Question on the game Half-Life

Factual Questions
1

Play Half-Life? Fantastic first person shooter. Have you finished it? If so, please read on and help me figure this out. If not STOP READING HERE>>>>>>
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One of the last scenes in Xen is jumping from rock to rock to this island with a teleportation contraption on it. Once you jump into the middle of the red light show you are whisked away to fight the giant baby head.

When you stand next to the red light (before teleporting) you can hear voices saying things to the effect of: “thank god you’re here!” and “we never should have let this go on so far!” and “get him OUT of there!” The voices are pretty faint, but programmed into the game. When you turn around, the sound shifts from one ear to the other. It sounds to me to be the voices of scientists talking to other scientists i.e. the voices are not directed at you.

When I first heard them, I thought wow… so plot twist = all a dream/hallucination/simulation. I’d get through to the end, and would be congratulated for making it through their souped-up hazard course and passing their test. Maybe not exactly that, but something to explain those voices.

I got through to the end… nada. Nothing. The choice to join the suit-man. That was it. Neither ending (join or not join) had any bearing those voices. But the game was so good, I really didn’t pay much attention to it.

Then I replayed it. Last scene on Earth, the teleportation machine at the very end of the Lambda Complex. The scientist is opening up the portal, working away on his machine. I am supposed to patiently wait for his go-ahead to jump into the beam. Well, feeling a bit sadistic, (twisted?) I up and shot him. Right away, the screen went dark, and then said something like “evaluation terminated. Subject failed to utilize human assistance where necessary.” Not quite that, but that was the gist of it. The game then reloaded from my last saved point.

What gives? Any thought as to what the voices and what that screen were all about? Are they loose ends? Is there an explanation I missed? Could find nothing on planethalflife or other game sites. Any theories out there, or was I just up too late last night finishing off aliens?

Thanks for listening,

Rhythmdvl

Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…

2

I never noticed either of the things you mentioned, but it sounds like they had a better ending in mind originally, but then went with the lame suit guy in flying subway car.

My guess is they scrapped the all-a-simulation ending because then they couldn’t have done HL:OpFor. (Not only that, but having a simulation within a computer game would have been too abstract for the target audience. The plot is already 100 times more dense than quakes)

Oh, and BTW, the ending was recently awarded a spot on www.gamespot.com’s 10 worst ending list.

Its too bad, cause the rest of the game was excellent.

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I’ve played it through to the end a few times, and while I never noticed these, I’m pretty sure those are all fragments of statements that are made by scientists at different points in the game. Maybe it’s possible that ol’ Gordon Freeman is reminicing about the good old days at Black Mesa when he was just being shot at, and not jumping into mysterious plasma vortices.

Frankly, an ending where it all turned out to be “a dream” (or, as you suggest, “a simulation”) seems pretty lame. Those kinds of endings are such cop-outs, relied upon by creative types whose inspiration has finally given out.

I thought the ending with the G-Man recruiting you for his mysterious “employers” was perfect. A feeling of paranoid secrecy starts out right from the beginning of the tram ride into the game with it’s high-security lectures, and is finally realized with the G-Man’s speech. It explains why the G-Man has been popping up at various points along the way to observe. And it nicely forces the player to acknowledge how he or she’s viewed the game to that point-- those who tried to internalize the character of Gordon as a mere researcher rising to meet a challenge will opt one way, and those who just saw the game as an opportunity to kill lots of things will opt the other.

As for the “evaluation terminated” bit when you killed the scientist opening the portal, I’m sure you noticed that wasn’t the only time that could happen. There are several points in the game where a guard or scientist is essential to completion of the mission because only they can open a door or do some task to move the game along. Losing them in a firefight (or shooting them yourself) yields the same result-- a fade to black and the same message. Yes, it doesn’t quite fit the reality the game presents, but if the creators didn’t force a game to somehow end somehow when an essential character died, players would be left on an empty battlefield, unable to progress sometimes.

Yeah, there’s a slight inconsistency in the idea that Freeman would be privy to the “Evaluation terminated” message, but all in all, I think the game did an excellent job in creating and maintaining a cohesive “feel” throughout.

That being said, I do recall reading an interview with the creators of HL and them explaining certain storyline vectors that they eventually gave up on. I’ll see if I can locate it again…

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      • There are places where you have to have the help of a guard or scientist (usually to open a door) and if they die the game will fade to black, I guess because they figured that there isn’t any way for you to go on, so why bother.
  • I don’t fault it for having the ending it does; in a way having a definite ending would have blown the idea for a sequel. I think the continuing storyline is nice, but that’s a small part of why it’s such a fun game. RPG’s bore me to death, and they have storylines out the butt. Often, that’s mostly all they have.
  • When I heard about Worldcraft being on the HL CD I was optimistic, but I tried using it and I can’t get it to do sheeet. When I compile and run, I only get a black screen. - <|^P - MC