Let's Breakdown: Half-Life 2 [part 1 - Point Insertion, A Red Letter Day and Route Kanal]

Wake up and smell the ashes.

                What is this?

                You see, naming things is not one of my talents, which is why I’ve decided to give this a nice and simple name ‘Let’s Breakdown’, which isn’t an invitation to dance but an attempt by me to breakdown and analyse various videogames. Why? Think of it as me doing a bit of my bits as an aspiring game designer… that and I rather enjoy playing games analytically, it can be fun to examine the gears and cogs that make everything work, as well the various obstructions and chinks that hold things back.

                The grounds for a game being broken down for me are simple:

1.             I have played it before.

2.             It is a ‘good’ game in the sense that is either

                                a) A critically acclaimed title

                                b) A darn well made game

                                c) A game with some unique elements/features (regardless of its quality)

                                d) A fatally flawed game

                                e) A classic due to be looked under a microscope
                  Additionally, these are mostly written in a stream-of-consciousness nature, which is my excuse to excuse myself from having to obsess over a definite format, consistent logic and so on. 

                What is Half-Life 2?

                If you haven’t heard of Half-Life 2 then I would ask you about the story of your survival after getting lost on a deserted island. To put things bluntly, it is the critically acclaimed sequel to the critically acclaimed first game, and the series is generally renowned for being one of the finest (if not the finest) First Person Shooter series around. In the series, you control Gordon Freeman, a thoroughly silent protagonist who is generally considered to be a raw form of self-insertion owing to his aforementioned silence and lack of any real interaction with the world he inhabits – he is pretty much your vessel to pilot in the game’s world.

                The giant paradox that exists with Half-Life 2 is that it is a linear, often ‘scripted’ game that just manages to work, and even manages to be fairly replayable – the sort of game that has you revisit it every year or two. Thus, this breakdown will focus on the things that make the game work, from the story and presentation, to the actual gameplay and variety.       

                For this I will be playing the game on Hard and will never be manually saving the game as I’m opting to rely solely on autosaves – to add a sense of mortality and tension to the game, something that Quicksave can eliminate if you want.

Point Insertion

"Welcome to City 17. It's safer here."

                Isn’t it fitting that such a great game would start with a pun? ‘Point Insertion’ referring to how the G-Man pretty much pulls Gordon Freeman out of time and space and inserts him back into the world… but it can also refer to how the player is quite literally inserting himself into the world via Gordon.

                Talking about the G-Man, the game starts off with a fairly chilling monologue by him wherein he hints at the events of the first game and throws some fairly accurate and game-defining lines such as : “the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference” and “wake up and smell the ashes” – lines which are fairly poignant regarding the series, with the former quote emphasising Gordon, and indeed the player’s, stature in the world, and the latter line almost being a sly hint at how you should enjoy the game’s world, to take the time and smell the ashes.

                Additionally, the presence of the G-Man immediately kickstarts the mystery and surreal nature of what is going on behind the plot of the game, an apt continuation after the first game’s strange ending which ends with Gordon being ‘recruited’ by the G-Man and being frozen in time and space. Those familiar with the first game will know that the G-Man is clearly not human owing to his aforementioned control over time & space, which is shown in game by the many blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sightings of him throughout the game, where he seems to be following you… or leading you.

                Getting back on track, Point Insertion is a chapter completely bereft of the ability to kill things, and you spend the entirety of it unarmed and helpless while you tread through the streets of City 17. It is a chapter solely focused on introducing you to the world and immersing you scalp-deep in it. One of the things that makes Half-Life 2 so great is the fact that it follows the two-pronged fork for presentation: style and atmosphere.

                The game is utterly dripping with atmosphere from the very beginning, when you disembark from the train you entered the city in, observing the heavily fenced and barricaded city completely under the control of the Combine, the antagonists of the game, as you try to leisurely walk about. In true series tradition, control is never taken away from you completely – you might very rarely find your movement restricted, but nothing else – you are always in First-Person always able to interact or see the scene actively. Which extends to the set pieces in the game, which are not watched but PLAYED, more on this later.

You're free to piss off the guards and get beaten with batons, if the peace is a bit much for you. 

                This time of peaceful immersion gives you the time to take in the world and get a basic understanding of the setting and perhaps even the plot without even having the slightest bit of exposition. The story is there to see  plainly or tucked away into corners, up to you and your desire to explore it. No outpouring of background details, no lengthy scripts, no manufactured moments are needed, it’s just you and the world. You don’t need to be told the Combine are brutal, you can see it in their actions. You don’t need to be told that Humanity has been repressed, you can see it in the fact that all people wear identical tagged clothes. The only backstory you get, and need, are the stray words of other travellers and the bits and pieces you hear of Breen’s radio talk – you can hear bits on how the Combine setup a field to suppress human reproduction, or a bit on immigration and city transfer.

                And taking the time to smell the ashes certainly helps you immerse yourself further, or to see the results of some things first-hand… such as the deserted playground that you can completely ignore, but if you wait around it long enough you’ll be treated to the ghostly voices of the children that once played there. The playground also doubled up as the first (potential) showcase for the game’s physics engine, since you are free to bounce around the see-saw and jump onto the swing.

Meet Alyx. She just saved your ass. 

                Point Insertion introduces you to another important, and minimalistic, part of the game – the characters as well as the interesting tone of the series. Despite its dark and foreboding nature, the game has a tendency to be fairly humorous, be it due to character interaction or quiet moments of slapstick, which adds a great deal of charm to the game’s world, and proof that you don’t have to murder every sliver of humour and find reasons to add moments of sex to make something ‘dark’.

Shut up, Barney. 

                Hell, the amount of detail and charm squeezed into Kleiner’s laboratory is probably more than what some other games have squeezed into their entirety.

The biggest mystery of the series is the cat. 

A Red Letter Day & Route Kanal

                Putting these two together since they are rather similar in style and nature.

                Now, the action finally begins from the moment you pick up your trust crowbar and set out to make things right. However, being in combat doesn’t mean the game left its atmospheric nature behind – instead, it carries right over into combat as you fight the Combine police, you can hear their radio chatter and when you kill a guard you can hear his radio screech as he disconnects from the network, little touches that the game would have been fine without but just help add to the story and immersion. Furthermore, couple the above with the absence of jarring invisible walls and inexplicable means of preventing you from backtracking, all of these are presented ‘naturally’ within the game.

                The comedic moments continue too, often visible to those with a sharp eye or as a form of subtle slapstick, such as the Vortigaunt using his electric powers to power a television for entertainment, an act which he stops the moment you enter the room, or the bird that flies into a barnacle’s tongue and becomes dinner (which also serves as your introduction to what the barnacles do) and the Resistance member who says “At least you’re not the one they’re looking for, that poor bastard”.

                The combat segments in this chapter also introduces you to the design of combat scenarios in the game (on Hard at least, you’re overpowered in the other difficulties as you do too much damage and take comparatively little) and how they are effectively akin to being combat puzzles, wherein the most important thing is dealing with the threats before you in as efficient a manner as possible, using the environment and arsenal at your disposal. In A Red Letter Day you only have a Pistol at your disposal, which forces you to use your environment to deal with the Combine, generally by making use of the explosive barrels which may or may not be placed in convenient location (which means you can approach some of the early fights like Donkey Kong by tossing explosive barrels at the Combine and then quickly shooting them to make them explode).

HAAAACKS!

                Secret stashes of resources are nifty little bonuses in other modes, but very helpful on Hard owing to how much more durable enemies are and how fragile you are (comparatively). Hard gives you an incentive for scouring out these hidden stashes, which are often fun to find, and can help you through a tight spot. Furthermore, some secrets give you access to some weapons a bit earlier, allowing you to better deal with some situations.

Arsenal

                Crowbar

Gordon’s signature weapon and your only weapon till you club a Combine officer to death and take his pistol. It’s a situational weapon and serves as more of a tool to help break objects and crates, though the most important thing to keep in mind about it is the fact that it can one-hit-kill all Headcrabs, a fact that will prove ridiculously handy later.

                Pistol

Simple, somewhat accurate and a tad underwhelming – the pistol is your only weapon for a while and helps introduce you to the straightforward shooting mechanics, as well as the more intricate mechanics that come into play later. On Hard, aiming well with the pistol is key to killing the Combine police efficiently, which typically involves aiming for the head though the inaccurate nature of the pistol can make scoring perfect headshots difficult – which causes you to try to bring the environment into play, using the pistol to open up other avenues of attack to complement it, such as using the pistol to shatter a window pane following which you thrown an explosive barrel at the Combine police below following which you shoot the barrel following which they die. In the long run of the game, it turns into more of a utility and target-finishing gun rather than a staple firearm.

                Sub-Machine Gun

And here is your first ‘staple’ firearm which lets you take on enemies head-on. The SMG is fast, powerful and woefully inaccurate at longer ranges, which makes most of Route Kanal the introduction to dancing between weapons to tackle the enemies at hand – such as using the SMG to tackle with Combine near you, using the Pistol to pick-off distant or injured targets as well as explosive barrels. Furthermore, the SMG has a grenade launcher alt-fire which is instant and powerful, effective at clearing out groups of enemies and serving as an ‘oh crap’ button for when you might be getting overwhelmed. The above mentioned ‘weapon dancing’ will be elaborated upon in the next part, where a third weapon enters the fray and makes things delicious.

Enemies

                Combine CP

Essentially the Combine police, in charge of keeping citizens in tow. Thus, they are comparatively inferior in terms of armaments and endurance. They carry Pistols or SMGs and tend to share your accuracy with the weapons, their weapons share the same spread and effective engagement range as you – which is part of the introduction to weapon dancing. Dealing with a SMG-toting Combine? Take out your Pistol and engage him from a range where he is at a disadvantage. I already have more to say on the gameplay aspects, but I’ll save it for the next part where, as I said, things become more delicious.

                The Combine are the main antagonists of the game and will oppose you throughout. Their human-yet-alien (in a human sort of way) appearance is incredibly striking, through their uniforms, gas masks and glowing eyes. Human in nature and tactics, but clearly united under something definitely non-human – their design is simple yet efficient.

                Barnacle

The ceiling hugging, tongue-hanging creatures return from the first game… and they’re pretty much the same minus the fact that they are now vulnerable to physics. Their role is the same, to impede exploration and to exist as pseudo-puzzles – walk into its tongue and you’ll have a few moments to respond as you are dragged towards its maw. However, they now react to physics and will thus try to eat anything you throw at their tongue, thus you can throw various objects to distract it be it barrels or explosive barrels, for explosive results.

                Barnacles aren’t used anywhere near as extensively as they were in the first game, the barnacle related puzzles are far fewer in Half-Life 2 but still serve to catch hasty and distracted players.

                Headcrab

Ah, the series’ mascot aliens return and they’re as bizarre as ever. Headcrabs remain virtually unchanged from the first game, being small and prone to being silent till they leap at you and bite you… for little damage, but they can prove to be a major source of distraction during other fights and can trouble you a fair bit in greater numbers. The crowbar kills them in one hit, which often leads to a potentially fun (and cool) mechanic where you try to thwart the headcrab out of mid-air as it leaps towards you.

                Headcrabs are still pretty creepy and still pretty silly, they can be a source of dynamic jump scares depending on how fast you are able to deal with them, and can even serve as jump scares in the midst of combat when they suddenly jump at you (combine that with their bouncy and elusive nature). The silliness comes from how the headcrab relentlessly pursues you and will often jump to its death as a result… and it just looks somewhat silly in a disgusting sort of way.

                Zombie

But when a Headcrab attaches itself to a human’s head, it proves its namesake and turns the human into a mutated host with the desire to shamble about killing things. Zombies too are virtually unchanged from the first game, being fairly durable but incredibly slow with incredibly slow attacks, so slow that you can safely engage them with a crowbar provided you take the needed backstep when it winds up to attack you. Zombies generally appear in large numbers or in hazardous areas, in order to test your awareness of your surroundings and your ability to maintain area control versus enemies. The area you fight your first (two) zombies is filled with toxic water that damages you, in front of you is a narrow walk-way and behind you is an electrified area that you just sprinted through. Zombies are bullet sponges, so you typically want to deal with them in as efficient a manner as possible by mixing in your firearms, environmental factors and your crowbar.

                The zombies are pretty darn creepy, the host constantly yells and moans while it shambles towards you, its mutated hand-claws bleeding and its abdomen split open. As if its yells weren’t creepy enough already, they happen to mean something if you hear them in reverse.

                Manhack

Manhacks are like a noisier, flying, mechanical variant of headcrabs in the fact that they attack by basically flying into you. Much like headcrabs, the most efficient way to take them down is with your crowbar though it takes 3 swings to kill one. Manhacks are incredibly annoying but are fortunately faced briefly, though their annoyance has its reprieve when you get to enact joyous vengeance on them later in the game, turning them from lethal annoyance to a joke.

                Manhacks can also be considered to be the Combine's equivalent of hunting dogs for the purpose of urban control, since their rather simple design is bound to be very effective against unarmoured civilians helpless against them. As an enemy they are yet another symbol of great sound design, their whirring and screeching noises playing a part in both the atmosphere of the game as well as a gameplay element (their sounds announce their arrival, giving you a chance to get into a better position to fight them, and these sounds also help keep track of them even when you can't see them).

Up Next: Time to take this ridiculously durable craft for a lengthy spin.