Half-Life

aka: Bantiao Ming, HL, Hλlf-Life, Quiver
Moby ID: 155
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

The Black Mesa Research Facility is an ultra-secret laboratory under a government contract to conduct top-secret and extremely volatile experiments. The scientist Gordon Freeman is a Black Mesa employee. One morning, as usual, he pits his way to the research facility for a run-of-the-mill experiment. However, Gordon comes to realize that it might not be as ordinary as he thought. Odd things happen as he makes his way to one of the Black Mesa test chambers. Even stranger things happen when he begins to move the test sample towards the anti-mass spectrometer.

At that moment, everything goes horribly wrong. Aliens from the dimension Xen suddenly invade the facility, injuring or killing many of the employees. Soon afterwards, marines arrive to contain the situation by killing the aliens as well as the surviving human witnesses. Gordon understands what that means: he will have to fight his way through both aliens and marines to get to the top of the Black Mesa complex and to freedom.

The story of Half-Life is told entirely in-game: everything is seen through the eyes of the protagonist. Most story elements unfold via scripted sequences, triggered by the player reaching a certain area. If other characters have information to reveal, they address Gordon directly. The Black Mesa complex in the game is made up of both distinct levels which progress in a linear fashion as well as hubs where backtracking may be required to unlock further areas.

The game's weapon arsenal mostly consists of realistic weapons like pistols, machine guns and explosives, but there are also futuristic energy weapons developed at Black Mesa as well as organic weapons acquired from the invading aliens. Most weapons feature an alternate firing mode.

Enemies fall into two categories: aliens and human soldiers. While most of the aliens are not very bright, the humans display some relatively advanced artificial intelligence: they seek cover, retreat when hit and try to drive the player from his cover by throwing grenades. Some of the alien enemies cannot be killed by normal means. The environment must be used against them instead, going with a general tendency of the game to alternate the combat with environmental puzzles.

As of the 25th Anniversary Update from 17 November 2023, the Steam version of Half-Life includes content from Half-Life: Uplink as well as sprays and maps from Half-Life: Further Data V.1.

Spellings

  • 半条命 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 戰慄時空 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

80 People (58 developers, 22 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 94% (based on 59 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.3 out of 5 (based on 537 ratings with 30 reviews)

The best 1st person 3D shooter I have ever played.

The Good
Half-Life is remarkable, both from the technological aspect and the design aspect. It has a REAL story line, and as the plot unfolds, you will slowly put together what happened in the Black Mesa Research Facility. The story line is linear, but it is still a VAST improvement over its predecessors (except Unreal, of course). The engaging story line is the reason one keeps going, and although the game is divided to levels, it feels more like chapters in a book then levels in a game.

The graphics are very good and the engine is quite fast. Although the game uses a modified version of the Quake 2 engine, it looks nothing like it. Clever use of pre-rendered shadows, pre-lighted textures, and wise modeling, helps to created the most realistic looking scenes ever in a real time 3D game. Everything looks, feels and reacts real.

The AI is unprecedented. The enemies you generally face are not tough. They are clever. Very clever. The marines, particularly, are amazing. The act as a group, covering each others back, taking cover and always moving, changing their position to better get their target - you. They will never: blindly charge you, get in each other's line of fire or stay in one place, waiting for you to finish them off. They will: run from cover to cover, retreat to a better position, and throw a grenade at you before charging at you. They move, act and fight so much like real marines, that I won't be surprised to find that the developers consulted actual marines, or at least had some knowledge and experience in combat in an urban environment. It is obvious that without the power suit, which protect you, you won't last 20 seconds against even one squad of marines. The same, although to a lesser extent, applies to the aliens in the game. They too will act as a group, run away if necessary, and come at you when you least expect it. I sometimes load save games simply to experience the feel of fighting these marines, trying out various ways to trap them, or pick them off one by one.

The level design is clever and varied. The levels are realistic: the labs look like labs, and contain a lot of equipment, offices, and elevators. The security stations contain weapons lockers, sandbags, barricades and many trigger-happy guards. The missile silo contains blast doors, sophisticated panels and a giant alien beast, which you can't kill, so you will have to find another way to move around it. In fact, the levels are GOAL oriented and not kill oriented. You job is not to kill everything in sight, but simply to get from one place to another,or restore the power to certain areas and so on. There will be some obstacles which you can't kill, and you will have to use your wits to go around. All this makes for an extremely addictive game - and I couldn't leave it until I finished it.

The sound effects are of exceptional quality, even for a 3D shooter. And if you have a 3D capable sound card - you will find that the 3D sound makes for a completely immersive environment, and you can actually rely on it in combat.

All these things make Half-Life the best 3D shooter I have ever played, and the only one I didn't get tired of after a few levels.

The Bad
No game is perfect, and there are always a few snags:

  • The plot is interesting, though it is not overly original. But the real problem is the ending, which is very unsatisfying, and is a very big disappointment.
  • There are some very small parts of the game, which I think should have been kept out of it. For example, there is a section where you simply jump from platform to platform, and if you fall, you die. It is very annoying, since the game interface, although perfect for a 3D shooter, is a very bad choice for a platform game.
  • The save game mechanism is horrible - since you can't actually write a description for your game. It simply gives you the place, and the time the game was saved. This is a REAL problem when two people play the game on the same computer…



The Bottom Line
This game is still one of the best of its kind: smart enemies, clever design and immersive and challenging gameplay. What more could you want?

Windows · by Mickey Gabel (332) · 2000

Pleased to make your acquaintance Mr. Half-Life, but haven't we met before?

The Good
Interesting weapons with good variety, great sound and graphics, some impressive stages and good ballistics for an arcade game. Also there's great interaction in the game and there are some truly excellent action sequences, like a whole episode where you are on a little train and one where you have to sneak past a giant tentacle. The game also can create one hell of an atmosphere.

The Bad
Well, the npcs look like the same two guys all through the game, and the AI in the game looks amazing, but that's because it merely follows some clever pre-programmed steps, you'll quickly learn it's "holes" and how to take advantage of them. Also the final boss sucks, it is merely a puzzle-like exercise with zero challenge to it.

But the real bad thing in Half-Life is that it is completely over-rated. Half-life is a great game, but let's not confuse the issues, that doesn't mean it does anything new or innovative, it merely does everything we have seen before better. For instance, the storyline is a piece of crap, it's the usual "bad aliens come to kick ass" thing but updated to our current times (cue in the government cover-ups and X-files references). Why does it seem better then? Because it is made a part of the game. In previous games you played through a level/mission and then you sat back to watch the story unfold in cutscenes, on Half-Life the story unveils before your eyes in the game!! Revolutionary you say? I say System Shock, just because it's the first one that comes to mind. The gameplay itself is also unninspired, and shows the true nature of the game, for instance: take the giant tentacle sequence: what's it really about? flipping switches, and shooting anything in the way... However by lots of inventive designs and atmosphere tricks, we get duped into thinking it's actually a deep non-linear affair, millions of times I was fooled into thinking "wow, there must be hundreds of possible ways to finish this game" Wrong, Half-Life is a shooter pure and simple, and though it may seem deep it is actually Doom Redux: kill everything in the room, flip the switch, move on... ad infinitum.

As such, it is very easy to understand the reason Half-Life is so successful. Half-Life is nothing but a sophisticated Doom, yet everyone hails it as the next coming in terms of level design, storyline, etc... Don't get me wrong, like Doom, I love Half-Life! But I know what the game is REALLY about. In the end it is all about illusions really, you may say that I'm being overly cynical, and that illusions is what gaming is all about anyway.... but still, I can't help but think that the gaming industry can provide something different that just newer, better versions of Doom. I'd like to think that they can provide original storylines and true depth of gameplay instead of pulling quarters out of our ears, showing us a series of nifty tricks and making us believe we have had the time of our lives

The Bottom Line
To be fair let me state that Half-Life really IS an atmospheric rollercoaster ride to remember. It is one helluva game and I loved playing it. But does it deserve it's success? I can't help but feel outraged when people that have been in the business for years get the shaft because they refuse to do the same stupid things over and over and try to be innovative, while along comes Valve, rehashes Doom, and suddenly they get considered the next design gods of the century... No, something must be wrong...

Windows · by Zovni (10504) · 2011

It's not a game...It's like your living it..

The Good
This is one of the most amazing games that can get you so engrossed into it, that you forget its a game. The engine and gameplay was so unique for 1998. The way you could interact with other characters and witness cool events in realtime made it feel like a movie. The graphics were really good to back up the gameplay, you could hardly tell it was made from the Quake 2 engine. Valve really modified the engine and made it good. The movements and characteristics of the enemies were really cool. The sound and lightning of the game made it downright scary. Even more incredible was the online multi player and the ease of custom and mods which lead to another classic..Counter-Strike!

The Bad
It's a pretty hard game, especially in the latter levels when the army comes after you. Apart from that, the AI for the NPC characters is a little weak sometimes but still pretty good considering when the game was made.

The Bottom Line
If you love FPS games or Horror or just PC games in general, you must play this once and see what made it so special. Once you see the intro, which is one of the best of all time, you will get hooked.

Windows · by The Ring Hawk (826) · 2003

[ View all 30 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Narrative, wait what? Donatello (466) Jul 15, 2012
Sorry, Valve xroox (3895) Feb 12, 2009

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Half-Life appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Advertisement

Very early beta footage of the game, as well as interviews with some of the programmers, is available on the Diablo expansion pack Hellfire, released by Sierra a full year before the game ever shipped. Sierra already had advertisements for Half-Life in many of their products back then.

Cancelled ports

  • Half-Life, at one point, was completely finished for the Dreamcast console. Prima (the Official Strategy Guide folks) even had a Dreamcast-exclusive guide published. Unfortunately, the game wasn't published - probably due to the fact that SEGA announced that they would no longer produce new Dreamcasts. In certain circles of the Internet, a leaked copy can still be found and ran on a Dreamcast.
  • A Macintosh port was in the works from Westlake interactive and reached beta before being cancelled because of concerns about responsibility for tech support.

Development

In its first finalized form, as it would have been published if the original release date was kept, Half-Life was nothing more than a total conversion of Quake with new enemies and levels. In the one additional year spent on development the game transformed into the form that led it to critical and commercial success.

Engine

Half-Life was released a full year after Quake II and it's a common belief that it was based on the Quake II engine. This is not true. It is based on the original Quake engine and it's more than fair to say that it was modified beyond recognition by the Valve team. Amongst the additions were built-in 3D accelerator support, skeletal systems and shadow casting (the latter didn't make it into the game). Valve now refers to this engine as "GoldSrc". This is probably how the "Source" engine from Half-Life 2 got its name.

German version

There is a special German version which features robots as enemies, green blood instead of red and innocent people cannot be killed any longer. The robot design was outlined by Sierra's Germany division, then sent to Valve in Seattle, where the artists created and implemented the tin soldiers. The changes in the game's code and art, together with the text and speech localization, served to delay the German version by full four months. By then, even casual gamers had already purchased the original version, which was freely for sale up to its ban. However, Half-Life proved to be so immensely popular that the German robo-version still sold over 50,000 copies, so the venture was ultimately successful for Sierra.

On December 16, 1998, the US version of Half-Life was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.

Gina Freeman

Apparently, Valve had written a part for Gordon's wife, Gina, to appear in the game, this idea got scrapped but she still made it to the game, her model was the one used for the holographic trainer.

id Software

When id Software saw what Valve was doing with their engine, they were reminded of their original idea for a seamless, story-based DOOM and thought it would fail. It didn't.

Innovations

Half-Life was influential in many little ways, popularising several gameplay devices which have subsequently become standards, such as: * The between-episode text which appears, overlaid on the screen, before slowly fading out (adopted not just in other computer games, but in several different Linux windowing systems too) * A training segment which is presented as an integral part of the storyline * The practice of rendering cut-scenes with the in-game engine * Blood-splatters and other persistent stains * Semi-random NPC speech and 'interaction' in an otherwise straightforward action game * Weaponry which needs to be manually reloaded between magazine changes * Constant playflow: the levels directly connect to each other

Inspiration

According to Valve's Gabe Newell, originally Half-Life was inspired by Stephen King's novella The Mist. However the game evolved so much from the preliminary concepts that the only things that remained were the horror/technology combination and the designs for the Bull Squid and the blind tentacle.

Lambda

Half-Life's lambda symbol is not the scientific symbol for half-life, but is instead the decay constant in the differential equation for exponential decay. The actual scientific symbol used for half-life is t1/2.

Mods

Counter-Strike was not a freak occurrence. Valve made the game editor immediately available, produced the mod Team Fortress Classic as an example of a finished mod, and also sponsored "Mod Expos", events where modders could present their work to other gamers and the press.

Plot

According to planethalflife.com: "the material that makes up the three green triangles protecting Nihilanth is the same as the crystal sample which you pushed into the beams to start this whole mess in the first place. Valve Software originally intended to make this connection more obvious but never did."

References

  • The security office is in sector 7G. Homer Simpson works in a sector with the same name.
  • The Gluon Gun was nicknamed "The Egon" after the Ghostbusters Character Egon Spengler. The Gluon gun projects a plasma stream similar to the ones used by the Ghostbusters.
  • The surnames on the lockers where Gordon goes to collect his HEV suit are of people from the development team. Gordon also has a book by Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw in his locker.

References to the game

The game makes an appearance in season 1, episode 22 of Lost, a popular TV series. Some in-game action is shown, and the characters shortly discuss the use and the effectiveness of the crowbar as a weapon.

Remakes

  • In 2004, Valve released a re-mastered version using Half Life 2's Source engine, called Half-Life: Source.
  • In 2012, a group of fans released a remake of their own, called Black Mesa. The team's goal was to provide a completely new and more modern version of the original experience, since according to them, Valve's remake "didn't fully live up to the potential of a Source engine port of Half-Life". In fact, most of the game's content remained unchanged: Half-Life: Source mainly added new water and physics effects, but didn't upgrade the game's textures or character models.

Sales

As of 2007, the game sold of over eight million since its release. (source)

Shotgun

There's a minor technical error with the shotgun. It's presented in the game as a double-barreled weapon, and the alternative fire mode shoots two shells at half the speed. However, the shotgun is modeled on a single-barreled weapon, the popular Franchi SPAS-12, which appears in several computer games. What looks like a second barrel is actually the under-barrel tubular magazine, which holds the shells.

Sound engine

Half-Life was one of the first games to utilize a software-driven environmental sound engine. Effects are applied in context of room size and surfaces of reflection. Reverb effects are calculated in realtime and applied on the fly as sounds are triggered.

University of Innsbruck

In the game manual, the first two pages contain a fictional letter from the administrative offices of the Black Mesa Research Facility to Dr. Gordon Freeman, concerning his upcoming employment. The address on the letter indicates that Freeman was a visiting fellow at the Institute for Experimental Physics, University of Innsbruck, before moving to Black Mesa. In contrast to the common practice of using fictitious addresses for storytelling purposes, the listed address is actually real. As confirmed by the official university website, "Technikerstraße 25, A-6020 Innsbruck" is the real-world location of Innsbruck University's Institute for Experimental Physics.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 1999 (Issue #177) – Game of the Year
    • January 2001 (Issue #199) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
    • March 2001 (Issue #200) - #1 Game of All Time (Readers' Choice)
    • March 2001 (Issue #200) - #2 Game of All Time (Editors' Choice)
  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – #2 Top Game of All Time
    • 2012 – #1 Top PC Gaming Intro
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #17 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2000 - #1 in the "All-Time Top 50 Games" poll
    • October 2001 - #1 in the "Top 50 Best Games of All Time" list
    • April 2005 - #1 in the "Top 50 Best Games of All Time" list
  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/1999 - Best Game in 1998
    • Issue 01/1999 - Best Shooter in 1998
  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1999 – Best Action Shooter in 1998
  • Retro Gamer
    • October 2004 (Issue #9) – #38 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by doj.

Macintosh added by Sciere. Linux added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Tomer Gabel, Adam Baratz, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Zack Green, Apogee IV, Daniel Saner, Paulus18950, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, Plok, lethal_guitar, MrFlibble, FatherJack.

Game added June 6, 1999. Last modified March 18, 2024.