Half-Life

[pritchke]

It is one of those games that I have never played but was always meaning to. I saw Half-Life Anthology for under $15 and said I guess I will give it a try. I have to say I am quit impressed and I can see why it is considered a classic. The graphics today are still OK. Not as crisp as today's games but they do the job. Where half-life shines is in the little things, for example a room flooded with water with a live wire on the floor. If you go in you will be electrocuted so how can you enter. After pondering, you start to think will maybe, I can turn off the water, that won't do any good because the room will still be flooded, if only there was a switch, Ding!! Ding!! Ding!! Turn of the switch and enter the room. It is the detailed things like this that is making me see why this is such a great game. The problems are often very real, and while the solution is simple it takes a little getting used to as most games don't play with such realism. The story so far is done quite well and most characters seem to say something that enhance that.


I have played Halo and Halo 2 and while the vehicles are fun and the graphics are nice these little subtleties that make the original Half-Life so great are missing. I can't comment on Half-Life 2 but so far this id the best 3rd person shooter I have played.

[ 09-19-2006, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[johnny]

You know, i've never played Halflife before, only a modification called Blueshift, but i never even finished it. I'm always browsing in the bargainbins, and recently i picked up the Halflife GOTY edition, so soon i'll share your experiences, and finally find out why everyone thinks this game is so great.

[Bozos of Bones]

Jet Propulsion laboratory and "The Plant". One of the best, and certainly the most memorable part of the game.
Half Life rulz!

[JrKASperov]

Let's not forget those marines are still a pain in the buttox.

[Sir Krustin]

Originally posted by johnny: You know, i've never played Halflife before, only a modification called Blueshift, but i never even finished it. I'm always browsing in the bargainbins, and recently i picked up the Halflife GOTY edition, so soon i'll share your experiences, and finally find out why everyone thinks this game is so great.

You'll probably miss out on the "gee whiz" feeling that the graphics inspired when it first come out - even four years later, the graphics in that game were setting the bar that other games had to meet but these days that bar is being set by the Source engine (and it's contemporaries). The original engine is sadly lacking by today's standards.

That doesn't detract from the excellent level design and serviceable AI in the game. One funny moment that still sticks in my mind is the reaction of a soldier to a grenade I lobbed into a small room just as he entered. "Oh shi*BOOM*" [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Thoran]

It was an outstanding game in it's day... the best single player shooter on the market by a wide margin. Once you finish it pick up HL2... it's the 2005/2006 equivelant of HL and definitly has reset the bar for everyone else to try to match, AND it now has vehicles.

[ZFR]

I wasn't a big fan of first person shooters, till after Half Life came out, my firend (who liked FPSs) told me to try it and it will change my view of FPSs. He was right. It was one of the greatest games I've ever played and since then I started playing more FPSs.
What I liked about it was that unlike most other FPSs at that time you didn't start and play the game guns blazing just shooting everything in sight. The other FPSs there were mostly same with each newer one getting better by more weapons and more different enemies. Levels looked similar and you just shoot and shoot...
HL was different (that ride at the beginning was a very nice way of making an intro). You start a game in a peaceful laboratory, no weapons, no shooting, talking to other scientist about the weather. And there are those little things like pritchke said. Not puzzles a la RPG puzzles, but whereas in other FPSs when in trouble pull the trigger, in HL you actually had sometimes to stop and think. This made it have a completely different feeling, almost as if you were really in it and it was not just the game. And the different settings, labs, military bases, outside desert, alien world... And like others mentioned great graphics and very good AI of soldiers (compared to other games of that time).

Now as for expansions: Opposing Force was great. You play it from the soldier's perspective, new alines, new weapons, new abilities (rope swinging), but perhaps what was best was all those references to original HL as you go throughout. Like what you heard from Freeman's side you now hear as a soldier. And the boot camp was amazing. Probably the best in-game tutorial ever. Excellent game.

Blue Shift was like its initials: BS. Sure it was nice to play the game from yet a third perspective (the guards), but it was one of the few expansions that actually had less weapons than the original. And less aliens. wtf? It seemed the only thing in the game was to keep having references to the original HL and OF, which while being nice in OF soon got simply boring, and spotting the G-man at every turn (again in BS it's just repetitive). That said it was okay and did have its moments, and if you enjoyed HL and OF you should try BS to.

[ 10-12-2006, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: ZFR ]

[Dave G]

HL is amazing. Unlike games today with cutscene, cluttered interfaces and stuff that gets in the way, Half-life manages to tell its story without ever interfering with the player. It's not like Oblivion where time studdenly stops and you lose control of the camera when someone speaks. It's not like all these Cinematic games. The story is all around you. The story is seeing a scientist pulled into an airduct by an alien. The story is seeing a scientist say "we're rescued!", watching him turn a corner, and hearing gunfire. The story is something as silly as all weapons and ammo being found in logical locations.

They don't make them like they used to. Half-life is, in many ways, more of an RPG than a lot of RPGs...