Ah, okay - but I warn you, you don't know what you've started. I can go on for hours about things I like. Forgive me if I'm not entirely coherent, I just got back from a themepark day and I'm so tired I think I might melt.
OKAY. Half-life 2. The greatest thing about the Half-life series is that there are no cutscenes. None at all. You are always behind Gordon's eyes, watching things take shape from his point of view, and the story is told through all the little details around you. Like, in the first game, you're right there as the experiment goes wrong, and before it happens everything is so ordinary - your collegues say hi as you walk past them, you can blow up the microwave and buy drinks from a vending machine. There's this great sense of a whole world out there beyond your control.
The design of the creatures in Half-life 2 is even more amazing. The Metrocops - Combine police - have eerie, surgically white masks, and they yell things like 'amputate!' 'outbreak!' and as they die you hear a sound like a heart monitor winding down. And the Striders - giant, three-legged bio-mechanical warmachines - are the most terrifying enemies in the whole game - they're nimble and graceful in a weird way, and they have a 'singularity cannon' that can disintergrate things and punch holes in walls. Everything Combine is crushingly oppressive; faceless blue-black metal towers and rippling energy shields like water and soldiers from nowhere in endless waves, masked and with harsh, distorted voices.
When I say it is a game with views, I mean there are moments where the scenery and design demand your attention. Moments of incidental beauty, such as when you're skidding down a river in an airboat and you watch the sunset over a perfect concrete dam, and the water is beautiful and the world is peaceful and then a gunship screams over your head and you remember.
Also, there is an absent-minded scientist who bumps his head on things and has a pet alien, and Barney, who makes jokes and is generally cheerfully brave, and Alyx, who is kind-hearted and machine-obsessed and totally kickass, and Dog, who is a giant robot that can dance and crush things.
Hah! I have no school at all! Or a job or - er.
Heeee, I love it when the main characters are awful human beings and they totally embrace it. I think the Bard turned up at Hogwarts Hocus, once. I want to play it now! Crude humour I think I can deal with, as long as it's not too cringe-worthy. Tony Jay...where do I know him from?
...Oh man. I just googled him and found out he died in August. Oh, man, that's awful - look at all the roles he did!
WEIRD SPAM ALERT - Steven Russell is apparently enquiring about my health. Er. I'm flattered, dude, can I ask you to read the phone book to me in Garrett's voice? You know, to cheer me up?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-11-14 10:04 am (UTC)OKAY. Half-life 2. The greatest thing about the Half-life series is that there are no cutscenes. None at all. You are always behind Gordon's eyes, watching things take shape from his point of view, and the story is told through all the little details around you. Like, in the first game, you're right there as the experiment goes wrong, and before it happens everything is so ordinary - your collegues say hi as you walk past them, you can blow up the microwave and buy drinks from a vending machine. There's this great sense of a whole world out there beyond your control.
The design of the creatures in Half-life 2 is even more amazing. The Metrocops - Combine police - have eerie, surgically white masks, and they yell things like 'amputate!' 'outbreak!' and as they die you hear a sound like a heart monitor winding down. And the Striders - giant, three-legged bio-mechanical warmachines - are the most terrifying enemies in the whole game - they're nimble and graceful in a weird way, and they have a 'singularity cannon' that can disintergrate things and punch holes in walls. Everything Combine is crushingly oppressive; faceless blue-black metal towers and rippling energy shields like water and soldiers from nowhere in endless waves, masked and with harsh, distorted voices.
When I say it is a game with views, I mean there are moments where the scenery and design demand your attention. Moments of incidental beauty, such as when you're skidding down a river in an airboat and you watch the sunset over a perfect concrete dam, and the water is beautiful and the world is peaceful and then a gunship screams over your head and you remember.
Also, there is an absent-minded scientist who bumps his head on things and has a pet alien, and Barney, who makes jokes and is generally cheerfully brave, and Alyx, who is kind-hearted and machine-obsessed and totally kickass, and Dog, who is a giant robot that can dance and crush things.
Hah! I have no school at all! Or a job or - er.
Heeee, I love it when the main characters are awful human beings and they totally embrace it. I think the Bard turned up at Hogwarts Hocus, once. I want to play it now! Crude humour I think I can deal with, as long as it's not too cringe-worthy. Tony Jay...where do I know him from?
...Oh man. I just googled him and found out he died in August. Oh, man, that's awful - look at all the roles he did!
WEIRD SPAM ALERT - Steven Russell is apparently enquiring about my health. Er. I'm flattered, dude, can I ask you to read the phone book to me in Garrett's voice? You know, to cheer me up?