Posted by blombo on Feb 1, 2008 twenty five past eleven am
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree - and very strongly at that.
I read rave reviews of Half Life. Even if FPS are not my thing, I always thought I should give it a go, because everyone said the story was great. Looking at this enigmatic guy on the cover (turned out to be Gordon Freeman) made me wonder who he was and what his story was.
Well, I have played all episodes now, and I must say it loud: there is no story in Half Life. You get no background, no insight, nothing. You only get fractions of the events happening, and they are limited to the "actual" time. Most of the things that happen remain unexplained. I thought Gordon had a family, imagined "Half Life" to be some obscure thing happening in that universe, I thought maybe he was infected by some strange alien disease/weapon, and was living in some kind of half life; I expected to discover maybe this - but maybe, hopefully, much more than this.
Instead, I am still wondering who Gordon Freeman is; in all 4 episodes, I've not discovered a single, damn thing about him. I did discover "Half Life" to be a scientific reference to something completely unrelated.
Later on in the game, Combines are introduced. You don't have a single clue who they are and what they want, why they do what they do. I had to look it up in Wikipedia to understand anything.
Not that the game is bad; it's a very good FPS, well acted and with beautiful graphics. But if we're talking about story, well, it's got nothing.
Plus, I'm going to be blasphemous here and add that Dreamfall is the most overrated, ugly and story-lacking "game" of all. It's not even a game; it's just a bloated, meaningless kind of "interactive" (that means infuriating) movie.
It is the ultimate demonstration, if any was ever needed, that graphics mean nothing in a good adventure game; it makes you sad, and longing for real, story-filled adventure games; like Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, The Dig, Indy 4.
It makes you want Ron back on track, desperately, badly, and now.
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Posted by blombo on Feb 1, 2008 twenty five past eleven am
I read rave reviews of Half Life. Even if FPS are not my thing, I always thought I should give it a go, because everyone said the story was great. Looking at this enigmatic guy on the cover (turned out to be Gordon Freeman) made me wonder who he was and what his story was.
Well, I have played all episodes now, and I must say it loud: there is no story in Half Life. You get no background, no insight, nothing. You only get fractions of the events happening, and they are limited to the "actual" time. Most of the things that happen remain unexplained. I thought Gordon had a family, imagined "Half Life" to be some obscure thing happening in that universe, I thought maybe he was infected by some strange alien disease/weapon, and was living in some kind of half life; I expected to discover maybe this - but maybe, hopefully, much more than this.
Instead, I am still wondering who Gordon Freeman is; in all 4 episodes, I've not discovered a single, damn thing about him. I did discover "Half Life" to be a scientific reference to something completely unrelated.
Later on in the game, Combines are introduced. You don't have a single clue who they are and what they want, why they do what they do. I had to look it up in Wikipedia to understand anything.
Not that the game is bad; it's a very good FPS, well acted and with beautiful graphics. But if we're talking about story, well, it's got nothing.
Plus, I'm going to be blasphemous here and add that Dreamfall is the most overrated, ugly and story-lacking "game" of all. It's not even a game; it's just a bloated, meaningless kind of "interactive" (that means infuriating) movie.
It is the ultimate demonstration, if any was ever needed, that graphics mean nothing in a good adventure game; it makes you sad, and longing for real, story-filled adventure games; like Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, The Dig, Indy 4.
It makes you want Ron back on track, desperately, badly, and now.