Half-Life 3 after 2013, to be open world?

[Skel]

It's not at all that half life 1 has aged well. Game development just hasn't measurably improved since half life 1 was released.

I’m sure I’m in a minority but I thought HL2 wasn’t that great compared to the first one. It felt more like a very long disjointed tech demo for the physics engine than a full-fledged game with a proper story. I remember most of the HL1’s story if not all of it, HL2’s story was pretty forgettable. I remember having to read a web site to get the full back story on wtf happened between the two games. I still feel like it’s given way too much of a pass for its crappy storyline. The game itself wasn’t bad so much, but after a while the gun got old for me.

 

[coldmeat]

I’m sure I’m in a minority but I thought HL2 wasn’t that great compared to the first one. It felt more like a very long disjointed tech demo for the physics engine than a full-fledged game with a proper story. I remember most of the HL1’s story if not all of it, HL2’s story was pretty forgettable. I remember having to read a web site to get the full back story on wtf happened between the two games. I still feel like it’s given way too much of a pass for its crappy storyline. The game itself wasn’t bad so much, but after a while the gun got old for me.

Wasn't that the point? Freeman was completely absent all those years.

 

[Skel]

Wasn't that the point? Freeman was completely absent all those years.

I remember reading that logic a lot when the game came out. It seemed to me, and still does, as a cop out to crappy storytelling. If nothing else in the story, why doesn’t Freeman seem to care at all what’s happened to the world and everyone he knew.

 

[coldmeat]

I remember reading that logic a lot when the game came out. It seemed to me, and still does, as a cop out to crappy storytelling. If nothing else in the story, why doesn’t Freeman seem to care at all what’s happened to the world and everyone he knew.

He doesn't seem to "care" in HL1 either. He just kind of goes from place to place, doing whatever needs to be done.

 

[Skel]

He doesn't seem to "care" in HL1 either. He just kind of goes from place to place, doing whatever needs to be done.

I’ll admit that it’s been a while since I’ve played the game, (please correct me if I’m wrong) but as far as I can remember… he starts the game causing the mess, and tries to get out to safety. Once upon the surface he finds out the government is attempting to cover the whole mess up by killing everyone, and discovers a group of scientists are attempting fix the whole mess. After fighting everything to get to them he goes to Xen to kill whatever’s keeping the gate open, upon which he’s placed into status by the G-man.

I’m not going to say he really cares about all the people at Black Mesa, but it does appear like he cares about the world. After all, he jumps into an alien universe to save it. To come out of status see the world in an apocalyptic setting and not go “WTF happened?” is odd at the least. I can’t help but personally feel like they should have mentioned some of the backstory, but that’s just me.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

He's part of the experiment that causes the mess but I certainly wouldn't say he's responsible for it per se, I think he's just following instructions.

I think we're supposed to be put in the characters shoes and it's our job to care or not about what is going on around us, it's pretty difficult to care about a lot of it though, only when Alyx came in and started interacting with the other NPCs around her did I really feel anything for the game.

 

[darkewaffle]

Yea, for all the great things about the HL series "character development" and "human" characters are crappy in both games. There's little emotion from Gordon or any of the NPCs really, they all just seem like stodgy, scripted strangers who happen to be in the same room at the same time. Alyx is the major exception, and Eli shows glimmers of it but that's about it to my memory.

Personally I think the storytelling is much more compelling in HL2, though I do think it skimps on filling you in on what happened between HL and HL2 particularly regarding the Vortigaunts and the Combine.