Yes yes, reposted, for those who finally finished the experience of orange box on 360 and got a little taste of the half-life world ;)



What is it about video games that gets us hooked? What is it that captivates us? What is it that makes us so die hard towards a title that we will defend its roots to the day we die (dramatization)? Simple... a sense of escapism and adventure. A sense of relation, that you feel the experience while you are playing it, a total sense of immersion if you will. Many GREAT titles have pulled this off, but only a few stand tall as a monument to those who experienced those great titles around the time they came out.

One of these titles is the well known, and ever so popular Half-Life. Many months before Half-Life hit the shelf, there was an advertisement that I will always remember and consider one of the best advertisements ever! I ran across this advertisement in PC Gamer magazine, the entire front part of the advertisement consisted of words saying "Run. Shoot. Shoot. Run. Shoot. Run. Run. Run. Shoot." and it would go on and on covering the entire page, you then turn it over and it says 'Half-Life' and shows an image of a scientist with a head crab on his face granted I had no idea what the hell that creature was at the time, but it was enough to sell me on the title. And this is where the mystery began.



Many gaming friends of mine would ask each other "What the hell is this Half-Life? The advertisement is cool, but what the hell is it?" There were little to no indications, at least from what I had seen that this was even a first person shooter. I was unaware at the type of game it was other than the sleek advertising and the random image of a soldier, or a scientist with some ugly ass blob on its head. We pondered and pondered, wondering what this could have been, we waited those last few months until we could get our hands on it at the store. Then finally, in November of 1998, my friend calls me up and says "I got it, come over NOW" And so I did and the mystery that is Half-Life began to unfold before us.

One of the most captivating things about Half-Life, which really separated it from the rest in my opinion at the time this game came out (1998 DON'T FORGET THAT) was that it took a rather different approach to the first person shooter world. When you start the game, you hear this echoing chime of music rise through your speakers, and the screen fades out from the words 'Half-Life' which then begins to put you into the first person view right off the bat, sitting on this train in some strangely massive underground tunnel system. A light, female voice begins speaking to you, welcoming you to this strange place called "Black Mesa Research Facility". Now when me and my friend heard these words we were hooked, especially being ones who loved these 'government research' subjects with things like Area-51, Project Blue Book, etc. Well on this train ride you get an exact feeling of that, your in this massive, complex instillation with some military and government ties. And this is where the adventure that is Half-Life begins.



To continue off of what I said before, that being, what makes Half-Life so captivating, we have to push it further. Interaction, this was something vastly new, something different in the first person shooter world. Finally you had the chance to interact with characters, and Half-Life put you in a world where it really served a purpose to do so. But on top of that, you also had such an immersive environment to walk through. When you first arrive at the place you are ordered to work, you come across a lab of scientists and police guards, all of which talk to each other in somewhat scripted environments, and others walk around set paths and speak 2 or 3 words to you as you walk by. This was something exciting to a player who puts them self in the game, it was awesome to FINALLY have an experience such as this. These features, along with how well Half-Life introd the player into the game, makes Half-Life one of the most well developed and well thought out games of all time in my opinion.

But what really shined for me was when the mysteries involved in the storyline started to come into play with Half-Life. Those who are quite fond of the Half-Life series know what I'm talking about when I say the words "G-Man". Those know what I'm talking about when I say there are so many unanswered questions that are still lingering from the original Half-Life universe that tend to pop up ever so slightly in the newer chapters of Half-Life. I don't know of many other games, in my life of playing games, that have had such a complex mystery applied to them. Never before have I seen a game cause gamers to develop conspiracy theory's to the level of what gamers have done with the Half-Life universe and its storyline.

Maybe I just never got into other game storylines as I did with Half-Life but as far as I know, nothing has been so complex and so exciting to ponder about and witness. The title, the characters, the mystery. Like I just mentioned one of the greatest things that I love about the Half-Life series is its chain of mysteries and conspiracy theories. And the title, and the characters are all tied together with the mystery. What is Half-Life, well in definition form it's got several meanings but generally dance around the same thing.

Half-life - Noun

1. Physics. the time required for one half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate.
2. Pharmacology. the time required for the activity of a substance taken into the body to lose one half its initial effectiveness.
3. Informal. a brief period during which something flourishes before dying out.



You can possibly take a guess at how many mysteries can tie in with Half-Life's title, and its characters along with the other mysteries already surrounding them. If taken in a literal sense, half-life's title could have some relation that will eventually lead back to Black Mesa when the radioactivity from the nuke that destroyed it is withered away. Or it can be in relation to the human race that Gordan Freeman has been so desperately trying to save. Or it could refer to Gordan Freeman himself. There are so many avenues that have been taken with this title, and with the characters themselves, some seem rather stupid, others make sense, and a lot of them could be completely off. HOWEVER one fact remains, nobody knows... who. the f--k. is G-Man? You want to talk about a shadow in character development, this guys a phantom. One of the greatest game characters Ive ever come across. The puppet or the puppeteer? Nobody knows, we know hes regulated by someone else, we know he was behind the situation at black mesa, we know he has a power and relationship with other people other than Gordan Freeman. Yet we still don't know what his purpose is or what crazy ass turns the Half-Life story will take in the coming episode 3.




What really drives Half-Life is that with almost all of its chapters, there are characters that you may play as (like Alan shepherd in opposing forces) that will have a run in with some of the main characters in the game like Gordan Freeman and the G-Man. This beautiful twist and tie in of characters really pushes the story further and gives you a perspective of the Half-Life universe outside of Gordan's. This is what gets me with Half-Life... the government conspiracy, world domination, alien control, and the G-Man. No other game has such a character structure that Half-Life has, at least not to this level. Sure BioShock had an amazing character structure, and one hell of a story, but when compared to Half-Life. You're talking about a game that has gone through Half-Life, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2. 6 Chapters, SIX chapters, and it only seems as if we have scratched the surface of Half-Life's mysteries.



Apart from its string of mysteries and well developed character list Half-Life also shined greatly in its gameplay experience. Half-Life already has its great story down, and a well developed character list, now all it needed was the gameplay to play along with all of that. And boy did it do a fantastic job! One of the most focused aspects of Half-Life when it came out was its interactivity with the environment, being able to push crates around, blow holes in the wall, shatter glass. All of these gave a great sense of immersion, and brought in the great ability of problem solving within a game world. Players finally had to take objects within an environment and use it to their advantage to get to higher places, hide for cover, take alternate routes, etc. And the Half-Life series didn't just stop doing this with the first one, it shined all the way through to the recently released Episode 2. Problem solving with your surrounding environment has become a cardinal rule with the Half-Life series, you wont find a single Half-Life game without some aspect of this.

Adding to this interactive environment, the next step Half-Life took was the action. Combat, AI, and Replay value. All of which panned out almost to perfection. Half-Life was one of the first games to have AI really react to how you move through in an environment and react to how you react in a combat situation. Sure today it seems rather dull and bland when you look back at Half-Life 1, but when that game came out it was absolutely amazing. Hearing the grunts yell "OH SHIT" when you lobbed a grenade from your machine gun into the air filled you with this urge to yell out BOHICA! (Bend Over Here It Comes Again!). Other great moments is when the grunts would run away from a grenade that you through at them, or would react by throwing one back at you.

What really made Half-Life's gameplay fun was that it had such an exciting replay value, especially with that gibbing effect ;). I know old school Half-Life players will never get sick of the *PLOP* sound when a body explodes in Half-Life lol. Let us not forget the series of 'mini-bosses' in Half-Life that players had to come against, like the royal pain in the ass, scare you shitless, female assassins from Half-Life 1. Those crazy back flipping, cloaking women would destroy you if you haven't experienced them before. Or the big ass 3 headed sand worm that would devour you the moment you made a sound. That is what I am talking about, having to fight against creatures that react to your movements and your choices really gave players a new and absolutely enjoyable experience.



Now when Half-Life 2 came around, the action and the interactivity became even more intense. Now players had to deal with real world physics, and learn to balance objects in order to get to certain places, or use anything they can find to make it across a area of sand to avoid pissing off AntLions. Once again the Half-Life series delivered a satisfying gameplay experience with tricks, traps, and angry crazy opponents. And we cant forget about the vehicle aspect either, while not ground breaking by the time it came out, it was still a load of fun to be able to run over those pesky combine soldiers and headcrab zombies ;).



Now lets take a little journey down the road of atmosphere for a second, because for me this is something that really needs to shine in a video game. And I will be honest Half-Life 1 & 2 did quite an amazing job with having a sad, scary, depressing atmosphere. No not Rawr! demon scary, I mean realistically scary. With Half-Life 1, the atmosphere was creepy in the sense that you are in this real world setting, and have been slapped right in the middle of a government cover up. Where you have an interaction level with characters never before seen in a video game at the time, which some how in the back of your mind makes you think this is actually possible.

With Half-Life 2, it pushed the whole realistic feeling to another level, now you have an environment that seems normal, but is entrapped in this 'Martial Law' life style. Straight out of 1984, you are living in a society repressed by a tyrant and every step you take is monitored. But whats so different about this you say? Well I believe its quite obvious, ALIENS! And once again, the character interaction, and the life like responses and comments of all of these characters makes it feel so real to the point where you would think something like this could happen. And all of that rolled together gives the Half-Life series a scary, and depressing atmosphere and can be so immersive, if you allow it, you actually feel like you are there.



Apart from its single-player experience, Half-Life did engage in opening up the entire gaming community to a new level. Modding took off like a rocket, and gamers from all over, of all ages began developing their own little games on top of Half-Life which lead them jobs in the industry, many of them taking their games that they made with them. Some of them got hired by the very creators of Half-Life and had their products shipped with future Half-Life releases. Not only did Half-Life open a new door to the singleplayer universe, but it also opened up the gaming community which forever changed its demographic, and the communities future as a whole.

So there you have it, I know I skipped quite a bit of information, but thats so I do not release to many spoilers for those who haven't played through the legend, the mystery, and the game that is Half-Life. It is almost 1 year away till the 10th Year Anny since Half-Life came into the gaming world and forever changed it, It deserves the respect of the gamers, and the thanks for what it brought all of us. Many love it, many hate it, it doesn't HAVE to be your bag a tea, and its truly a shame that its not , because it really is as well developed series far superior to the majority of video games that have been made into long lasting series.

btw, I love id Software, the father that brought me into pc gaming, and it has all the cake <3 :D.