Half-Life

The Good
I honestly don't know how everyone can be wrong about the exact same thing, but I suppose that's how you kill an American president back in the 1960's. I read over and over again that the best thing about Half-Life is the story. Well, it's a very average story: something goes wrong at a top secret facility and it's up to one guy to save the world from an alien invasion, even though the government tries to stop him. If you disagree, then what point could you make that would spoil the story? You can't , because the plot is paper thin. It's not like someone is someone's father, one someone is actually a ghost, or that someone you didn't think was a dude is actually a dude!! See, those are meaty stories, some with more meat on the bone than others.

Now, what it excels at is how to tell the story. By only using your protagonist's POV the entire story you are witness to how this common sci-fi story could play out practically in the real world. Gone are power-ups that spin around in mid-air. If you find weapons there is a reason why that weapon is there, as in being in a weapon lock up or near the body of a fallen soldier. Basically it's taking a movie and filling in all of the blanks when the camera isn't there to explain what happened. How did he get back to full health? Oh, he crawled around in back through the air ducts and so on. This idea of logic adds to the plausibility of the story, and thus our immersion into it.

Having every area bumped into smaller areas to facillitate numerous yet very short load times makes the game into basically one level that just continues on and on. But where Half-Life succeeds is in it's use of set pieces that punctuate the flow of this one, long level and makes the game memorable. So there isn't the dam level, or the commando assault on the surface level, or fighting the helicopter level; instead you remember it for the set piece and not a level, something that increases your immersion in this game greatly.

Immersion is important because the game attempts to let you experience all the things you'd ever wanted to do in games (or life, if you're really ambitious). Fight commandos, helicopters, tanks (I'm not sure, I finished the game half a lifetime ago), use homing RPG's... immersion makes the experience much more visceral, and therefore a much better gaming experience.

Another thing I found great about this game is how you identify with this guy, faceless save for the box art or any fan pic in which he is always holding the crowbar. By making him late in the beginning of the game and giving him the option of turning on the security alarm in the reception area makes him a guy like you and me; even though he works at a top secret government facility, it's crappy!

The Bad
Even though it tells the story well it really doesn't make much sense. So who is this G-Man guy? Why is he always behind bulletproof glass? How can this Gordon Freeman guy be late for work in the beginning and in the end be taking down highly trained extremely dangerous army operatives? Doesn't it cost a fortune to run (and clean) Black Mesa? Isn't it so big that you can see it from outer space, let alone at the side of the oad that borders it?

For Half-Life to be true Gordon Freeman has to be running from one coincidence to another, and in the end it's just too many: in Half-Life one guy saw/caused the beginning of the invasion, keeps running into the mysterious G-man, and in the end travels to another dimension. See, if there were cut scenes and some invisable camera was watching secret proceedings that weren't privvy to common knowledge then you can accept that. This device hurts the believability of the game, and as such the story. In that case, how can the story "rock"?

The NPC's really weren't that thrilling (unlike DOOM3, there aren't any Asians around waiting to be turned into zombies). Really they're just there to spout some exposition and then open a door. Back in the day on planethalflife there was a section called the Scientist Killing Club; this inspired me to play through the game again, only this time I would try to kill as many "innocent" NPC's as I can. You know, once they open a door you can kill anyone you want. What kind of story is that? That just means the NPC's role in Half-Life are really not that important.

It is too bad about the last third on Xen. I would have appreciated a shorter but better game. I think this is a case of making it longer just to satisy the common consumer and also making it harder just because you are getting close to the end. 2D platformers are 2D because they work well in 2D. I think with a well-thought out first and second half you're bound to be let down at the end. By the way, I've done both choices, but for what? The game ends either way.

The Bottom Line
Half-Life is worth playing but not worth worshipping. Games matured a bit with Half-Life, but this is definitely not a "thinking man's shooter" by any account. In retrospect Half-Life doesn't deserve all of the acclaim it received for its time, but then people thought Half-Life had an amazing story because people hadn't ever been told a story that well through a FPS.

It's funny that the one game that influenced Half-Life the most, DOOM, will then rip it off Half-Life in DOOM3: arriving late, being witness to the "resonance cascade", jumping through portals, and even another monorail ride!

In truth, it was unicorn b lynx who got me really thinking about games and also prompted me to get involved on this site, so it's all your fault. Myself, I got tired of reading "pwns" and "rox!" and "suks!"

The Good
If there is anything good to say about Half Life, it is this: weapon feedback. Half Life is first and foremost a shooter, it is your method of interacting with the world, and for the most part, the weapons look solid, feel solid, and sound quite good. The weapons were varied but kept well with the theme of the game and were placed logically, and just as you needed them. Specifically the .357, the shotgun and the gaus cannon provide great feel, sound, and do a good job of killing your enemy.

Half Life flows well from one region to another, with quick loading transition spots that are barely noticeable, save for a subtle change in the lightmap on occasion. You move through several environments which are mostly labs, warehouses, utility centers and the outdoors, along with an alien environment. Half Life does deliver in giving a sense of physically moving from one place to the other.

Memorable moments can be had a few times, particularly the Ichthyosaur and the encounter with the Tentacle in the missile silo, along with much smaller scenarios.

The world is fairly detailed with mild touches reminiscent of Build era games, details like the microwave in the waiting room which can have the power go up higher and higher, until it ruins a meal, and the soda machines which produce cans.

The Bad
Half Life fails mostly on where they claimed their strengths to be. It is billed as the thinking man's shooter, yet there is little thinking required, merely trial and error. You are guided through the entire game on a mostly linear path, where every action you take, save a few exceptions, is required to progress, if it is the wrong action, you are punished by an arbitrary obstacle, or worse, pain or death. Every puzzle encountered, every scripted event, every new weapon and every enemy is placed in such a way that you have to find it then and there, and every other player of the game experiences it in the same order with the same effects. There is no way to own your experiences in Half Life as it can be adequately followed with a walkthrough.

Half Life's storyline is that of Doom's, only with marines coming in as a third party. Scientists tinker with technology, a portal appears and aliens invade, however instead of military being on base to help stop it as in Doom, they come in later and do a cover up. The only true spin on this is that you play a scientist and thus must face both groups. At first it is cool to see marines duking it out with aliens, but replaying scenarios reveals that due to the low level of variance in the ai, it usually turns out exactly the same. Half Life in terms of story plays like Doom where the former marines are instead current marines, and you have to sit through cutscenes (true you never stop being able to move, but you're locked into an area for the duration of an NPC speaking).

Half Life is a cold world, the NPCs have little personality and do little to garner sympathy, in comparison with Unreal's nali, or in opposition the civilians of Blood 2 which are actively made to be disliked. The NPCs serve mostly as mobile keys for the typical locked door.

The artificial intelligence is superficial, but looks great at a glance. Marines seem to take cover and seem to want to live, until you realize that they behave nearly the same regardless of your approach style. It is rewarding to toss a grenade at a group of soldiers and hear them scream "Grenade!" and duck, but the ducking seems to happen regardless of the grenades position, and Ive successfully taken out a squad with a single grenade, as they all ducked right around it. Half Life's ai can be summed up with being on par with Quake 2's in the use of basic breadcrumbs, and stylized with scripted events.

The level design though linear was fairly solid, up until Xen, the alien planet which functions mostly as a jumping puzzle with nuisance enemies. Throughout the game the levels serve mostly as a way to kill time until the next scripted event by mowing down mindless Vortigaunts and Headcrabs.

Lastly, who coded this interface? Half Life seems to be using an external program for its menu, which leads to a lot of mode switching for your monitor. And what for? The mouse driven interface? I really don't understand why it was done this way, and it makes it a chore to do simple things like changing your controls or looking at your saved game list.

The Bottom Line
On the whole Half Life is a basic shooter that attempts a cinematic quality by playing to the weakness of cinema - linearity and lack of input. It is a decent first play through which loses itself as you move forward. Good for $10, but not for the awards it has received, and definitely not the original retail price.

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...