Half Life = Gamer's "Twilight"

[JaymesFogarty]

One could also more strongly argue that, in a purely interactive media, the blank slate protagonist approach is much more appropriate as actions are actually dictated by the person in control. Personally, I don't like the blank slate approach. It improves immersion but weakens the protagonist, who could be argued as being most important.

The comparison is relatively apt but falls short. The scope and threat situation differs between an angsty high-school situation and an actual war between multiple races. The whole, "nerd involved in social uprising against jock-like people," seems to belittle the quality of story-telling by boiling it down to a brutal simplicity. Twilight already sits in the simplicity of, "awkward girl becomes popular," without being dumbed down.

Although a crossover would be interesting. Bella falls in love with a black headcrab zombie

That would never work! Each black headcrab zombie has five or more headcrabs. How could you possibly split the love between them?
On topic, I agree about the blank slate status for the two characters. Though I appreciate the Half Life series for its' innovation, I must admit that I do not like the way Valve have handled the main character. It feels a bit like a cop-out, however good the other characters are.

 

[Fernj]

Half Life 1 has nothing to do with any of this, and the original poster quickly ignored it completely, which baffles me. That game was very inluential and innovative, from many different points. It even had one of the first ever 'pro' gamers (Garpy), and was completely a blast in multiplayer. It had nothing to do with any of the shit you're talking about whatsoever.

Half Life 2 was much more atmospheric than Half Life 1, from the moment you step out into City 17, and witness how the Combine completely dominate Earth, and up until you reach the underground parts just outside of the Citadel, and then inside of it, and just see how huge it is. The soundtracks to these games are completely exceptional, and fit perfectly at every time they get played. You are completely ignoringn all of this, creating an imagined game that slightly resembles what Half Life really is.

And I'm not even saying it's one of the best, if not the best, games ever. I don't think that. It's simply a well made series, with huge differences between the first, which came out in 98, and the second one and onwards. A really fun multiplayer for the first game, if I may add.

Your arguments are as biased as they can possibly be. Someone who's a rabid fanboy of Half Life must have insulted some game you like, and you've taken that so deeply that you sat around and analyzed all of this shit in your mind. I don't even know.

 

[BustaNinja]

If you are gonna compare Half Life to Twilight, shouldn't we be comparing EVERY game to EVERY book? I mean really? Third person games are akin to books that are written in the third person, as they try to tell you a story about someone else. First person games are akin to books in the first person because they want to make you identify with the character, and put yourself in that situation. This isn't anything new in gaming, or in books.

Thesis? Both books and videogames serve as lenses for people to view their own life, and the lives of others, but whereas videogames use visual cues and sight, books use the reader's imagination to make the connections.

Bam, write your paper, get the credits, get a pay raise.

 

[Freeze_L]

harsh and striking comparison that makes me want to yell at you, however i was able to suppress my anger long enough to read it. It is great point, and i think that it is one that has been made before, but comparing these 2 works, one great the other only worthy of lining my trashcan, really underlines the why we love half life, and why pepole like twilight. It was very intentional by valve to make freeman a character who we can relate to, and it allows us to put ourselves in freeman's shoes and really feel like your in the game. The same thing happens in twilight. The risk to doing this, it seems, is that if you are not like the main character Bella or Freeman, you may not be able to fully experience the story.

edit: i tried to keep my hatred of twilight from showing but a little seeped through hope you don't mind...

 

[Hyper-space]

snip

Spoiler: Mind

 

[FallenTraveler]

I understand where youre coming from... but that whole "revolutionary with friends" thing... is kinda odd. I have friends, dont care if they were with me or not, it would still be BA to be a revolutionary. As for the soldiers. Yes, I look at them as if they are dicks. cause theyre portrayed as such. Alyx is only mildly hot, Valve don't really know how to model darker complexion faces... zoey was pretty damn good though.

As for twilight... there is no explanation... other than societies obvious falling and twilight being a massive sign that the end is near.

 

[Rarhnor]

I hope not that your "theory" is proven to be true. I'll give up the title as gamer, if it ever does.

 

[The Austin]

Anyway,

You lost me after you started calling me a nerd.
But I strangely agreed with everything before that.

Just happened to notice: Happy 3333rd post, whether it was this one or one in a different thread.

Huh, I never noticed that.

And now, I'm about to ruin it! HUZZAH!

 

[JokerCrowe]

Did you see this? I think it makes a lot more sense that comparing Half-Life to Twilight.


Though I get what you're saying, isn't that really the point of videogames/novels? To put yourself in someone elses shoes, who is a lot like you but has a more interesting life. In that manner of thinking you could compare Twilight to any videogame, and Half-life to any popular book..

 

[Withall]

So... both Valve and... whatever her name is made blank slates of man characters? Hmh... I'd say that "Twilight" is the literary/girl's counterpart to Half-Life, rather than the other way around. Poor anology, but I get your point.

So... yes. Kinda...

 

[sdafdfhrye3245]

In Twilight, you take on the story of a socially awkward girl, much like most of the target audience.

Ok I will tell you right now that that is 100% BS. Ever single girl likes that stupid thing the target audience is FEMALES. I know of extremely popular girls in my school that love it. My mother loves it. As well as almost ever women I know. Also I think there are much less gamers that dislike half life then girls that dislike twilight... I just don't give a crap anymore can we just put a ban on anything twilight related no matter what it is please?

 

[MGlBlaze]

Hmm...
Interesting comparrison, I'll give you that. Especially with the mostly faceless protagonists. I remember reading for Half-Life 2 that they did that intentionally for the reasons you mentioned; allow the player to immerse themselves in the story and imagine themselves in Gordon's shoes.

However;

Half life, on the other hand, fulfills another fantasy. Half life 2 is my main point in this, because the first one had nearly no people in it, all monsters and masked military, all against you. So please, bring Half-Life 2 and episodes to mind while reading this. You, a nerdy scientist, who is probably none-too-popular outside his clique of other nerds, gets to get up and kick societies ass. You suddenly are put in a murder simulator against bodybuilding jocks dressed as soldiers. Many guys dream of punching people out who put them down, and most girls decide to try and befriend them, for some unknown reason (yes, generalizations, but bear with me, as a good portion of each gender falls into it enough to make it valid).

On top of climbing the social ladder by force, there is suddenly a hot girl interested in you. I don't see how she's all that hot, but I've heard some creepy shit like boys wanting to do her or marry her. Oho! Suddenly the lonely guy becoming suddenly "alpha male" fantasy is fulfilled on both fronts!

I don't really see much of a 'social ladder' to climb in Half-Life 2; the entire world is fucked up thanks to the Combine (Who I would not really "bodybuilding jocks"). Plus, there's strong hints that most of Gordon's awesomeness is through the influence of G-man (this goes back to Half-Life 1). The characters around Gordon manage some pretty epic stuff, too; Dog ripping out a Strider's brain in Episode 2 (and doing some other crazy shit near the end of Half-Life 2), Barney who manages to continue fighting and surviving, Grigori who was insane but most love him for it (and hope he is still somehow alive), the vortigaunts in Episode 2 etc. That's just my view of it, though; I can see how you (or anyone else) could draw the summary you did there.

I do agree with your mention of "there is suddenly a hot girl interested in you." though. The whole thing with Alex (I hope that's who you're referring to) feels pretty forced to me and it's why I really don't like her character. I try to merely think of her as an overly-affectionate and occasionally really annoying comrade.

But anyway, I found this fairly interesting. Kudos.

The difference is that Half Life 1 and 2 both introduced many dynamic and original concepts and mechanics into the medium, completely changing it forever.

Twilight is just another vampire love story.

This. Also, Half-Life was well-written.

Usually, but at the end of the first Half-Life (Is this to do with narrative or design?) the game takes a nose-dive in fun and quality when you get to Xen. You spend the rest of the game using your head to solve the battles you kept landing yourself in, then at the end you're dumped into pitched open battles.

 

[Layzor]

The only appeal of half life isn't that I want to have sex with Gordon Freeman so no.

 

[Aglynugga]

*sigh* I love Edward. And Alex Vance. If only they could get married, then Jake and Gordan could get together like the happy couple they should be.
Yeah, everything is essentially a fantasy wish fufillment. Comic books, video games, that porno I made with my mom...
But he's got it right, He took two really popular genre items and pointed out that they are really obvious fantasies at some point someone had.
Someone should have mentioned to that meyers chick that Bram Stoker created vampires though, and really Edward should be a brain eating zombie while jack or jake or jason pounds whatsherface doggy style till her ears bleed. That's gross, but it's how our myths used to work. Until someone invented frilly lace and cheek rogue.

 

[Meggiepants]

True, but aren't most games wish fulfillment games?

Quite a few games place you in the protagonists role, who is, very often, a loner/outsider/brilliant in some way. The protagonist is often not given a voice, and sometimes you get to fill out his features. If you go the FPS route, then 99% of those games you don't see the protagonists face. Obviously there are some exceptions to this rule, but you get my point.

Then, throughout the course of the game you discover that, lo and behold, people are drawn to you, and are in fact, inspired by you. Women think you are hot because of what you can do, and men look up to you.

You could say this about most Western RPGs. Look at Dragon Age. Even if you decide to play as a poor ass dwarf who nobody likes, you find out there is something uniquely special about you - your blood is tasty- you can become a grey warden without dying. You could design your character to be the ugliest bastard who ever lived, yet every woman who looks at you in camp finds you sexy.

And yet, Leliana still talks about how handsome I am. Girl has issues.​

You can get the King to be to be your best friend, bed the hot gay elf, the dark and sultry mage woman and the seductive and saucy bard. By the end of the game, you can make everyone love you if you want to, even though you started out as a lowly, poor and ugly dwarf.

You can't really limit this comparison to Half Life. No one really wants to play a game where they are a normal boring person who isn't special in any way, and people who read books to escape don't normally want to read books about normal boring people.

 

[Frenger]

I hope you are aware that this applies to pretty much EVERY story with an protagonist (silent or otherwise)? Deus Ex, Unreal... hey, let us raise the stakes = Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect and Dragon Age are others, Fallout, Zelda... screw it... EVERY GAME that even have a hint of a plot does this, books and films aswell. And music, poetry, art in general.

That's about how relevant Half-Life is to Twilight.

You made some 'observations', but it's been debated before in way better ways rather than using obvious flamebaits like Half-Life and Twilight. Shit would really hit the fan if you used Halo instead, but too late for that

EDIT: Fail grammar is fail.

 

[obex]

Well i see your point about them both being wish fulfilment but games are naturally that and the twilight characters are just 2 dimensional

 

[vivalahelvig]

Gordan freeman is 2d because of one thing...there is no gordan, there is only the Player, for he cant talk, the Player makes it up, the Player is what Gordan is, and Gordan is the Player.