Recent content by Parker Chapin

Since I recently played it, I'm going to throw Thomas Was Alone in here. It was a fun, competent platformer, with a nice story that didn't take itself too seriously, and an enjoyable cast of personalities. It was especially impressive how the gameplay reinforced the story's main theme of...

You said the choice to save Doug or Carley was an easy one, because he was being grabbed by several zombies and she was squaring off with one crawler. You said the choices in this game were "presented as equally sensible but really aren't," which implied that one choice had a noticeably better...

You make some good points. Of course, they contradict your earlier "Gordon is you" points, as you can discern things about his character that are independent of the player. If nothing else, he's the type of person who can graduate MIT with a Ph.D, so if that doesn't describe me, then Gordon is...

You must have come in the wrong door. This discussion has been about agency (agency defined here as the power to make decisions that affect one's fate), not about players controlling the character, since my opening post.

You're saying I must be wrong because Gordon isn't as widely praised as I think, while others are saying I must be wrong because Gordon is widely praised. That's an argument I just can't win.

You should read my posts more thoroughly. You're exercising quite a bit of doublethink here. You're telling me that Half-Life offers complete control over Gordon, while simultaneously telling me that your paths are constrained because it's a linear game. What you seem to mean is that it gives...

If you're going to make that point, then you must concede that all but the most linear visual-novel type games allow you to define your character, whether that character speaks or not. Nearly every game in existence allows for multiple playstyles, and by extension, multiple interpretations of...

A story about a powerless protagonist could be interesting, but I don't buy it in Half-Life 2, because the game doesn't seem to be aware that you're powerless. It seems to use every trick and illusion to convince you that you're acting of your own free will when you're not. Assassin's Creed...

The point I tried to make in the opening is that Half-Life 2 gives no agency, not to Gordon and not to the player. From the beginning to the end you're following the orders of various NPCs, and the only thing you have the power to choose is how you feel about it. Your "agency" is over the...

I'm not a fan of silent protagonists. Wherever I have the choice, I prefer to play a rich, well-written, characterized protagonist, and when I encounter a stupid one, I don't think ?This guy should shut his mouth,? I think ?This guy should have been better written.? That said, I do know that...

I do like to roleplay. I roleplayed the fuck out of Morrowind, defining my character's personality, how she spoke, how she reacted to things throughout the game and what decisions she made, even though in the game she was more or less blank. But in a game like Half-Life 2 I don't feel like I can...

I love me a good novel, but video games can do it too, and they can do it in ways that other media can't. Have you ever played the Silent Hill series? They have compelling, untold stories told through the environments and the world alongside rich, detailed protagonists, delivered in an...

I'm disappointed, Shamus. I clicked this article to see whether you had anything new to say that might shake my opinion, or whether you would bring out the same tired defenses I'd seen a thousand times before. Turns out it was the latter. Arguments like this one rest on the assumption that...