2. A Middle Aged Woman's Obsession with Pastel Colours
This game looks good, I can't deny that, but then you look a little closer, and nothing quite sits right. I found that even in dingy areas everything is a pastel colour like Valve are trying to make sure everyone is staying relatively calm and not taking any pent up rage out into the real world. The walls on the prison levels look great from a distance, but then you walk up and realise that all these painted dents and scratches seem oddly flat on the wall, for textures there really isn't any texture. The faces on the ensemble cast are all unsettling. The G-man in particular just looks wrong, and this isn't a choice by Valve, this is due to him having shiny eyes but flat skin, it makes him look like a ventriloquist dummy, I know he's not real and technology at the time was at a certain point in terms of realism, but for a game people hold in such high regard I find it off putting then and now.