Half-Life

The Good
STORY You are Gordon Freeman - research assistant at the Black Mesa - goverment run - science facility. Your day starts off as normal, a ride in the tram to your post, the standard checks and so on and so forth... Then it all quite simply - goes to hell. An experiment goes horribly horribly wrong, and a whole bunch of interdimentional aliens arrive at black mesa - they don't bring peace. Things get even worse when the Military being sent in to rescue you are really there to clean up the mess.

GRAPHICS Ok it's 2003 and well back then the graphics were not too brilliant - but I'll just shut my eyes and take myself back to early 1999 where the Quake 3 engine had just started to hatch and we all went "oh my!" The textures and characters are by todays standards - horribly outdated and just plan "ewww!!" Back then in 1998 they were not really concidered brilliant - but nevertheless passable. There are some cool things, like the gibs the excessive amounts of blood one scientist can have and so on. The animation of the characters are very well done, very fluid (for 1998) and nicely done. From the multiple feelers of that large squid alien that likes to spid acid and charge you, to the headcrabs that lunge from nowhere groping in the air with their claws for your face. Other animations like the guards, hapless scientists and other miscalanious things are all well done in my opinion. Other cool things are the random piece of junk that burst out of boxes and bits of debris that fall from things.

Characters are a bit lax, you see THE SAME guard over and over again while there's at least 4 different scientists...Alien models are generally well done, fairly detailed and such, the alien guns are pretty cool as well - like the little alien mine critter that tries to eat your finger.

CONTROLS Standard FPS config, WASD for movement, E for activation, Left mouse for shooting, Right for Secondary fire and so on

SOUND Very very good. While the echos are a bit grating on my latest sound card (it just loves reverb) all the small effects like footsteps, alien sounds and such are well done. And there are also the small things like the wirring of a sentry gun, and the beeping of it locking onto you, plus how in echoy rooms you can hear things crawling in the darkness and so on. The voice acting is also pretty good - while a bit sterotypical (nerdy scientists) it's ok.

GAMEPLAY Now firstly - the game is linear - totally 100% linear - no alternate paths, no different ways though a situation it's 100% scripted. So what makes it so great? The answer is in it's moments, and details. Half-Life is like being in a very high octane movie with something new always around the corner. You turn to go across a catwalk, only to have a large creature teleport in mid-air and crash onto the catwalk destroying it. Things that hang from the clieling and drag you up to be eaten spew remains when killed, fans whirl hapless scientists into them, monsters eat and claw hapless scientists. a scientist hangs off a piece of debris before falling off...(yes they are cannon fodder) What also makes this game great are the situations that you are placed in - they do require you to think a bit. And while keyhunting is almost completely non existant, it's trying to work out how to defeat this seemingly invincible boss....then you hear a guard "it listens for things" Yes - no longer does a boss mean you pummel what ever you have into it - no this one meant you had to sneak around it then activate the fuel and oxygen of the blast chamber and fry it to pieces. The other two bosses were also interesting, one was completely invincible, the other well that was a shame. It looked like a giant baby...thing....and it required a but of a jumping puzzle to kill. But what makes this game replayable - it's just the situations there are so many moments in Half Life that make it so hard to forget.

The Bad
Well...ok it was a tad hard. Especially the jumping aspects of it. Some parts were just almost insanely hard that you just gave up for the night, Mainly thoese parts involved some mechanical thing that tracked and shot you - or the guards with their devious AI.

The other niggle about the game is the linarity of it - while a situation may be cool at starters - other times it's plain annoying when you've seen it for the 15th time after dying from it.

Also the ending just sucks...it is really a truly disapointing end to such a great game. The final levels are more or less like Turok rather than Half Life

The Bottom Line
Play it if you have not. For this a rare game that is a stunning classic