Name: Half-life
Format: PC CD-ROM
Developer: Valve Software
Publisher: Sierra (now Vivendi)
Year: 1998
ELSPA rating: 15+
The seminal FPS developed for the PC by Valve Software, and published in Britain in November 1998.
The game, a sci-fi horror game, surpassed all games that had gone before it, and is still widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best First Person Shooter ever made.
The game was released on one CD, and has been available now by itself in both a cardboard box and a DVD case, (both with similar orange artwork incorporating the lambda symbol), as a "Game of the Year" edition (the artwork was the same, but overlaid with a picture of Gordon Freeman in his Hazard Suit, carrying a shotgun) and now as part of the Half-life Generation compilation pack, which has artwork of a similar design, but using black as the main colour.
It was given over 50 Game of the Year awards by magazines and web based publications, and the British Publication PC Gamer awarded it the title of "Best Game Ever". The same publication put Half-Life at #1 in their list of the top 100 games ever for the second year running, in their September 2001 issue.
In the game players take control of a scientist, named Gordon Freeman. He is employed at the top secret "Black Mesa" complex, researching anomalous materials. After a confidential experiment on an unknown material goes wrong, all hell breaks loose in the Black Mesa complex. Aliens teleport in and proceed to kill most of Gordon's comrades, and generally destroy the complex.
This leaves Gordon restricted to using unorthodox method of getting around - eg. lift is broken = climb inside the lift shaft and use ladder. This style of gameplay was something that FPS gamers had rarely if ever seen before and so Half-Life was a huge success. In Britain, Half-Life is the second best selling PC title ever, behind The Sims. Half-Life, including Half-Life Generation; a pack which features the original game and it's two commercial add-on packs, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life Blue Shift; has sold approximately 470 000 copies in the UK alone, (data accurate to around July 2002).
Reasons for Half-Life's success
- Half-Life ran on a comprehensive engine based on the Quake code from Id Software which was easy to use, and once the mod community got hold of it, there was no stopping them. There has been an endless stream of mods of various levels of quality, with perhaps the most notable and fmous being Counterstrike which continued the internet multiplayer revolution that Quake and more specifically Quakeworld had started. Some mods like Counter strike provided a multiplayer world to fight in, and some provided more user made levels for Half-Life, with perhaps new weapons, or a different theme. Both these kinds of mods have given professional style output, with Gunman Chronicles from Rewolf being an amateur mod which went commercial after Valve decided they liked it. Other examples of mods include They Hunger 1-3 by Neil Manke (single player), Deathmatch Classic / DMC (multiplayer) and Team Fortress Classic (multiplayer) by Valve themselves, and Poke 646 (single player).
- Innovative and amusing weapons. Half-Life featured FPS staple weapons such as pistol, machine gun, rocket launcher, shotgun, grenades, but then wowed players with some of the most original guns seen so far. An alien's hand which shot out homing bees (named the hornetgun) was amusing, but the true alien weapon classic were the snarks. These were little alien walking/scuttling bombs which once picked up could be thrown out into the world to wreak havoc. They could be used to distract soldiers while you shot them, but the a more amusing game involved throwing snarks into an empty room (at which point they realised there was no enemy and turned to run at Gordon). The thrill of avoiding death at the hands of a room full of snarks was excellent. Other weapons of note include the satchel charges, laser trip mines and the sniper's favourite, the crossbow.
- The enemies. The variety of enemies were not just something you gazed at, in the split second before you wasted them, because usually they ran away, took cover, got their mates to lay down support fire, and killed you before you got the chance. The days of strolling into a room and shooting enemies one by one were over - and nowhere was this more aptly illustrated than when you fought the assassins. The twisting plot of the game basically has the government send in the marines and black ops teams to clear up the Black Mesa mess, but the twist is that they have also been ordered to silence all personnel, because an illegal experiment has been carried out. If they got free and managed to tell anyone, then the government would be in trouble. Naturally, twisted government logic dictates that all Black Mesa personnel must die. Fighting the marines is fun, but ultimately easy(ish). But when the player meets the Black Clad assassins, who hear every sound the player makes, can jump over 4 metre high crates, and are almost invisible when stationary, they quickly realise they are in for the fight of their lives. Another amusing aspect of fighting was that occasionally you met a group of aliens and a group of marines at the same time - and if you kept hidden, you could stand by and watch them fight, leaving you with very little work to do. The AI of enemies does look a little suspect these days, but at the time nothing came close. The different forms of aliens, from tiny headcrabs (heavily influenced by H.R. Giger's Alien design, to huge blind tentacle beasts who tracked you by sound, all the aliens (and all the characters in the game in general) were excellently modelled and animated.
- Immersion. As previously mentioned, in Half-Life you see everything from one point of view, and so it is all one seamless transition. Players feel like they are Gordon Freeman, and in this respect Half-Life was unique.
UPDATE!!! Valve have just recently (April 2003) announced Half-Life 2. Details are sketchy, but apparently it will appear at E3 this year, and then Magazines will be allowed to release pictures. I'm gonna have to get a new PC for this one...
There are a ton of Half-Life nodes on E2, and it's time to get organised. Presenting...
Tadaa etc.
- The original game and official sequels.
- Details about the game:
- Other games and mods based around Half-Life:
- Other random insanity which may or may not relate to Half-Life:
If I've missed any (which is very likely) please msg me and let me know about it.
Thanks to MightyMooQuack for some additions to the metanode, and for telling me about HL2's announcement before I found out any other way.