Half-Life

Synopsis

by Matthew House

The revolutionary Half-Life set the standard for subsequent first-person shooters. As each new section or level is reached, the game pauses to load it, making for massive, seamless environments. Nearly all levels are located in or around the Black Mesa Research Facility, including subterranean railroads, laboratories, ventilation shafts, cafeterias, missile silos, and eventually the aliens' home world. The diverse range of enemies includes tank-like warrior spore plants, headcrabs, and possessed scientists, just to name a few. Horror novelist Marc Laidlaw's storyline tells a chilling tale of government scandal and experiments gone wrong.

As if the protagonist of the story, Gordon Freeman, doesn't have enough on his hands with the varying cadre of foes, he's being hunted by marines and government assassins as well. As Freeman, you need to find weapons to survive. The arsenal includes a melee wrench, pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, rocket and grenade launcher, and various alien armaments scavenged off dead soldiers. Unlike many first-person shooters, health and ammunition packs are located in sensible locations. First aid kits are attached to walls in medical laboratories, while ammunition is logically found in weapon depots or on dead marines. Your protective suit acts as armor and can be replenished in certain locales.

Half-Life uses a modified version of id Software's Quake engine (combined with about 50 lines of code from the Quake 2 engine), resulting in realistic levels and locations with fearsome aliens waiting to end your struggle at every turn. While the game is flawless, the online deathmatch aspect suffered initially from high server latency, later fixed through a series of patches. Winning over 50 Game of the Year awards and named best game of all time by PC Gamer magazine, Half-Life is an extraordinary achievement that established the benchmark for future games in the genre.

Features

• Engage nightmarish monsters in deadly combat and solve puzzles critical to your quest
• Enhanced graphics for richly believable environments
• Challenging level design and wickedly clever AI
• Multiplayer support for up to 32 players via Internet

Extra Credits

by Michael L. House

Half-Life takes the first person shooter genre a step into the future. Though it is only running on an advanced version of the Quake II engine, it does away with the traditional flow of level to level gameplay. Instead, it vows for one big, long level from start to end. It's also more realistic than it's predecessors in that weapons and items are laid out more scarcely and logically. The game itself was definitely inspired by lots of horror and science fiction books and movies because of the organic monsters and laboratory and alien settings.

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