tvwolfsnake
2008
2012
It really weirds me out that a lot of people who feel the need to defend this game on "it's self-critical" grounds (trust me: you don't gotta) will in the same breath say they hated the hospital level, which to me is a perfect formal expression of the idea of molding yourself into a machine for killing to the point where you are unable to function properly in its absence.
I get if you didn't enjoy it, but like...come on.
I get if you didn't enjoy it, but like...come on.
2012
2012
2007
2010
2001
1998
This game knows what it is (comic sci-fi B-horror), is very good at being what it is, and doesn't try to be anything more than that. Which is all I ask for in a narrative, really.
It also has the best argument for how to handle a silent protagonist in a first-person game, framing the player character as comically underappreciated—Gordon Freeman has a Ph.D., but here he is, pushing a cart while other scientists condescendingly tell him very basic things—until the player proves that they can handle what the game throws at them.
(Which makes it all the weirder that Half-Life 2 abandoned this idea in favor of GORDON GORDON YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE GORDON YOU ARE JESUS GORDON. Seriously, Portal is a better "Half-Life 2" than Half-Life 2.)
It also has the best argument for how to handle a silent protagonist in a first-person game, framing the player character as comically underappreciated—Gordon Freeman has a Ph.D., but here he is, pushing a cart while other scientists condescendingly tell him very basic things—until the player proves that they can handle what the game throws at them.
(Which makes it all the weirder that Half-Life 2 abandoned this idea in favor of GORDON GORDON YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE GORDON YOU ARE JESUS GORDON. Seriously, Portal is a better "Half-Life 2" than Half-Life 2.)
2020
2006