Time to think about the future…
After Half-Life 2: EP3 who would you like to play as?
Assuming that Valve decide to continue making Half-Life games, and why wouldn’t they?, they have an opportunity to take a different direction regarding the playing character.
Personally I think they should make a multi-character game, each with only 2 or 3 hours gameplay. Sort of mini-side-stories 4 characters = 12 hours play. Would be kinda fun..
Anyway, if they made a full game who would you like to play as?
Maybe you just want to continue with The Man! Nothing wrong with that. Strong, silent type. Gets into a lot of trouble and fights his way out. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Would be fun to play as Alyx and maybe have a little more freedom of movement. Being able to run and jump with a bit more speed and maybe even do some climbing.
Well, if got his own game last time, why not again. Could be fun to see things fro a Metrocop’s perspective. Would allow Valve to offer some moral choices for the player.
Ooooo, now this could be fun. A game from his perspective might be a little tedious with just a shotgun but knowing Valve they would ad some cool weapons for him to use. Might be a nice change to have a speaking character.
It’s been done in a mod why not a game?
Please comment. Adrian Shepard would be an obvious choice but I limited my poll options to Half-Life 2 onwards.
I think Barney would be the most interesting character for me for the reasons you describe. Being inside the overwatch system, following certain schedules, looking away when the situation requires it and being violent towards citizens for the sake of maintaining the Combine’s trust. A pre-Gordon Freeman City 17 has so much to offer.
I can play as DOG!! 😀
I’d be interested in playing as a combine soldier in a campaign consisting of missions to undermine and destroy the resistance movement.
I’d like to see Adrian Shepard again. But since you didn’t put him on the poll, I chose Barney. I’d like to see a new Op4/BShift for HL2, that would just be cool.
It’s got to be Gordon really, because he’s not so much a character as he is an avatar for the player.
But if it had to be someone else I think a Vortigaunt could provide some new and interesting gameplay. I can picture it now:
“Cecil, we need 5 dishes of diced headcrab, pronto!”
“Cecil, the generators broken, can you go and give it a jolt?”
“Cecil, can you recharge my iPod for me?”
Sorry about that. I’ll add an Other option now.
It is likely that Valve will continue with Gordon.
But I find the idea of characters intriguing.
Barney in pre-HL2 C17 has quite some interesting possibilities as well as his leadership role once the revolution begins.
A vortigaunt is interesting as well.
But perhaps presenting a new character, with new a new stories and abilities would be fun as well.
i want the ultimate hl series, to play any of the main characters from all installations of the game
I’d like to play as an AI construct , perhaps one made by Eli or Alyx Vance , the same way as D.O.G was.
Throughout the game you would not get new weapons but rather new upgrades and new shells (roboctic bodies) , perhaps acquired through hostiles takeovers .. that is to say , you killed/disabled a robotic foe and then hacked into them and overwrote their AI with your own.
Play as Rollermines ( like D.O.G.’s Ball ), Manhacks , Striders , Transhuman Combine Cyborg Soldiers , Turrets , Combine Gunships , Hunters and Stalkers or any other Robotic or Cybernectic foe.
Maybe you hopped from shell to shell throughout the game , like a spirit possesing different bodies , or you just temporarily loaned a robotic shell and then returned to your own main shell.
A shell you could either upgrade yourself or have NPC you encounter upgrade for you.
One possibility might be that you could cannibalize parts from disabled foes.
A scanners light and zoomcamera , a manhacks thermal vision (i’m just guessing that they see infrared) and/or it’s blades ( a robotic arm with blades could provide for some very intense and visceral melee combat with zombies and other fleshy meatbags ) , the electrical shock attack of a rollermine or it’s magnetic abilities .. maybe it could let you attract metal object like the gravity gun would , but in a more limited way or maybe it could allow you to stick to metal surfaces allowing you to crawl up metal pillars and cling to metal ceilings. Maybe Combine cyborgs have access codes/equipment to gain cyberspace access to combine mainframe .. maybe you could battle combine AI’s or Glados.
You could also experience the regular halflife 2 enimes from a new perspective – that of a robots.
A headcrab is a very small threat when it can’t couple with your head (since you have no biological parts) and it’s poison is useless against you , but on the other hand rollermines would flock to you, like bee’s on honey and their electrical attack could be devastating to you.
The fact that you would be robotic and not organic in nature could also be used to create gameplay situation where you need to team up with a biological NPC and support each other.
You could be lifted over obstacles into new areas by an electromagnetic crane , controled by your human/vortigaunt friendly NPC and you could hack through gates , pass areas with high radiation / deadly gases , and they could disable energygrids/magnetic fields/dangerous electrical wires you couldn’t pass and maybe if you weren’t waterproof they could swim to certain areas , that you could not reach.
From a NPC interaction point of view, a robot/AI could be very easy to work with.
It doesn’t seem weird that a robot doesn’t speak .. but people might begin to wonder why Gordon never says anything. NPC’s also don’t have to speak with the player to give them information , as you could pickup messages over wireless radio connection and wired links and it wouldn’t be weird that they were displayed as text on screen. So a lot less voiceacting is needed .. could be much easier for modder to create new stories for, as voiceacting in many mods is usually a letdown – with a robot main character they wouldn’t need all the voiceacting.
Being disembodied and non-human also grants a lot of freedom for the developer as they can remake the character anyway they want and still make it believable. They could die .. and then simply be rebuilt later or transferred into another shell by a friendly NPC , have their memory erased , be taken over by hostile AI’s hacking them , and be forced to watch as they slaughter friends . lots of storytelling options you wouldn’t have with a human.
CrowbarSka nailed it, well kinda… the main thing about Gordon is that, as he doesn’t speak, and I know we covered that recently, the player puts him, or her self into the character. The HEV suit and fixed range of weapons are the only constants.
To play as Gregori, or a Vort, or whatever, you’d need to have more than just a limited range of weapons, or the ability to wise-crack, or run harder, or whatever, it would have to be pretty radical. Plus they all have back-stories too, which would need padding out a bit to make it work. The trick would have to be in the writing of the scenarios, there would need to be a proper re-building of the situations that the character finds themselves in.
I also go with Berrie and bkadar, to be able to customise the game to play any one of the situations would be pretty awesome, but the game is in the mapping, and that can’t really change so much, magic though it is, you’d still be in the HL world.
Good question though, but I think its a bit deeper than that.
My gut feeling is to stick with Gordon.
Or better yet HL3 could be like Point of View for HL1 in where all the characters living or dead play a part in 1 game giving the player certain events to play each character through say 3 levels each totaling 2 hours each character.
Kinda like that recent movie Vantage Point one event told from many prospectives.
Say the Characters from all the games in One game showing what sorta part they played in the whole chain reaction of the storyline.
Like the G-Man whats his story & what were those Areas in Black Mesa in HL1 that Gordon couldnt get into too.
Maybe we’l even see what made the Black Mesa Administor Doctor Breen go Bad.
Still I wanna be Alyx Vance because she could be very well the Next …….
Yeah, I opt to choose Calhoun or the Father. What happened with him in Ravenholm? And the idea of moral choices suits well too. It could get an interesting gameplay.
Hoyy
Wasn’t this question already asked? Like I said before, the high profile NPCs just are not suitable for a FPS game, they have too much personality.
A vortigon would be interesting, but I’d still rather see Valve touch back on the seven hour war using Adrian Shephard.
I voted for OTHER, being Adrian Shephard. I’m very surprised Adrian Shephard isn’t a choice Phillip thought of. He has totally been forgotten by the community, hasn’t he?
I didn’t add him because he didn’t appear in HL2 or its epsiodes, and that’s where I made the choicves from.
You are right that the community seems to ahve forgotten him, perhaps he will reappear in soem Valve-sanctioned add-on.