Dear Esther, Why are you so beautiful?

As I walked through the fingernail scarred cliff faces, I thought to myself, "why?" As I crept  through the majestic, magically illuminated caves I thought to myself "Who am I" The answer was simple, I was the unnamed protagonist. My experience was abruptly cut short by the message flashing into appearance along the bottom of the screen. "Frog is now playing Half Life 2: Deathmatch" I was astounded. For the last few minutes I was the unnamed protagonist.I've never experienced such deep immersion before. What caused it? The lack of a HUD? The slow, almost tedious walk across the surreal landscape? The awe inspiring, beautiful voice overs?

Welcome the Half Life 2 mod, Dear Esther. It would be rude to call  Dear Esther  a game, it is one of thechineseroom's numerous projects in first person story telling. The game is, simply, a walk across a landscape. There is no action and basic controls. Movement is limited to walking, crawling or jumping.Trust me on this, you want to walk.  A voice in your head is  constantly speaking to you. The "voice in your head" is your voice, not the protagonist's voice, your voice. The dialog was split up into multiple sections, with one of three pieces  playing when you pass certain landmarks on your long journey. This works surprisingly well, and you  have to challenge your self to put the story together, piece by piece. I am not going to say anything about the story, it will be better for you to find out for yourself. You must download this, really. It will change your  mind on what a first person game can be, and what it is.

Breen, A Perfect Villan

With the recent death of  Robert Culp, the voice actor who played Wallace Breen in Half Life 2, I decided I would write something as a tribute to this great voice actor. The most obvious thing I could think of was a tribute to Breen, in my opinion one of the most famous villains of video game history.

• What makes Breen a Great and Memorable Villain?
• His Appearance (Which Also has Evolved into A Story About My Hope for Breen)

Take a look at him, doesn't he look really bad[censored]? Most importantly he looks human. He looks like someone you can relate to, a friend. This is one of Half Life's tricks. In the beginning of the game his is a friend, a hero. When you are exposed to the resistance you learn the opposite. Breen is a traitor to humanity, a friend of the enemy. Someone who you previously loved is now someone you should hate. I personally held hope for him unto the end. I loved Breen and I wished that he would break away from the evil combine. It wasn't tell I met him in the Citadel that my hate emerged as a fiery weapon.  I wanted to destroy him.   

• His Voice

I can clearing hear him saying, "Do what is right, Dr. Freeman." In his calm, soothing voice that is laced with deception. Of all video game characters, it is his and Alyx Vance's (another great character) voice I remember. In the beginning of the game that voice was a friend to me. It soothed me in my quest to figure out my purpose. In the citadel I hated that voice. I stopped to listen to it near the terminals so my anger would build. I would then unleash my anger into the terminal, utterly destroying the voice until I came to the next terminal. The voice was the same, yet different at the same time. I could now hear the deceit I had heard when I first came to City 17. 

What did you think about Breen? Was he someone who filled you with hate? Did he trick you in the same way he tricked me? What do you think made him a memorable villain?