I’d say that all the Half-Life games together have a decent plot, but each one individually doesn’t really go that far. it’s only whe you string them together that they make any sense. After all, HL2 is pretty much:
Hi, you’ve been dumped here by some creepy guy.
Welcome to the train station. Please report for your regularly scheduled beating!
Fooled you!
Run away. Meet Alyx. Killing ensues.
Here’s a swamp boat. Killing ensues.
had enough swamp boat? Here’s more swamp boat. Killing ensues.
Alright, Alyx again! Watch her sweet little derrier as she climbs a ladder!
Run away! Killing ensues.
Meet inasne preacher dude. Killing ensues.
Oh Noes! Tey captured some guy! We must save him! Killing ensues.
This amounts to zip as we completely fail. Like, three times. Killing ensues.
BS reason to advance the plot a week without having the screen go dark. Or something.
Block war with the twits. Killing ensues.
Finally, we just break down the door. Cool stuff happens. Killing ensues.
We’re out of ideas. Repeat the ending from the first Half Life!
I love HL2. It’s very fun. But at the same time, I don’t deny it had a lot of flaws, namely that it was shallow. It’s plot was extraordinarily well presented. But it never really got any deeper than Quake did.
It has a rich universe, yes, but I’d say Bioshock did as well - just a smaller one. Rapture was a fantasy city based on extreme capitalism and genetic modification with a lot of incidental characters (most telling their stories posthumously) whom I really cared about, with everyone representing different motivations. Whereas all I saw in Halo were characters who were vehicles for dialog that was basically cheesy one-liners or “grr kill all of that race!” Granted, there were exceptions (the Arbiter and Cortana were complex and often noble), but for the most part I couldn’t muster the urge to care whether any of them lived or died.
And just so I’m not completely hijacking…
This is a good point, actually… I would say that we should wait until the story is finished before we judge it (since a lot of what compels me, at least, to play it is all the unsolved mysteries), but if the current rate of release is any indication, Valve might have the story done by the time The Playstation 5 comes out.
In principle, tho, I have to agree with Martin Hyde in that the storytelling itself makes it difficult to see the depth of Half-Life’s world and plot. Gordon is just one guy, and he got left out of the loop for some number of years thanks to G-magic, and now everything is suddenly authoritarian rule + aliens, so a lot of Half-Life 2 is just staying alive and occasionally hearing about what’s happening elsewhere.
And, really, pretty much any game’s plot looks bad when you boil it down to “go here, meet people, kill stuff.” Not that there are many that break the mold, of course.
Well, one of the staple comments from the ValvE producers during the promotion / post-release talks was that they couldn’t find a way to fit the Freeman into the post HL1, pre HL2 story, so they decided to just confuse everyone.
They also mentioned that the G-Man was a very eerie figure, even in the ValvE offices, except to the few who actually knew the backstory. It’s my opinion that they’ve shown remarkable and applaudable restraint in showing their hand; it’s made sure that whenever HL2: Episode 3 or HL3 comes out, I’ll be in the queue.
Guess I better stave off this Crusade I’ve sparked
Or not.
I admit the first Half life was over-hyped for a plot it didn’t have but Half life 2 if you take the time to look everywhere it has about the same plot of a short RPG which is damn thick for a FPS.
