Hardwood Paroxysm presents: When the NBA and video games collide

Healthy Derrick Rose is Gordon Freeman

by Brian Schroeder (@Cosmis)

When it was released in 1998, Valve’s Half-Life was immediately and justifiably seen as one of the great works in the burgeoning art form that is video gaming. Set at Black Mesa, a remote government research facility overrun by a series of dimension hopping aliens and a government cleanup crew, the game’s level design, pacing and small moments of characterization set it apart from what might charitably be called the ocean of DOOM clones that ruled the first person shooter market at that time. Every person you run into (and some that you don’t) has some opinion of Gordon Freeman, the player character, based on what he’s done, what he’s doing, or what he’s about to do, despite the fact that he never speaks and, if played in the intended fashion, the player never once sees his face. This concept, of Gordon Freeman as savior, destroyer, active force in the world of the game, ingratiates him to the player, and helps them envision themselves as gaming’s most famous theoretical physicist.

This design choice pays massive dividends when the second game, Half-Life 2, is released in late 2004. Freeman, having spent the indeterminable decades between games in a state of limbo, hasn’t aged a day, yet his presence and his actions have already ascended to legend in the eyes of the beleaguered and now completely subjugated human race. Friendly NPCs treat Freeman’s arrival as something out of myth, and his victory as foretold. The game’s antagonist (and former unseen Black Mesa administrator), Wallace Breen, notes this in one of his one-sided, Orwellian conversations with the populace from atop the monolithic skyscraper known as the Citadel looming over City 17, the second game’s setting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGZHYut1gik&t=4m50s).

I take this long to come to Healthy Derrick Rose not only to properly contextualize a game that, sadly, not everyone might have played, but to note that Rose isn’t actually Gordon Freeman, he’s the Gordon Freeman that exists in the minds of the denizens of his world. The Gordon Freeman from the negative space between Half-Life games, one “imbued with romantic power” born from “magical thinking.” The Gordon Freeman who will save everyone, even if he can’t and hasn’t.

Healthy Derrick Rose, so often named as though that’s his full name, has become a messianic figure who wouldn’t be out of place roaming the depleted shorelines of Highway 17, a figure of great power and portentous, glorious purpose who has come to free us all and destroy the monolithic, interdimensional Combine empire represented by LeBron James. In reality, the idea of Derrick Rose has obscured the reality of Derrick Rose. A player who, while competent, will forever be judged next to the standard of what he was supposed to be, or what he might be, and will forever be found lacking. Healthy Derrick Rose will lead the Bulls to a championship. Healthy Derrick Rose will return with the sort of confidence and bravado he had before his knees exploded and he realized he was but a mortal man, and that he doesn’t actually have a Gravity Gun. We refer to a “Derrick Rose if he was never injured in the first place”, or “MVP Derrick Rose,” as if such a potential still exists somewhere out in the negative space and all he has to do is re-load his game to reach it.

http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DNVTxM_CzgDU&start1=0&video2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DpEz39-Kf02E&start2=0&authorName=TheOneFreePooh