Apo makes a good point though. HL1 came out at a time when being Valve meant nothing.
Yeah, but if they thought the story would be better served by having Freeman speak they would have made the change for HL2. I read an interview with Gabe Newall about how that was a concious choice they made for the second game, and it provided them with challenges and opportunities. It was a long time ago, so I don't remember where it was.
The Crysis protagonist spoke didn't he? I only played the demo, but it felt a little weird hearing his voice saying things I wouldn't say. There are pros and cons of doing it both ways.
Drool on
0
Options
MongerI got the ham stink.Dallas, TXRegistered Userregular
edited May 2008
That video was fantastic.
I think a couple people here are missing the point, though. It's not that more games need sex (in fact, way less games need sex), it's that the industry as a whole needs to present it better. There's a lot of barriers to entry in this particular medium, but perceived immaturity is one of the biggest ones. Sex in games, thus far, has been one of the big examples of that immaturity and that needs to change before more people can appreciate them. Once we deal with that, then we can worry about whether or not sex would work as a game mechanic (I'm willing to bet the answer is "yes," with a "but...").
While I do think games are an immature and stunted art form, the direct comparison to literature and films is a crutch here because constructing sincere emotion in an interactive experience is an extremely complicated proposition. For the most part it has never been done outside of an emotional response to non-interactive cutscenes - and that, really, is a movie and not a game.
The problem with this philosophy, which divides interactive and non-interactive so cleanly, is that there is rarely any part of any videogame which was not designed very specifically to show such-and-such at such-and-such a point, in a nebulous sort of way.
Take, for an example mentioned in the vid, Ico and Yorda. He holds her hand. He holds her hand when you need to guide her around, and it is extremely touching, and you feel a very sincere emotional connection both between "you as an audience" and the characters, and between "you as Ico" and Yorda. The game itself is very interactive, but it's pretty easy to argue that, well, it's just playing an animation whenever you press a button. There's not all that much interactive about that.
How fine do the grains of interactivity have to be before we call a mechanic meaningfully interactive?
In a sense, it's not too far from a cutscene; what makes it interesting and unique as a moment is how it simultaneously fulfills a role in fiction and gameplay, and how it seamlessly blends in with the flow of the game.
Similar points can be made about, say, emotional moments in that ole' narrative-in-games chestnut, Planescape: Torment. They were all written, pre-scripted. But I think the degree of interactivity is just enough to justify it as a game, as a non-linear, constantly shifting experience.
Really, we should be talking in a more nuanced way about how skilfully emotional moments are blended into both fiction and game, and not whether or not they were interactive. Because you can endlessly follow that chain down and always find something which, in isolation, is really not all that interactive at all.
For games to TRULY thrive as an art form their creation must become democratic, meaning that the barrier to entry is lowered substantially and you don't need 20 people and a million bucks to make a tiny game like the PA Episode 1. Then we can explore, then we can push boundaries, then we can take risks. And we can all do it together.
Until that time provocative issues are pretty much a non-starter because this is a business and not an art. But kudos to designers that sneak some boundary pushing in the back door.
I'd say we're at, or extremely close to, that point now. Single-person or two-person teams can make games very much up to modern, pretty, playable standards these days. Look at Aquaria, or Braid, for example.
I just want to second the comment that Indigo Prophecy had very, very creepy, disturbing sex.
I can't really think of any other game off the top of my head that had sex featured so prominantly (by prominant I mean it was part of the story, and you couldn't ignore it...no matter what) in it (that I've played), and it couldn't have left a creepier feeling with me to carry around, forever. So, so, so bizarre, random and wrong.
The cop finds the killer, who's possessed and freezing cold, and then fucks him. !?! IN A HOBO TRAIN.
I think if done really, really, REALLY tastefully, in a story that was AMAZING, it COULD work. But any story thats not just flat out perfect, throwing sex in it just seems weird.
I do think though, that the way they throw it into Fable is funny, and fits the game. It's not trying to be a serious, lovey dovey, story driven moment. You're either at a whorehouse, dressed like a whore, trying to save the whorehouse and sleeping with horrible men - or youre trying to get your wife happy enough to give you a cool weapon. So its done with the right amount of context and humor, and the screen fading to black as you stand there in your undies is just enough that it doesn't creep you out when the noises hit.
Also I remember sex in the Sims 2 being awesome. Poppin' out of those bedsheets or in the hot tub was a good old time.
mxmarks on
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
And I don't think they fully understood the implications. While I admire that they stuck with it, the establishing phase of the HL2 campaign is one of the worst plot moments in the history of the genre. Where am I? What is going on? Why am I here? Why are they here? What time is it? So many questions, far to many to support the story point that Gordon *chooses* not to speak. Very rough of the disbelief.
Well, I never took it at as Gordon choosing not to speak. Since the player is supposed to be Gordon, the things the player is saying/thinking is what Gordon is saying. If that makes sense.
I just listed a whole bunch of simple questions what were never addressed. Some were alluded to, but the whole structure of the game begs a WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? moment.
Also, the suggestion that Gordons voice is the players internal monologue is very destructive as it says that Gordon isn't silent, Gordon is just entirely irrelevant to the story. Say what you want Gordon, the same shit comes back.
And I don't think they fully understood the implications. While I admire that they stuck with it, the establishing phase of the HL2 campaign is one of the worst plot moments in the history of the genre. Where am I? What is going on? Why am I here? Why are they here? What time is it? So many questions, far to many to support the story point that Gordon *chooses* not to speak. Very rough of the disbelief.
Well, I never took it at as Gordon choosing not to speak. Since the player is supposed to be Gordon, the things the player is saying/thinking is what Gordon is saying. If that makes sense.
I just listed a whole bunch of simple questions what were never addressed. Some were alluded to, but the whole structure of the game begs a WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? moment.
Also, the suggestion that Gordons voice is the players internal monologue is very destructive as it says that Gordon isn't silent, Gordon is just entirely irrelevant to the story. Say what you want Gordon, the same shit comes back.
That's sort of the magic of the game. While you're playing through it you feel like you're in control, doing all these awesome things, but really you're being guided by Valve the entire way.
I don't see why you see that as a failing. Unless you don't allow yourself to get into the game and "be" Gordon Freeman. Some people don't allow themselves to be immersed like that I suppose.
Because you can endlessly follow that chain down and always find something which, in isolation, is really not all that interactive at all.
Its a case of show me, don't tell me. Ico has a simple mechanic that constructs an emotional response in the player, this makes it feel sincere. Oh, you don't HAVE to feel it, and I'm sure some people are just totally annoyed by that game, but most people have an empathic reaction. This is sincere.
Most games don't do that. Most games provide canned cutscenes to establish what the players emotional response is - and thats fun, don't get me wrong. But constructing that emotional response is so much more effective and so much more powerful. But it takes bravery to try it, and is often found in accidental places that emerge over the course of the game. I think the Dark Jedi path for Mission in KOTOR is a good example of highly scripted plot intersecting with a players emotional reaction.
As a Dark Jedi, the player can orchestrate the murder of Mission by her wookie companion, her best friend. It is a totally wrenching experience.
I'd say we're at, or extremely close to, that point now. Single-person or two-person teams can make games very much up to modern, pretty, playable standards these days. Look at Aquaria, or Braid, for example.
Small scale puzzle and action games. These are incredibly simple game concepts to evoke. Constructing an interactive narrative is much, much, much more complicated.
That's sort of the magic of the game. While you're playing through it you feel like you're in control, doing all these awesome things, but really you're being guided by Valve the entire way.
I don't see why you see that as a failing. Unless you don't allow yourself to get into the game and "be" Gordon Freeman. Some people don't allow themselves to be immersed like that I suppose.
You are not guided, you are manhandled. If you are truly trying to invite me to slip into that character than questions of fundamental primacy are obligatory to be considered successful.
But then I don't necessarily agree that Valve was attempting to do what you think they succeeded at. I definitely think if they were they totally and abjectly failed in the second game. The first game kind of worked like that through highly-constructed levels.
apotheos on
猿も木から落ちる
0
Options
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited May 2008
Who is this Gordon guy you speak of.
In half life 2 I kicked all kinds of ass, I don't remember no gordon guy.
Wait you mean the code name they gave me? I was a bit busy shooting zombies to care.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
That's sort of the magic of the game. While you're playing through it you feel like you're in control, doing all these awesome things, but really you're being guided by Valve the entire way.
I don't see why you see that as a failing. Unless you don't allow yourself to get into the game and "be" Gordon Freeman. Some people don't allow themselves to be immersed like that I suppose.
You are not guided, you are manhandled. If you are truly trying to invite me to slip into that character than questions of fundamental primacy are obligatory to be considered successful.
But then I don't necessarily agree that Valve was attempting to do what you think they succeeded at. I definitely think if they were they totally and abjectly failed in the second game. The first game kind of worked like that through highly-constructed levels.
So what do you think they were attempting to do? You don't think they were trying to make the player feel like he had agency while telling a scripted story?
I would hope we could avoid this "is this art" debate and just accept that all forms of human expression to one degree or another are artistic. I think on average the artistry of games is poor, which is why I call it an immature form.
Here's something I want to throw out really quickly. Ontologically speaking, games are not art. Games are games--they're constructs of interlinking systems designed to allow a player to progress from a starting point towards a defined ending point in a manner regulated by the rules which govern those systems. Games can have artistic elements and be artfully made. They can make you laugh. They can make you cry. They can make you angry. But the most important emotion the elicit is enjoyment because playing it is supposed to be fun.
I always wonder at the "is this art?" hand wringing because it seems like we take the fact that some games have achieved artistry in both a multimedia sense and in a story-telling sense to imply that the ontology of games has changed, when obviously it hasn't and fundamentally cannot (just like the nature of what makes a chair a chair cannot change without resulting in something that isn't a chair -- or to draw from the recent Penny Arcade comic, you can't have a horse that doesn't conform to what is naturally "horsey;" otherwise, this would yield an unhorse). It also strikes me as the high-brow appendage of that camp in the gaming community that thinks that graphics is more important than gameplay. Certainly, some great games have good graphics. Some great games have brilliant artistic design guiding the visual direction. Some great games tell great stories. But the only thing they all have in common is that they're great games--meaning they're great at being what a game is supposed to be, not what art is supposed to be, or what a chair is supposed to be, or what a pony is supposed to be.
So whenever I see one of these discussions get going about having sex artfully done in a game, the two questions that immediately come to mind are "why and who cares?" I'm sure something like this is possible, but it's not like this is fundamentally essential to the continued development and creation of games. Both sex and gaming will continue to survive if they remain in separate spheres.
And I don't think they fully understood the implications. While I admire that they stuck with it, the establishing phase of the HL2 campaign is one of the worst plot moments in the history of the genre. Where am I? What is going on? Why am I here? Why are they here? What time is it? So many questions, far to many to support the story point that Gordon *chooses* not to speak. Very rough of the disbelief.
Well, I never took it at as Gordon choosing not to speak. Since the player is supposed to be Gordon, the things the player is saying/thinking is what Gordon is saying. If that makes sense.
I just listed a whole bunch of simple questions what were never addressed. Some were alluded to, but the whole structure of the game begs a WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? moment.
Also, the suggestion that Gordons voice is the players internal monologue is very destructive as it says that Gordon isn't silent, Gordon is just entirely irrelevant to the story. Say what you want Gordon, the same shit comes back.
That's sort of the magic of the game. While you're playing through it you feel like you're in control, doing all these awesome things, but really you're being guided by Valve the entire way.
I don't see why you see that as a failing. Unless you don't allow yourself to get into the game and "be" Gordon Freeman. Some people don't allow themselves to be immersed like that I suppose.
I'm on this side of the fence too. Seriously, I have a hard time believing that the reason that Gordon doesn't talk is because of cost cutting measures rather than an actual choice by the dev team.
I also have little doubt that if they were incredibly keen on having Gordon speaking they would have done so by now (they've certainly had no problem changing other aspects of the game over time), or else created a game franchise where the main protagonist does speak and would have been more successful for it by that theory.
My own view is that it's intentional (of course, the devs say this too, but we seem to be treating them as an unreliable source for some reason), and I feel it works brilliantly for the game. The whole point is that you are Gordon Freeman. And to be honest, I've rarely been as well incorporated into a game world as I felt I have been in the Half-Life series. Other people have said it but I also agree, when other people are speaking, I'm the one responding, even if only in my head. And to me, this draws me into the game far more than hearing someone else spouting one liners that I wouldn't say.
For other people this doesn't work out the same way, and I can appreciate that. But to say it's a cost cutting measure? No, I don't buy that at all.
subedii on
0
Options
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
That's sort of the magic of the game. While you're playing through it you feel like you're in control, doing all these awesome things, but really you're being guided by Valve the entire way.
I don't see why you see that as a failing. Unless you don't allow yourself to get into the game and "be" Gordon Freeman. Some people don't allow themselves to be immersed like that I suppose.
You are not guided, you are manhandled. If you are truly trying to invite me to slip into that character than questions of fundamental primacy are obligatory to be considered successful.
But then I don't necessarily agree that Valve was attempting to do what you think they succeeded at. I definitely think if they were they totally and abjectly failed in the second game. The first game kind of worked like that through highly-constructed levels.
So what do you think they were attempting to do? You don't think they were trying to make the player feel like he had agency while telling a scripted story?
They directly stated that it was a conscious choice they made early on in an attempt to deliver exactly what apotheos feels they copped out to do and didn't do that well at. It was directly responsible for their facial animation systems....they wanted a way to evoke emotion in the player implicitly. So in essence, they put years of work into a system they could have just thrown some voice actors and scripting at.
The logic doesn't gel.
Maybe it didn't work for apotheos, but it worked for a great many people. I'd say they did a bang up job, since you can't please everybody anyway.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Because you can endlessly follow that chain down and always find something which, in isolation, is really not all that interactive at all.
Its a case of show me, don't tell me. Ico has a simple mechanic that constructs an emotional response in the player, this makes it feel sincere. Oh, you don't HAVE to feel it, and I'm sure some people are just totally annoyed by that game, but most people have an empathic reaction. This is sincere.
Most games don't do that. Most games provide canned cutscenes to establish what the players emotional response is - and thats fun, don't get me wrong. But constructing that emotional response is so much more effective and so much more powerful. But it takes bravery to try it, and is often found in accidental places that emerge over the course of the game. I think the Dark Jedi path for Mission in KOTOR is a good example of highly scripted plot intersecting with a players emotional reaction.
As a Dark Jedi, the player can orchestrate the murder of Mission by her wookie companion, her best friend. It is a totally wrenching experience.
I get you. But I think we're moving faster toward that goal than you believe. I've noticed increasingly characters show their personality through animations and so on, and increasingly games are willing to bend their mechanics to the story's individual needs, away from the established genre.
Which is what will lead to a more skilfully constructed ludonarrative, in my opinion.
I'd say we're at, or extremely close to, that point now. Single-person or two-person teams can make games very much up to modern, pretty, playable standards these days. Look at Aquaria, or Braid, for example.
Small scale puzzle and action games. These are incredibly simple game concepts to evoke. Constructing an interactive narrative is much, much, much more complicated.
From a writing point of view, yes, not necessarily from a technical point of view. It depends on what you're trying to achieve. IF can produce some amazingly complex interactive narrative sometimes, but from a technical standpoint you barely need anything more than an understanding of simple logic.
I get that you're aiming perhaps for something more completely a game, rather than IF. Something closer to ICO than Adam Cadre, and so something which therefore also needs a lot of subtle artistry to it, visually as well as narratively. Eh... I think it can be done by one person. Just about.
I think it's purely that we just haven't had many indies with the ambition of creating a very complex narrative, yet, rather than there being some obstacle out there that requires fifty writers and artists.
That's sort of the magic of the game. While you're playing through it you feel like you're in control, doing all these awesome things, but really you're being guided by Valve the entire way.
I don't see why you see that as a failing. Unless you don't allow yourself to get into the game and "be" Gordon Freeman. Some people don't allow themselves to be immersed like that I suppose.
You are not guided, you are manhandled. If you are truly trying to invite me to slip into that character than questions of fundamental primacy are obligatory to be considered successful.
But then I don't necessarily agree that Valve was attempting to do what you think they succeeded at. I definitely think if they were they totally and abjectly failed in the second game. The first game kind of worked like that through highly-constructed levels.
So what do you think they were attempting to do? You don't think they were trying to make the player feel like he had agency while telling a scripted story?
They directly stated that it was a conscious choice they made early on in an attempt to deliver exactly what apotheos feels they copped out to do and didn't do that well at. It was directly responsible for their facial animation systems....they wanted a way to evoke emotion in the player implicitly. So in essence, they put years of work into a system they could have just thrown some voice actors and scripting at.
The logic doesn't gel.
Maybe it didn't work for apotheos, but it worked for a great many people. I'd say they did a bang up job, since you can't please everybody anyway.
That's another thing actually, they spent years developing a highly specialised and very successful facial animation system, purely for the sake of getting the player character to emote with other characters in game. It's amazing, at that time nobody was thinking along those lines for an FPS. It was seen as ancillary and wholly unnecessary to making a good FPS. It was a huge risk to put the focus on that in development. Maybe it didn't pay off for you, but it did off for me, the facial animation is genuinely one of the real highlights of the series for me. Even today you're hard pressed to find the kind of emotive facial animation that you do in the source engine.
Chell never speaks during Portal either, does she?
I know that when I am playing a game, and I hope I'm not alone here, when someone tells me (my character) something, I sometimes respond in my own head, or verbally, depending on my level of enjoyment or frustration at that moment. It can really pull you into putting yourself into the game as that person, vs. having that person speak and it not be your voice.
I'm pretty sure Valve's technique is to skilfully write around the most immediate, predictable ideas and questions that are raised in the player's head through the story, puppeteering the NPCs to respond to them as if they've been implicitly brought up by the player, without explicitly acting as if Gordon said anything.
I think it works really well. It also happens to piss a lot of people off. For whatever reason, a lot of people don't seem to get the idea, and I don't mean that in a snobbish, demeaning way - for whatever reason they seem to respond differently to the technique and feel totally alienated as a result.
Am I on the right track here, People Who Hate Gordon's Speech Impediment? Or do you feel differently?
I'm pretty sure Valve's technique is to skilfully write around the most immediate, predictable ideas and questions that are raised in the player's head through the story, puppeteering the NPCs to respond to them as if they've been implicitly brought up by the player, without explicitly acting as if Gordon said anything.
I think it works really well. It also happens to piss a lot of people off. For whatever reason, a lot of people don't seem to get the idea, and I don't mean that in a snobbish, demeaning way - for whatever reason they seem to respond differently to the technique and feel totally alienated as a result.
Except it doesn't.
The most obvious huge "what the fuck is going on here and where the fuck am I?" questions never get addressed by the NPCs.
Gordon's dropped in there, never says a thing, and the NPCs go along like he already knows everything because he never says "Wait. Stop. I don't know what's happened, exactly, but I don't know what's happened here or what's going on. Could someone please help me out here?"
And that's right at the beginning. And they never actually do get addressed. The NPCs still only mention in passing what has happened. If you really want to know, you have to go out of your way and read newspaper clippings about the events. Why? Gordon should just be able to ask.
I'm pretty sure Valve's technique is to skilfully write around the most immediate, predictable ideas and questions in the player's head, puppeteering the NPCs to respond to them as if they've been implicitly raised by the player, without explicitly acting as if Gordon said anything.
I think it works really well. It also happens to piss a lot of people off. For whatever reason, a lot of people don't seem to get the idea, and I don't mean that in a snobbish, demeaning way - for whatever reason they seem to respond differently to the technique and feel totally alienated as a result.
Even modern games like Bioshock deliberately chose this method as well. And if you think Bioshock was sacrificing on budget for that, then you're tripping on something.
The thing is, the few FPS's I've played where the main character spoke this did nothing for me except make the game feel weird. When Nomad was first speaking in Crysis, I didn't even realise it was him speaking, I thought it was some other person speaking to him. Took me a while to adjust, but it never did anything to bring me into the game by having him speaking over my first person view.
About the only game I can think of where this didn't seem weird was Deus Ex, where the game actively goes to a 3rd person view whenever a two-way conversation starts up. For some reason this feels far more right to me than having a running narration going over my actions and my thoughts.
subedii on
0
Options
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I'm pretty sure Valve's technique is to skilfully write around the most immediate, predictable ideas and questions that are raised in the player's head through the story, puppeteering the NPCs to respond to them as if they've been implicitly brought up by the player, without explicitly acting as if Gordon said anything.
I think it works really well. It also happens to piss a lot of people off. For whatever reason, a lot of people don't seem to get the idea, and I don't mean that in a snobbish, demeaning way - for whatever reason they seem to respond differently to the technique and feel totally alienated as a result.
Am I on the right track here, People Who Hate Gordon's Speech Impediment? Or do you feel differently?
I'm going to go out on a limb and be a raging asshole and say this is what is happening. Which is why I tend to not like to criticise gaming texts using preset rules or only my own opinion. Just my own experience, in my own experience, is not enough.
I was told, in the previous game, that I would be put on hold, as a potential asset, because of my skill at kicking ass.
So in a new game, I knew why I was there. Because they needed some ass to be kicked, skillfully. I mean, duh, that's what I do. I totally vaporised that brain baby guy.
My inner gordon isn't very intellectual.
The above three lines are why it worked for me.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
As long as developers keep a juvenile attitude torwards sex, games with it in them will just be giggled and laughed at and stored under the mattress.
The two big questions about sex in games:
1) Could we and should we?
When I took a course on games and modern culture at the local community college last year, one of the biggest arguement/discussions we had was on sex in games. After an hour of one guy explaining why the ESRB needs to start handing out AO labels like candy and tell Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft to quit bitching and directly import all games availible, someone raised a good point about it: developers shouldn't be asking "could we put sexytime in a game?", they need to ask "should we put it in at all?" If it's just in there for shits and giggles, and to create underground free publicity (admit it- how many people bought DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball for the gameplay?), then maybe it shouldn't be in there in the first place. But, if there's a legitimate reason for the character to get busy, like taking a relationship with thier S.O. to the next level, then you get to consider the second question:
2) Under cover or on top?
This is where you can get into trouble. Some people think that incuding sex in a game means it has to be shown in a way that would make an adult film director smile- you have to actively show them going at it. (I think that's why you never see it these days.) Sex should be done tastefully- you know, imply they're doing it; they embrace, kiss, maybe a few pieces of clothing shed on the way to where the deed will be done, then a fade to black. Then the next scene shows them sleeping in the bed, close to one another, or whatever. You don't need to show the whole thing.
I'm pretty sure Valve's technique is to skilfully write around the most immediate, predictable ideas and questions that are raised in the player's head through the story, puppeteering the NPCs to respond to them as if they've been implicitly brought up by the player, without explicitly acting as if Gordon said anything.
I think it works really well. It also happens to piss a lot of people off. For whatever reason, a lot of people don't seem to get the idea, and I don't mean that in a snobbish, demeaning way - for whatever reason they seem to respond differently to the technique and feel totally alienated as a result.
Except it doesn't.
The most obvious huge "what the fuck is going on here and where the fuck am I?" questions never get addressed by the NPCs.
Gordon's dropped in there, never says a thing, and the NPCs go along like he already knows everything because he never says "Wait. Stop. I don't know what's happened, exactly, but I don't know what's happened here or what's going on. Could someone please help me out here?"
And that's right at the beginning. And they never actually do get addressed. The NPCs still only mention in passing what has happened. If you really want to know, you have to go out of your way and read newspaper clippings about the events. Why? Gordon should just be able to ask.
Those questions are left unanswered because they want the player to be confused and a little afraid of their new enviroment. Also so they don't have to give everything away all at once. Leaving your "reader" wanting more is a pretty standard narrative technique.
In a way his silence defines Gordon as a character. He's someone who acts, not someone who sits around and talks. When Alyx asks him how they're going to get past an obstacle he doesn't have a chat about it. He whips out his crowbar and goes to work.
I'm pretty sure Valve's technique is to skilfully write around the most immediate, predictable ideas and questions that are raised in the player's head through the story, puppeteering the NPCs to respond to them as if they've been implicitly brought up by the player, without explicitly acting as if Gordon said anything.
I think it works really well. It also happens to piss a lot of people off. For whatever reason, a lot of people don't seem to get the idea, and I don't mean that in a snobbish, demeaning way - for whatever reason they seem to respond differently to the technique and feel totally alienated as a result.
Except it doesn't.
The most obvious huge "what the fuck is going on here and where the fuck am I?" questions never get addressed by the NPCs.
I think you might be confusing the issue there. Even if Gordon were able to speak, all those questions that you have would never actually get answered regardless. Valve are maintaining secrecy over the plot and doing reveals as they see fit.
Valve are keeping much of the HL univserse shrouded in mystery from the player, not because Gordon can't speak, but because that's the way they want to tell the story. Over time they're pulling things back more and more (Episode 2 had some pretty heavy revelations). Those huge questions? Yeah, those won't get answered until Valve wants to answer them.
In fact, I would argue that GordonSpeak would actually make the player more frustrated in those circumstances, because they'd just end up hating Gordon Freeman for either not asking the questions they wanted to ask or not getting answers to them.
Okay, I haven't really said anything about the sex thing, so I just want to chime in with:
I see it as difficult to form an emotionally meaningful bond between the player of a game and a character IN said video game. Live-action movies are a good medium for this as essentially you have the viewers undivided attention for a specific amount of time, you control exactly what the viewer is seeing, and yet even there sex/love falls flat on it's face so many times and seems nothing more than tacked on.
In a video game where the player is interactively trying to achieve goals, it seems to me awfully difficult to build that same level of emotional investment between a player and a game character, and if that emotional investment isn't present then it will make about as much sense as the Kate storyline in GTA does to me.
I'm playing it right now, so here's the game and this relationship from MY point of view: MY Nico is a complete asshole who hangs up on all his friends and who's idea of a date is to launch a girl off a motorbike into oncoming traffic (hey, I put up with all the relationship bullshit in real life, I'm relaxing playing a video game and you want me to pay attention to stupid chatter and take some pixels out to a restaurant? Fuck that noise) but STILL have this chick always calling me telling me she wants to hang out, and watching her fall for me and us flirt as I do missions with her family. Not only is it something I don't want to do but it's just totally breaking any realism of the story because it downright doesn't make any damned sense to ME,. The literally forced inclusion of a relationship in the story is detrimental to the story in question, for this gamer.
So meaningful sex and relationships are super, but they're hard enough for mediums that are good at that sort of thing, let alone video games. I vote we see sex and relationships added as story-arcs or extra options that open as a players choices make it clear that the player feels an emotional investment in a character, NOT because a character is a big part of a story and therefore will be a love interest and therefore the player clicks X to do whatever.
Now back to Half-life:
I think the silent hero thing here wasn't really much of a choice, but I think Valve definitely wanted the player to feel like they were Gordon freeman and those things happening were happening around and to the player in question. The lack of load screens and level completed screens and so many choices compared to other FPS games to date seem to point to that (no zooming the camera to a third person view for a chat, no Gordon talking period at ANY time, just the player hearing instructions from the scientists and whatnot.)
I think in HL2 going silent hero was a good choice. I still felt more immersed and more 'the protagonist' than I did in Doom 3, a game which I actually liked more.
Where HL2 failed is I think, as mentioned, the total lack of a proper introduction to the game telling Gordon and the player what's going on. In HL1 the introduction to the game is the player causing a catastrophe, and the remainder of the game is the player trying to get his ass out of dodge. In HL2 the introduction to the game is... what is it again? Throwing bottles at some policeman? Being chased by a blinky lights drone? Following Alyx? The stupid boat? The stupid buggy? Geez I feel like the whole GAME was an introduction. And yes, NO ONE answering questions like 'WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?' which is what Gordon sure would have been asking. ONE GUY saying 'Welcome back, Mr. Freeman. I think you'll find the world has changed. It's been X years and humans live and die at the whims of an alien-dominated police state, and we need your help' would have done wonders for that game.
Not that my opinion on HL2's quality much matters, as I know I'm in the great minority.
The most obvious huge "what the fuck is going on here and where the fuck am I?" questions never get addressed by the NPCs.
Gordon's dropped in there, never says a thing, and the NPCs go along like he already knows everything because he never says "Wait. Stop. I don't know what's happened, exactly, but I don't know what's happened here or what's going on. Could someone please help me out here?"
And that's right at the beginning. And they never actually do get addressed. The NPCs still only mention in passing what has happened. If you really want to know, you have to go out of your way and read newspaper clippings about the events. Why? Gordon should just be able to ask.
You're meant to - or at least this is how I and most other people I talk to respond - construct a narrative based on this. You're meant to watch these events unfold and, in combination with your own reactions to them, realise three things:
1) Gordon is not in entirely in control of where he is sent or what he is doing. He is under the thumb of G-man.
2) Everybody thinks he's the anti-Combine messiah, come to bravely rid the world of Breen & co. He's a legend, a scientist-hero from Black Mesa, and so wherever he's been these past years, he should know all about this stuff. He doesn't. It's irony.
3) Gordon wants to aid the resistance despite his lack of agency, and goes on to spearhead it.
As for why Gordon can't just ask, we've been around and around on this point on these forums. The player is supposed to play the part of Gordon, and having Gordon talk would mean distancing the player from Gordon a little bit. It's kind of awkward. So they come up with other techniques to get around it.
In fact, I would argue that GordonSpeak would actually make the player more frustrated in those circumstances, because they'd just end up hating Gordon Freeman for either not asking the questions they wanted to ask or not getting answers to them.
'Welcome back, Mr. Freeman. I think you'll find the world has changed. It's been X years and humans live and die at the whims of an alien-dominated police state, and we need your help' would have done wonders for that game.
You didn't get all that from the first 5 minutes of the game? All except the alien part.
Drool on
0
Options
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited May 2008
Well, they would have hated the people who didn't answer. I find it unlikely they would have hated gordon himself.
But he definitely wouldn't have seemed like such an asskicker, and then I wouldn't be in the game anymore. Gordon would. It just wouldn't have been as much fun.
The first thing I think of when I think of hl2 is the magnum level, when you pick it up and the guy comes through the door, all the way up to the helicopter. I did that all in one go, one shot each, no misses.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
This makes me think about one thing, and get frustrated: Half-Life 2. Had Gordon not been a silent protagonist, I think a real connection could have happened with Alyx over the course of the game and its episodic sequels.
Disagree. There was a connection with Alyx. You can tell the change in her face, the way she speaks with him, and Benson even talks about grandkids now that the baby-batter inhibitors were down, and she even smiled/blushed after he said it. So, while you don't whip out the Barry White on her, it's there. Gordon doesn't have to say "shake it baby" to get across the subtext.
As long as developers keep a juvenile attitude torwards sex, games with it in them will just be giggled and laughed at and stored under the mattress.
I wonder if this is a function of the developers or a function of their audience. I mean, is R* really populated by a gaggle of prurient man-children who giggle at the idea of looking at their daddy's Playboys and who beat-off to The Man Show and The L Word and who's only interaction with flesh and blood women have been at titty bars, or do they just know that they're going to sell mostly to that audience?
Moreover, how well would a truly dramatic, non-game game sell? If there's no action and nothing to do but walk from screen to screen and choose-your-own melodrama, will that sell to the average PS3 owner? The closest thing most games are to other media are action movies... and while there's tits in those, I don't know of a whole lot of action movies that have meaningful, dramatic sex. Especially meaningful, dramatic, explicit sex. Most of it's "hey, tatters! woo!"
There are these huge questions that any reasonable and normal person would ask but Gordon doesn't. Why? Because Valve doesn't think he should speak at all. I'm not making value judgements on Gordon speaking or not, just that at times it stretches and breaks through the bounds of believability because it really does feel like a hackneyed and stupid solution.
I understand not wanting to give everything away at once. I understand "pretty standard narrative techniques." I do not think literary techniques always fit shoehorned into videogame narrative. In books or movies you're watching people who are already active participants within the world. Gordon Freeman is not at the start of Half-Life 2 and neither is the player.
Not having Gordon speak makes him seem less than human to me. Why doesn't he ask questions? Why doesn't he speak? It doesn't make me get more involved with the game, it just makes me frustrated with Gordon being such a huge blank slate that he isn't really a person and he can't be made to be a person through my actions. He just is. And it's not enough. I can ask questions of the NPCs myself like I seem to be expected to, but the NPCs don't respond. They have their own lines and their own little scenes and nothing I do has any impact on them.
I still liked Half-Life 2, but it doesn't feel to me to be an ideal solution to anything.
Well, they would have hated the people who didn't answer. I find it unlikely they would have hated gordon himself.
But he definitely wouldn't have seemed like such an asskicker, and then I wouldn't be in the game anymore. Gordon would. It just wouldn't have been as much fun.
The first thing I think of when I think of hl2 is the magnum level, when you pick it up and the guy comes through the door, all the way up to the helicopter. I did that all in one go, one shot each, no misses.
I hoard ammo for power weapons until it's too late to use them.
It's a habit that I typically find very hard to break.
I still liked Half-Life 2, but it doesn't feel to me to be an ideal solution to anything.
Well realistically, the only ideal solution would be the development of AI capable of understanding and parsing human speech within context and responding appropriately, with a game framework capable of adapting to the users impetus and self created narrative.
Whilst we're still obviously a long way from that, given the situation, I feel that there are far worse things out there than what Valve have attempted for the sake of narrative and attempting to draw the player in.
Actually the GFW guys were talking about this on their podcast when Age of Conan came up. It's a "Mature" game that is anything but mature when it comes to sex. It's all teenage boy fantasies.
Maybe once the average age of gamers is in the late 30's instead of late 20's companies will take the gamble on dealing with sex in a truly mature fashion.
As it is I still think most of them don't see their audience as intelligent adults looking to be entertained in a mature way.
Well, they would have hated the people who didn't answer. I find it unlikely they would have hated gordon himself.
As soon as Gordon Freeman is doing something on his own volition that isn't being done by you, there exists the possibility that you're going to hate him for it. Just like some people hate Alyx for not behaving the way they want.
Actually the GFW guys were talking about this on their podcast when Age of Conan came up. It's a "Mature" game that is anything but mature when it comes to sex. It's all teenage boy fantasies.
Maybe once the average age of gamers is in the late 30's instead of late 20's companies will take the gamble on dealing with sex in a truly mature fashion.
As it is I still think most of them don't see their audience as intelligent adults looking to be entertained in a mature way.
Do you know why sex is portrayed in Age of Conan the way it is?
Because that's the way Robert E. Howard wrote the Conan stories. Using Age of Conan as an example here doesn't fly, because they made Mr. Howard's world, not their own.
I hoard ammo for power weapons until it's too late to use them.
It's a habit that I typically find very hard to break.
This. I played the first couple levels of bioshock using nothing but the wrench because I was worried I wouldn't find pistol ammo. When I finally got the machine gun, I started using the pistol but wouldn't use the machine gun in case I couldn't find more ammo for it. When I got the shotgun, I broke out the machine gun, and when I got the grenade launcher I finally started using the shotgun with abandon.
I wish they'd put one extra gun in the game that didn't have any stats or ammo at all so I'd use the full range of weapons they wanted me to.
Anyway, off topic, sorry for the distraction, carry on.
Posts
Yeah, but if they thought the story would be better served by having Freeman speak they would have made the change for HL2. I read an interview with Gabe Newall about how that was a concious choice they made for the second game, and it provided them with challenges and opportunities. It was a long time ago, so I don't remember where it was.
The Crysis protagonist spoke didn't he? I only played the demo, but it felt a little weird hearing his voice saying things I wouldn't say. There are pros and cons of doing it both ways.
I think a couple people here are missing the point, though. It's not that more games need sex (in fact, way less games need sex), it's that the industry as a whole needs to present it better. There's a lot of barriers to entry in this particular medium, but perceived immaturity is one of the biggest ones. Sex in games, thus far, has been one of the big examples of that immaturity and that needs to change before more people can appreciate them. Once we deal with that, then we can worry about whether or not sex would work as a game mechanic (I'm willing to bet the answer is "yes," with a "but...").
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
The problem with this philosophy, which divides interactive and non-interactive so cleanly, is that there is rarely any part of any videogame which was not designed very specifically to show such-and-such at such-and-such a point, in a nebulous sort of way.
Take, for an example mentioned in the vid, Ico and Yorda. He holds her hand. He holds her hand when you need to guide her around, and it is extremely touching, and you feel a very sincere emotional connection both between "you as an audience" and the characters, and between "you as Ico" and Yorda. The game itself is very interactive, but it's pretty easy to argue that, well, it's just playing an animation whenever you press a button. There's not all that much interactive about that.
How fine do the grains of interactivity have to be before we call a mechanic meaningfully interactive?
In a sense, it's not too far from a cutscene; what makes it interesting and unique as a moment is how it simultaneously fulfills a role in fiction and gameplay, and how it seamlessly blends in with the flow of the game.
Similar points can be made about, say, emotional moments in that ole' narrative-in-games chestnut, Planescape: Torment. They were all written, pre-scripted. But I think the degree of interactivity is just enough to justify it as a game, as a non-linear, constantly shifting experience.
Really, we should be talking in a more nuanced way about how skilfully emotional moments are blended into both fiction and game, and not whether or not they were interactive. Because you can endlessly follow that chain down and always find something which, in isolation, is really not all that interactive at all.
I'd say we're at, or extremely close to, that point now. Single-person or two-person teams can make games very much up to modern, pretty, playable standards these days. Look at Aquaria, or Braid, for example.
I can't really think of any other game off the top of my head that had sex featured so prominantly (by prominant I mean it was part of the story, and you couldn't ignore it...no matter what) in it (that I've played), and it couldn't have left a creepier feeling with me to carry around, forever. So, so, so bizarre, random and wrong.
I think if done really, really, REALLY tastefully, in a story that was AMAZING, it COULD work. But any story thats not just flat out perfect, throwing sex in it just seems weird.
I do think though, that the way they throw it into Fable is funny, and fits the game. It's not trying to be a serious, lovey dovey, story driven moment. You're either at a whorehouse, dressed like a whore, trying to save the whorehouse and sleeping with horrible men - or youre trying to get your wife happy enough to give you a cool weapon. So its done with the right amount of context and humor, and the screen fading to black as you stand there in your undies is just enough that it doesn't creep you out when the noises hit.
Also I remember sex in the Sims 2 being awesome. Poppin' out of those bedsheets or in the hot tub was a good old time.
The Uncanny Valley.
SSB code- 0216-0856-6886 PM me so I can add you
Heh.
I just listed a whole bunch of simple questions what were never addressed. Some were alluded to, but the whole structure of the game begs a WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? moment.
Also, the suggestion that Gordons voice is the players internal monologue is very destructive as it says that Gordon isn't silent, Gordon is just entirely irrelevant to the story. Say what you want Gordon, the same shit comes back.
猿も木から落ちる
That's sort of the magic of the game. While you're playing through it you feel like you're in control, doing all these awesome things, but really you're being guided by Valve the entire way.
I don't see why you see that as a failing. Unless you don't allow yourself to get into the game and "be" Gordon Freeman. Some people don't allow themselves to be immersed like that I suppose.
Its a case of show me, don't tell me. Ico has a simple mechanic that constructs an emotional response in the player, this makes it feel sincere. Oh, you don't HAVE to feel it, and I'm sure some people are just totally annoyed by that game, but most people have an empathic reaction. This is sincere.
Most games don't do that. Most games provide canned cutscenes to establish what the players emotional response is - and thats fun, don't get me wrong. But constructing that emotional response is so much more effective and so much more powerful. But it takes bravery to try it, and is often found in accidental places that emerge over the course of the game. I think the Dark Jedi path for Mission in KOTOR is a good example of highly scripted plot intersecting with a players emotional reaction.
Small scale puzzle and action games. These are incredibly simple game concepts to evoke. Constructing an interactive narrative is much, much, much more complicated.
猿も木から落ちる
I find this funny. What is this from?
It's also very true. It would just be creepy.
You are not guided, you are manhandled. If you are truly trying to invite me to slip into that character than questions of fundamental primacy are obligatory to be considered successful.
But then I don't necessarily agree that Valve was attempting to do what you think they succeeded at. I definitely think if they were they totally and abjectly failed in the second game. The first game kind of worked like that through highly-constructed levels.
猿も木から落ちる
In half life 2 I kicked all kinds of ass, I don't remember no gordon guy.
Wait you mean the code name they gave me? I was a bit busy shooting zombies to care.
So what do you think they were attempting to do? You don't think they were trying to make the player feel like he had agency while telling a scripted story?
Here's something I want to throw out really quickly. Ontologically speaking, games are not art. Games are games--they're constructs of interlinking systems designed to allow a player to progress from a starting point towards a defined ending point in a manner regulated by the rules which govern those systems. Games can have artistic elements and be artfully made. They can make you laugh. They can make you cry. They can make you angry. But the most important emotion the elicit is enjoyment because playing it is supposed to be fun.
I always wonder at the "is this art?" hand wringing because it seems like we take the fact that some games have achieved artistry in both a multimedia sense and in a story-telling sense to imply that the ontology of games has changed, when obviously it hasn't and fundamentally cannot (just like the nature of what makes a chair a chair cannot change without resulting in something that isn't a chair -- or to draw from the recent Penny Arcade comic, you can't have a horse that doesn't conform to what is naturally "horsey;" otherwise, this would yield an unhorse). It also strikes me as the high-brow appendage of that camp in the gaming community that thinks that graphics is more important than gameplay. Certainly, some great games have good graphics. Some great games have brilliant artistic design guiding the visual direction. Some great games tell great stories. But the only thing they all have in common is that they're great games--meaning they're great at being what a game is supposed to be, not what art is supposed to be, or what a chair is supposed to be, or what a pony is supposed to be.
So whenever I see one of these discussions get going about having sex artfully done in a game, the two questions that immediately come to mind are "why and who cares?" I'm sure something like this is possible, but it's not like this is fundamentally essential to the continued development and creation of games. Both sex and gaming will continue to survive if they remain in separate spheres.
I'm on this side of the fence too. Seriously, I have a hard time believing that the reason that Gordon doesn't talk is because of cost cutting measures rather than an actual choice by the dev team.
I also have little doubt that if they were incredibly keen on having Gordon speaking they would have done so by now (they've certainly had no problem changing other aspects of the game over time), or else created a game franchise where the main protagonist does speak and would have been more successful for it by that theory.
My own view is that it's intentional (of course, the devs say this too, but we seem to be treating them as an unreliable source for some reason), and I feel it works brilliantly for the game. The whole point is that you are Gordon Freeman. And to be honest, I've rarely been as well incorporated into a game world as I felt I have been in the Half-Life series. Other people have said it but I also agree, when other people are speaking, I'm the one responding, even if only in my head. And to me, this draws me into the game far more than hearing someone else spouting one liners that I wouldn't say.
For other people this doesn't work out the same way, and I can appreciate that. But to say it's a cost cutting measure? No, I don't buy that at all.
They directly stated that it was a conscious choice they made early on in an attempt to deliver exactly what apotheos feels they copped out to do and didn't do that well at. It was directly responsible for their facial animation systems....they wanted a way to evoke emotion in the player implicitly. So in essence, they put years of work into a system they could have just thrown some voice actors and scripting at.
The logic doesn't gel.
Maybe it didn't work for apotheos, but it worked for a great many people. I'd say they did a bang up job, since you can't please everybody anyway.
I get you. But I think we're moving faster toward that goal than you believe. I've noticed increasingly characters show their personality through animations and so on, and increasingly games are willing to bend their mechanics to the story's individual needs, away from the established genre.
Which is what will lead to a more skilfully constructed ludonarrative, in my opinion.
From a writing point of view, yes, not necessarily from a technical point of view. It depends on what you're trying to achieve. IF can produce some amazingly complex interactive narrative sometimes, but from a technical standpoint you barely need anything more than an understanding of simple logic.
I get that you're aiming perhaps for something more completely a game, rather than IF. Something closer to ICO than Adam Cadre, and so something which therefore also needs a lot of subtle artistry to it, visually as well as narratively. Eh... I think it can be done by one person. Just about.
I think it's purely that we just haven't had many indies with the ambition of creating a very complex narrative, yet, rather than there being some obstacle out there that requires fifty writers and artists.
That's another thing actually, they spent years developing a highly specialised and very successful facial animation system, purely for the sake of getting the player character to emote with other characters in game. It's amazing, at that time nobody was thinking along those lines for an FPS. It was seen as ancillary and wholly unnecessary to making a good FPS. It was a huge risk to put the focus on that in development. Maybe it didn't pay off for you, but it did off for me, the facial animation is genuinely one of the real highlights of the series for me. Even today you're hard pressed to find the kind of emotive facial animation that you do in the source engine.
I know that when I am playing a game, and I hope I'm not alone here, when someone tells me (my character) something, I sometimes respond in my own head, or verbally, depending on my level of enjoyment or frustration at that moment. It can really pull you into putting yourself into the game as that person, vs. having that person speak and it not be your voice.
I think it works really well. It also happens to piss a lot of people off. For whatever reason, a lot of people don't seem to get the idea, and I don't mean that in a snobbish, demeaning way - for whatever reason they seem to respond differently to the technique and feel totally alienated as a result.
Am I on the right track here, People Who Hate Gordon's Speech Impediment? Or do you feel differently?
Except it doesn't.
The most obvious huge "what the fuck is going on here and where the fuck am I?" questions never get addressed by the NPCs.
Gordon's dropped in there, never says a thing, and the NPCs go along like he already knows everything because he never says "Wait. Stop. I don't know what's happened, exactly, but I don't know what's happened here or what's going on. Could someone please help me out here?"
And that's right at the beginning. And they never actually do get addressed. The NPCs still only mention in passing what has happened. If you really want to know, you have to go out of your way and read newspaper clippings about the events. Why? Gordon should just be able to ask.
Even modern games like Bioshock deliberately chose this method as well. And if you think Bioshock was sacrificing on budget for that, then you're tripping on something.
The thing is, the few FPS's I've played where the main character spoke this did nothing for me except make the game feel weird. When Nomad was first speaking in Crysis, I didn't even realise it was him speaking, I thought it was some other person speaking to him. Took me a while to adjust, but it never did anything to bring me into the game by having him speaking over my first person view.
About the only game I can think of where this didn't seem weird was Deus Ex, where the game actively goes to a 3rd person view whenever a two-way conversation starts up. For some reason this feels far more right to me than having a running narration going over my actions and my thoughts.
I'm going to go out on a limb and be a raging asshole and say this is what is happening. Which is why I tend to not like to criticise gaming texts using preset rules or only my own opinion. Just my own experience, in my own experience, is not enough.
I was told, in the previous game, that I would be put on hold, as a potential asset, because of my skill at kicking ass.
So in a new game, I knew why I was there. Because they needed some ass to be kicked, skillfully. I mean, duh, that's what I do. I totally vaporised that brain baby guy.
My inner gordon isn't very intellectual.
The above three lines are why it worked for me.
The two big questions about sex in games:
1) Could we and should we?
When I took a course on games and modern culture at the local community college last year, one of the biggest arguement/discussions we had was on sex in games. After an hour of one guy explaining why the ESRB needs to start handing out AO labels like candy and tell Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft to quit bitching and directly import all games availible, someone raised a good point about it: developers shouldn't be asking "could we put sexytime in a game?", they need to ask "should we put it in at all?" If it's just in there for shits and giggles, and to create underground free publicity (admit it- how many people bought DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball for the gameplay?), then maybe it shouldn't be in there in the first place. But, if there's a legitimate reason for the character to get busy, like taking a relationship with thier S.O. to the next level, then you get to consider the second question:
2) Under cover or on top?
This is where you can get into trouble. Some people think that incuding sex in a game means it has to be shown in a way that would make an adult film director smile- you have to actively show them going at it. (I think that's why you never see it these days.) Sex should be done tastefully- you know, imply they're doing it; they embrace, kiss, maybe a few pieces of clothing shed on the way to where the deed will be done, then a fade to black. Then the next scene shows them sleeping in the bed, close to one another, or whatever. You don't need to show the whole thing.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Those questions are left unanswered because they want the player to be confused and a little afraid of their new enviroment. Also so they don't have to give everything away all at once. Leaving your "reader" wanting more is a pretty standard narrative technique.
In a way his silence defines Gordon as a character. He's someone who acts, not someone who sits around and talks. When Alyx asks him how they're going to get past an obstacle he doesn't have a chat about it. He whips out his crowbar and goes to work.
I think you might be confusing the issue there. Even if Gordon were able to speak, all those questions that you have would never actually get answered regardless. Valve are maintaining secrecy over the plot and doing reveals as they see fit.
Valve are keeping much of the HL univserse shrouded in mystery from the player, not because Gordon can't speak, but because that's the way they want to tell the story. Over time they're pulling things back more and more (Episode 2 had some pretty heavy revelations). Those huge questions? Yeah, those won't get answered until Valve wants to answer them.
In fact, I would argue that GordonSpeak would actually make the player more frustrated in those circumstances, because they'd just end up hating Gordon Freeman for either not asking the questions they wanted to ask or not getting answers to them.
I see it as difficult to form an emotionally meaningful bond between the player of a game and a character IN said video game. Live-action movies are a good medium for this as essentially you have the viewers undivided attention for a specific amount of time, you control exactly what the viewer is seeing, and yet even there sex/love falls flat on it's face so many times and seems nothing more than tacked on.
In a video game where the player is interactively trying to achieve goals, it seems to me awfully difficult to build that same level of emotional investment between a player and a game character, and if that emotional investment isn't present then it will make about as much sense as the Kate storyline in GTA does to me.
I'm playing it right now, so here's the game and this relationship from MY point of view: MY Nico is a complete asshole who hangs up on all his friends and who's idea of a date is to launch a girl off a motorbike into oncoming traffic (hey, I put up with all the relationship bullshit in real life, I'm relaxing playing a video game and you want me to pay attention to stupid chatter and take some pixels out to a restaurant? Fuck that noise) but STILL have this chick always calling me telling me she wants to hang out, and watching her fall for me and us flirt as I do missions with her family. Not only is it something I don't want to do but it's just totally breaking any realism of the story because it downright doesn't make any damned sense to ME,. The literally forced inclusion of a relationship in the story is detrimental to the story in question, for this gamer.
So meaningful sex and relationships are super, but they're hard enough for mediums that are good at that sort of thing, let alone video games. I vote we see sex and relationships added as story-arcs or extra options that open as a players choices make it clear that the player feels an emotional investment in a character, NOT because a character is a big part of a story and therefore will be a love interest and therefore the player clicks X to do whatever.
Now back to Half-life:
I think the silent hero thing here wasn't really much of a choice, but I think Valve definitely wanted the player to feel like they were Gordon freeman and those things happening were happening around and to the player in question. The lack of load screens and level completed screens and so many choices compared to other FPS games to date seem to point to that (no zooming the camera to a third person view for a chat, no Gordon talking period at ANY time, just the player hearing instructions from the scientists and whatnot.)
I think in HL2 going silent hero was a good choice. I still felt more immersed and more 'the protagonist' than I did in Doom 3, a game which I actually liked more.
Where HL2 failed is I think, as mentioned, the total lack of a proper introduction to the game telling Gordon and the player what's going on. In HL1 the introduction to the game is the player causing a catastrophe, and the remainder of the game is the player trying to get his ass out of dodge. In HL2 the introduction to the game is... what is it again? Throwing bottles at some policeman? Being chased by a blinky lights drone? Following Alyx? The stupid boat? The stupid buggy? Geez I feel like the whole GAME was an introduction. And yes, NO ONE answering questions like 'WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?' which is what Gordon sure would have been asking. ONE GUY saying 'Welcome back, Mr. Freeman. I think you'll find the world has changed. It's been X years and humans live and die at the whims of an alien-dominated police state, and we need your help' would have done wonders for that game.
Not that my opinion on HL2's quality much matters, as I know I'm in the great minority.
You're meant to - or at least this is how I and most other people I talk to respond - construct a narrative based on this. You're meant to watch these events unfold and, in combination with your own reactions to them, realise three things:
1) Gordon is not in entirely in control of where he is sent or what he is doing. He is under the thumb of G-man.
2) Everybody thinks he's the anti-Combine messiah, come to bravely rid the world of Breen & co. He's a legend, a scientist-hero from Black Mesa, and so wherever he's been these past years, he should know all about this stuff. He doesn't. It's irony.
3) Gordon wants to aid the resistance despite his lack of agency, and goes on to spearhead it.
As for why Gordon can't just ask, we've been around and around on this point on these forums. The player is supposed to play the part of Gordon, and having Gordon talk would mean distancing the player from Gordon a little bit. It's kind of awkward. So they come up with other techniques to get around it.
This also.
You didn't get all that from the first 5 minutes of the game? All except the alien part.
But he definitely wouldn't have seemed like such an asskicker, and then I wouldn't be in the game anymore. Gordon would. It just wouldn't have been as much fun.
The first thing I think of when I think of hl2 is the magnum level, when you pick it up and the guy comes through the door, all the way up to the helicopter. I did that all in one go, one shot each, no misses.
I wonder if this is a function of the developers or a function of their audience. I mean, is R* really populated by a gaggle of prurient man-children who giggle at the idea of looking at their daddy's Playboys and who beat-off to The Man Show and The L Word and who's only interaction with flesh and blood women have been at titty bars, or do they just know that they're going to sell mostly to that audience?
Moreover, how well would a truly dramatic, non-game game sell? If there's no action and nothing to do but walk from screen to screen and choose-your-own melodrama, will that sell to the average PS3 owner? The closest thing most games are to other media are action movies... and while there's tits in those, I don't know of a whole lot of action movies that have meaningful, dramatic sex. Especially meaningful, dramatic, explicit sex. Most of it's "hey, tatters! woo!"
There are these huge questions that any reasonable and normal person would ask but Gordon doesn't. Why? Because Valve doesn't think he should speak at all. I'm not making value judgements on Gordon speaking or not, just that at times it stretches and breaks through the bounds of believability because it really does feel like a hackneyed and stupid solution.
I understand not wanting to give everything away at once. I understand "pretty standard narrative techniques." I do not think literary techniques always fit shoehorned into videogame narrative. In books or movies you're watching people who are already active participants within the world. Gordon Freeman is not at the start of Half-Life 2 and neither is the player.
Not having Gordon speak makes him seem less than human to me. Why doesn't he ask questions? Why doesn't he speak? It doesn't make me get more involved with the game, it just makes me frustrated with Gordon being such a huge blank slate that he isn't really a person and he can't be made to be a person through my actions. He just is. And it's not enough. I can ask questions of the NPCs myself like I seem to be expected to, but the NPCs don't respond. They have their own lines and their own little scenes and nothing I do has any impact on them.
I still liked Half-Life 2, but it doesn't feel to me to be an ideal solution to anything.
I hoard ammo for power weapons until it's too late to use them.
It's a habit that I typically find very hard to break.
Well realistically, the only ideal solution would be the development of AI capable of understanding and parsing human speech within context and responding appropriately, with a game framework capable of adapting to the users impetus and self created narrative.
Whilst we're still obviously a long way from that, given the situation, I feel that there are far worse things out there than what Valve have attempted for the sake of narrative and attempting to draw the player in.
Maybe once the average age of gamers is in the late 30's instead of late 20's companies will take the gamble on dealing with sex in a truly mature fashion.
As it is I still think most of them don't see their audience as intelligent adults looking to be entertained in a mature way.
As soon as Gordon Freeman is doing something on his own volition that isn't being done by you, there exists the possibility that you're going to hate him for it. Just like some people hate Alyx for not behaving the way they want.
Do you know why sex is portrayed in Age of Conan the way it is?
Because that's the way Robert E. Howard wrote the Conan stories. Using Age of Conan as an example here doesn't fly, because they made Mr. Howard's world, not their own.
This. I played the first couple levels of bioshock using nothing but the wrench because I was worried I wouldn't find pistol ammo. When I finally got the machine gun, I started using the pistol but wouldn't use the machine gun in case I couldn't find more ammo for it. When I got the shotgun, I broke out the machine gun, and when I got the grenade launcher I finally started using the shotgun with abandon.
I wish they'd put one extra gun in the game that didn't have any stats or ammo at all so I'd use the full range of weapons they wanted me to.
Anyway, off topic, sorry for the distraction, carry on.