Dear esther half life
Unfortuately, making the environment more open ended would have made the game feel truly non-linear. However, even when I felt that my interest was starting to wane, the urge to simply explore the world was enough to keep going. Uncharted 3) or ‘shooting enemies left and right.’ But, allowing for some interaction with the environment or even featuring a character or two in the game would have helped reduce the lethargy that can be induced. When I say action, I don’t mean ‘jumping across a burning rooftop’ (i.e. so it’s easy to get a little bored of the lack of action. The game takes care of jumping, crouching, turning on a flashlight, etc. Also, the game doesn’t involve any mechanics other than walking forward and listening. First off, the price: for a game that takes about one to two hours to complete, $10 might seem a little steep.
It’s hard for me to declare that I “hated” anything in this game, but there are some less lovable features in it. Even then, what exactly the end means is anyone’s guess, but I’ll leave that up to you. The ghostly and mysterious narrative is nonlinear and isn’t always easy to follow, until somewhere around the half way mark when the story picks up and the player starts to understand where it’s going to end up. Thankfully, the narration is very spaced out and doesn’t last very long, striking a nice balance between engaging the player’s interest in the story AND the environment. It really requires your full focus, otherwise you might miss a line and may be confused by the narrative later on, which can deter focus from the game’s visuals at times.
The writing and voice acting is about as engaging and appealing as the game’s artistry, as long as you’re a fan of old English literature. If the next Half Life game looked this good, I’m sure many fans would be more than pleased with the visual fidelity. Not that the graphics are necessarily ground breaking (the game uses very two dimensional foliage), but the artistry is absolutely breathtaking and goes to show how the Source engine can still deliver amazing visual design.
One of the first thoughts one has about this ‘game’ is its extraordinarily beautiful visuals, nearly on par with those of Skyrim.