Poll: Do you care about the story in Half LIfe?

[de5gravity]

I ask this because I've been playing Half Life 2, watching LPs of Half Life 1, reading about it online. The story does not make much sense.

I'm not saying it's absurd, I'm just saying the biggest mystery and what seems to be driving the main events of the game is the G-man. He appears out of nowhere to end the first game, again at the end of Half Life 2, and the fans are just okay with that?

I'm not insulting or anything, I just wanna know if that's why you like the game, or if it's because of other reasons. The scenario seems LOST-like : action, characters development, then ending and starting with a "WTF just happened" moment riddled with mysteries.

LOST lost (lol) a lot of fans throughout the years as some lost faith in the creators of the show ever answering the mysteries with good explanations that make sense. Do you think that too, and play the game for other reasons, or do you have faith in Valve to answer the many questions asked in all of the installments of Half Life?

 

[Sabinfrost]

Whether or not it makes sense, it is definitely what sets it apart from every other FPS game on the market. Without the setting, which the story encompasses, it would not be half life.

 

[yoshiru]

Yeah, I do care about the story. Probably the best thing about the story is that it doesn't seem to make alot of sense because it isn't constantly in your face telling every detail in precise "make-sense" annoyance. The story takes a back-seat to the gameplay and is never supporting, but always incorporated with. That's why I love Portal 1 so much, the story is within the gameplay, not like two seperate "gameplay!... Story!... Gameplay.... Story!" engines that alot of RPGs tend to have.

Edit: The best thing about Half-life is the story doesn't make you care. Sometimes I wanna play a great game, but the story is always hitting me in the face, forcing me to appreciate it.. or something. In half-life if I meet a new character I don't like, I can go up to him and say "You suck!" and throw a chair at him, and since Gordon is silent, the game doesn't follow up my actions by providing me with a cut-screen of Gordon saying "I love you!".

 

[Lungo]

I have faith in Valve, special after Portal 2.

 

[MetroidNut]

Half-Life has an extremely interesting story. Not so much because the story itself is good - yes, it is, but not on the level of, say, Mass Effect. What makes the story incredible, rather, is the presentation. It's a little hard to describe, but the way you experience the story, having to piece together vague hints to understand what's really going on, makes it incredibly memorable.

I would argue that the mystery and vagueness of the storyline is what makes it so appealing, and although Valve might never definitively answer every question, I fully trust them to wrap the story together in a satisfying way.

 

[ZeroMachine]

Absolutely. It's what I like most. I love the mystery aspect.

 

[Hybridwolf]

The story is the most important part of Half-life. Hell lets face it, aside from the gravity gun, it's the only thing going for half-life. Which is why I've lost faith in valve's ability to finsh Half-life. Sure their other games are good, but at this point I've already lost track of most of the finer plot points in Half-life, and found other games with same quality storylines. Still, I'll more then likely get it when it finally comes out. After they've made left 4 dead 4 and released TF3 I guess.

 

[Rusty Bucket]

There's no other reason to like it, the gameplay's terrible.

 

[TheAmokz]

Sto... what? I just shoot dudes.

No, actually story i one thing that sets HL aside from other "copy paste" shooters like Halo.

 

[bootz]

I think they know where they are going with the story. I think its been pre mapped out and set in stone already. I love the half life story its unique in its way.

 

[SammiYin]

An alien invasion? Been done a lot more, and a lot better.
G man? He strikes me as a 'how do we make this story mildly interesting?'

 

[TheKruzdawg]

I guess I like the story, but I came into Half-Life 2 having never played the first. I was so UTTERLY confused at the beginning of the game. I still haven't finished it yet and I'm currently in the Highway section of the game. Still confused and not really sure what's going on or why I'm so damned important to everyone.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

I don't see anything in the story to care about. Nothing is interesting in it.

 

[LikeDustInTheWind]

Sir, have you ever watched Lost? It was a great show that made ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE AT ALL even after it was finished.

 

[de5gravity]

Sir, have you ever watched Lost? It was a great show that made ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE AT ALL even after it was finished.

Oh I'm a huge fan of LOST. I have the complete DVD collection for it and I usually don't buy tv shows dvds. But a lot of people don't like LOST's story at all.

 

[EvilPicnic]

I ask this because I've been playing Half Life 2, watching LPs of Half Life 1, reading about it online. The story does not make much sense.

I'm not saying it's absurd, I'm just saying the biggest mystery and what seems to be driving the main events of the game is the G-man. He appears out of nowhere to end the first game, again at the end of Half Life 2, and the fans are just okay with that?

I'm not insulting or anything, I just wanna know if that's why you like the game, or if it's because of other reasons. The scenario seems LOST-like : action, characters development, then ending and starting with a "WTF just happened" moment riddled with mysteries.

LOST lost (lol) a lot of fans throughout the years as some lost faith in the creators of the show ever answering the mysteries with good explanations that make sense. Do you think that too, and play the game for other reasons, or do you have faith in Valve to answer the many questions asked in all of the installments of Half Life?

He doesn't appear out of nowhere, the G-man is present throughout the games if you know where to look. And the ending of the 2nd game is supposed to echo that of the first, thematically.

That Valve doesn't ram the story down your throat, expositionary-style is a plus-point for me. At a very basic level most video-game plots make no sense.(Reach the end of the level! Why? Because!) At least Valve are doing something slightly different.

One of the main themes of HL2 is that although you have some degree of free will, the G-man owns you, and your actions further his, (or his clients) agenda. The fact that you don't know what that agenda is leads to a certain moral ambiguity, which imo is fun, and an end in of itself. Not everything needs to be wrapped up in a neat little bundle, or explained for the masses.

That being said, I was a massive fan of the first game when it came out, and from that game it's very difficult to read much into the G-man at all. We know a lot more about him now than we did then, so Valve definitely has the capability to answer questions.

 

[Trolldor]

Sir, have you ever watched Lost? It was a great show that made ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE AT ALL even after it was finished.

Let me explain lost to you.

In a nut shell:
They all died in the Plane Crash and the Island was a sort of limbo for them to resolve their issues before passing on to the afterlife.

In other words:
"HURP DURP FAP FAP FAP"


I know this because I stopped watching the show after three episodes and picked up the last few minutes of the last one.

 

[KB Rocker]

I'm a guy who's big on multiplayer but this is the one game that has kept me going due to the awesome story.