HALF-LIFE
the list of places the player theoretically or supposedly doesn't belong in videogames is near endless. it's fucking everywhere. videogames are effectively a series of aggressive intrusions; to simply exist is most often to be trespasser, but rarely does the weight of intrusion weigh meaningfully upon the player. you are resisted, naturally, but it's typically the kind of resistance where you're assured accommodation, more akin to a hotel with surly staff than anything serious. they don't want you here, but they'll make sure you're relatively comfortable regardless. here's everything you need to accomplish the goal we don't want you to accomplish... please don't accomplish it, but let us know if you have a hard time with anything. breakfast is at 9am... chest high walls available upon request, medkits in the tiny fridge. there are obvious exceptions (early metroid, thief, classic dungeon crawls, etc.) but for the most part the spirit of invasion's a bit of a larp. to be out of your element is to be in a purple room rather than a grey one, to gaze out at rounded shapes rather than angular ones
xen's biggest accomplishment is being truly alien. not just squiggly forms, blue titted humanoids, and bulging organs, but a final movement that yanks the game out from under the player and inverts the dynamic. there's no greater sign that xen was a success than that it is so often loathed; there would be no greater sign of failure than if it wasn't. it's the crowning affirmation of half-life's meticulous escalation and the most bold and thematically ambitious sequence valve would (and likely will) ever make. a pure expression of unbelonging that acts as counterweight to the dozy tramride, and the answer to the question of what can be done once you've cranked the dial as far as it'll go. it's astounding that a developer so shackled by feedback ever had the guts to drop a noise wall this heavy at the end of their groundbreaking setpiece shooter. don't like nihilanth? sorry... can't hear you. don't like all these flying shitheads or conveyer belts or what feels like infinite spawns? still can't hear you bud, might wanna talk a little louder there's like 5 million dB being blasted into my brain and my spine's about to snap from the pressure. go be the hero or whatever it was you were doing, bigshot. here's the longjump, it kinda sucks. here's some new physics, they feel kinda weird. here's a nutsack monster, its name is gonarch. drink it in, in a few years you'll wake up from your long nap with a line of hanger-ons from here to city 17 tryin to suck your dick and they'll expect you to do ten hours of seesaw puzzles. it gets worse before it gets worse, bottoms up superboy