After much gnashing of teeth and tweaking of configurations, I finally got my computer acting sensibly again, and celebrated by relaunching into Half-Life 2, a game from late 2004 by Valve Software that - while anachronistic - might be best described as Children of Men: The Game. There are more traditional sci-fi elements to it (like aliens, robots, etc.), but it shares the same dystopic, totalitarian aesthetic. Both works communicate the backstory through the environment, rather than any direct explanations to the viewer/player. The long-takes of Children of Men even seem to ape the continuous experience that one gets from a game, with one uninterrupted take for each play-session.
Did I mention that the Half-Life 2 is also incredibly fun? Sometimes that gets lost when one starts making grandiose (but deserved) comparisons to cinema, but it remains an important component for success, no matter how high-art your aim. And Half-Life 2 succeeds superbly at both tasks, earning its status as one of the most polished games ever. There aren’t many competitors to that crown, but the only one with an incredibly clear case to be made is the episodic sequel pictured above, HL2: Episode 1. It picks up immediately after the end of Half-Life 2, and by virtue of its shorter length (only 3-4 hours) manages to be even more concisely polished.
Of course, the reason for playing both the games listed above is that HL2: Episode 2 is coming out soon. Bundled with Team Fortress 2 and Portal, two other Valve-developed games that focus on stylized multiplayer and clever puzzle-solving respectively, Episode 2 will mark a significant change for the series: open environments. Some games like Far Cry and Armed Assault boast of having wide-open levels where problems can be tackled from a variety of approaches (both tactical and geographical). Episode 2 won’t go quite that far, but they are promising some bigger and more ornate environments that have been seen in the past. Valve (single-player) games have always been extremely linear in the past, so even this seemingly-modest change is a significant shift for their development style.
Will they succeed? I think the smart money is on yes, but even if they fail there’s still two other games there that look absolutely stunning. And the chance of all three being forgettable is unimaginably small, given Valve’s track record. October 10th should be a really good day.
Tags: Games