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Gordon Freeman: Strongest personality in gaming

How Valve created the most complex and best-realised character in videogames without a line of dialogue.

Words: David Houghton, GamesRadar UK
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25 Comments
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curiousorange  - 8 months 22 days ago 
CaptainStupid, as a professional sub, I can say that very rarely is there a case of 'this is the right way to do it', especially with magazines and websites.

Even at Future the decision on whether to use 'Videogame' or 'Video game' is purely down to the style guide, which in itself is down to the Editor's preference.

So while the sentence might have been a tad clunky, give the guy a break, I probably would have let it stand had I been subbing it, as it was clear what he meant by it and easy for the reader to understand, and it wasn't really a glaring grammatical error

That's the whole point of language you see, to communicate ideas and concepts in a way that people understand. Not to give pedantic internet men the excuse to post smug little 'I spotted an error so I win' comments...
Orange  - 8 months 22 days ago 
ive always thought of gordon freeman as a nerd. lol
smellypeanut  - 4 months 27 days ago 
i think you guys should change the length of the characters remaining to like 500 or somethin so nobody gets a woody and types a whole essay
uz_mike222  - 3 months 8 days ago 
I definitely agree with curiosorange and kind of from smellypeanut, lets just stick with the topic. Though I own H-L2 and H-L2:E1 and beaten both many times, i still agree that Gordon does not have a strong personality. Even for an FPS, I've still seen characters with a better personality than Gordon "Blank Slate" Freeman, for example: I will also use Commander Shepherd from Mass Effect. He (by he I mean the player) can decide on what to say and how the person he saying the phrase to reacts to him.

Another example is the character you make in Oblivion, though you cant hear the voice, you can still decide what to say and how the person reacts (especially with that persuasive thing to get information out of a person thats vital to that quest). And with Oblivion and Mass Effect, your able to see yourself in a third-person view (though Oblivion can switch from both FP to TP) and see what you look like.

But what I do agree on with this article, other than the Super Charged Gravity Gun and being like a movie (and I go off to one corner spinning in circles, crouching jumping up and down while the other characters talk when you first go to Kliners lab, which I think is since I've beaten the game like 20 times now since 2006) that the game does have its "Yay I defeated Breen's plans" moments to its "Oh man, i hate how the combine turn people into those weird creatures that the name eludes me" and to the "Ok, who or what is the GMan" at the end before the credits play when the GMan talks to you about "free choice".

But I digress. The game was epic with story and characters, and people have their own opinions on every topic on this website and others.

P.S. Alyks does have a nice ass. :P
IronicBob  - 2 months 17 days ago 
I can't get to the bit on page 5 because I'm too scared of Antlions. Now I feel a bit left out.
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