Commiered said:
Sorry Grizzly, I disagree. You wake up on a train going to some city. Why? Who knows? How does Barney know you're coming? Who told him? Why when you are meant to save the world, you get no information about what to do?
Because that's what the G-Man wants. You are a tool in his hands, hired to do one thing. You are patiently railroaded by the G-Man into doing his bidding.
Barney didn't know - he saw you on a security camera and rushed in to prevent you from travelling to Nova Prospekt.
Going further you are regarded as the saviour of the world, the 'Free man', everyone knows about you, but why? Between the first HL and this one, it just seems like you've been in a coma. You don't seem to realise the world has been conquered by the combine. Why are you such a hero to everyone before you actually do anything?
Because you're the one who defeated the alien invasion single-handedly. You were elevated to this status by Black Mesa survivours, like Isaac Kleiner or Eli Vance.
Then you spend most of the game going to meet Eli. NOT taking down the combine, not waging war against them...no...it's just one contrived obstacle after another between you and the resistance. How long do you drive a buggy or be in the boat? Seems like forever. Drive up to a gate, shoot some guys, beat a puzzle, open gate, drive to the next gate etc.
I love those segments. It's not Fallout 3, where you can complete a large quest with a five minute hike.
And, unless I'm mistaken, great uprisings aren't happening with a bunch of people grabbing guns and shooting stuff. They are carefully orchestrated events, and when you arrived, it was the eve of such an uprising. That's why you were sent to BME - to contact Eli Vance and get a role assigned in the grand scheme of things.
Only the last section of the game you start to act like the bad arse hero everyone makes you out to be, taking part in the attack on the Citadel.
Because that's the uprising.
Plotwise Half Life 2 was halfarsed and excessively mysterious (like they wanted to keep most of the story secret to be told in expansions), it really is on a level with Fallout 3 in terms of story. Don't try and suggest that I didn't understand the story as it was as that's not the problem, it's the nature of the story and all the blank parts that is the problem. I mean the story is : you show up somehow in City 17, spend two thirds of the game trying to get to Eli or the resistance, then you go to the citadel and destroy it.
You didn't understand the story. It's extremely detailed and well presented, but you seem to have shut your brain down. Marc Laidlaw made sure everything makes sense and is realistic.
You're not briefed just like any American soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan isn't instructed what happened on 9/11, because everyone assumes you know it and were around. They simply assume you were elsewhere or in hiding.
The devil lies in details, like the board with newspaper clippings in Eli's lab or the cork board in Kleiner's lab. Or the graffitis. Or interactions with other humans. It's very subtle and deep.
Of course Half Life 2 is still a great game for the FPS, even if you can't look down sights, lean, or climb ladders realistically.
It's not CoD, it's Half-Life.
I always thought it was a bit half finished storywise though, the Episodes did a far better job of explaining it more.
Because they have more time after the uprising to brief.
