What's truly depressing is Half-Life's sequel similarly erred. Valve didn't go so far as to create a pivotal moment in which the player had no control of his actions, but they did cram Half-Life 2 with so many extra characters and so much blatant exposition that it often felt like playing a completely different franchise. In fact, if it were called something else, I probably would have enjoyed it more.
Steven Spielberg has often said about the movie Jaws that it was his intention to have the shark in as many scenes as possible, to use it as a character and frighten the bejeebus out of people with its gigantic monstrosity. Unfortunately for Steven (but fortunately for us), his shark was faulty, so they didn't get to use it as often as they'd planned. The result: a film experience far more successful than what he'd intended. The shark, because it's unseen throughout much of the film, becomes even more menacing, and the rare glimpses we get at its terrifying form are all the more terrifying because of their rarity.
In Half-Life, the extraordinary story of an expedition through a dimensional gateway (or whatever) was all the more compelling because of the relative lack of exposition. (After all, alien invasion wasn't exactly a groundbreaking genre convention, even in the '90s.) The few rare glimpses at the true nature of the chaos supporting Half-Life's story were all the more engrossing because of their rarity. What played out between - the minor dramas of "How do I escape this missile silo?" or "Can I save this security guard?" - took center stage and the experience was all the more fulfilling as a result.
In replaying Half-Life 2 and playing Episode One, I was reminded that, for all of their inventiveness and excellent storytelling, the sequels fell well short of the original. In much the same way that Jaws 2 and 3 (in 3-D!), in spite of being excellent action films, suffered for the lack of (albeit accidental) suspense created by the original film's restraint.
In Half-Life 2 Gordan Freeman seems to have been outclassed by his co-stars. In Half-Life, he was the man of means, uniquely suited (pardon the pun), and mentally and physically equipped to take on the task of finding a way out of Black Mesa's crumbling cave. In Half-Life 2 he seems all but unnecessary.
In his absence the assembled cast of characters has created a teleporter, built a gigantic robotic dog and started a revolution - far more than he ever accomplished (and ever will) on his own. Even his erstwhile sidekick, Alyx, often finds her way into spaces he can't, and by the time he arrives at a new destination, she's already there. Throughout the game, he seems helpless without help of others, and the most interesting parts of the game happen while he's elsewhere. In fact, it often seems like they don't even need him at all, unless it's to run errands or be fawned over.
If the scientists of Black Mesa can replace a limb with a curved piece of flexible steel, why can't they tailor a suit to fit someone else? The answer is: Because that would blow the story, and from the people who blew the doors off of the FPS genre 10 years ago, that answer isn't good enough.
Still, I was expecting this. I'd played Half-Life 2 already, and knew what I was getting myself into there. I was convinced Valve had resigned themselves to leaving their past brilliance behind and focused instead on technology evolutions as revealed through great - if not excellent - game experiences. Which is why Portal completely blew my mind.
