Gout, Video Games, and the G-Man

At the end of this month I will have successfully been on crutches for a total of 9 months. The physically enduring challenges that I have put up with have taught me a lot about my body. One of those lessons is that balancing yourself on one foot to do absolutely everything is quite taxing and time-consuming. I’ve also learned that my body apparently produces too much acid. You see, when your acid levels rise to a high level, which is anything over a 6.0, you are at risk for an attack. A gout attack consists of crystals forming in your body and causes your joints to swell up making you weep like a little girl. Gout is a form of arthritis so it will inflame certain joints like elbows, shoulders etc. Gout to me has been a hard battle to deal with for the last 4 years since I always tend to get it on my foot. Its the kind of pain that will wake you up in the middle of the night. Its the kind of pain that won’t even let you put a sock on because it hurts so bad. Its the kind of pain you wish you would never have experienced in this lifetime or the next. The days spent in bed, changing my diet, trying out wacky remedies and even going to work in my current condition have all been challenging. My experience in this long blur of lunch in bed, and constant need for help has pushed my mind and body to their limit. You would think that 9 months of not being productive would be pointless but I was fortunate enough to have a co-pilot this whole time. My 2-year old son has not only learned to play Half-Life 2 but demanded that I play when he wasn’t able to solve certain puzzles. In meeting these demands, I was finally able to experience one of gaming’s greatest diamonds in the rough, The Half-Life 2 series.

I played the original Half-Life but I can never recall much being an 11 year old at the time. You can also bet I didn’t pass the game at that age but then again, I didn’t fully understand what I was playing, let alone care as long as I was killing something. What was it about Half-Life 2 that made my son select it in the first place? The cover art on steam is a white background with Gordon and Alyx on the front. Maybe it stands out from Steam’s black background? Or the fact that a girl was on the cover (he loves the ladies). As I’ve matured I look for story and experience to anchor my fun just as much as the gameplay so I paid full attention when I arrived in City 17. I realize that I’m coming in 6 to 7 years late but some of the gameplay mechanics are definitely something to be appreciated. I enjoyed the freedom to move about during credits or story sequences. It has completely eclipsed the way I want to experience my them now because a lot of games take away that control when they want you to look at something and Half-Life 2 has gone to great lengths to immerse you in that world with something as simple as the freedom of movement during the game’s major events.

I also have to note that I played through the entire Half-Life 2 series back to back with the exception of Episode 3 since I am now part of the millions of zombies out there asking for its release. I spent many hours replaying through the episodes because my son wanted to take over many portions of the game. I also didn’t want him getting ahead of our save point so I would have him replay certain areas. I must have sunk hours upon hours in every single episode so my curiosity took me beyond the game naturally. “What the hell were those weird looking planes? Were those legs?” I thought to myself. “Who’s this G-man? And whats in the briefcase?!” I wanted to dig deeper. I won’t spoil anything as much of what I read was mostly speculation but I think we all appreciate good mysteries and Valve tends to do this with their franchises, Portal 2 most recently.

Getting back on topic here. The way I perceived HL2 was blocky polygons with simple textures attached. You can imagine my face as I opened up the doors to reveal the first exterior courtyard in the game; wide-eyed and intrigued. The game looks phenomenal for being so old. There are very few games that can still look just as great after 7 years. I think the lighting is what especially caught my eye. So I continued the critical path. I tore through the city sewers, the swamps, ravenholm and couldn’t help but notice the emphasis of the physics-based puzzles. They were a small break from the carnage but I appreciated that the world I was walking around in had a lot of time and effort put into it. Physics in games are pretty much standard now but they never work so well as to make them a part of the gameplay. For the sake of blowing up buildings and sending enemies flying, I can understand why it needs to be controlled and scripted at times, but I can’t even imagine how this must have impacted the majority of the industry back when it released.

You would never have known how much trouble this game was in just by playing it. Reading about the infamous release date scandal and the stolen source code, makes you root for the idea that this game even exists. There is an excellent article written by one Geoff Keighly of GTTV. It is quite a read and deserves to be mentioned since it gives an extensive look into the creative process and hurdles that Valve and more specifically Gabe Newell, had to go through just to get his game out the door. The article can be found here The Final Hours of Half-Life 2

The graphical advances in the 3 games are extremely noticeable, especially when you play them back to back. Watching Alyx move and animate in the beginning of Episode 2 was a very telling moment and seconds later the payoff really starts to show. I don’t know anything about the backend stuff they’re doing with the Source engine but playing Portal 2 recently says to me “a lot”. Its left me curious about how much of a graphical leap Episode 3 will make compared to the previous ones. I weep at the fact that I wasn’t able to play these when they first came out because I just didn’t understand Steam, especially since my backwater dirt road neighborhood doesn’t support high speed internet. I’m paying $200 a month for 1.5 MB here and it’s taken a long time just to get to this point.

When you replay a game so many times, you start to see the cracks and that’s not always a good thing. Half-Life 2 will remind you that its a videogame after replaying it so many times but at that point, what game wouldn’t? My son decided to take over the controller shortly after turning 2. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he had an idea. His first instinct was to pull on the trigger which made the gun shoot and flash and he absolutely loved that part. But then came the problem of getting around in the world. It took him a solid 4 months to understand movement with the controller. Oh that’s right, I also forgot to mention that during this whole ordeal I went to the darkside and connected my wired Xbox 360 controller. He loved shooting, and now he could move aound, so progression came naturally. I taught him to climb a ladder, switch weapons to crowbar to destroy obstacles and how to duck under low objects. Then came the real challenge, killing the opposing enemies. His initial reaction was to pass the controller to me and have me pass the hard part for him. I did this a couple of times but you could see the determination on his face as he tried to understand the complete mechanics involved. Measuring up your crosshairs against an A.I. opponent who is taking cover or throwing grenades at you must have seemed daunting. I have successfully recorded his sessions over periods of time, showcasing how he even reached the point of exploiting the “monster closets” and shooting the combine as they hopped out of their planes. He even asks to play specific chapters now and has taken a liking to the shotgun over other weapons.

Its been an interesting time these past 9 months. As brutal as it has been to be confined to a bed and burdening others for aid, my time in bed and in the post-apocalyptic world of Half-Life 2 have come to an end (till Episode 3 of course). I am regaining strength and should be walking by weeks end. As the training wheels have come off and my son has mastered platformers like Mario or other first-person shooters like Bulletstorm, I look forward to not only having my son surprise me, but having a future co-op buddy till the end.