Vol.
2, Issue 6
December 14, 1999
Birth
of a Gamer:
Half-Life
(No more butterflies)
by
Heather "elki"
Haselkorn
round
graduation time, one of Josh Vasquez's columns inspired me to
try to look at video games from a literary perspective. I wanted
to see whether games could be considered a form of literature.
Most people laughed at me when I brought up the idea, but a few
suggested that I play Half-Life. They said that, as far
as games go, this one was fairly literate. Suffice it to say that
right after commencement I immediately began to worry about other
things such as a job, paying for graduate school, you know all
the little things. So I never got around to the research. But
now, this column has finally given me the opportunity to play
the game. Or at least, to try to play it!
Once again,
I had to play a tutorial. I think tutorials are evidence that
games have just gotten way too complicated. Could you imagine
one of those old NES games requiring tutorials? Maybe some of
them did, but I don't remember ever having to spend forty-five
minutes learning how to play a game. The need for the tutorial
became immediately evident, though, when I found that I couldn't
even walk a straight line. I couldn't line myself up to jump forward;
instead I kept jumping off to the sides and missing the platforms
by about a mile. I did discover, though, that if I did a little
jump out of my seat at the exact time that I jumped in the game,
I could make it. I also found myself getting really dizzy while
I was learning how to walk and jump. A
column from volume one describes this "simulator sickness,"
but I didn't think it was really possible. I actually felt like
I was suffering from motion sickness! I finally mastered walking,
running, jumping, duck-jumping, and all that, and moved on to
the firing range. Where I proceeded to somehow blow myself up.
Oh well, I was getting bored anyway and I just wanted to play
the game. I've heard that the controls for most first-person shooters
are similar, so hopefully I'll never have to run through a tutorial
ever again.
The opening
of the game is probably familiar to most of you: You (as Gordon
Freeman) are in a tram riding through the Black Mesa Research
Facility while a pleasant, computerized, female voice guides you
through this "tour." She then starts to talk about job
opportunities at Black Mesa, and asks you to refer your qualified
friends and family members. That actually surprised me. In an
odd way it seemed very realistic, sort of like those job posting
bulletins that you see in an office. You look at the postings,
partly to see whether you'd be interested in one of the positions,
but also because you'll know you'll collect a finder's fee if
you refer one of your friends to a job. Although, Black Mesa didn't
look like anyplace I'd like to work! In spite of my annoyance
at the tutorial, and the awful bout of nausea it caused, I was
starting to like this game already. The only drawback so far was
that the computer had to pause every so often to reload, and that
was more than a little annoying.
So there
I am, Dr. Gordon Freeman, wandering around the research lab, trying
to find my suit. I'm saying hi to my co-workers and following
colored lines along the wall to the locker room. Maybe my suit's
in my locker? I check. Cute...photographs, sticky pads, typical
stuff that you'd find in any locker or desk drawer. I didn't bother
looking in the other lockers; even in the make-believe world of
a game I still felt compelled to respect the privacy of my co-workers.
I saw the toilet stalls, though, and the scatalogically-prone
side of my mind took over; I just had to look inside. Oops, someone's
in there. No the door didn't open, but I distinctly heard something.
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