He has been the face behind 20,000,000 units in video games sales. He was a simple scientist who fought his way through the disaster at Black Mesa and went on to become the face of the resistance against the Combine empire.
He was recently voted by the readers of Gamespot.com the Greatest Video Game Hero of All Time (even beating out Mario in the finals). He is Gordon Freeman of Half-Life and he has been able to do all of this without ever opening his mouth.
One of the key characteristics of Gordon Freeman, aside from being the “Free Man” as the aliens in Half-Life like to refer to him, is that he is also the “Every Man”. He was not a war hero. He wasn’t a super-powered being. He was a person doing his job when a terrible accident occurred and set the events of his life in to motion to lead him to a path of greatness.
Without ever being given a voice, players were given the chance to fill in the blank spots in dialogue during the game with what they felt would be their own responses.
This freedom with Freeman lead Machinima studio Accursed Farms to create the series Freeman’s Mind. In Freeman’s Mind, the events of the original Half-Life are played out but with a twist. Instead of the strong, silent type Freeman is traditionally portrayed as, Accursed Farms has given Gordon Freeman a voice. Inner monologue no longer exists as this version of Gordon not only talks to himself but yells, swears and wanders off on wild thought tangents that reflect what most players felt their first time playing through the fantastic events of the first ground breaking Half-Life game.
While the “original” Gordon Freeman silently accepted the events of Half-Life, this Freeman certainly doesn’t as he deals with jumping facehuggers, poorly designed scaffolding and moronic scientists as he tries to escape Black Mesa.
Check out the video below for the first episode of Freeman’s Mind and check out Accursed Farms site for the series to see all the other episodes that have come out thus far.
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