About Half-Life 3...I can't imagine them NOT doing one of those. I really hope they do an Opposing Force 2, since Adrian Shepherd isn't dead. But since Barney Calhoun is an NPC, now, I can't see them making a Blue Shift 2. I mean, Blue Shift was different from Half-Life and Opposing Force. Don't get me wrong; all three were well-done games, but you didn't actually feel like you were Barney Calhoun, since they game him lines (unheard by the player) in Blue Shift. In Half-Life and Opposing Force, you did feel like you were Gordon Freeman and Adrian Shepherd, respectively, since they never have any unheard lines. Also, you don't see little things that hint at a personality, like when you saw books like "The Truth About Aliens" or something like that in Calhoun's locker near the beginning of that game. That tells you what kind of guy Calhoun is, and you aren't creating his personality, in that game. You did create Adrian's and Gordon's personalities. That's one of the things I liked about Half-Life and Opposing Force.
Another thing I liked was the way they were integrated: you got to walk through places in Opposing Force that you could only see from a distance in Half-Life---and vice versa. Some things about those two games were so well-written that I seriously think that there should be a college course that studies those games as literature. You can laugh, but I'm dead serious. Sierra has pulled off a hat trick with those games, they're so well-written.
Speaking of literature, now that they've actually got characters besides the main character, I think they're adding new literary techniques, particularly the technique called a "foil". A foil, in literary terms, is a character that gets set up in opposition to another character. I think that Father Gregori was a foil for Dr. Breen, the Administrator. I say this for a few reasons. First of all, Breen is a world-class chicken. Gregori shows no fear. Breen hates you. Gregori keeps calling you "Brother" and gives you a better gun. Breen is insincere, making promises he can't (or won't) keep. Gregori, the first time he sees you, admits that, as much as he wants to help you, he can't promise that he can keep you alive. Breen is harping on about how superstition is bad, while Gregori is devoutly religious---convinced that the headcrabs are supernatural henchmen of the Devil, no less. Finally, Breen abandons humanity when he sees that he has nothing more to gain on Earth. Gregori has a lot to lose by staying in Ravenholm and a lot to gain by leaving, and yet---judging from the things he says while killing zombies and headcrabs---he is staying behind to free everyone he's ever loved from the headcrabs' control. Talk about loyalty!
Anyhow, I'm also trying to figure the G-Man out, and I think he's a time-traveller, trying to restore damage to the past. I think he had less to do with the Black Ops from Opposing Force than you'd think, just because he said "that problem has taken care of itself". There's another thing I noticed: in Half-Life 2, the alien slave enemies from Half-Life 1 are suddenly your allies (and go under the name of "Vortigaunt"). When they speak, some of them talk in a funny way---holding some vowels and consonants for longer than you'd expect while slipping quickly through others. The G-Man talks in a similar way. I can't help but wonder if he isn't some kind of manifestation of the Vortigaunts' (or, perhaps, a particular Vortigaunt's) power of ESP. I mean, he's obviously got weird powers that have a lot to do with teleporters...
There's another thing: in Dr. Kleiner's lab in Half-Life 2, there is a picture that is crooked that Kleiner straightens out to begin the process of opening the top-top-super-secret teleporter he's built. I took a good, close look at that picture---and the G-Man is in it, right next to Dr. Freeman and Freeman's colleagues, wearing a white labcoat. He once was one of those scientists! I have another hunch besides the Vortigaunt-manifestation theory: In Half-Life 2, the Administrator from Half-Life 1 finally shows his face, and he talks about "evolving" humanity into something beyond our imagination---into something immortal, even. Now, the G-Man just won't take damage. Believe me, I've tried shooting him in Half-Life 1, and the shots just bounce off. Once, the game even glitched out and the G-Man didn't disappear when he was supposed to. I could walk right up to him and whack him with my crowbar. Believe you me, it wasn't as rewarding an activity as it sounded: no matter how many times I hit him, he wouldn't even look like he was taking damage: a yellow spark jumped out of the place where I hit him, and a ricochet-like sound effect played. He sounds pretty immortal to me. And he's got powers I wouldn't have imagined if I hadn't seen them, myself. Given all this information, it's a pretty good theory that the G-Man is a scientist who has stumbled on to a way to "evolve" himself into this new version of humanity---independantly of what the Administrator was talking about in Half-Life 2. How this has happened and why are anyone's guess, not to mention what he wants to do, now that he's got this power. My guess is fight off the alien invasion from...well, wherever the Combine are coming from (and that might not be Xen).
What're your thoughts on these theories?
