The Half-Life series and the future of interactive storytelling

The first game that I ever played that made me realize that gaming was and would continue to be a very important medium for storytelling was the original Half-Life. I bought it in 2000 and beat it in like two days if my memory suits me well. I remember being absolutely blown away by the atmosphere the game provided and the story it told. Up until that point the games that had the best stories were IMO the great RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Xenogears, but I never thought that a FPS could be anything more than just a fragfest. I had bought and devoured Quake and Unreal Tournament and loved the gameplay of FPS's, but when I played Half-Life that all changed. The story wasn't just told to you like in the rpgs. You had to actually LOOK for the story within the game itself; all while trying to survive against an alien invasion you, yourself caused. It changed not only my perceptions of video games, but games themselves were changed.

Then Half-Life 2 came out, and completely took every thing that was great from the original and made it bigger and better. It was based upon a game engine that was completely revolutionary as far as graphics power and machine scalability goes. I could play HL2 on a machine that for all intents and purposed was broken. The narrative of the game also expanded to a universe that was massive yet still maintained the "search for the story yourself" attitude.

It is my opinion that the Half Life games themselves were the harbingers of major shifts in gameplay and technology. I feel that the series itself is directly tied to the industry. That is why I believe it is taking so long for Half-Life 3 to be released. When it is finally released it will be just as revolutionary as the first two. Be it new technology or just a new engine, It will be the best that has been up until this point.

With that being said... How does the ATS community feel about Half-Life 3?

Didn't you hear? Valve can't count to three.

Originally posted by boot2theface
The first game that I ever played that made me realize that gaming was and would continue to be a very important medium for storytelling was the original Half-Life. I bought it in 2000 and beat it in like two days if my memory suits me well. I remember being absolutely blown away by the atmosphere the game provided and the story it told. Up until that point the games that had the best stories were IMO the great RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Xenogears, but I never thought that a FPS could be anything more than just a fragfest. I had bought and devoured Quake and Unreal Tournament and loved the gameplay of FPS's, but when I played Half-Life that all changed. The story wasn't just told to you like in the rpgs. You had to actually LOOK for the story within the game itself; all while trying to survive against an alien invasion you, yourself caused. It changed not only my perceptions of video games, but games themselves were changed.

Then Half-Life 2 came out, and completely took every thing that was great from the original and made it bigger and better. It was based upon a game engine that was completely revolutionary as far as graphics power and machine scalability goes. I could play HL2 on a machine that for all intents and purposed was broken. The narrative of the game also expanded to a universe that was massive yet still maintained the "search for the story yourself" attitude.

It is my opinion that the Half Life games themselves were the harbingers of major shifts in gameplay and technology. I feel that the series itself is directly tied to the industry. That is why I believe it is taking so long for Half-Life 3 to be released. When it is finally released it will be just as revolutionary as the first two. Be it new technology or just a new engine, It will be the best that has been up until this point.

With that being said... How does the ATS community feel about Half-Life 3?

I think you've summed it up perfectly. What more can one add? The only other comment I will make is that I feel Valve's revenues from Steam are a factor which will play heavily into HL3. With that much money coming in at a constant rate, Valves developers are free to pursue their vision fully (which will make HL3 that much better, regardless of how long it takes).

HL2 didn't exactly fly off the shelves either (I think it took 5 or 6 years if I recall correctly), but that is one of the factors that separate great games from the rest of the pack. Games that aren't rushed stand above the competition because of that fact, not in spite of it.

Great thread. Nice to see some intelligent commentary on gaming here

reply to post by boot2theface


Gave should be releasing half life 3 in the next 18 months.

They've always tested modifications to the source engine by releasing versions of other games first. Recently we had Counter Strike GO and although the engine looked a bit old in testing, it's still quite strikingly beautiful.

The reasong half life 3 has been delayed so long as it has is because of platform.

Gabe didn't know if wanted to continue building in the current source engine, or move to the Crysis Engine. In the end he chose the first one and they began building the engine from teh ground up. ( proof by how many engineers they hired.)

Also the Steam Box that is supposedly in development is taking up a lot of dev teams time.

So, you can expect REALLY big things from Steam and Valve in the next year or so, mark these words.

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I also remember Gabe speaking recently about augmented reality and "wearable pc's" He has also recently asked for support for the product Oculus Rift

Do you dudes think this could be whats in store for the industry?

BTW thanks for the responses!

reply to post by boot2theface



Yeah I'm a bit on the inside track where valve is concerned, I run a gaming server for them for TF2 and Counter Strike and have a few friends who work in their dev department.

They are really banking in on future technologies, trying to work with Google and their new Augmented Reality Glasses and small indie players like the OUYA as the future of gaming.

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Wow man, as Valve is my favorite gaming company that's pretty cool dude!

I have seen and backed the Ouya and think it is a very cool idea because of the underlying "hacker friendly" ethic involved. It looks pretty sweet.

Half life definitely opened up my mind more so then had I not beaten them..

Lots of correlations between that universe and ours in subtle ways.

Wasn't there some sort of artwork leaked a while back? Maybe a few months ago related to either episode 3 or HL3 I'm not sure but I for one look forward to playing it whenever it comes.

reply to post by fusionhunter


Is this what you're referring to?

Kotaku

Half Life 2 was the first game that really got me into "gaming", I'm not a huge gamer but whatever I play is always compared to it in some way, I really hope HL3 is for real and does what HL2 did when it came out

Half Life has always been my favorite game. By the time HL3 comes out, my computer will probably not make the minimum requirements. That part sucks when you own a laptop. I remember buying HL2 and having to wait for a better computer to play it on. It barely cleared minimum requirements, and it still played too choppy to enjoy it.

So it's 18 months or so before 3 is released eh? I guess I should be ready for a new computer by then.
I'm sure it wont disappoint since the first two were amazing.

Any leaks on the weapons?