.

Then we are called to the adventure: The Cascade incident..

Blah blah I'm too tired to explain all steps, but yeah its the Hero's journey basically.
 
The real genius of Half-Life was that it was a game with a story, with a plot, but it didn't smack you in the face with it, it's much more subtle than that.

An example is the level Questionable Ethics. That whole level makes it abundantly clear that the aliens were known about, and experimented on, for a long time before the incident occured.
 
OCybrManO said:
Half-Life is like Kill Bill Vol 1 (mostly action with little glimpses of the plot) while I expect Half-Life 2 will be more like Kill Bill Vol 2 (the plot and characters get much deeper... but there's still enough action).
Click to expand...

I hope to god NOT. Vol. 2 bombed, Vol. 1 was 10 times better. So says my friend. :sniper:

As for the topic, the first time I played I sort of didn't understand anything because it was new. No other game made me think, it was just literally mindless killing. Half-Life made you aware of your surroundings and really just pulled you in.
 
Because it does; you've just been adversly affected by Combine brainwashings such that you no longer recognize it. You have my sympathy.
 
SubKamran said:
I hope to god NOT. Vol. 2 bombed, Vol. 1 was 10 times better. So says my friend. :sniper:
Click to expand...
You might want to go watch it for yourself, I thought Vol. 2 was killa.
 
Climax/Anti-climax or not, the Code was chock full of awesome facts and interesting asides--one of my favorite books. (If you like it, then read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown also).

On Topic:

Yeah, HL1 had a plot, both major and minor:
Major: Get to the surface.
Minor: Complete certain menial tasks that progress you through the story by allowing you to meet new characters and interact in different environments.
 
I'm just happy kickin' 'n' fraggin' them alien arse. T3h r0fls
 
Sparta said:
Yeah it was an anticlimax wasn't it, but its not like they know where it is
Click to expand...

Don't think so, actually there's a secret revealed and kept secret at the same time. Lovely paradox. And I liked the Louvre epilogue, gotta go and see it myself.
 
CrazyHarij said:
There's no plot, no story, nothing. But the storytelling is fantastic.
Click to expand...

Quoted for emphasis.

I've said it before, the story of Half-Life could be writen on a cocktail napkin, but they way it was told was what made Half-Life so great.
 
The plot? Oh yeah they almost copied it word for word out of the Doom 1 manual. Here it is.

Scientists open a portal to another realm. Creatures from the other realm come to our realm and make a mess. In one game you have Xen, aliens and marines. In the other you have Hell, Hellspawn and marines. This is an incredibly original plot huh?

If you listen to some of the fanboys around here you'd think the Half Life plot won a pulitzer prize or something. LOL. I will agree that Half Life took this genre to the next level. Well I should hope so. You have three years to copy the style and story of a supremely popular game. You have this time to see what works, what doesn't and what can be improved.

I'll admit that HL was better at telling the story, but to call this a good plot is nonsense. Also I think the Doom monsters are ten times more creative and interesting than the ones from HL but that's just my opinion.

If HL2 is even half as immersive as Doom 3 is, which i fully expect it to be, then we're in for an awesome year of gaming.
 
I used to think HL's plot was as simple as: experiment-gone-wrong-kill aliens-now the government wants it all stopped-- someone or something is behind it all but dont know who and gotta kill him too once I kill this big ol scary, freaky-ass monster at the end of the game. But, it's not. There's alot more.

However, if Valve and Marc Laidlaw or whoever can tie up all the loose ends, I'll be impressed.

Oh, and Hl has about 40 more IQ points than DOOM and Far cry. Maybe not as pretty, but alot smarter.
 
http://website.lineone.net/~wingerden/ has a lot of stuff on the Half-Life story.
I don't know which parts are speculation and which aren't, but it's still a good read.

The thing I really loved about HL was not the plot, but how slowly major events progressed. It was basically:
"Don't die", "Get to the surface", "Get to the Lambda labs", "Go to Xen", "Kill Niht-however-you-spell-his-name".
You had little instruction on how to do them and each task was a major accomplishment that took a lot of work and time, unlike all these other games where they give you dozens of little twenty minute jobs to do. That's what I didn't like about Dr. Rosenburg in Blueshift. He ordered you around way too much; it was less like an adventure and more like some boring job. I really hope they keep that style of storytelling in HL2.
 
Fishlore said:
The plot? Oh yeah they almost copied it word for word out of the Doom 1 manual. Here it is.

Scientists open a portal to another realm. Creatures from the other realm come to our realm and make a mess. In one game you have Xen, aliens and marines. In the other you have Hell, Hellspawn and marines. This is an incredibly original plot huh?

If you listen to some of the fanboys around here you'd think the Half Life plot won a pulitzer prize or something. LOL. I will agree that Half Life took this genre to the next level. Well I should hope so. You have three years to copy the style and story of a supremely popular game. You have this time to see what works, what doesn't and what can be improved.

I'll admit that HL was better at telling the story, but to call this a good plot is nonsense. Also I think the Doom monsters are ten times more creative and interesting than the ones from HL but that's just my opinion.

If HL2 is even half as immersive as Doom 3 is, which i fully expect it to be, then we're in for an awesome year of gaming.
Click to expand...

It's a classic sci-fi setting. Opening portals to other dimensions, everyone gets all hung up on "who copied who, they copied them", wtf, I played DOOM I didn't even KNOW there was a story behind it. I sat down and played Half-Life I could immediately tell this game had a story.

Like someone said earlier, the plot could be contrived so easily, but the way they presented it was what made the game great. Even the DOOM 3 introduction wasn't as impressive as Half-Life 1 :naughty: I tried punching stuff over, it didn't work, I wanted to punch the people, that didn't work, I wanted to hit the computers, guess what? That didn't work either. I did like the way they allowed you to use the interfaces like a computer, that was cool.
 
Fishlore said:
The plot? Oh yeah they almost copied it word for word out of the Doom 1 manual. Here it is.

Scientists open a portal to another realm. Creatures from the other realm come to our realm and make a mess. In one game you have Xen, aliens and marines. In the other you have Hell, Hellspawn and marines. This is an incredibly original plot huh?

If you listen to some of the fanboys around here you'd think the Half Life plot won a pulitzer prize or something. LOL. I will agree that Half Life took this genre to the next level. Well I should hope so. You have three years to copy the style and story of a supremely popular game. You have this time to see what works, what doesn't and what can be improved.

I'll admit that HL was better at telling the story, but to call this a good plot is nonsense. Also I think the Doom monsters are ten times more creative and interesting than the ones from HL but that's just my opinion.

If HL2 is even half as immersive as Doom 3 is, which i fully expect it to be, then we're in for an awesome year of gaming.
Click to expand...
This has been brought up before and I'm sure someone with enough energy and rembemers the argument will soon flame you. Have a nice day...
 
AJ Rimmer said:
This has been brought up before and I'm sure someone with enough energy and rembemers the argument will soon flame you. Have a nice day...
Click to expand...

Haha, if only everyone could be this passive. Ah, well, I'll leave it up to someone who knows what they're talking about when they compare 6-8 year old games.
 
SubKamran said:
It's a classic sci-fi setting. Opening portals to other dimensions, everyone gets all hung up on "who copied who, they copied them", wtf, I played DOOM I didn't even KNOW there was a story behind it. I sat down and played Half-Life I could immediately tell this game had a story.

Like someone said earlier, the plot could be contrived so easily, but the way they presented it was what made the game great. Even the DOOM 3 introduction wasn't as impressive as Half-Life 1 :naughty: I tried punching stuff over, it didn't work, I wanted to punch the people, that didn't work, I wanted to hit the computers, guess what? That didn't work either. I did like the way they allowed you to use the interfaces like a computer, that was cool.
Click to expand...

Well if you didn't know there was a plot to Doom then there must not have been one then right? As I said in my post, which people seemed to only read parts of, HL was better at telling the story. I'll freely and openly admit that. That doesn't mean that HL's plot was good. This thread was about the plot, remember? That was my point. It's a simple, canned story that has been used a thousand times probably.

I didn't knock the game HL. I didn't say they told the story poorly. I said the plot was borrowed and modified from other sources. Reading comprehension is taking a hit these days.

Never did I say one game was better than the other. I wasn't getting into physics or how much leeter D3 is over HL2. My only opinion was of the monsters in each game.

To all the HL2 fans out there.....
It's okay to like other games too. You don't have to hate every other game just because it's not HL. You don't have to rip on every other FPS because they aren't as good as HL. As a gamer don't you want all of these games to do well?
 
Fishlore said:
Well if you didn't know there was a plot to Doom then there must not have been one then right? As I said in my post, which people seemed to only read parts of, HL was better at telling the story. I'll freely and openly admit that. That doesn't mean that HL's plot was good. This thread was about the plot, remember? That was my point. It's a simple, canned story that has been used a thousand times probably.

I didn't knock the game HL. I didn't say they told the story poorly. I said the plot was borrowed and modified from other sources. Reading comprehension is taking a hit these days.

Never did I say one game was better than the other. I wasn't getting into physics or how much leeter D3 is over HL2. My only opinion was of the monsters in each game.

To all the HL2 fans out there.....
It's okay to like other games too. You don't have to hate every other game just because it's not HL. You don't have to rip on every other FPS because they aren't as good as HL. As a gamer don't you want all of these games to do well?
Click to expand...

FYI I read your whole post, so I'm not going to argue. Because you're right.
 
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