This is a mod for Half-Life 2 that has been getting quite a bit of press recently, including some from ArsTechnica and RPS.
I agree with the articles that it’s a mod best entered blind, so don’t view the trailer. Rather than being about the game this is more about a point it’s trying to make. It won’t take you more than thirty minutes to an hour of your time and, while I find the point a little forced, I think it made an excellent (and unintended) case for how quality voice-acting can lift an effort above its station.
Check it out and discuss.
You need the Source SDK 2007 which is freely downloadable on Steam. I can’t help much with that as I installed it via Desura which triggered everything I needed in Steam, including setting up a shortcut for me.
WARNING - EVERYTHING BEYOND THIS POINT WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Hmmm, your post finally made me install Desura. Thanks for info about the mod too. American Beauty followed by Nine Inch Nails instantly got my interest :-).
It was… well the idea is nice and dandy, but it’s kind of post-modern and self-referential for the sake of it. “oh look a game which speaks about the lack of freedom and the conflict between player agency and author agency!”.
Yeah, i know how videogames work, their limitations, their inherent conflicts, how different players work with different types of games (some will be drawn in the story, others will try to “escape” from it), the suspension of disbelief in games, etc thank you very much. But being honest, you haven’t even said anything particularly insightful or new about it, by the way, just expressed it inside of a videogame in a original way.
Also, the game was almost a podcast. If he wanted to do a deconstruction of videogames, i think it would have worked better to do it more gradually, instead of doing it so overtly from the start.
The thing they did very good was the style of it. The writing was sharp, the voices were good, the little music touches very fitting, the sparse videogame scenario contrasted nicely with the atmosphere of doubt about the nature of the game world, and some parts were inspired, even if they are a bit pointless.
And for those who like the narrator and haven’t already, check the original BBC radio adaptation of The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (yes, it pre-dates the books). There’s a chap on there called Peter Jones who handles the book narration, and the guy here (though different) sounds so similar.
Thanks for pointing that out, according to the Ars Technica article you needed HL2 for it to work, but that is incorrect.
Definately an intriguing mod, very meta. I found it pertaining less to videogames as a whole and more about videogames that have a crafted story but the mechanics to break that story. The best example I can think of is the Grand Theft Auto series.
Are you talking about using noclip? Because I never saw that one.
I’m pretty sure I got all the endings. And, of course, the first one I got was by ignoring everything he said I should have done.
The narration makes the whole experience, really. Yeah it’s existential video game hodge podgery, but it was worth playing through all the paths.
Yea, using noclip.
I trought the idea was that you can’t experience anything that is not created and preplaned by the author. Hell, I even trougth the orange room was planned to be visited with noclip, since the voice over talked about “you can’t even get here normally”. Seems I was wrong.
Yep, it’s artsy fartsy monocle popping unreliable narrator fappery, but I still enjoyed it. I think it really works best if you follow all the directions the first time to get the ‘straight’/‘happy’ ending. The narrator switch ‘quit before it’s too late’ ending gave me chills, which is more than most games do for me nowadays.
