The way I see it, Half-Life and Half-Life 2* are two very,
very different games.
Half-Life is about Gordon Freeman.
Half-Life 2 is about a rebel war.
You may say that Half-Life is about the Black Mesa incident, but that's not the center of the story. Gordon is.
Half-Life is about one man wreaking havoc in a research facility. One man that goes against both a race of cross-dimensional aliens and the whole military. Both that are, at some point, out to get him. Hell, the military men constantly talk about Gordon as if their mission is solely to capture him. The Nihilanth, leader of the alien invasion, even contacts Gordon directly, saying to him a handful of cryptic, eerie remarks, including Gordon's full name.
And then, you have to think about what Gordon does in Half-Life. He takes out countless men in the military to a point where they give up on the hunt (i.e. "FORGET ABOUT FREEMAN"). He takes out entire armies of alien forces, travels to their dimension and pretty much kills their leader.
There is an invasion. There is the Black Mesa incident. There is the military. But Gordon, and Gordon alone, conquers it. That is if you don't count the police officers (especially not Barney) and the scientists (note that they were all portrayed as cowards, albeit understandably so) that helped him out.
This really makes the player feel in control. The sort of feeling that really makes you believe that your actions affect what happens. I'm not talking about some form of interactivity, I'm talking purely about the story; were it not for Gordon, things would not be the same. This is more important than you think. In Half-Life, I felt like nothing happened unless I made it happen. I felt like the story that took place couldn't have without me. There was no outside help to drastically aide Gordon; there were no coincidences, or luck that ensured Gordon's success or survival; it was purely Gordon Freeman, or, the player.
Because Gordon Freeman, of course, is the player. In the first game, you know nothing about him other than his name, that he's a physicist working for Black Mesa, and that picture of his, what was it, daughter or wife in his locker if I recall correctly. Everything else is up to the player's imagination.
So what happens in Half-Life is that it creates a type of experience that, in my opinion, is absolutely phenomenal, and with the more perfect ways of telling a story in video games. The kind where it really feels like you're experiencing and affecting the story yourself, and instead of witnessing a story take place on a screen, you
are the story, basically. I'm not saying Half-Life is the only game in the world that does this, but I think it hit the nail precisely on the head, whereas Half-Life 2 (and many other games that attempt the same form of storytelling) didn't. At least not as well.
Now, what's different about Half-Life 2 is what I said at the beginning of the post. It's no longer about Gordon Freeman. It's about a rebel war. A war between humans, the rebels, and an alien race, the Combine. So what happens? A different type of experience is created. Everything that happened, would it be so different were it not for Gordon?
He's no longer
man vs. the world.
Whenever I did something really massive in Half-Life 2, like take out a gunship or strider, or foil plans of the Combine, I never felt like it was Gordon (me) to thank. Gordon is given the rocket launcher. Gordon takes out the gunship. The bugbait, the Gravity Gun, the crowbar, the vehicles, etc., these were all handed out to Gordon. "Here, take this."
I'm not exactly saying that just because these things were given to Gordon instead of him acquiring them himself that it makes you not feel as important, it's more because if it hadn't been for Gordon, someone else would've just done it. Doesn't matter if that other person would've succeeded or not, just that it could've gone either way.
This isn't my only problem with Half-Life 2. Gordon Freeman is treated like a child. "Good job, Gordon!", "You can do it, Gordon!", "Nice shot!", "Let me follow you, Gordon", and the list goes on. He's also constantly being taken care of. It's basically just "here, do this, then that", and when he does it, everyone cheers "you did it Gordon!"
Although, maybe he isn't as much a child as he is a mindless brute. They plan everything for him and he does what he's told. I feel like this completely besmirches the Gordon Freeman I got to play as in Half-Life.
If you
the last two things I said, you get a pretty depressing result.
Gordon is a weapon, a replaceable weapon, at that.
There were other faults with Half-Life 2 as well, which I don't feel necessary to go into. It would probably be nitpicking. However, many of those faults and somewhat the two I pointed out, are there because they kind of had to. It was the change of direction Half-Life 2 went in. It was a completely different premise. I can appreciate that. You don't want to create the same game twice. There are still things that I think should've been done differently.
Now I've just covered how the story was told in each game. This is not the only thing I base my judgement of the games on. There are obviously an abundance of other factors that determine a game's quality. Most of which, as has been said, are done extraordinarily well in the Half-Life franchise. I decided to talk about the storytelling because I felt like that's where Half-Life 2's main shortfall is, and, well, it's also just a very important factor to me.
They're both really great games. I absolutely loved playing both. In the end, I like Half-Life better. Not because I'm some sort of hipster and certainly not because of nostalgia because I hadn't even played either game until February and March this year.
*When referring to Half-Life 2, I mean Half-Life 2 + episodes 1 & 2
