A Different Perspective
After I had finished playing Half-Life, I couldn’t wait to play more. Fortunately I didn’t play HL until nearly 4 years after it was released, by which time Opposing Force and Blue Shift had been released. Valve seem to have decided not to outsource any HL2 games but if they did ….
Which class of character would you like to see as the player in an official HL2 expansion game?
A Quick Look At Each Choice
Let’s have a look at each possibility and see what appears. I’ll start with some specific characters.
Barney Calhoun
Why not? We already have an affinity for him and he must have had an interesting time since Black Mesa. Might be fun trying to play alternative roles. There could be some interesting situations where you have to attack Rebels without killing them etc. He has to be seen as a regular Metrocop or else he will be detected. Think about the start of HL2. He talks about “having to keep his beatings up”. This probably means he had to do be seen just like any other Metrocop.
Father Grigori
Ooooo, now this might be fun. You would probably spend the whole game with a shotgun! Plenty of talking from this character, which may not fit Valves normal playing character theme. Maybe this would need to be a moody, ravenholm-themed mini-game. I wonder if anybody has ever tried to make a mod around him?
Alyx Vance
Another distinct possibility, although I’m not sure how many HL players would like to play as a female. It would bother me I’m not sure about others. If Valve did make her the playing character I want to be able to do extra stuff that GF couldn’t do because of his suit. For example, she climbs a wall during HL2 and I think that the player should be able to do the same. She is also faster, movement wise, and they could open up some different styles of gameplay.
A Rebel
Your chance to fight along side the Great Freeman! Could be some interesting story insights. Perhaps as a prequel to the arrival of Gordon Freeman in Half-Life 2.
A Citizen
Recently done in The Citizen! But that doesn’t mean Valve couldn’t do it and offer us a different perspective, perhaps during the 7 hour War when things are not so clear cut and nobody knew what was going on. It may have been hard to tell who was a Combine sympathizer etc.
A Combine Solider, Metrocop or Elite
Well, we’ve already mentioned Barney but just playing as a Metrocop could be fun. I would especially like to have manhacks I could through around. The key would be to ensure that the player isn’t playing as a baddie. I never felt like a bad guy during Opposing Force, because Valve ensure I was just a soldier doing my job. That would be a bit hard with the HL2 baddies but it still may be possible.
A New Character
Of course, there is one other possibility and that is a completely new character. Now this may be a perfect opportunity to add a completely different perspective. Got any ideas? I’ve left the “Other” option open for you to make some suggestions.
I don’t think there are any other possibilities. Playing as a scientist (Gordon Freeman!) wouldn’t be any different from now and I can’t see a whole game playing as a Zombie would be much fun and that just leaves the Vortigaunts, Headcrabs and Antlions!
The Poll
PlanetPhillip (2347)
andyb (1022)
mel (820)
Goddess Alyria (424)
Stef (404)
Jasper (364)
AI (314)
piledriver (311)
Grey Acumen (299)
Kasperg (283)
07 December 2007 at 6:36 pm
Other: Shepard. Because he needs a comeback
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07 December 2007 at 6:57 pm
It might be interesting to see this done. Opposing Force and Blue shift were great expansions to the story of HL1, and I loved how they crossed paths; for example in opposing force when you see Gordon hump into the Xen portal as you did in HL1.
I love games that you can play over again with different characters in different scenarios but in the same time.
07 December 2007 at 7:59 pm
it would be fun to see what happened to father grigori after we left him.
07 December 2007 at 8:47 pm
Yeah, I voted for him too.
07 December 2007 at 8:51 pm
other: Dog, yes alyxis best friend in the world. This would be a tottaly different style of gaming.
07 December 2007 at 8:54 pm
I think that Alyx would be interesting, especially for a prequel type game. She has a distinctive character, and would be very interesting to play as.
Also, as MMAN mentioned, Adrian Shepard would be great to play as, especially in the HL2 timeline.
08 December 2007 at 12:31 am
I always dreamt of playing like Father Grigori, but I left it unmarked. What would be really fun is to play with a character that innovates the gameplay, like Alyx Vance being faster or this Combine Soldier having a different eyesight, since they he use helmet, or the metrocop releasing manhacks, etc. There are many choices but an insight see into the Universal Alliance regime could’ve been so great and reveal many more interesting details.
08 December 2007 at 12:32 am
yeah i think too. he should be one of the Rebels in HL2
08 December 2007 at 12:57 am
I VOTED FOR HEADCRAB!
08 December 2007 at 4:00 am
I vote for Dr Mossman. Judith seems to go to very interesting locations in the HL2 world and is always around important people and key events.
08 December 2007 at 4:43 am
awesome suggestion!
I voted Alyx, mainly because I wanted to tweak Phillip’s nose with it. :-p Seriously, why would anyone have a problem playing a girl?? it’s only a game, and a damn good one at that, it’d be cool to see the game from her perspective–as it is from all other perspectives (OppForce and Blue Shift being the most notable examples).
08 December 2007 at 6:01 pm
I voted Barney, but it’s a real close call between him and and a new rebel character.
Barney is a great character and the combine undercover agent holds interesting gameplay moments.
But a creating a new character who has his own character and situation is interesting as well. Especially storywise you could make a nice game with such a character, but I bet rebels did more than just shoot combine before Gordon came along. So perhaps there is some interesting gameplay to be found there.
For example putting up propaganda without being noticed.
08 December 2007 at 8:15 pm
That’s a wonderful idea. I’m sure there are plenty of possibilities.
DOH!
Perhaps, but a whole game might be a bot much.
I didn’t add him as a character becasue I was thinking g HL2 rather than the previous three HL games.
09 December 2007 at 9:15 pm
Actually, why would anyone have a problem playing as a girl? Chell in Portal – as far as I can tell, she wasn’t a guy.
10 December 2007 at 10:43 pm
What about we call it: Half-Life-Stories and make a single story-line where you would follow several different characters, maybe starting with dog, then others. This would be awesome because you would have several diferenet gameplay styles in one game.
10 December 2007 at 10:54 pm
actually this could be done with several mod teams working together with the same storyline, this would be an awesome collaborative mod project! Someone put it to work please.
11 December 2007 at 9:41 pm
yeah i think too. he should be one of the Rebels in HL2[/quote]
I agree. Those gearbox guys should make their official Opposing Force 2.
01 December 2009 at 9:39 pm
The real problem with a lot of these is that you’re trying to use characters with very detailed and outspoken personalities, like Barney, Alyx, and Grigori, which are great for NPCs, but for FPS you want a nobody character that players can insert their own personality on. Rebels work fine in this case, which is probably why they get used so often.
For this, I’d like to see more “play as an enemy” type games, but more that are NOT where you play as the combine. I’d also like a game focusing on Adrian Shephard during the 7 hour war. I seriously will not let go of that scenario. It would work perfectly for game or movie scenario.
28 January 2010 at 2:11 am
Woah, hold the phone. GRIGORI?
HELL YEAH! I’ve been absolutely obsessed with Ravenholm at first sight. I think the level itself MADE Half-Life 2 for me. Just the thought of having a mod with 100% more Ravenholm is amazing. I’ve played Ravenholm so many times, I know exactly where every zombie spawns and how to easily get past even the hardest of situations because I’ve developed my own unique tactics for the level. Well, I’m rambling on.
Other than Grigori, I think Shephard should come back since we don’t really know what awaits him in the G-Man’s plans. Though, I always thought he may come back in HL3 in a whole new environment much like the shift from HL1 to HL2. Perhaps Gordon and Shephard would go even further into the future. Though you would play as Gordon, you would meet Shephard and he would help you fight off whatever forces you may need to take on and try to find who G-Man really is.