| Half Life 2: Under the Surface
- by Ben Mottershead |
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Half-Life 2: Under the Surface
Contents:
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Contrasts within characterisation and environment
1.3. Ideology and the culture of suspicion
1.4. Exploration of theme and design
1.5. Conclusion
(note: this feature contains HEAVY SPOILERS. Please make sure you have completed the game before reading)
1.1. Introduction
On November 16th 2004 Valve unleashed Half-Life 2, and after several months of an infamously protracted development period, hype could no longer mask the game's own veil of promise.
It was here. It was out.
But did it live up to everything people across the world had hoped for? Or were the early reviews over-inflated nonsense pandering to an audience they didn't want to upset? The answer is simple. Valve have created what can perhaps be considered the finest adventure game ever made, and the purpose of this feature is to examine exactly why their crowning achievement succeeds.
Although NTSC-uk is predominantly a console site at heart, this is an exceptional game which transcends boundaries. A rare form of title that demands exception and elevates videogaming as a medium. This is why we're covering it - If Valve's work didn't warrant such coverage we wouldn't do so.
Half-Life 2 isn't just an important title for PC gaming - It's perhaps one of the most important ever conceived for videogaming as a whole. Put simply, it contains a melting pot of ideas filled to the brim with variety and imagination. Yet these ideas don't work against each other to fragment the overall experience that Half-Life 2 manages to create. Instead, all these elements join together and form an almost unparalleled level of immersion. A level of immersion that manages to produce one of the most richly atmospheric worlds you may ever come across in any form of entertainment or art.
If you strip it down to the core basics, then you could level the accusation that 'all' Half-Life 2 happens to be is a linear first-person shooter. But to distil the game into such a simple framework is to do it an injustice.
Half-Life 2 isn't about engaging bloodlust or to satiate violent nihilistic tendencies. It's about entering a world so you can live and breathe its every aspect for the duration of your stay. It's about allowing the game's sheer level of ingenuity and invention to infiltrate your senses and dazzle you with its brilliance. The fact is this feature will barely touch the tip of the iceberg in terms of the way one could possibly approach and examine Half-Life 2. There are so many facets and layers to the overall experience of play, that to properly encapsulate why so many of its elements work may take years of frenzied examination.
On one level the game could be taken as a science fiction jaunt which moves through moments of action, mystery and horror. On the other it could be a journey into the unknown against an oppressive regime. A regime and level of authoritarian control, that very much mirrors the ideological philosophies which are arguably evident in so many of today's Governments. The exploration of these ideas isn't anything new of course. No doubt there will be some proclaiming that Half-Life 2 is little more than the bastard offspring of 1984, The War of the Worlds and The Matrix Combined. But this is somewhat missing what the game has to offer. Half-life 2 is never rooted within one specific genre... it transforms and mutates its own form to continually surprise and reinvent itself. This is why the experience it has to offer never loses its edge or vitality, for you're continually thrust forward into an adventure which is determined to avoid stagnation. To avoid re-treading the same steps so many of its contemporaries find themselves falling into time and time again.
The reason Half-Life 2 works is about its delivery - The way in which the story is woven for you, and the high levels your own involvement develops in tadem with its framework. In other words, Half-Life 2 is perhaps the first game of its kind to offer a linear narrative which isn't confined by the merging of two distinct, yet contrasting, forms of interactivity and passivity. Proceeding to root you within a single perspective, the game then forwards narrative through its development to offer you a story that never breaks from the simple principle of a clear and concise delivery. Yes the original Half-Life tinkered with these very same ideas, and many other games since have pursued them in their own unique way.
However, for perhaps the first time in videogaming's history, a level of technical and artistic excellence has been reached where it's no longer an improbability to blur the line in delivering a successful narrative in an interactive medium. There have been many false dawns in this particular area, yet few can deny that Half-Life 2 achieves something uniquely fresh. Because the game is a highly personal experience it's perhaps hard to categorise individually why it gives over that sense so vigorously. There's little doubt its many elements are formed on the basis of previous evolutions, yet the unwavering confidence in which they're achieved speaks volumes for the stability of the experience on show.
So is Half-Life 2 more than the sum of its parts?
No - That's wrong. It's every inch of them and that's what makes it the game it is.
The aim of this feature is to find out just exactly why.
1.2. Contrasts within characterisation and environment
The reason Half-Life 2 transcends the realm of its first-person genre is due to the fact that the game successfully manages to infuse a number of key, diverse styles usually fragmented from each other in terms of genre. As mentioned briefly before, whether it be adventure, action, mystery, horror or science-fiction, the more you progress through the game, the more you find these elements are thrown into the cauldron pot to create something wholly unique and coherent. This is partly because Valve's title has a highly specific aesthetic identity which never loses sight of its consistency. It's that level of consistency which is often reflected in aspects of design ordinarily thought as out of place in the first-person genre. Key to establishing the dynamic which the narrative can properly flow through is atmosphere, and Valve go to some lengths to establish groundwork at the beginning, to ensure the player is absorbed in the world they're so evidently eager to portray. It's a world not only built upon the ideals of isolation and oppression, where each 'citizen' (or prisoner) of City 17 is made to feel abandoned, lonely and at odds with their surroundings, but also a world where the distinctions are very harsh. One of the clearest examples of such an aspect is in stepping from the train at the beginning of the game where you're confronted by a muddled woman endlessly waiting for her husband to arrive. Whether he actually exists or not is almost beside the point. The fact that it's possible for this character to automatically generate our sympathy, even though we've barely had chance to sink into the game's world at this part obviously reveals how strong the level of characterisation is right from the off. Not only that, but this citizen's mental state shows us straightaway with how people inside City 17 are treated and disregarded.
This fundamental aspect defining the city is represented through the deterioration evident in urban decay, and the contrast it has in relevance to the pristine technological superiority of the Combine. At it's heart, the looming citadel in the middle of the city is the ultimate example, a clear, smooth rigid structure rising up at the feet of the surrounding desolate, yet ruined buildings nearby. The rulers of such technology are emphasised by their difference, and from a visual viewpoint, their almost exaggerated lack of humanity. We barely get to see the Combine beyond their masks (or the technology they hide behind), and this allows a level of freedom for the player in terms of their interpretation. Half-Life 2 never offers a literal explanation as to why things are the way they are, and this ultimately allows the game to have a sense of narration in which the player becomes an active participant. While this could arguably be held up as a criticism of the game, in that it raises more questions than it can answer, there's also evidence Valve respects its audience and wants to offer scope for us to come up with reasons ourselves. Not only that, but the narrative form the developer uses to tell its story is essentially utilised to expertly take advantage of a number of aspects evident in its first-person viewpoint. Snippets of information are revealed in a variety of places, and saturate us within places heavily layered due to exceptionally high levels of detail. An example of this form of narration would be Eli's lab, which reveals small parts of Alyx's history along with what has partly happened during the intervening years since Freeman has been absent. However, the important aspect here is that the narration is never burdened on the player and is only effectively realised through their willing exploration within the environments themselves. It's up to us how much of the available story we may want to discover.
Such a lack of literal rhythm to many of the story's finer points may also be an indication of a reflection in the key themes evident throughout the game. We, as the player, must enter the role of Gordon Freeman to the full and transpose ourselves in the world we confront, yet he knows as little as we do, and this is important in the creation of a strong connection between a player/character identity.
"For us it's really important for the character of Gordon to be transparent, that how the player feels about what's going on and what the character is supposed to be feeling are relatively in sync. At the beginning of the game, you're confused. The character is confused, and the player is confused. What's going on? What's happened to the passage of time? The last thing I remember is this other event, and now there's a fair amount of distance from that - Spatially and temporally. I'm not in Black Mesa anymore - What happened? So even if you walk into the situation never having played Half-Life, you're going to be OK because you're going to be surprised by things whether you played Half-Life or not. That was one of the choices we made early on, to keep the player in sync with the game character as well as to accommodate people who hadn't played the original game - It sort of works on both levels."
Gabe Newell, Valve
For example, whereas other games merge two distinct interactive and non-interactive formats to the delivery of story, this approach can have the effect of alienating the player, especially if their on-screen persona is more associated with the developments in a game then they themselves are. Narrative complexity often assumes a place and purpose for the characters inside it, however we as the player may just as easily be left out in the cold if we can't understand or fully grasp the reasons why we're involved in pushing linearity to its point of conclusion. What we have to ask ourselves is, if a game intensely focuses on delivering a form of narrative through interactivity, should it be chastised for doing so if the experience can't escape rigidity to allow a freeform expression to storytelling? In a sense there has to be a balance focused on achieving the right amount of interaction in the face of what the story itself is trying to express through its characters.
This dependancy on a connection of role between the player and the characters they interact with is something further compounded and echoed in Gordon's own relationship with the so-called "G-Man". Where we as the player are tied to Freeman's own experience of City 17 and the non-player character reactions to him, Gordon himself is equally bound to the will of someone beyond his reasoning and interaction. Through that sense, whereas the inhabitants of City 17 are trapped in relation to their surroundings, Freeman is forever bound to an external force which makes no bones about using him as a commodity, or as a puppet. Freeman is a vessel not only for our purposes in terms of gameplay exploration - He's also a vessel for the G-Man's narrative intent. A man who acts as essentially the force propelling us forward through City 17 - The elusive mirage that holds the level of understanding we constantly aspire to. This is why the G-Man may appear throughout the game at key points, just as in the original title. His appearance reveals a sense of being under observation, (a point echoed by the opening image of the game: the man's watchful eye). Supervising our progress, he is evidenced not only in being a constant untouchable voyeur, but also through his interference in casually defining Freeman's path. It almost feels at times as if the G-Man symbolises the design work within the game which is fundamentally keeping check of our progress inside it. Both are evidence no matter how close to the G-Man we may possibly get, it's the rules we don't have proper control over that we choose to play by in order to progress. In this sense, the G-Man could arguably be said to represent Valve as a game developer too, in that his cause is to provide us with a linear sense of control we can adhere to in terms of progression. To spur us on through tantalising glimpses of how we're so close, yet so far in finding the answers we seek. It's then that we rely on the emotional convictions and the consistency with which characterisation is portrayed, to involve us within the unfolding narrative framework. Gabe Newell mentions this is an important aspect of Half-Life 2:
"The thing that I want to see people react to...
I think the part of it that's going to really shock people is how they feel about the other people in the game: the emotional reactions they have to the characters in the game. And at the end of it they are going to look back and say: I didn't think I could have that experience with a computer character. And that more than anything else was what I think was the biggest risk for us, and the one that paid off the best at the end of the day."
Gabe Newell, Valve
Another dominant factor underlining Half-Life 2's impact, is in its careful mixture of ordinary and extraordinary aspects associated with defining an interpretation of a world beyond repair. Whereas the early conceptual vision Valve had comprised of a desolate, polluted and typical sci-fi city environment in the vein of a BladeRunner or City of Lost Children, the end result is more closely tied to a real-day interpretation one might have of an urban environment under siege from dictatorial control. In other words, we're confronted with a form of location we can immediately relate to in a modern and everyday sense. On the outside, City 17 hasn't been radically reinvented or changed to accommodate the forces holding it at bay. Instead, its slowly being digested from the inside, and this sinister fact is relayed imaginatively through select changes to key parts in the iconography. For example, wooden doors are tightly shut by strange mechanical contraptions, large video screens adorn outdoor parks, and wrecked cars are situated along the roadside in comparison to oversized Combine trucks and flying metallic drones.
Even the crumbling architecture fawning at the citadel's feet is overshadowed by its unmistakably looming presence. Most importantly, this tension within the environment, between the uncomfortable co-existence of what we know, and what we don't, gets brought to the fore in terms of distinction very quickly. Unlike other games, which deal with fantastical themes in predictably generic ways, Half-Life 2 is concerned in wrapping us inside a world that feels familiar, yet acutely at odds with itself. The whole idea of this is of course so that we too become tuned into a sense of displacement. Conceptually, this twist on reality, and the conventions contradicting it, also relates to the characters at the beginning. As soon as you leave the train in the role of Gordon Freeman, a lonely Vortigaunt is seen sweeping up in an alleyway opposite an equally lonely woman at the other end of the waiting area, next to the train station's entrance. Both of them are separated by two Combine guards and chain-linked fences. Immediately we're made aware that imprisonment is imposed regardless of ethnicity or race by the Combine. Alien life forms separate to our own happen to be under enslavement too, and their presence isn't treated with any great surprise or threat. Instead, it's the faceless metro cops who both provide the real barrier and unity in undervaluing each species. This is a theme which mirrors the distinctions represented in the geography within City 17, and something threading itself throughout Half-Life 2's backbone. It's ironic that the citizens of City 17 fight against an unknown collective for the sake of their freedom and individuality, yet in order to do so, they have to form themselves inside an equally similar framework. To build an effective resistance, the prisoners have to generate their own collective unity to create organisation and power. Another similarity evident between the Combine and the resistance is the echoing relationship involving Dr. Breen and Gordon's position as leader or 'representative', of their respective side. Gordon is dispatched to do the work of the G-Man, and likewise, Breen is there to act as a figurehead for the Combine leadership who aren't present on Earth's plane. Both of them are being given by orders those who mysteriously are out of reach.
Perhaps the one symbolic difference is that Breen made a choice to take hold of his position, whereas our position gets thrust upon us without our say. In the game, although we might like to think otherwise, our fight for freedom may be indicative of the reverse of such a cause. Whereas human integration into the Combine was a forced choice derived from adaptation, our own choices are limited to what others think of us, or provide for us. Be it the G-Man laying out our path, the resistance idolising our role, or the designers creating the levels and narrative for us to traverse through... our choice gets defined within a structure we have no sway or influence over. In that sense, we as Gordon Freeman, are fighting the epitome of a powerless course. Even Breen admits his surprise at the the Combine forces' inability to apprehend Freeman, especially since he's nothing other than an "ordinary man". This may be true, but as the game so often proves through its thematic exploration, the relative merit of Gordon's character is almost irrelevant to the events which transpire around him. Arguably it could be the relative normality of Freeman, (in that we're the ordinary aspects associated with his representation), that stand out amongst the insanity and wildly conflicting events forming strength found in the game's narrative. It's our adherence to these various parts that help form the depth of that backbone, and often the only choice we're given is to act and perform in extraordinary ways to be allowed to proceed within the game's environment.
We're distant from being "the one free man" in light of the illusions others create to preserve that impression.
Half-Life 2 mirrors these issues through gameplay decisions that might at first be thought of as simple design practicalities. For example, if you run out of ammo then the game automatically switches to the next best weapon, or parts of the GUI remove themselves from view (such as when you're missing HEV suit health). These are all decisions that are made for us in terms of arriving at a logical and comfortable outcome, yet they're decisions that to an extent override our ability to choose. In less convoluted terms, freedom is handed down to us selectively in Half-Life 2, both in narrative and gameplay. What this helps to do isn't create a handholding exercise, but simply remind us of our position and role within the world we participate in. Whereas others might proportion us with lofty ideals of what they'd like us to be, (such as the resistance assuming we're a natural saviour), no such illusions are derived from our viewpoint, both in metaphysical and literal terms. The fact we're completed rooted in Gordon's outlook means that the only real concrete view we have is often in the way characters interpret us. While a sense of Gordon's characterisation is reflected back to us through such an approach, the contradictions evident in our own actions during progression help form distinctions between our reality of events, and the events in how others see things. We may not be the person we're made out to be, and subtle removal of freedom, both in level design, weapon management and GUI help suggest choice may only arrive from being able to determine it from the constraints of circumstance. In a less roundabout way, what Valve present to the player are a set of options and forms we can use to tackle problems -they- choose to put forward to us.
This helps form a message that may be considered central to the game - Freedom can't ever achieve purity as a set of rules have to be placed in order to create the limits for it to fight against. In Half-Life 2's case, the 'fight' is derived from the system set-up to create the rules in which destruction and violence must abide by. Namely physics, and the weapons or situations we're given to exploit its fundamental role in the formation of a solid, cohesive and believable environment. Breen himself places the perfect question to us in relation to this near the end of the game: "You've destroyed so much. Tell me - What exactly is it that you've created?"
As we hold the gravity gun at the time he asks this, the question raises a fair point. Only through acts of ultra-violence and abusing the environment to impose destruction on it, do we truly create anything in Half-Life 2. Although the game is far from being a braindead shooter, our inability to create justifies the violent action which must take place to accommodate what isn't there. What we're not fully capable of. Arguably you could counter this statement by pointing out the ways in which you can use the physics to create diversions and offshoot mini-games. However, the purpose in Half-Life 2 more often than not seems to be the use of what's there, or to repackage the environment using a weapon which attracts and repels objects for the primary motive of inciting gleeful chaos. Initially, in context of its introduction, the gravity gun is only ever supposed to be used as a tool to pick up and move items with. It's only through the change in level design that we're encouraged to use our new 'tool' for the purpose of attack, defence and puzzle solving.
If there is one major drawback with the gravity gun, then it's surely the gaping hole it plunders into the narrative consistency. Although Alyx presents the gun as a tool, surely by now it wouldn't have slipped the minds of a such a clever resistance, that manufactured gravity guns prove as effective weapons in their fight against the Combine? What this does is contradict the intelligence Eli and Alyx show in other areas of characterisation, and also amplify the player's own destructive potential. After all, we're the ones who have to realise its capabilities to the full when it comes managing and utilising the power we're afforded. It's at this point in Half-Life 2 when newly acquired freedom unlocks a set of rules and options that enable us to explore them in different ways. These ways are defined not only by the gravity gun itself, but the objects in which we're allowed to attract and repel. Furthering these very specific themes are a set of environments proceeding the gravity gun which follow a distinct pattern. First we have Ravenholm, a claustrophobic playground deliberately designed to incite destruction, followed by the coastal area, that's used to involve the gravity gun in more cerebral ways. In turn, this is followed by a return to short-distanced spatial design implicitly used to bring use of the gravity gun to a concentrated combat scenario. The fact the coastline, (an open space used to convey the size of the world outside from City 17 and the Combine's influence within it), gets sandwiched between two other closely built areas shows us something important...
That destruction and conflict are impossible to ignore in level design used to stage confrontation in a very direct manner, i.e. environments littered with items waiting to be used for defensive protection in getting safely from A to B. The coastline, while staging resistance-led setpieces in fighting off the Combine, also presents the chance to avoid combat and engage the game at a more leisurely pace. Perhaps best demonstrating these contrasting mixtures in environmental design is the return to City 17, and the varying stages of urban warfare and solitary exploration. Here the gravity gun becomes the utensil through which we etch our presence onto the variation laid out around us. On the one hand, during outdoor segments it's possible to pick up barrels, mines, and other inanimate objects for use as weapons, just as you can shield yourself using radiators, tables and chairs indoors for protection. There also comes a point when you have make your way up from a grimy sewer, using the gravity gun to affect the environment in order to progress and move forward in fighting the Combine. Although it may have been a touch unfair to intially state Half-Life 2's main objective is the satisfaction of destruction with the gravity gun, we do have to remember what we change or influence through it is in order for the achievment of a specifc progression. Ultimately for the aim so we can move further in our continual battles with the forces that wish to suppress us. From that point of view, the gravity gun's creative potential is there as a vessel in which we can realise acts of violence through at a later stage. This dualism between creativity and destruction is mirrored by the symbolism evident in the most intimidating piece from the Combine's armoury. The citadel wall.
For the Combine to create and form their own mechanical landmass, this contraption appears to gain energy from the consumption (or destruction) of the architecture and buildings surrounding it. By the end, it appears they're the ones being surrounded, and City 17 is infested with a parasitic device slowly eating it to shreds. It's possible to interpret the citadel from a number of different angles. You cold think of the beast as a mechanical nightmare determined to impose it's will on crumbling urban dysfunction, or as being representative of a well worn past at war with an unknown future. Breen's dislike of instinctive reaction is proof that calculated precision can assume power over primitive forms of creation, and the citadel is in part a realisation of that assumption. It's also evidence that our own wilful disregard for the environment is ample material for absorption into something greater - That can arguably be repackaged in a technological framework beyond what we know. From that viewpoint, the citadel is a criticism of our own wastefulness, in that its consumption has a purpose in being able to give life to the lifeless objects around it. Such decadent material is given purpose by the Combine's citadel wall, and it also provides an example for our lack of control in the game when faced with the blanket smile of unconquerable precision. Examining the citadel's aesthetic, its pitch-black armour implies nothing can stand in its way, and this also indicates everything that it absorbs is consumed into a single standard whole. In relation, our own lack of presence within Half-Life 2's world, the fact we're never seen to pick things up, (we don't have a 'physical' body as such), stands in stark contrast to our ultimate predator. It's sheer weight and unstoppable movements forward remind us of the march of time... the impenetrable wall we have no influence over, yet others who control us do...
"Within the story, there are reasons why you are in City 17. Outside of what is happening in the story, two factors influenced our inclusion of City 17 - The first was that Viktor Antonov grew up in Romania and without really intending to he got a bunch of the artists excited about an art direction that drew heavily on eastern European source material, and the second was that thematically present day eastern Europe exists at a really interesting crossroad between the past and the future which resonates with what goes on in Half-Life 2."
Gabe Newell, Valve
Gordon's teleport from Nova Prospekt to City 17 is an example of this. In the blink of an eye, past and present merge into one, and the city has more or less been reduced to rubble. Facing the wall, our own size and lack of power in context of these overwhelming forces, is brought to the fore in what the wall dictates in terms of theme. None of our weapons, (even the gravity gun) have any effect on it, and when we approach close, the citadel wall reacts to our presence by stepping further in our direction - Just to remind us it knows its purpose and what it must do to protect the Combine. In relation to this, the wall can equally be thought of as a defensive measure brought into play by the Combine forces to maintain the status quo, and crush the growing resistance movement threatening what they have. The citadel uses the wall as both a barrier and a tool through which to extend itself out from. These purposes give the device a hideously simple logic. In order to maintain its power base, the Combine must be ready to actively consume.
Such functionalism is an aspect evident in the development of Breen's character as well. For the majority of Half-Life 2, our only exposure to him is via the bewildering video screens and television messages the Combine relays. His carefully chosen words deliberately deflect his own real motives and aspirations, so the impression that the Combine's control over the population is seen as beneficial. He even uses the word 'benefactors' to describe those who are essentially his own masters - Masters who although seemingly disapprove of individuality, have to use a single figure to humanise and give their views reason in a way that the ordinary population of City 17 can relate to. In the end, whether it is through practicality or design, the citizens of City 17 are found to echo within themselves. We come across the same faces and characters just as we come across identically presented metro cops and Combine soliders/elite. Half-Life 2 makes us question the differences between the role of the 'everyman' in face of the faceless. Perhaps a useful demonstration of this point within the Combine's own ranks is the contrast between Breen's romanticism of their plans, and the faceless woman who frequently produces citizen violation announcements for our 'socially deviant' acts within City 17. On the one hand, you have Breen mollycoddling the public with a hard to swallow pill, and on the other, the Combine's lack of toleration spews out into the soundscape with startling regularity. These contradicting forms of exposure to the Combine reveal vital pieces of information in terms of understanding their psychology. Although they're concerned enough to satisfy the population in the hopes of keeping them stable or in place, when it comes to threats aimed at their control, the practicalities involved with their defense crash down on any carefully positioned illusions Breen attempts to create.
Perhaps this is best expressed through what an innocent citizen says near the beginning. He warns Gordon that the Combine have infected the water supply in hopes of brainwashing the public into forgetting how they came to be in City 17. He doesn't recall his own position, yet we have to ask ourselves, if that were the case then how would he be aware the Combine had infected the water supply to begin with, especially in losing his memory? Such a point is indicative again that the Combine's measures of control only partially work in maintaining their fractured illusions. They lay the groundwork for the citizenship to integrate into City 17 effectively, yet often tear through these fluffy barriers with little or no hesitation if they have to impose the realities of their rule to those at odds with it.
This unmasking becomes evident in Breen's own approach throughout the progress of our adventure in Half-Life 2, when his broadcasts go from sweet-talking the public, to giving the Combine soldiers direct orders, before eventually referring to Gordon Freeman directly. The change in approach helps get across the extent our presence has had in the game's world, and how it surfaces in the changing attitudes of previously impenetrable characters. Breen's dualism is further accentuated in iconography when we eventually enter the citadel, discovering he's decided to talk face to face with us, albeit through two corresponding monitor screens at the same time.
What this obviously does is imply the Combine's collective strength - That even a single individual can be even more than he is in reality. It could also be thought of as something that highlights Breen's personal strength, and the fragmentation with his own confidence and self-faith. In other words, as we make our way through the citadel he makes himself look bigger... something more than he actually is. Even his words, at first defensive, eventually result in him trying to reason with our continued approach and determination in ending the Combine rule of City 17. It both underline's Breen's own growing sense of anxiety, and the threat our own presence has the further we approach his position. Only when we place ourselves in a casket to move up the building, does he regains his sense of confidence and establishment of power over the technology in the citadel. Up to this point, Breen's presence on the video screens, (the only dominant technology to constantly reoccur in the building), have been devices he has stamped his authority over. Eventually, by placing ourselves quite literally in the vulnerable position of entering the Combine's machine-like nature to progress, we give back to them the impression they can absorb anything which enters their path. Breen even admits as much when he expresses his delight in telling Freeman he wouldn't have chosen to hunt him down, if he knew he was going to come straight to his office. From that angle, Breen arguably shows his own humanity here, (the qualities of instinct that he's desperately trying to suppress), through the anxiety, relief and arrogance he expresses when he has all the cards at hand again.
Something the climax of Half-Life 2 also benefits from is the development of a villain who is gradually built up through the game by the tools used to represent him. When we finally meet Breen in the flesh, the event has been carefully stage-managed so that his appearance in physical form is deliberately made to seem less consequential than his previous representations elsewhere. In person, rather than being the all-powerful intimidating figure we've seen on the video screens, we find he's just another "ordinary man", the very words he uses to describe Freeman himself. In essence, Breen is symbolic of two aspects important to the overall thematic nature explored within Half-Life 2 - Our own ability to carefully conceal fear or panic in a crisis, and the corruption which can so often arise from the temptation of expressing power.
Just as importantly, he's also important as the key dispatcher in the narrative's underlying progression, in that the Combine's plans, technology, and masters are all at some point revealed to an extent in relation to his actions. Nearing the game's conclusion, tidbits of information are revealed by what he says and whom he communicates with. Communicating with what we can only assume is the Combine's master race; he mentions the possibility of using an alien host body to exist inside a hostile atmosphere. And this brings us to the G-Man... could such an implication suggest that Gordon's otherworldly dispatcher is none other than an alien entity himself, using a foreign body to present a version of humanity to us in order to easily express his will? We have to ask ourselves, with Breen revealing that Freeman's contract is up for the highest bidder near the game's conclusion, who have we been exactly fighting for during this conflict? It's possible to keep track of the G-Man's presence through the points in the adventure he briefly shows up, and during one such moment looking through binoculars on the coastline, shows a resistance leader talking with him amongst a collection of ruined houses.
Equally baffling, a number of Vortigaunts throughout the game mention they and Freeman are working for the same mystery... that they are inexplicably intertwined by forces they have no control over. This too could be thought of as a hint that the aliens hired Freeman's services from the G-Man to help the resistance out. These two small segments in the game's narrative are further evidence of the ambiguity with which the story is often delivered, and the fact that Valve don't underestimate the intelligence of their audience. To break it down, such implications help engage us in considering the role that the G-Man plays. Is he merely an agent selling Freeman's services on behalf of another force entirely, or is he the key manipulator when it comes to influence our 'services' have on the events around us? By placing the G-Man in two possible frameworks here, Valve open the narrative up to potential avenues for exploration, and don't nail themselves down on the literal level so many videogame plots fall into.
This subversion is echoed along the coastline during the player's continual confrontation with the ant lions. Here, Half-Life 2 decidedly creates an ally from an enemy through a carefully placed gameplay twist, yet at the same time, provokes the reverse from the technology we'd previously taken solace in. The tremor devices for example, having been used as shelter from the flood of ant lions, become something we must actively disable to progress, when we have to move forward with our new 'friends' in toe. What the game doe is create a fluctuating shift in how the role of ally and enemy benefit us in terms of achieving our goals and aims, relative to our progression within the world before us. Our 'benefactors' then quite literally become those we've previously battled against.
1.3. Ideology and the culture of suspicion
Such flux creates an instability within the game that causes us to raise our paranoia when we realise that characters may be double-crossing each other, and it's an aspect which expands into other areas too. For example, an important concern in Half-Life 2 is of the exploration with how civil liberties interact inside a climate of fear.
Sound familiar? The Combine are eager to do the thinking for the people in City 17, and justify their means through select use of propaganda and choice language. Its dictatorial regime let loose a 'civil protection force', who present themselves to be looking out for the civilians they keep trapped at their whim. Throughout the adventure, it isn't so much big brother looking out for you, but more a strict father eager to make sure his rules aren't bent out of place. Yet there doesn't appear to be significant traits of masculinity evident within such domination... the appearance the Combine present is very much asexual and bio-mechanical in design, and this could be thought of as representative of their own dislike to the instinctive mechanisms which define gender and sexuality. At times the game almost comes over as a harsh critic of the nanny state our own current society is turning into with regards to identification and position. While the drones fly about taking snaps of our activity in City 17, it becomes so that our interactions are logged as but a catalogue of errors. Information is collected on the basis of supposed deviance - A deviance defined entirely by those in control.
In reality, both fear and paranoia have found a new lease of life with the manipulation of the current climate of fear. We're told of alert stages, the expectance of terriorist attacks - Not 'if' but 'when', of our own vulnerabilities in light of social and political instability flooding the world. As a tool, paranoia is useful to present a message in which those holding power can be presented as fighting the 'good' cause on our behalf.
Half-Life 2 knows this and it isn't naive to show the detrimental effects that gullible quick-show belief possibly holds. If people buy into the Combine’s way of thinking then they seek to avoid the simple facts that are associated with the truth: they’re trapped. City 17's rulers are shown to be drowning out social concern for the replacement of simple practicality. Civilians mention that they have to join the Combine's civil protection just to "get a decent meal", and this highlights food and water supply may be restricted to the extent that the alternatives to the Combine's rationale hold little except death, imprisonment, or starvation. When you finally stumble into a tenement block, you find a couple of people discussing how the Combine's invasion of their property always begins the same way. And upon throwing a television out of a room spewing Breen's propaganda, we're told that whoever owns it is certainly going to find themselves in trouble. What this indicates is that materialistic and private possession within Half-Life 2's world is equally dictated by the Combine, and provides explanation for the waste and decay which festers in all directions.
Arguably then, Half-Life 2 could be interpreted as mimicking the political stance of the old science fiction B-Movies it occasionally aspires to. There are elements within the game that associate the concept of freedom with a capitalist viewpoint, and the suppression by the Combine as an inherently negative representation of a communist stance. Difference and individualism are frowned upon with extreme prejudice, yet monotony, conformity and replication, (the ideology of a single whole), become evidence of the Combine's favourable preference. Throughout the game, there are echoes of previous war torn conflicts, and overtones allude to a parallel with World War II, or more recent conflicts evident within Eastern Europe. For a supposedly sophisticated trans-alien formation, the Combine are unequivocally direct in expressing their fascist ideological values. However, it would be incorrect to imply that Half-Life 2 underlines its aesthetic with a specific set of intended political messages. For throughout the game, Valve continually make us question what it is that freedom necessarily entails. Considering we're trapped in their own design choice, and that very little of the overall world within Half-Life 2 is as it once was, to sociologically break the barrier may achieve nothing at all. It isn't as if breaking what little culture the Combine have formed is going to bring back choice in materialism, employment or trade. Whatever social structure remains has since been deliberately damaged so it can't support the things the resistance once took for granted. This is in turn echoed within their own attitudes of simply wanting to eat, procreate or even have a shower. A few members even say: "When this is all over I'm going to... Ah, who am I kidding?", and that indicates it's become virtually impossible for them to look outside of the culture and notions of conflict they've built around the Combine control.
It's here where Half-Life 2's own criticism turns savage, in that it embarks on a dissection of the stereotypical values expressed through the growing number of war-based games within the videogaming medium. Considering the current real-life political and social spectrum we find ourselves immersed in, it comes as little surprise to find that culturally, war is bigger business than ever. Games, films and books are flooding their respective market places for a share of this money-baked pie while it lasts. In particular, there have been a number of games based on recent happenings within the Middle East that cut very close to the bone. What Half-Life 2 does (partially) is to take you on the other side of the fence. Although it's impossible to deny that the Combine's representation is of the suppresser, we're not placed on the side of their ruling class. The term isn't used in the game of course, but our role in Half-Life 2 could be classed as 'terrorism' from the Combine's point of view. Likewise, from a resistance perspective, they would undoubtedly claim their actions to be representative of 'freedom fighting'. We as the player, get to live on the edge of the blurred line, and this is thanks to the G-Man and Breen's own set of revelations. Upon Half-Life 2's denouncement, although we've inadvertently been propelled as the resistance figurehead, Breen reveals we were simply acting on the orders of a contract for another force altogether. Essentially, our in-game actions have amounted to little more than that of a mercenary for hire, and so Half-Life 2 calls in to question exactly what side of the fence we've actually been positioned on through our adventure.
While it's wrong to claim Valve are trying to take us into the role of a terrorist to understand that mindset, maybe their aim is to get us to see how 'big-brother' portions in society can use the concept of terrorism to further ambitions which are in themselves unrelated. The removal of privacy completely in the sake of 'safety' others determine for us is one such example. The various drones that catalogue the extent of our actions are only there from the Combine's viewpoint to determine whether or not we represent a threat to their level of power. Half-Life 2 represents the accumulation of information as an assessment of threat - A furthering of the paranoia the Combine has already installed within the public they suppress. In our own society, this could be viewed from a similar framework... that breaches of our privacy are there to determine the levels of dissent which pose a risk to a certain overriding political perspective.
In Half-Life 2, our own deviance 'captured' for the Combine by these drones also reflects and informs us to the impact our actions have. Basically, the information the Combine express with regards to Freeman becomes something that both supports and denies our objectivity as a player. From one point of view, we're engaged through confrontation and informed by Combine communication as to our role in this regard, yet we're also the only overall threat they seem seriously intent on eliminating. Our destructive potential implies that the Combine see us as a force within reaching their level of power.
Even though Freeman is idolised by others, if we are to look at his role objectively, he could be thought of as responsible for triggering the events that proceeded black mesa. Although mechanical engineering and personnel were problematic before the resonance cascade, it was our own actions that allowed Xen access to Earth - To allow the Combine to cross over and begin their rule of us. From this point of view, Freeman is hardly someone you'd class as the archetypal hero. Instead, unwittingly or not, it's hard not to take his glorified stance through the progression of Half-Life 2 as an ironic example of Valve's humour. Even upon the conclusion of Nova Prospekt, whose infiltration the resistance movement takes as a message to start the uprising, our presence there is only meant to be for the purpose of freeing Eli from his predicament. Not only that, but Eli's capture in the first place could be pinned on our own shoulders, for it was us who helped lead the Combine forces to black mesa east upon our escape from City 17. In other words, Freeman's actions are continually misinterpreted to mean something more than they probably are. During the latter stages, when various resistance members look to you for direct leadership, it's often the case the player doesn't have full knowledge what they should be doing for these people. It isn't as though we intimately know the streets of City 17 as they do, or that we have all the answers our companions seek. More often than not, we're clueless and follow the shadowed hand that the game's linearity eschews.
If our aims and goals are examined then it basically leads to a three-point approach to narrative progression - Escape, exploration, and retrieval.
In order to escape, we have to abandon City 17 to distract attention away from the resistance base there, and get to black mesa east. From ravenholm onwards, our efforts are negotiated through the notion of exploration, before Alyx informs us of Eli's capture, where retrieval becomes the prime aim. Only on our return to City 17, after our failed attempts to free Eli, does the game lose focus in narrative terms.
Maybe what we have to also consider is that it doesn't. During our acts of 'terrorism' or 'freedom fighting', the moments of war Half-Life 2 engages itself in, our destructive and defensive intent becomes something without purpose. Yes, we want to take the Combine down and reclaim City 17, but it isn't strictly our fight. We have no emotional attachment to the land we find ourselves situated on, and the full effects of the Combine rule haven't been felt due to Freeman's absence. Ultimately, Freeman's presence (or lack of it) away from the Half-Life universe has been equally mirrored in his own confinement through the G-Man. Upon entry to the world, both this character and ourselves are blighted by the same lack of knowledge and attachment. Therefore, the propelling forces that push forward the development of war become those without meaning. We're fighting for the sake of a freedom we never really knew to begin with, or can ever properly engage in. Even if City 17 becomes liberated, the surrounding Combine forces external to it will most likely regain control, and we know we can't sample the consequences of our actions with the G-Man lingering in the background. Whereas in the original Half-Life all we were confronted with were those consequences, (i.e. our actions in the disaster of the resonance cascade), our absence in the sequel defines the shape of our consequences.
Examples of this are all over, such as when black mesa east gets attacked, we fail to witness the Combine invasion and Eli's capture our presence helped spring. Another would of course be the destruction of the teleport at Nova Prospekt, and how during our limbo in time, the resistance uses it to motivate their uprising. Just like the G-Man, the full results of our actions, the aftertaste... it teases us and lingers just beyond the grasp of the position we maintain. By contrasting both titles in the series, it's possible to take Half-Life 2 in this framework to be the opposite of its predecessor. Whereas during the first game our own set of actions were in the position of being outside of the G-Man's employment, Half-Life 2 makes sure the stamp of his contract is saturated everywhere. Examining this thought closer, we could even interpret our absence in light of consequence from another direction. Perhaps the consequences are instead absent for -us-, and like the G-Man, we find ourselves unknowingly escaping the grasp of the reactions we incite. Our actions within this increasing direction reveal that we come to assume a similar form of position to our employer. The main difference being of course that our own frustration at inciting events whilst being on the edge, isn't reflected in his calm and eloquent response to them.
Contrast this with the destruction that latter portions of the conflict entail during the resistance/Combine war, and it quickly becomes clear that Freeman's removal from the intimacy of such conflict is there to help him function more efficiently. By stationing us away from the bitter aftershock of violence, Valve make such pointlessness all the more direct. Freedom fighters act emotionally oblivious to the loss of their fellow comrades, and that suggests they’re focused on the achievement of their mission. In practical technical terms, it would have been difficult for Valve to incorporate shock, grief and loss immediately during the intensity of battle. The lack of the inward connection inside the resistance, becomes something members use to their advantage, through their unquenchable thirst for victory. If they have to sacrifice their humanity to pay the price for freedom, then such an emotionless attitudes amply demonstrate they're prepared to do it.
So again... when the action heats up and we're embroiled in all out conflict, the futility of such violence bears down quite hard. This could be what Valve are trying to express - That the destruction of war creates a lack of meaning in itself, especially when we can't personally relate to the justification causing it. Near Half-Life 2's end, a particular scene happens to symbolise such concern. Cornered in the remains of an obliterated building, we dig in and make a stand against a number of striders on the central platform. Afterwards, as hollow gunshots ring out and create the impression of a weakened Combine slowly being mopped up, our sense of achievement is contradicted by the confrontation of an incredibly harsh landscape. To achieve victory, albeit fleeting, the surrounding environment has had to be completely decimated. We have to ask ourselves, when the resistance has won back City 17, what have they exactly reclaimed? All their fighting and efforts have brought them is the decaying corpse of a once standing city. A city of which they neither have the resources or manpower to rebuild. Ultimately then, before we arrive at the citadel, we're left with the saddening impression that all this war has achieved in totality, is to bring the surrounding environment to its knees. The conflict became a narrow focus on to itself, whereby each opposing force was more concerned with their adversary than they were of the world around them.
It's not hard to accept the proposition that Valve have incarcerated an anti-war message is a leap in the dark, but consider this... when Freeman encounters a 'friendly' NPC, the game automatically lowers our weapon to prevent us from shooting. By distinguishing for the player who is exactly friend and foe in Half-Life 2, to an extent, Valve become our moral guardian. Yet, why are they doing this?
"You just have to be really careful when you are authoring the scenes and the attributes that you are giving to your AI characters. In many ways, friendly non-player characters are much harder to achieve than the enemy NPCs. For that very reason it requires careful programming and design work to make sure that you have solid AI and that you put those friendly AI characters in the right places with the right attributes."
Doug Lombardi, Valve
On one level it's of course to negate the possible collapse of the narrative structure should we kill an important NPC vital to the plot. From an entirely different angle, Valve are quantifying the value of life in their game. Some of it is exempt from our wilful destruction, while other forms are free to be disposed of as we choose. Perhaps this is an indication of where the choice in game title came from. Although the game's action creates far more death than the preservation of life, selectively, our 'friends' are immune to the impacts of our violence. By doing this, Half-Life 2 imbues it's character-based NPCs with preferential difference, in that their individuality amongst other reoccurring faces becomes a trait more acute when we accompany them. The fact we can't shoot people important to our continued development in the game is an aspect that could also be said to imbed itself within the narrative consistency. Could it be that from a story-based perspective, G-Man has done something to Freeman to make sure he never harms those characters who help further his mission?
When you briefly see G-Man throughout Half-Life 2 and shoot at him, such effect has no action, with the game automatically deciding he is 'friendly'. But is he? Or is this man an enemy that Valve selectively deem fit to be free from harm both in terms of our development and both the story's? It's a point echoed within Judith Mossman, who even though betraying the resistance in favour of the Combine, can't be shot when we finally catch up with her alongside Alyx in Nova Prospekt. Such inability to fire indicates that Valve's sense of morality is expanded outside of the limited framework of a typical 'bad' or 'good' guy. Mossman is clearly made to be someone crucial to the narrative, and although her actions imply otherwise, Half-Life 2's system fails to view her as an enemy. Once more, this could either highlight that what chooses for us, (whether it be the choice of the G-Man, Freeman or something more systematic), appears to value Mossman more for her strength of character than for her choice of decisions. If G-Man does have control over time but little influence inside it directly, then it's possible he realises Mossman helps Freeman and Alyx later to bring the Combine citadel down. After all, it's her initial betrayal that attracts Freeman to the building in the aims of saving both Alyx and Eli.
We're only able to gain access because of Dog, and that too is seen as a 'friendly', despite being a lumbering mechanical beast at heart. Large and bulky, it's been slowly constructed in the form of an ape yet given the mind and heart of a domesticated dog, hence the name. Eli has instilled Alyx's robot with an instinctive animalistic charm - The very impulse the Combine urge others to disregard. In another way, Eli could have made dog the way it is to show just what humans lack in City 17. On the one hand, we're presented with a primitive animal form that betrays it's rigid mechanical heritage, just as we now betray our own set of biological impulses thank to the Combine. Interestingly, Dog represents us in our pure, natural de-evolved form, (what we essentially ascended from), yet equally functions as a domesticated pet waiting to service its master. On two levels Dog can be said to function to remind the player of the primitive instinctive urges the residents of City 17 lack, and also how their domesticated status has been taken hold of to make them of greater use to Combine. Dog then is symbolic of the human struggle, and his strength and power underline how without use of technology and machinery, (elements external to their biological make-up), people won't succeed in their aims. That isn't to forget Dog's sole purpose however - To protect Alyx from harm. From this point, Dog appears to have inherited Eli's protectiveness and both Alyx's feisty attitude, indicating that it has the potential to learn from those around it. In fact, this direct attitude from Alyx is evident throughout most times we accompany her.
She's a character integral to the story; both in her own depth and the way she reflects back our own presence as Freeman. Valve are also clear to make sure she never falls into the typical supporting heroine trap of being a damsel in distress, or a bimbo whose legs alone would reach the top of the Combine citadel with breasts expanding beyond the limits of the solar system. Indeed, there come times when she has to save Freeman and act as his protector, such as when we're besieged by Combine guards early on before we get to Dr. Kleiner's lab.
Upon our arrival there, Alyx is the first person to volunteer to test out the teleporter, and this immediately indicates that she isn't a person who scares easily. Nor does she refrain from showing affection to individuals she cares for, such as her father or Gordon. Near the end of the game, her anger and vulnerability appear in quick succession of each other. During her confrontation with Breen, Alyx eagerly spits in his face to express how much she detests him, and when Freeman and her ascend in an elevator for the final showdown, she states how grateful she's been for his help.
Another important role Alyx plays is in acting as a bridge, between ourselves and the Combine technology we're often confronted with. When we catch up with her in Eli's Lab, it's quickly revealed she's a technician of sorts. Later on, in Nova Prospekt and City 17, Alyx has to access computers and gadgets so that we can progress. Such technical wizardry on her behalf doesn't come at the cost of physical prowess either, (as so often happens with videogaming characterisation). Alyx can more than fight alongside you, and even on occasion show off her gymnastic abilities, when during a specific section she scales an entire building right in front of your eyes.
Despite the seriousness of the situation in City 17 though, she's not averse to refusing her own sense of enjoyment. This is brought into direct confrontation, when Mossman forces Alyx to defend her own nature before showing Gordon the gravity gun. These moments are important to her characterisation, because in providing the player with this new weapon, her relaxing attitude helps us to adapt better to its playful mechanic. By also revealing Dog at the same time, Valve highlight how Alyx has feelings and can care for something that on the surface isn't human. On the way to the gravity gun she takes a snipe at Mossman and then apologises for it, and in doing so, reveals she has a clear sense of what is right and wrong inside her head. As we find out over the course of events, the same can't be said for Mossman, so Alyx's brief remarks about the woman (and her apologies for them) show the inherent differences she has in relation to her colleague.
If her own moral judgement is clear, then what best demonstrates Alyx's sense of personal direction is when she's confronted with the prospect of sorting out the problems of others. When Dr. Kleiner loses his pet Lamarr after the revolt in City 17 begins, she's tasked with helping find it and to also place both the scientist and his head crab in a safe location. Often Alyx comes over as a person who has to think on her toes. That isn't to suggest she's not willing to rely on other people however, such as when she asks Freeman to help her free Eli over at Nova Prospekt before he gets onto highway 17. What all these elements manage to incorporate is the sense that Alyx is a good decision maker, and knows when to let her pride and sense of management not overburden her or others.
These various developments of her character help to flesh Alyx out as a real person, with flaws, vulnerabilities and strengths. In particular, her importance to both us and the narrative is made clear right upon the point of Half-Life 2's end, when the G-Man stops time with the citadel exploding right in Alyx's face. The underlying point of this image is to grasp our attention and make us worry as to whether she makes it out alive or not. By concluding the game without this situation resolved, Valve make us value the importance of Alyx by creating an unresolved form of concern.
It's something that's partially developed during the points of the game when we accompany her in direct gameplay terms for a significant amount of time. For example, when she disappears from sight in Nova Prospekt, our separation from her means that we're unaware of the dangers she currently faces herself. Although Alyx directs as an inner-ear voice our inner ear (which oddly helps her form an immediate intimacy with Freeman), we're at a loss as to where she is and what dangers she faces. It's only when Alyx catches up with us again by snaking in and out of the Combine structure that we finally meet up.
During a further chapter we encounter her again after being separated in City 17, and prepare an ambush against Combine forces. She isn't afraid of the Combine soldiers or engaging in conflict if she has to. It's at this point when Alyx demonstrates she can more than protect herself, and creates the impression that she has been able to fight her away through the city to get to where she is. Obviously what such contrasts develop is the range her character encompasses with varying abilities throughout Half-Life 2's adventure. Ultimately, Alyx's actions help present her as someone who is self-sufficient and could live with or without the player's help if need be.
To Valve's credit, they don't degenerate Alyx into the token romantic trophy that many videogames do when it comes to the representation of women. In practical terms, the fact that Freeman doesn't speak and his character is actually the player, shows it'd prove somewhat difficult to flesh out a proper romance with an NPC, simply due to the lack of two-way scripted interaction. Instead, Alyx is shown to be our helper, dispatcher, defender and most importantly friend. It's her ability to adapt to situations without compromising herself or those around her that underline her level of strength. From the perspective of characterisation, she's perhaps the most clearly defined and well-rounded character in the entire game.
This powerful and confident form of characterisation allows Valve scope to expand on Half-Life 2's thematic interests with intrinsic detail. For example, although Mossman is a character caught in conflict with herself, her constant sway between 'friend' and 'enemy' lead us to examine what those terms mean in relativity to each other.
It's an aspect of design we see time and time again, especially upon our return to City 17 in the sewers, when barnacles and zombies become unlikely allies in helping to take care of surrounding Combine soldiers. In Nova Prospekt, the large ant lion guards are also ambivalent of whoever has the misfortune of getting in their way, and while also providing something of a challenge, take equal dislike to the Combine if they happen to be around. What this shows is that the Combine don't have control over primitive instinctive life forms, and this could be a reason for why they harbour such animosity towards the very responses which make them what they are. Anything they can't properly control or harbour influence over is perhaps thought of as a direct threat to their way of culture. If paranoia and mistrust reveal cracks in their armour during the pursuit for total control, then when we gain an ability to exert forms of control they don't (such as being able to use the ant lions), it places us in the unlikely position of being able to wield a small form of power beyond the Combine's grasp.
That isn't to say the narrative doesn't encourage the player to consider paranoia and mistrust as useful tools to have, in context of events which unfold over the course of the adventure. Judith Mossman is a character perhaps representing the most efficient example in demonstrating the fine line between friend and foe evident within Half-Life 2. She proceeds to develop an act of double betrayal... one moment defecting from the resistance to the Combine for the sake of her interests in scientific advancement, and the next defecting back when her feelings for Eli spur her to act spontaneously and defensively against Breen. Her gentle and carefully considered nature stand in stark contrast to Alyx's rough and tumble attitude, and this makes it hard to distinguish Mossman as someone we'd normally consider as a typical videogaming adversary. At first she's quiet and reserved, and this of course hints that she has something to hide deep under the surface. Yet when she's in the citadel and witnesses at first hand Breen's contempt for his fellow species, it could arguably be this thoughtful nature of hers which allows Mossman to come to the conclusion she does. That the people she cares for are just as important as the ambition of her personal aims and goals.
Back in Eli's lab, when you're given scope to look around and absorb snippets of happenings in your absence, if you visit Mossman in the control room after she disappears before returning back to Eli, he later reveals an interesting piece of information. At first it seems throwaway, almost trivial, but the fact is that Freeman originally usurped Mossman to his job position at Black Mesa, and it's perhaps why she holds resentment to the very things we as the player stand for. When Alyx wants to show us the gravity gun, it could be Mossman isn't angry at her eagerness to reveal it, but instead uncomfortable with the idea that a fellow physicist (who proceeded her previously in scientific advancement) may get his hands on a contraption she helped play a significant role in developing. This protective nature is also indicative of her attitude to Eli, and is an explanation for the way she approaches him.
Put simply, Mossman wants to protect what she invests in, and it's something she shares in common with the Combine, possibly revealing a few of the reasons for her involvement with them. Away from the resistance, and with access to vastly superior technological resources, she's able to develop her own ambitions within an isolated space. There is no benchmark to set herself against. Even Breen backs her up in this regard, when during her defence of Eli late on, he states categorically that she's more than able to continue his research for the Combine herself. Arguably it's her belief and faith in the others she holds dear that both makes her doubt her own abilities, and highlights that she struggles being in isolation from the warmer aspects which humanity can offer.
In this sense, Mossman is quite a complex character in that although she's able to divorce herself from feeling, logical and rational thought aren't the only driving forces behind the decisions to further her scientific aims. It's clear when you witness her talking in the lift on the way down to Eli's lab, that she's genuinely passionate about her work, and her relationship with it isn't out of an agenda to suppress her fellow companions. Instead, it's only the realisation that her ambitions can't be achieved without consequence that forces Mossman to retract and move back in alliance with the resistance. The fact that Alyx views her with such hostility could be partially due to the ambiguity and the fact her character incites suspicion, yet it could also be just as much to do with the jealousy she has in looking from the outside on the warmth Eli and Mossman share that she can't properly penetrate. In comparison to Mossman, Alyx is very pro-active and confrontational. She doesn't run, shirk or hide from the problems that get in her way, and this could be a reaction to the real troubles she has to contend with in viewing Mossman as an unwelcome splinter stuck between her relationship with Eli. Even though Freeman's role isn't as a father figure to Alyx, the feelings she gradually associates with him could be considered a partial side-effect related to the difficulties she experiences elsewhere in her life. These aspects within the complexity of the character relations in Half-Life 2 are only briefly alluded to, but they exist if the player is prepared to look for them.
Indecision is rife in most characters within the game, apart from the unwavering knowledge that we ourselves are trapped in the control of a being we have little-to-no understanding over. Whereas upon the conclusion of the original Half-Life you were given a choice of either accepting the G-Man's offer or not, here it's made clear whatever our preference, he will be making the choices for us from now on. It's this revelation, and our witnessing of the demonstration of his power (in being able to stop time at will), that both ties up questions within the original's conclusion and creates more in the sequel. On the one hand, it's almost confirmed that since the events at Black Mesa Gordon has been suspended in time, yet the reasons and sources behind this power are deliberately masked behind the sheer mystery encapsulating the G-Man's presence.
1.4. Exploration of theme and design
Half-Life 2's stifling sense of being trapped, of linearity, is symbolic of its thematic concerns. We're funnelled through setpiece after setpiece to the whim of an already controlled design brief. In such a way, our own experiences of playing through the game aren't very far off from the experiences of what City 17's inhabitants must routinely suffer at the hands of the Combine. As Breen iterates on the large video screen at the very beginning of the game: "You have chosen, or been chosen to relocate to City 17."
Yet we have to ask ourselves - Just who is exactly this message for?
The evident linearity in Half-Life 2 is an imposition used to bring forward the implications of a totalitarian state beyond sense of humanity. The aliens and their technology are examples of this, and even Breen is eager to justify the need their regime shows in eradicating the simple biological impulses which make life what it is. Instinct is something that holds us back, and something to be feared in light of potential evolution, we are told. But it's these very instincts that the player needs to use to progress. Whether it be solving puzzles, fighting, absorbing the environment... on a microcosmic sub-conscious level, we have to give into our senses to appreciate the finer points Half-Life 2 is anxious to express. To enrole in City 17 is to deny the Combine of their aims to begin with, so our role as Gordon Freeman becomes rebellious and socially deviant before we've even managed to commit a so-called 'crime' in the city.
Perhaps this is what Half-Life 2 is continually trying to reflect back at us. We're enslaved in ourselves - Even if City 17 was rid of the Combine and its people liberated, they'd still be trapped in the processes defining them as human. It'd be transferring one type of enslavement for another. An example of this is an odd passing comment made by a non-player-character at a point late in the game, when he says: "After this is all over, I'm gonna mate!"
Such a sentence suggests two things. One, that the mysterious containment field the Combine set-up to repress reproductive urge isn't working to the efficiency its masters expect, and two, the urge to fight is superseded by the need to reproduce. When people are liberated, their survival mechanisms will change from an evident need to combat hostility for the need to replace a weakened shell of a species. While this is only indicated briefly by the relatively sparse population of City 17, Breen's continual mention of immortality suggests that the Combine are effectively looking to downsize the species so a select few can live for as long as they like. A select few they will no doubt choose.
In relevance to this, hypocrisy runs rampant throughout Half-Life 2. People are fighting for their freedom and to win back their original biological state, yet at the same time, Dr. Kleiner demonstrates the wilful disregard we can show for the mechanisms which define our state. He owns a pet crab named Lamarr, who for the sake of convenience and ownership, has been muted to be rid of instinctive urge and possibly the need to follow its own patterns of reproduction. But isn't this what humans themselves are seeking to fight for? The desire to reclaim their instinctive mechanisms?
The Combine too are contradictory with their own ethical stance, or lack thereof. For all their precision and technical wizardry, they express evident repetition in both their appearance and actions. Striders, aircrafts and soldiers are indistinguishable from the next, and their own form of reproduction, the creation of biological farms within their citadel, becomes a singular aspect defining its geographical state and grave-like aesthetic. Gabe Newell stated during E3 2003, when Valve were showing Half-Life 2 for the first time, that the Combine citadel was eating its way through City 17 slowly bit by bit.
The need to follow a monotonous reproductive path. Isn't that the very same mechanism abhorred by this select group?
Overall, its the Vortigaunts who prove to be the most mysterious figures in Half-Life 2, hinting that Freeman's actions at the end of Half-Life, inadvertently set them free and away from the master race controlling the invasion at Black Mesa. Interestingly, they only ever refer to Freeman in third person, as if he isn't really himself...
Almost as if they know he's being controlled by something else, be it the G-Man or ourselves as the player. They are perhaps the only species to effectively adapt to their environment, for whereas the Combine seek to transform City 17 and rebuild it slowly as their own metropolis, and humans struggle to cope in the face of that, the Vortigaunts otherwise appear at ease in whatever location they happen to be placed. They also raise an interesting moral dilemma, in that although we're at war with an alien/human partnership, not all life forms beyond our own may be hostile in terms of intent. This calls into question the nature of what can be classed as a 'traditional' enemy and what can't. Returning to Judith Mossman... she represents this idea a step further with regards to her actions of deceit and disloyalty throughout the game. First she betrays the resistance, and right at the very climax has a change of heart and does the same with her 'benefactors'. It's this sudden shift back to her 'humanity', her step away from cold calculated reasoning, which helps to define this betrayal. As such, if her first and second betrayals are so close, both from decisive calculation to heated indecision, what does that say about the lack of instinct over our fundamental grasping of it?
It's an aspect which although at first is abstract in relation, happens to be the embodiment of Freeman's gravity gun when he gets hold of the weapon. Our instinct helps to underline the joyful kinetic fun which can be had through using it as a toy, but as Mossman adamantly states early on in the game, it's role may not be that simple. For a start, the gravity gun, although primarily there to showcase the interactivity with Half-Life 2's physics in an immediately accessible way, is also an integrated part of the game's puzzle range. It's use must too be defined on a conscious level through the objects we choose to pick up - What we mark out as the important or relevant environmental objects related to our sense of immersion and interaction. While this is often a fluid and thoughtless task in Half-Life 2, the fact is we still have to choose and keep an eye out on the objects we use to further our progress, or immerse our sense of progress inside of. Its precision exists in a simple distillation of what you can and can't pick up, either/or. But our use of these objects after our decision often results in what we conclude we can achieve within the in-game environment - The effect or the presence our influence on the world around us can have.
In a very controlled and regimented environment, where suppression is a key ideological tool put forward by the Combine, the gravity gun runs in direct opposition to their system, yet follows a similar level of technological precision to the machinery they use. It's use is there for -us- to control and manipulate the environment, for us to have a sense that we can break, impact and destroy the world with the free abandon which the Combine appears so eagerly trying to stomp out. In many ways, to use the gravity gun to its best effect, we have to buy into the Combine's way of thinking... to use the gun to control and place authority over the environment in how we best see fit. So the gravity gun also acts as an insightful tool we can use to get a look into the minds of our opponents. It's through such methodology where it becomes possible to move a step beyond and at last eradicate the almost sickening level of precision with which everything is organised in and around City 17 by the Combine. This is most evident during the chapters 'Nova Prospekt', 'Our Benefactors' and 'Dark Energy,' where the arrival at several Combine installations prompts the ability to run havoc with the gravity gun, and transform a significant proportion of the in-game environment through our own choice and control. The very elements the Combine is seeking to take away from humanity.
It's in this instance, where "the one free man" is allowed to live up to his namesake and alter something in the face of complete and destructive adversity.
What the game approves is a 'fight fire with fire' dynamic. A dynamic further symbolised through the introduction of the ant lions. At first, we're at their mercy... carefully making our way through a secluded coastline, trying to survive against their hordes on the sandy surfaces we have to traverse, be it through buggy or foot. What these burrowing creatures emphasise during such moments is our own fragility and how we can easily be overwhelmed by forces we have no hope of containing. If anything, the ant lions represent the sheer extent the alien invasion has had in transforming a normally peaceful landscape into a barren and extremely hazardous place. Ironically, we as the player have to make use of what the Combine provide for us here in making our way across the landscape, even if we are in total opposition to them. The tremor-like machines echo the aesthetic designs of the citadel too, almost acting as miniature versions, pounding into the land with as much ferocity as the towering beast manages to do itself to City 17. However, they protect the underground we stand on away from the ant lions, and ultimately help provide a safe passage to the destination we aim to get to.
It's only on our way to Nova Prospekt when the game subverts itself yet again and changes what was once a sworn enemy into an unlikely ally. All of a sudden the player is provided the ability to control and command another species, just as you are able to among those of the same kind later on during the long-awaited return to what becomes a blitzed city. In other words, the more you progress through the game, the more control you're afforded not only in affecting the environments around you, but the inhabitants of those very same environments too.
"In terms of non-combat NPC interaction, the AI found in HL2 allows us to deliver story elements in a much wider variety of ways, while also setting the stage for you to lead in squad combat with NPCs."
Doug Lombardi, Valve
First we're offered the gravity gun, then the ability to control the ant lions, before finally being given the chance to direct a squad of rebels as we see fit. Our level of impassivity decreases the further we adopt a more powerful role inside the game's world, yet at the same time that role is chosen for us by Valve. We're afforded greater power as we use the Combine's methodology against those same forces, but it's always a power we know we have no direct control of influence over. This revelation is important in clarifying where we exactly stand in relation to the wider picture, and also in maintaining a sense of vulnerability in the face of what otherwise would seem a startling curve of progression.
Even towards the game's climax, when the player approaches a god-like status with a modified version of the gravity gun, in finally being able to interface and manipulate Combine technology to its full destructive potential, this power is only afforded worth in face of the game's narrative structure. Half-Life 2 constantly switches from a level of impoverishment to empowerment throughout its experience of play, and it manages this very acutely. For example, during the 'Water Hazard' chapter, we are pinned in by a nightmarish helicopter, being chased and hunted along a canal front. Yet over the course of time, from being defenceless, we're blessed with a weapon of significant power thanks to a Vortigaunt ally, who helps the player to gain comeback in the most devastating of fashions. Essentially we move from being vulnerable to omnipotent in the blink of an eye, but it's always down to circumstances outside of our own hands which allow us those opportunities. Allies aid you, occurrences favour you, and ultimately the narrative is paced to give these contrasts their arched sway. Half-Life 2 succeeds in dragging itself away from punishing the player through an extended difficulty curve, and by turning this format on its head. It isn't to say the game lacks challenge, but that it rewards the player for going through episodes of being hunted, to eventually becoming the hunter themselves. Another demonstration of this viewpoint is in the closing segments of play, when coupled with the newly transformed gravity gun, we meet Half-Life 2's most fearsome enemy again: the strider. Armed with a weapon, which up until this point has very much been dependent on the strength of object at its disposal, we are provided the chance to wreck destruction on an enemy determined to make us feel small, threatened and exposed.
However, at that moment the tables are turned. Upon accomplishing the psychological feat of moving beyond the strider's insidious power, it becomes 'just' another object of environmental design, which we can pick up parts of and throw at our own discretion. What this does is underline that the opposing forces in Half-Life 2 are not the invulnerable and impervious mechanisms we are at first led to believe. An illusion is formed as to the true strength of the Combine, and this is evident in the propaganda Breen regularly spews out. He is a man deluded by his own beliefs and methods he's used to trap himself inside of. At the end of Half-Life 2, the citadel shows us that the Combine arguably become just as trapped as the citizens of City 17. In their citadel, those in command are shut away from the outside and the social happenings which influence the slow changes throughout the city. They don't participate in events; they merely witness it from their high-rise positions. It's a theme which could be thought of as representative in the geographical structure of the building itself. As Freeman, we have to enter a casket and move onwards and upwards to confront and challenge those who've managed to decide what happens directly below. Yet through such change of environment, it becomes evident that the cold sterilised factory portion of the building, which harshly sits on the surface of City 17, is also cut off from the clean, pristine look of the upper floors. There almost appears then to be a clear fragmentation too within the Combine partnership and where the hierarchy and foot soldiers fit in with each other.
Valve's carefully balanced level design here in terms of representing form, function, theme and narrative importance, is evident elsewhere throughout the game as well. There's a carefully considered relevance to the level design overall that owes a great deal to spatial variation. City 17, for example, is a prime example of a confused, claustrophobic urban environment positioned in a state of flux between hanging on to the past, and moving forward towards a very uncertain future. However, at the start, we're confronted ominously by a large empty train station processing people to where they're supposed to be designated, only then to be confronted by a central hub outside that equally sits alone and abandoned. It's as if City 17 has been left to reside in itself, while the Combine focus inwardly in retracting movement down to a very narrow space elsewhere within the city limits. The glowing gates preventing our progress here demonstrate that movement is to be dictated from our placement rather than our active choice in it. Only when we move away from these large lifeless spaces 'approved' by the Combine for citizen usage, do we get to interact with the underbelly of the city and embroil ourselves inside its maze-like structure. In closer consideration of Half-Life 2's narrative, the reason the Combine want to keep people in large spaces is of course so they can keep an eye on them. Not to mention the robotic drones floating around are evidence that being out in the open is to sacrifice privacy for the sake of conformity.
Lack of space at the beginning of the game actually represents a method of evasion... of escape. Trudging through the wastelands and sewers that litter the environment reveals information regarding the narrative's time and placement with regards to the original Half-Life. City 17 has been decimated and allowed to fall into vast levels of decay. The outer limits are clearly of little concern to the Combine so have been left to rot. This justifies why the barnacle is such a re-occurring enemy in the sewer, because it thrives amongst the rotten waste which is so prevalent in the city's outback. However to make sure this delivery of level design doesn't stagnate as much as elements presented within the aesthetic do, the game changes pace and opens up a very open, but direct route to escaping the city limits. Here, on the canal, Half-Life 2's sophistication in handling its different forms of gameplay design become more apparent. The game simultaneously handles the introduction of an airboat vehicle (and change of pace associated with controlling it) through fast moving, streamlined geography, along with the recognised land-based mechanics established previously. It's an aspect of design Half-Life 2 manages very well, in that by merging and interconnecting so many of its several elements in a seamless fashion, it allows the consistent variation of the experience to service the game brilliantly. Also, such interconnection enables Half-Life 2 to conceptualise a huge sense of movement, momentum and journey through the strides we as the player make inside its landscape. For as we progress through this winding canal, we're given the opportunity to look back on the wrecked apartment buildings slowly being left behind in City 17, only to then be overtaken by steel industrial configurations snaking around outside it.
Unlike Half-Life, there's a true sense of time and placement which manages to microcosmically involve both claustrophobic and large outdoor environments, without any disruption to the atmosphere of play. This is achieved thanks partly to the change in the sky's colour and how over the course of traversing the canal in exiting the city, we go from casually and quietly exploring its abandoned docks and sheds, to embarking on a huge chase with a helicopter. After this epic setpiece, a sense of achievement (and the time it's taken to finally arrive near Black Mesa East) becomes underlined through a breathtakingly baked sunset. On top of this, in the distance you can just make out the far-off buildings of a deserted town, a town you will soon come to know very well. By allowing you to examine what you leave behind, and what awaits you, the title manages to create a sense of continuity between chapters so they all feel part of the same world, and not levels distinguished separately by feel or atmopshere.
It's at this point Half-Life 2 manages to compound and highlight how we as the player get a real sense for significantly travelled movement, whilst the depth of the impression further emphasises that our traversal hasn't been met with a sudden jump in time or cutscene interruption. As if to compliment this subtle shift from afternoon to evening, the gameplay too manages to raise from careful contemplation, to high-octane run and chase gun fights, both on land and water within this very section.
Although criticism could be levelled at the game for jumping from one level of pacing to another perhaps too abruptly, the high concentration of events, and the level in which they hit you means you barely have time to catch your breath. Just when you think a section is beginning to drag on a little too long, Valve will expertly cut into the potential of monotonous flow via the introduction of brilliantly choreographed NPC-focused interludes. These usually manage to weave into the overall state of progression, barely standing out in relation to what's gone before. More importantly, such interludes are always there for a purpose... to relay a vital part of the narrative to spur us on, or to introduce a new character or weapon. In essence, the interlude at Black Mesa East acts as a bridge used to provide reason as to why the player has fought to get there. By doing this, it rewards them with a fresh shift in narrative, character introduction and new weapon, all used to contrast against the physical distance they've pushed through beforehand. Gabe Newell stated back in 2003 that a specific aim with Half-Life 2 was to create this connection we have with the characters around us inside the title.
"There are people. You're never alone in the game - Or almost never alone. You have to think about how are they going to react and what are they going to do. A lot of times, they have goals and you don't, and you have to make up your mind about what you're going to do around them trying to achieve something."
Gabe Newell, Valve
Examining this further, it becomes an aspect of design which is amplified to greater effect through the coupling of ravenholm and highway 17. Atmospherically the game decidedly takes a darker slant and pushes the player into an area caught in confrontation with itself. On the one hand, we're given a whole playground of toys to try out with the gravity gun, yet on the other, there's a palpable tension situated in ravenholm, meaning the player is rarely allowed to feel at ease. Again, such contrast perfectly fit in with the thematic concerns placed in the narrative at the time they happen. Father Grigori is a man supposedly of religion and faith, yet he takes delightful pleasure in tackling the mad zombies littering his town, and quite rightly could be interpreted as utterly insane. Even though his actions happen to be in the sake of what he believes to be correct and proper, his characterisation isn't clearly defined, and it's an aspect reiterated in ravenholm's spatial design. Compared to the previous inner and outer limits of City 17, we as the player are pushed into a very open space filled to the brim with possibility. But it's a sinister possibility, which evokes a sense of danger and darkness Half-Life 2 hasn't dealt with in earlier portions of its environment. Before we've been caught up in urban dysfunction, mystery, science fiction, action and drama, but not an on-the-edge horror ride ravenholm creates for you to exploit through your new weapon of choice. An interconnecting trap-laden environment becomes an opportunity to let our imaginations run wild, yet at the same time only do so within the proximity and boundaries defined by the fear and tension this new area provides.
To offset the ease of use that may arise from the potential destruction of the acquired gravity gun, Valve introduce three new enemies in ravenholm requiring varied strategic thinking: a headcrab and two new zombie types. One is a slow-moving hulk who spawns the aforementioned headcrab, while the other is a viscous runner who is able to climb. Purposefully, these creatures justify the change in spatial design and atmospheric tone, while also providing new reason to manipulate and use the gravity gun in ways the player may not have possibly thought of. Equally important is also the change this space possesses, not only in combining both environmental aspects in what's previously been revealed before, but a change of dynamic involving upward traversal. In other words, all aspects of the environment, both high, low, open and closed get used in ravenholm to flesh out the aesthetic representation of a lonely, isolated east European town left to fend for itself.
It's only when we progress through the mines shortly afterwards and make it out to the coastline, that transference in the scale of space becomes clearer. You get a sense you've managed to make it out through the 'other side' again - An atmospheric design intent first developed and fleshed out along the journey through the canal. During highway 17's distance span Half-Life 2 starts to use all these mechanics it's been shaping previously throughout the experience into a concise whole, whereby all the pieces start to tangibly fit together. Everything from the integration of the physics system inside puzzles involving a crane, over to making your way across a beach without stepping foot on it, or the introduction of three-way battles and expansive on-land vehicle traversal...
All these elements are pulled together through the singular consistent identity formed in relevance to a precise aesthetic design. During highway 17, we're under no chase or time limit. We're allowed to explore as much or as little as we like along the outer rim of the coastline, so long as we're aware of the potential dangers, and the gameplay variations at our disposal to deal with them should they arrive. It's here where Half-Life 2 best answers some of the current criticisms perhaps levelled unfairly at its linear nature. The game isn't supposed to be anything other than that of course, but it's at the coastline, away from City 17 and the surrounding areas where at last we're allowed to tackle parts of the environment at our pace, and (up to a point) in ways dictated by our own preference. As mentioned before, new found gameplay elements arising from this stand in stark contrast to the forms of variation ravenholm offered. Whereas that particular place served as a heavily concentrated area with the attention to detail it offered in pure physical terms, the coastline's expanded nature means that the level of spacing there encapsulates a sense of distance and time in a very specialised way.
Both road and beach sections offer Half-Life 2 the chance to expand its experience, and allow a vessel for a couple of important puzzles to filter through. Each of these geographical forms are integrated in association with what we'd expect to see out of the aesthetic in terms of its representation. For example, a shipping yard crane next to a beach doesn't look out of place in consideration of the environment, and using it to knock a bridge down in order to progress by picking up containers, lets the physics system properly show off its grandeur. Not only that, but it helps give parts of the environment purpose instead of being used as showcases for little more than backdrops. Indeed, puzzles are at their most effective in Half-Life 2 when they require lateral thought with how we'd apply ourselves in the 'real' world. A further example of this is during the canal route when the player is forced upon a counter-balance puzzle in which they have to use barrels to alter the water and affect the trajectory of a ramp. Although it's fair to say the puzzles of Half-Life 2 don't require a great deal of in-depth thought to solve, nevertheless they are designed to be integrated effortlessly into the overall mechanics of the gameworld without appearing out of place.
They also evidently have to be consistent atmospherically and consistent in terms of the level design harbouring them. To return to the counterbalance puzzle - There really wouldn't be a way it would work in ravenholm or the whole coastline area, and again, from an atmospheric standpoint, it's there obviously to accentuate use of the vehicular craft the player is in at the time they come across it. In contrast, 'Sand Traps' as a chapter is used more to highlight the implementation of the physics system across a wide open plane, and the danger and ferocity of the ant lions, not to mention why it's vital to move beyond them without detection. Here, the puzzle highlights the importance of the enemy, and creates a sense of freeform tension. One reason this particular section of Half-Life 2 is freeform in terms of puzzle solving, relates to the quality in level design and the fact you can approach traversal over the space from a wide number of angles. Using physics to move objects in any way the player sees fit over a wide ranging terrain, means their intelligence is partially rewarded through application of their own individualistic efforts. During such a point it's possible to try and run across and hope for the best, activate a Combine pillar to ward off the ant lions, approach the problem more methodically through exploration, or Combine use of all three. The choice is representative of the repeated chances during these sections of the game to tackle problems in several ways, an example being the break-in at Nova Prospekt. While it's possible to use the ant lions to distract the Combine turrets, it's equally possible to tackle the problem head on, or to sit it out and slowly try to flush the Combine guards by getting in close enough to set the ant lions directly on them.
Although the path to the prison is a strictly A-to-B scenario, Half-Life 2 does continually offer the abilities to tackle such parts using methods that manage also not to fall out of consistency with its narrative. A highlight of this is the control we're afforded in the puzzles with the ant lions and how they're mostly formed through our use of these creatures, via selective choice to try to use them in less direct methods. Upon entering Nova Prospekt, the dynamic becomes more evident when level design constrains the use in which the ant lions can be properly manipulated before getting in the way of the player's movement. Once again, there's a very distinct contrast from the wide open spaces we experienced in arriving at the prison, and the actual compounds the prison is comprised of. It's during this chapter when the game fully introduces controllable turrets and how they can be used as much to the player's advantage as the enemy's. Once more, Half-Life 2 subverts the Combine's decreasing level of control in the narrative (as you make further inroads into their territory) by giving over another aspect of the collective's technology.
However, the way in which you're allowed to use these weapons is of course formed by the design of the level, and how the setpieces are triggered inside it. Often the turrets act as a defensive measure instead of an offensive one, and come to reflect the fact that in Nova Prospekt, more often than not you're outnumbered and outgunned. This is highlighted all the more when during a particularly memorable setpiece you're positioned in a cell block and have to make use of three turrets to fight wave after wave of Combine infantry. Now, although this action point may not seem like much of a puzzle, it highlights the strategic thinking which has to go into using weapons in conjunction with the surrounding environment. Often these moments are entirely defined by the context of the setpiece you find yourself involved in and demand that you adapt accordingly. This is evidenced when upon Nova Prospekt's conclusion; you're tasked with protecting Alyx through your wits, the turrets available, and use of the immediate area for cover. The whole point of this scenario is to develop a connection between the level of action, and the ability to define a set of puzzling scenarios which may be able to arise from its intensity.
Even though Half-Life 2 is richly atmospheric and formed from a variety of parts both far and wide, most of them are brought together through the happenings in the action, and the issues it surrounds. What primarily connects the player to the unfolding events at hand action-wise is firstly the weapons system, and secondly the reactions derived in-game from the player's own set of responses using it. If there is one single weapon, (or indeed object), that defines Half-Life 2 most clearly then it's the gravity gun. Within time, it's arguable the contraption may even become more iconic than Freeman's crowbar in terms of symbolism evident within Half-Life as a franchise. Yet to claim this is the title's crowning achievement in terms of weapons would be to do the action a disservice. The fact is although Freeman's expanse of arms is similar to the original game, there are some notable editions which help to differentiate Half-Life 2 from its predecessor. The overwatch pulse rifle for a start offers a slower but more precise alternative to the standard machine gun, and a secondary weapon which can be used within small spaces to devastating effect. Lastly, and as mentioned before, just like the gravity gun, the pherapods open up whole realms of possibilities in not only utilising the enemy in a highly unique fashion, but also in adopting an entirely new approach to tackling traditional first-person-shooter level design.
If the weapons system is highlighted by one thing more than any, then it's clearly the response it derives from key enemies, such as rollermines, manhacks, gun ships and of course the hideously powerful striders. Some of these enemies can't be tackled without heavy duty weaponry or specific use of the gravity gun, but it's their response to you, and the way they force you to adjust to the level design to survive, which is most intriguing. A collection of manhacks in a confined space are often exceptionally lethal, so in order to beat them, combining fast-loading weaponry at a distance is usually the best way to ensure safety. It's during the occasions when level design deliberately intensifies in terms of short-distance space, that the more effective method is to use Freeman's gravity gun or to try and separate the group through continual tight-passage movement. Ultimately then, Valve ensure the weapons system, and the enemy reaction to specific uses of it, determines that level design be explored in a variety of forms depending on the action's relevant context. In contrast, fighting the striders (knowing their awesome weaponry can virtually rip through anything), means that you're forced to rely on gun grenades/rockets via a continual shift of movement between high and low spaces to stand any chance of surviving. As for the final few chapters of the game, which take place in an almost apocalyptic City 17... they highlight that the level design isn't there just to fill in the environment, and serve narrative or atmosphere. Instead, one of its primary functions is also in being host to battles which accommodate the player, rebels, Combine and the striders efficiently - So you're all pit against each other with advantages and disadvantages favouring positioning, level of movement, physique and weapons system. What this does is artificially create the impression that you really are fighting in a war torn city, and that the foe you tackle are versatile enough to breath life into the differing forms of terrain you must proceed through to eventually arrive at the citadel gate. With regards to pacing, the game ramps up the curve leading to the game's conclusion, so it can again give you the sense that you've fought yourself through hell and back to get where you are, even if the reality (in relation to actual gameplay) is very different from that impression.
Narrowing the game down in terms of examination, Half-Life 2's weapons system, (although partially existent in terms of usefulness outside of combat due to the gravity gun's various uses), ultimately finds itself dependent on the reaction and impact it has on the surrounding foe, and the way they approach you through their AI and level design movement. That's what helps make the action what it is... through carefully balancing and judging all these elements against one another, Valve have made sure to create a level of consistency in the game's fighting that is relevant to the context of the narrative, and doesn't supersede or undermine what's trying to achieve.
1.5. Conclusion
Essentially Half-Life 2 is a conglomeration of ideas, technologies and gameplay forms that have been introduced sporadically into videogaming before. Where it advances itself is in the fusion with how such aspects work together, and the way in which they play off each other to deliver a wholly engaging experience. If anything defines Half-Life 2 in terms of complete immediacy after finishing it, then what springs to mind is the high concentration of events that unfold over the game's pacing. It's a title which manages to continually subvert and reinvent itself through the introduction of gameplay mechanisms specifically honed and tuned to benefit design. There rarely comes a moment when you feel the game loses it's sense of rhythm or momentum, yet there are periods when it deliberately alters it's own movement to ensure each environment is delivered and expanded on to the full. An example of this is evidenced in attention to detail on the return to City 17 late on in the game, when the ravaged battles which have obliterated the city's landscape seemingly spread on for miles and miles. This not only fills the player in on missing information as to what's happened during their absence, but it also shows the effects of their actions within the gameworld. It becomes the ultimate example of our control and influence, to think that our actions have come to incite such destructive intent. Following on from this, the expansion of City 17's landscape through it's broken vistas again opens up the illusion of the expansive terrain which exists throughout Half-Life 2's world.
The implication of enflaming and moving the player's imagination is something which Half-Life 2 expertly manipulates throughout the course of its adventure for the advantage of opening up further avenues as well. Characterisation within the game is so strong that there have already been rumours of side-chapters involving many of the external characters to flesh out the story in unseen directions. However, don't expect literal explanations from Valve as to the full happenings within the world they have created. One of the compelling forces of the Half-Life universe has always been in the areas in which we're given the freedom and room to fill in the gaps ourselves. Importantly, the revelations and snippets towards the end of the game reveal a number of surprising ways you can interpret them. The fact that Freeman is revealed to be an agent-for-hire who works under the G-Man is nothing new. But the implication that other characters within Half-Life know of his involvement raises several questions. Another way you could look at Half-Life 2's denouncement is that the player is really working for Valve, or that Freeman's bidder is none other than ourselves, for we are in effect controlling him after all. This is especially potent when upon the game's climax, the G-Man states he will make a choice to put you back into stasis, and if you pay close attention to what's being said, it almost comes across as a direct message from the designers in relation to our own position as a player. What all of these potential riddles do is add the ability of being able to digest and take the experience of Half-Life 2 within a highly personalised manner. Marc Laidlaw, Half-Life 2's writer, echoes this sentiment himself in terms of the writing and the results which arose from it within Half-Life 2.
"It’s half discovery, and half recognition. Nothing ever ends up on the screen completely the way you envision it. When it does, there’s a moment of recognition, the satisfaction of seeing the vision realized, and then you quickly go on to enjoy the stuff you didn’t expect, the surprises. Working on the game, I am constantly surprised by things that others bring to the project. This is the best part of the design environment."
Marc Laidlaw, Valve
Copyright NTSC-uk.com 2004
The title will probably attract it's fair share of detractors who will claim that the first-person genre is sorely lacking in innovation, yet for those who spend time with it and don't let pre-conceptions cloud their judgement, they could quite possibly be witnessing one of the finest games they may ever come across. In terms of its range of dynamics, Half-Life 2 is supremely balanced when it comes to the creation of an environment which manages to aesthetically maintain its sense of identity in light of a number of ever changing gameplay forms. It's the way in which these fluctuations are handled that help the game to maintain it's consistent form of quality - In other words, the transference from one method of play to the next and the way such moves are handled with the utmost of care. Two of the glaringly obvious examples are in the vehicle/large-scale terrain explorations, and how the game folds these two extended experiences into the more intimate forms of exploration offered by traditional first-person movement. Although these setpieces are strictly linear, it's their integration within the sense of pace, progression and narrative that serve to compliment their role in what the game has to deliver.
Half-Life 2 isn't a title which revels in its own splendour, or gets lost up its own backend through an overly convoluted sense of trying to achieve something which doesn't contribute to the experience as a whole. What Valve have done is to mould their work into something that doesn't try to overextend itself into areas it can't fully flesh out. Instead Half-Life 2 is an important work created through the formation of ideas which only have relevance and contribute significantly to the overall adventure.
It's this level of considered planning that has helped Valve to create a level of craftsmanship which happens to be one of videogaming's crowning achievements to date.
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