Half-Life 2 ate my brain

This entry is spoiler-free.

When the HL2 E3 movies were released in 2003, I couldn't believe how advanced they looked, and knew that if even half of the things demonstrated in the movie wound up in the playable game, it would be an extraordinary release. Well, Half-Life 2 was finally released this week, and it contains almost 100% of the features from those movies. It is, to use a future cliche, fried gold.

I played through Half-Life 2 in about 2 days of solid gaming (which, by the way, isn't remotely normal; I can't remember ever obsessing over a game this much). And it's been another two days since I completed it. But here's something weird: I can't get it out of my head. I've now spent as much time thinking about the story (particularly the ending) as I did actually playing the game.

If you haven't played HL2, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. The human race has been subjugated. The game is set in an Eastern European dystopia, shown with graphics that are the closest yet to photorealism in a game. The environments look and feel real. Characters are modelled in unprecedented detail and animated with complexity and subtlety; the result puts many computer-animated feature films to shame. The backstory to the game's hellish situation is not spoonfed to the player, but told almost entirely through inference -- by looking around at environmental details and listening to conversations and other audio, you can piece together at least parts of what happened, and mentally fill in the rest. HL2 creates, quite expertly, a world in crisis, and makes you -- the player -- care about it personally.

This may be the most nerdly thing I've ever said, but for those two days, I felt like I was Gordon Freeman. His motives were mine, because the things that were important to Gordon were also important to me. And when I was yanked out of that experience when it ended, I felt genuine confusion and anxiety. I'm sure it's exactly what the developers intended, and I would call it emotional manipulation if it were not so well executed and, frankly, welcome; I've grown used to games that engage only the reflexes.

I hope Valve continues this story soon. Six years of waiting was rewarded with two days' worth of exceptional game, and I'm craving more of the gameplay, more of the characters, and more of the world.