His voice is meant to be soothing and reassuring, but the scripted nature of his delivery and the words he focuses on are anything but. The drab gray tones of the train depot convey a sense of oppression, highlighting that there’s no room for freedom or expression in this world.Īn Orwellian video message from Wallace Breen, the Combine’s new puppet-ruler of Earth, plays on a loop. The ground is littered with newspapers, empty cans, and Chinese takeout boxes. Right off the bat, the train platform tells you so much about the world you’re inhabiting without needing to say a single word. Rise and shine,” are the first words you hear from the enigmatic G-Man before you awaken on a train pulling into the depot at City 17. The opening of Valve’s historic shooter expertly solidifies the game’s tone. It’s rare that a game is able to provide you with a clear and succinct teaching moment that also builds upon everything else surrounding it - which is exactly what 2004’s Half-Life 2 does with an atmospheric opening walk that culminates in a simple four-word command: “Pick up that can.” However, spending the opening hours of something like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess doing mundane chores in order to learn how the designers want you to play the game doesn’t immediately immerse you into the world. So often their existence is necessary in order to teach the player the rules, mechanics, and systems of a game’s world, and their absence would cause a mess of frustration for a whole heap of players.
Tutorials are a tricky thing in video games.
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