RedRedSuit said:
Yep. And the way they dealt with this limitation hurt rather than helped.
This one is better. (Though "makes decisions" is an overstatement. All we're talking about is a few lines here and there.)
I don't see any actual argument, here. Just you stating one approach is better than the other. Would you be happy if I simply replied in a similar vein "no, it's not", and left it there?
As far as I can tell, the particular trade-off they took in the Half-Life series - by having a mute character - didn't work for you, and from that you're inferring that it didn't work for everyone, and that it was therefore a bad decision. And you just can't make that jump.
Whatever Valve does, some people will be unhappy. You just happen to be on one side of that fence. If Valve do a fully voiced character in their next game, the sides will switch again, and those that appreciated the 'anonymity' of Gordon will be disappointed.
That's what makes it a tradeoff, rather than a situation in which there is clearly
one right answer. Unless you think Valve should design their games for you alone.
This one is worse. (I don't get to "react" as myself. If I could, I'd be able to find out answers to various questions which are still shrouded in mystery.)
You don't get to react as yourself in any game in the sense that you have very limited control over your character. If you're blocked by a waist high wall, and the developers didn't program a 'mantling' animation then you're stuck. In fact for the most part all you can do is aim and fire, and interact in very limited and prescribed ways. See a cup of coffee: can you pick it up and drink it? No.
The game works because you accept these arbitrary limitations, as part of the fabric of what you can and cannot do. In that regard, not being able to talk is merely one of a hundred limitations. And once you've accepted it, say on the premise you *are* actually controlling Gordon, then you're free to 'become' Gordon, and believe that the characters in the game world are actually talking to
you, rather than to someone else who you happen to control.
To use the most literal analogy: imagine that you're transported into another universe, in someone else's body, and as a consequence of this you can't talk. Now imagine that you're transported into someone else's
head, and have to watch them make decisions. See the difference?
It is a poor narrative device that does not work well in the context of the series and takes me OUT of the experience, which is the opposite of its aim.
Whatever choice Valve make, some people will be taken out the experience as a result. If they give the player character a voice, then equally some people will find that voice to be at a disconnect with what they're thinking and feeling, and that will take them out of the experience too.
As I said before, there's no 'right answer'. You like one solution: great! Just don't try to pretend it's ideal for everyone.
This is the apologism to which I was referring in my post. None of this makes any practical sense. There is no "own story" that is created by this decision. HL games are wholly linear story-wise with very little freedom. There is an objective reality to these games, which is slowly but surely exposed by the things other characters say. The refusal of the main character to ask elementary questions in highly mysterious circumstances does not "make my own story"; it just leaves things artificially mysterious thus forming an annoying narrative hole which doesn't match the rest of the game.
The narrative hole isn't mysterious at all. It's there for the player to create their own explanation as to who Gordon is.
You're right, there is an objective reality to Gordon, it's just not one Valve have definitely decided on. That's why they've explicitly refused to settle things one way or the other.
Here's what Marc said in an e-mail reply to me many years back:
"Given current technical restrictions, there is no instinctive way to
talk back in a game, or to have characters respond intelligently to what
you say, or to have the game respond to the infinite number of things
you might feel like saying.
I have to confess, I'm not sure what true
reality is. Maybe the vortigaunts know."