mastapenguin
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I may be a tad behind the influx of newcomers with all sorts of theories involving G-Man and the Companion Cube, but I've been wanting to write this for a while. It's long, but I like to think my syntax is somewhat understandable.
And a shout out to Darkside for giving me the starting point of this little diatribe here
Every time a new Half-Life episode comes out, someone invariably complains about the fact that Gordon doesn't interact in the slightest, besides pushing buttons and shooting things. Honestly, I think it's a valid complaint. Why would Valve, a company so focused on creating powerful character interaction, give us a protagonist completely incapable of doing so? Something as benign as an animated hand gesture, or something involving the "use" key doesn't seem all that amiss. Hell, other games have told excellent stories using similar sequences, Bioshock coming first to mine.
And then, veterans of the Half-Life series respond with the argument by stating that mute main characters are a tradition. Which is a poor argument in any context. Thus we get a bunch of unconvinced, alienated newcomers and veterans who are very annoyed with the same question posted over and over again.
Well, here's what I can tell of Valve's bulletproof reason: Interaction.
Gordon Freeman is not a character imposed on the player by Valve. Instead, he is a name in which the player can put his own character. Valve probably wants to create an environment where, under no circumstances, control is ever taken away from the player without a good reason. The moment the player watches Gordon do something, is the moment Valve drops their whole notion of being Gordon Freeman.
For example, lets take the scene after the strider train wreck, with Alyx's nervous breakdown. If this were another company, we would almost certainly have been given a little view of helping Alyx up. Hell, we'd probably be given a cutscene where Gordon says something witty. But this destroys the emotional interaction Valve has been creating all along. Ever so slightly, the game would have told the player how Gordon would react, as opposed to letting the player react himself. Instead of "what would I do?" the emotional experience becomes "What would Gordon do?".
Why is this so important? Well, take the most emotionally powerful scene so far, the Helicopter hangar scene. Eli's death is a powerful, well orchestrated scene designed to pull at heartsrings in a shocking and effective way. But how it provokes those emotions is different from any other medium. In another game, we would have seen Gordon screaming expletives and firing off shots. Or, perhaps, he would have sat down in dumbfounded shock at what he just witnessed. Either way, the game would have led the player by the nose, trying to push him to a certain feeling. Valve, instead, presents an excellent scene, and then lets the player decides for himself how he feels. No leading, no suggestions, just what happens and the player's reaction. It is because of that decision that Eli's death is one of the most powerful scenes many players have ever experienced.
I'll admit the difference is subtle to many people, including me. The tradition of storytelling in general means that we are all experts at putting ourselves in other characters. Anyone who has even read a good novel knows that capable writers can evoke emotion without eliminating the personality of the main character. Even the worst offenders of imposing character on the player, JRPGs, are capable of powerful emotional scenes (the FFVI "suicide scene" comes to mind). But the difference is there, and I would rather Valve keep Gordon mute than have Half-Life join the ranks of cut-scene dependent FPS games out there already.
And a shout out to Darkside for giving me the starting point of this little diatribe here
Every time a new Half-Life episode comes out, someone invariably complains about the fact that Gordon doesn't interact in the slightest, besides pushing buttons and shooting things. Honestly, I think it's a valid complaint. Why would Valve, a company so focused on creating powerful character interaction, give us a protagonist completely incapable of doing so? Something as benign as an animated hand gesture, or something involving the "use" key doesn't seem all that amiss. Hell, other games have told excellent stories using similar sequences, Bioshock coming first to mine.
And then, veterans of the Half-Life series respond with the argument by stating that mute main characters are a tradition. Which is a poor argument in any context. Thus we get a bunch of unconvinced, alienated newcomers and veterans who are very annoyed with the same question posted over and over again.
Well, here's what I can tell of Valve's bulletproof reason: Interaction.
Gordon Freeman is not a character imposed on the player by Valve. Instead, he is a name in which the player can put his own character. Valve probably wants to create an environment where, under no circumstances, control is ever taken away from the player without a good reason. The moment the player watches Gordon do something, is the moment Valve drops their whole notion of being Gordon Freeman.
For example, lets take the scene after the strider train wreck, with Alyx's nervous breakdown. If this were another company, we would almost certainly have been given a little view of helping Alyx up. Hell, we'd probably be given a cutscene where Gordon says something witty. But this destroys the emotional interaction Valve has been creating all along. Ever so slightly, the game would have told the player how Gordon would react, as opposed to letting the player react himself. Instead of "what would I do?" the emotional experience becomes "What would Gordon do?".
Why is this so important? Well, take the most emotionally powerful scene so far, the Helicopter hangar scene. Eli's death is a powerful, well orchestrated scene designed to pull at heartsrings in a shocking and effective way. But how it provokes those emotions is different from any other medium. In another game, we would have seen Gordon screaming expletives and firing off shots. Or, perhaps, he would have sat down in dumbfounded shock at what he just witnessed. Either way, the game would have led the player by the nose, trying to push him to a certain feeling. Valve, instead, presents an excellent scene, and then lets the player decides for himself how he feels. No leading, no suggestions, just what happens and the player's reaction. It is because of that decision that Eli's death is one of the most powerful scenes many players have ever experienced.
I'll admit the difference is subtle to many people, including me. The tradition of storytelling in general means that we are all experts at putting ourselves in other characters. Anyone who has even read a good novel knows that capable writers can evoke emotion without eliminating the personality of the main character. Even the worst offenders of imposing character on the player, JRPGs, are capable of powerful emotional scenes (the FFVI "suicide scene" comes to mind). But the difference is there, and I would rather Valve keep Gordon mute than have Half-Life join the ranks of cut-scene dependent FPS games out there already.
