A scarce commodity

The problem with writing in games is that we point out when it's terrible, but we don't praise it enough when it's good. Consider Half-Life 2.



Half-Life 2: the writing

helped as much as the graphics

In the beginning of the game, you're just another desperate citizen pushed through processing before entering the city. People around you are muttering, and if this is your first time playing, you'll likely amazed by the graphics and the Source engine. It's beautiful. Then the megascreen on the building pops up and Dr. Breen appears to explain why the aliens have taken away our ability to reproduce. The quality of the writing makes it worth quoting at length:

Let me read a letter I recently received. "Dear Dr. Breen. Why has the Combine seen fit to suppress our reproductive cycle? Sincerely, A Concerned Citizen." Thank you for writing, Concerned. Of course your question touches on one of the basic biological impulses, with all its associated hopes and fears for the future of the species. I also detect some unspoken questions. Do our benefactors really know what's best for us? What gives them the right to make this kind of decision for mankind? Will they ever deactivate the suppression field and let us breed again? Allow me to address the anxieties underlying your concerns, rather than try to answer every possible question you might have left unvoiced. First, let us consider the fact that for the first time ever, as a species, immortality is in our reach. This simple fact has far-reaching implications. It requires radical rethinking and revision of our genetic imperatives. It also requires planning and forethought that run in direct opposition to our neural pre-sets. I find it helpful at times like these to remind myself that our true enemy is Instinct. Instinct was our mother when we were an infant species. Instinct coddled us and kept us safe in those hardscrabble years when we hardened our sticks and cooked our first meals above a meager fire and started at the shadows that leapt upon the cavern's walls. But inseparable from Instinct is its dark twin, Superstition. Instinct is inextricably bound to unreasoning impulses, and today we clearly see its true nature. Instinct has just become aware of its irrelevance, and like a cornered beast, it will not go down without a bloody fight. Instinct would inflict a fatal injury on our species. Instinct creates its own oppressors, and bids us rise up against them. Instinct tells us that the unknown is a threat, rather than an opportunity. Instinct slyly and covertly compels us away from change and progress. Instinct, therefore, must be expunged. It must be fought tooth and nail, beginning with the basest of human urges: The urge to reproduce. We should thank our benefactors for giving us respite from this overpowering force. They have thrown a switch and exorcised our demons in a single stroke. They have given us the strength we never could have summoned to overcome this compulsion. They have given us purpose. They have turned our eyes toward the stars. Let me assure you that the suppressing field will be shut off on the day that we have mastered ourselves...the day we can prove we no longer need it. And that day of transformation, I have it on good authority, is close at hand.

This scene sent chills down my spine. The human race has become a collection of cattle, shoved into the ghettos to be controlled and handled. It was a terrifying portrait of lost humanity; we didn't even have the ability to create new life. That chill I felt wasn't created by the graphics: the writing did it.

Half-Life 2 is loaded with powerful moments like this, and the writing worked with the technology to make the game a modern classic. Bad writing could have turned the same game into a B-novel of the ripest variety. But the very success of the game points up the weakness of game writing in general, and it begs the question: why don't we have more examples of scenes like this? What, exactly, is the problem?

This week, we'll take a look at the problem. Next week, we'll talk to someone who's part of the solution: Susan O'Connor, writer on titles like Gears of War and Bioshock.