Originally posted by: MmmSkyscraper
Originally posted by: Zenoth
You see, Half-Life 2 is just like a book or a movie, it will always be the same thing over and over again, whatever you do when you play it. The game is exclusively and entirely based on and made of scripted events and triggered scripts, there is absolutely nothing "unpredictable" about it, it is completely linear.
Like a lot of games out there. Replay value isn't just based on whether events are unique, it's whether you want to play it again.
I certainly never want to play something that's garbage again, even if it presents unique scenarios each time.
That's exactly where it becomes subjective.
Even though I like Half-Life 2, I would still prefer a "garbage" game (in comparison) that presents something unique each time I start it up and play, than a game where I know exactly what, where, how and when things will happen. In terms of video-gaming though it stretches a little apart from the examples of books and movies I gave, I concur.
With a book (one that wouldn't be based on a movie), the reader can make his own visions of the locations and characters (especially when the writer left such details for imagination to interpret). So even though a book is always the "same thing", the reader can make it a little "different" each time, if he/she wants to. For example I own the
The Lord of the Rings books, all three of them, but I must have read them all at least three or four times so far, despite the fact that I have seen the movies as well, simply because I still, sometimes, prefer the way I myself envision a chapter, or an event.
With visual and audio entertainment, where you interact with the entertainment itself, such as video games, things are presented to you and forced at you visually. The story is "as is", along with the characters and their personalities, as well as locations and perhaps other details I am missing here. You need to contend with the creator's imagination, and there is limits everywhere. You cannot think by yourself for what a character would say, or what a location might look like, but instead you need to make it "like it is" in your imagination. So each time you play it the only thing left to give fun/satisfaction with is the linearity of it. Linearity isn't bad, is it just a different mentality. If you actually do enjoy linear things, that is good when it comes to games like Half-Life 2, Doom, Quake, Prey, etc.
But there is another way to do things, and it is a non-linear way. Such games are not numerous, so of course the majority likes linearity, since it was the only thing that was feasible to create in terms of video games for decades since it started, up until only a few years ago, when coding allowed for dynamic events. Games like Diablo II started the non-linear elements in games to the best extent of it (different monsters spawning locations each time you start up a game, different monster types, different items dropping, different map layouts in some places, different prices for items, different gambling results, and a few others I might forget). And despite its age, Diablo II is still being played to this very day by tens of thousands of players each hours of the day.
Another example of non-linearity is the Grand Theft Auto series, starting with the third installment. The cars in the streets, they spawn at different intervals, the vehicle types are different, the pedestrians are different, where they go is different, even though the missions are not, however *how* they will unfold could be different due to the unpredictable immediate surrounding of the scripted scene. Again, despite its age, some people still play that game, and the ones released later on which also adopt the same formula (having non-linearity mixed in with a solid linear game base to let it have a distinct goal, so not to have the feeling to play in a pure sand box of chaos and non-organized and ultimately useless events). Two other examples, within the first-person-shooter genre, are Bioshock and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which the later obviously features the most.
In other words, what I tried to say, is that it isn't because I "want to play" a linear game again that it suddenly means it has replay value. It just means that I appreciate the linear events occurring in it even though I know there will be nothing new to see, hear or interact with. Replay value, in my opinion, has to be measurable. And just "wanting to play it again" has no value, but the simple desire to re-experience the known events once more, like a book, as a decent example.