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I don't think it's a mistake that we don't hear Gordon Freeman talk, and barely ever see his face. I think the burden is on the player to feel connected to HL2.

I don't think it's a mistake that we don't hear Gordon Freeman talk, and barely ever see his face. I think the burden is on the player to feel connected to HL2. It's more an exploration of a dystopian landscape, which wasn't as played out 15 years ago as it is now. You get NPCs with excellent-for-the-time voice acting and huge landscapes to explore. You get to insert yourself into the character of Gordon, it's kind of "2004's VR" in that way.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Exactly. Now combine that with what the GP said about HL1, some A-tier object manipulation and the impressiveness of VR and you have a game that's a lot of fun to play even if you're just along for the ride (in terms of plot). Throw in a decent story arc, hook people with letting them actually make some tough decisions (earth is descending into a dystopia in the time it's set so plenty of opportunities to force the player to choose between a bunch of bad options and feel guilty about whatever they choose) and you have a highly immersive experience. I don't mean to make it sound trivial, each one of those things is hard to do right and they all have to be done right but it should not be rocket science. Valve just needs a Decent(TM) game using their existing principals. The hard part is going to coping with the constraints of VR without neutering player freedom within the story or botching the VR part.