Half-Life 2 is really rather unique in this respect, even as an entry in its own franchise. Not many first person shooters are confident enough to let players take a step back and drink in the silence every now and then. To allow them to stand alone on a clifftop and just do nothing, taking in the stark vista of the abandoned surroundings until they are ready to press on. This stands in contrast to a number of more modern shooter games where the noise, action and violence is omnipresent to the point of being numbing.
The examples that spring to mind for me occur primarily in the vehicular chapters “Water Hazard” and “Highway 17”, but I don’t think it’s especially specific to the road trip-style vignette gameplay that these sections engender. Think of the section where you battle it out with that carpet-bombing attack chopper in the lagoon just before Black Mesa East. After ten minutes of intense combat, adrenaline, concentration, there’s a thrilling rush of exhilaration as you watch the bloody thing spiral out of the sky in flames to land in pieces at your feet, the stinger music providing a sudden spike of dramatic tension and relief.
Then comes a brief instant of confusion. For those past ten minutes you had a single-minded purpose in the game: you knew without question what you had to do: escape from and/or preferably destroy the most immediate threat i.e. the chopper. But now, for just a split second, you’re unsure of what to do next.
And in that moment, that’s when the game’s peculiar silence takes on a life its own. You realise where you are, the sight of the setting sun over the lake dawns on you (no pun intended), and it compels you to stop and marvel at this strange oasis of picturesque beauty hidden just on the outskirts of technocratic dystopia. Barrels bobbing in the water look like lifebuoys, and stone monoliths create long shadows on the surface. There's a chirp of evening crickets coming from some unidentifiable source (crickets, presumably, or perhaps someone making cricket noises) In this light, Half-Life 2’s crumbling post apocalyptic earthscape takes on a weird sense of peace.
Highway 17 uses silence a tad more liberally and not in any so memorable set-pieces; it’s more in the creaking of an old boat-shack door, a tyre swinging from a tree, the chilly wind blowing over the cliffs, the vastness of the seascape that remind you just how alone you are. Even the Combine patrols encountered at regular intervals seem like quaint anomalies rather than the symbols of all-powerful authority over this Hebridean landscape.
The absence of any soundtrack is crucial to these moments. It creates an immersiveness that is impossible to fake, one which is further authenticated by the lack of characterisation of the player character (G. Freeman esq, this guy). The seemingly natural progression of time, the sky darkening as day turns to night and vice-versa, is similarly a key component here.
What moments of silence such as these achieve, in a functional sense, is to remind us that the essence of this game is more than the noise and violence of its core gameplay elements. We are more than just players; at another level, we are participants in a fully-realised fictional drama, and beyond that, we inhabit a fully realised fictional world where we have the freedom to do as we will, to sod the hero's journey and go dune-buggy joyriding squashing antlions till judgement day if we so choose.
Half-Life 2 is, in its own way, a uniquely lonely game. (Yes, I get that may possibly be related to a significant chunk of its target market being perceived as possessing minimal to borderline functional social skills) But a starkly beautiful one, too. I’ve yet to see any subsequent entries in the genre, even those which are self-touted as “post-apocalyptic” that have quite managed to replicate the same effect.
No doubt there are plenty of recent shooters out there with technically more impressive visuals which ooze atmosphere (dammit, I thought I'd get through this spiel without making a single use of that word) in every singular facet of their art design. But Half-Life 2's silence is all its own. It's in the uncanny strangeness of the emptiness of this world, which hits you all at once when you least expect it. It's of a type that players will seek out voluntarily rather than having it bludgeoned into them at the end of a Combine stun-stick.
No doubt there are plenty of recent shooters out there with technically more impressive visuals which ooze atmosphere (dammit, I thought I'd get through this spiel without making a single use of that word) in every singular facet of their art design. But Half-Life 2's silence is all its own. It's in the uncanny strangeness of the emptiness of this world, which hits you all at once when you least expect it. It's of a type that players will seek out voluntarily rather than having it bludgeoned into them at the end of a Combine stun-stick.
Ok, I’m done licking Valve’s boots now, but you get the point. It’s still a bloody well-made game in terms of art direction, even when the Source engine is going on seven candles on its birthday cake (which is not a lie).
Oh, and it was Halloween last night. Probably should make some mention of that. When I snap my fingers you will awaken and re-read this article all over again, except this time it will be scary. Blah.
Oh, and it was Halloween last night. Probably should make some mention of that. When I snap my fingers you will awaken and re-read this article all over again, except this time it will be scary. Blah.
