Game 13 Complete!
Half-Life
"They've been expecting you, Gordon. In the test chamberrrrrrrrrr."
Getting it running
This game was an ISO from a disk I owned many, many years ago. Installs fine, doesn't need the disk to play.
Gameplay
The first game I've played with a big focus on world building and narrative and less of a focus on running and gunning. I came into this game with very high expectations, partly due to having played it before and partly due to its reputation. I am finding myself comparing it to newer games rather than the games in my list that I've played.
The game famously sets the scene for the story with the train ride during the opening credits. I remember being very impatient with this as an 10 year old but as an adult experiencing it for the first time in a long time, it's great scene setting. I should probably say this is the first game on my list I played before, around 2000 (not more than a few levels before I went back to racing games) but I did complete it on a netbook at uni too about 10 years ago.
This game is masterfully paced with the introduction touring the facility whilst allowing you to get to grips with the controls as well as discover the interactivity of the environment (who doesn't ruin that scientist's microwavable meal?). The pacing of discovering your first weapon and slowly finding out its uses forms a fantastic tutorial without being a tutorial.
I find the story itself not that involving. Whilst its designed to be provided organically through scientists telling you things, often they're too slow and I've run past to shoot the next thing. I think I was heading to the surface, then heading to a rocket site, then suddenly portals are a thing and I need to get the core and go to zen to kill (what I assume) is the bigass dude ordering all the aliens to go to earth through the portals Gordon opened up. Then there's G-Man who may or may not be involved in some ways that aren't clear. So whilst the game builds up a brilliant world of laboratories, vents and metro systems, I wasn't particularly engrossed in the story that goes with it.
The controls feel very tight in combat with jumping, shooting and cover all coming into play. The range of guns are good too, although not all seem to have much use - the MP5 is a bit too accurate for anything that isn't close range, and a double shotgun blast is better at close range. The weird bee-shooter I found fairly pointless with its (recharging) magazine capacity of 8 being too low to do any damage. I ended up using the pistols for long range shooting and the shotgun for close quarters combat.
The range of enemies are good too, with the irritating head crabs perhaps doing a little too much damage on medium (10 health). A few too many times a headcrab is hiding in a vent your crawling a long and jumps at you in the dark; it made me jump the first time but just being a guaranteed hit later on - a lot of quick loading was done!
Elsewhere the green electro-dudes are good to fight with a powerful attack, which needs charging, but quite weak to a few headshots with the starting pistol. The electro-dogs are similar in needing to charge and doing reasonable damage. Later on when every other enemy is a big-ass blue dude, who shoots half-homing bees which bizarrely seem to go through doors, I ended up in a "oh **** you" mood and grenade launchered them for an instant kill. Soliders are quite intelligent other than constantly talking so you can hear where they are, and the freakin' ninjas are even quite fun to shoot due to being a different challenge altogether and are used sparingly.
Then there are the boss fights. The three main ones, the three headed snake, is satisfying to kill using a prototype rocket engine or something, especially after it's been nibbling at your heels for quite a while running around its home. The Blue furbee thing that needs dispatching to unlock On A Rail likewise is good to lure into an electric generator before it explodes.
Outside of combat though, the controls are quite weak. The pain in the arse of navigating ladders needs no introduction, where it is anyone's guess where you're actually going to jump to, and the slidey nature of platforming makes it one of the weaker elements of the game. Especially when navigating mazes of conveyor belts, eufggh.
The big let down are the Zen levels and the final boss. The different areas you go to are quite illogical, whereas the main game has you running through rooms next to each other with purposes (electric rails need a generator switched on, etc), whereas Zen is just a bunch of open environments and caves that conveniently lead to a disappointing boss fight.
The final boss fight is the worst part of the game in my opinion. The portal the flying baby shoots at you are a pain in the arse, low gravity movement does not make use of all the movement techniques that you've perfected up to that point, and the slow flying you need to do to fly above the baby's face makes you an easy target for flying aliens. The final fight to open up the portal to zen should have been the games conclusion in my opinion, where you're running around, dodging, defending scientist dude, shooting new flying enemies using what you've practiced throughout the game.
Overall, it's got a great setting and a world that sucks you in, even if I wasn't quite sure what I was hoping to achieve. The combat is good, platforming not so much, and should have ended an hour earlier.
Graphics and Performance
Like unreal on which it's based, Half Life looks great. The world is much more believable than Unreal due to the textures and art style, and it being set on earth (I assume...?). Lighting looks great in vents, green goo emits a similar green lighting, sparks fly, explosions explode...
Performance was better than Unreal at 1024 * 768, and I think I used OpenGL. The brightness was not an issue unlike Unreal and the screenshots came out with proper brightness.
Sound
I did not have any music at all, I assume because I was playing without the CD! However, the world building was good enough without it. I've given the sound track a listen to and it does sound pretty good which is a shame.
The sound effects were good. High quality in terms of compression, Hz, bits per section or whatever and comparable to modern sound effects, with the exception of scientists voices them being poor. My Soundblaster AWE32 couldn't do EAX I don't think however, there was lovely echo going on regardless in vents and enclosed areas.
Was it fun?
It was fun and I had no trouble keeping motivation to complete it unlike previous games, but I am not sure it is "Best Game Evarrr" fun due to the story and platforming
Should you play it?
Definitely.
Screenshots