Half-Life

Title: Half-Life
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: October 31, 1998
Date Played: 1999
Time Played: 40+ hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5

Opinion:
What a game, what a game!

Shortly after Half Life's release I heard buzz on the internet about how this was the next Doom, the next level.. the next amazing thing. And right off the bat I remember how different it felt from every other shooter.  First off, it was the first time that I have ever experienced a true prologue to a shooter. Half Life started with Gordon Freeman (you) having just another day at work, and for the first half an hour of the game you are simply interacting with people and going through the routines of a workday.  Every other shooter at the time would just spawn you in a room full of guys with a gun in hand and spend the first half of the game explaining to you where you are while you are mercilessly slaughter everyone.  Half Life was different it was the first shooter I have ever played that had a true beginning, climax and end, and not just the climax.

Infamous Crowbar

Not only was Half Life's pacing interesting and intriguing, it was the best looking shooter to date.  When you talked to other people their mouths actually moved, and they showed emotion. The guns felt great, with excellent sounds and explosions. It was clear from the first 10 minutes with Half Life that it was the next big thing.

One of my favorite and most memorable parts of the game is when you are crawling through the air duct and hear soldiers talking in the room that the duct is running through, then all of a sudden one of the soldiers says "What was that?"... I remember saying to myself.. "oh $#1t"... next moment you have bullets cutting holes in the duct with beams of light shooting through from one side to the other.  I felt that that scene was the most incredible graphical feat a video game has accomplished to date.

This was also the first game ever where I felt like I caused the conflict. Most (I even want to say all) other shooters simply threw you into ongoing conflict that was caused by something or someone else. It was a profound feeling of OH SNAP... I SCREWED EVERYONE...

So there I was enjoying the hell out of this amazing game, it was so good I didn't want it to end, but as every other game there has to be an end. And as I was ready for credits to roll after completing an epic battle with what I thought to be the final boss I get transported to the alien world... SAY WAAAAAT... that twist was so incredible (although the alien world is my least favorite part of the game).. but the fact that a dozen hours into the game everything gets turned on its head was unprecedented. You get new guns, the terrain changes completely, even the mechanics are altered as there is now different gravity.  It was crazy...

Half Life is a very well designed game that felt more like a movie than a mindless shooter.  It coined the infamous crowbar and set the benchmark for all first person shooters of the late 90's. It featured bosses that required thinking and observation.

Half Life's engine (based on the original Quake engine), went on to be used in a variety of genre defining mods, from Couter-Strike and Day of Defeat to Team Fortress.

Overall Half Life is a great game, which should be played by everyone at one point or another. Luckily for those that didn't have the opportunity to play it back in the late 90's Valve re-released it on Steam using the Half Life 2 engine, which makes it look a lot better, and adds physics. 

G-Man

PS - You are probably wondering... wait what.. who is that guy? And why is there this random text talking about this random guy? Well I thought it would be symbolic to finish off this post just like the game does... This is G-Man, no one knows who he is or what his mission is. You see him a few times in the most interesting places in the game, and at the very end you are offered an interesting choice.... I shall say no more... What a great game!