RUN. THINK. SHOOT. LIVE.
this has been a very hard review to write - I think the most difficult part of doing a writeup on a game is making sure you don't let your thoughts and impressions escape you, getting them all on a page before you inevitably forget what you want to say, and that's what happened with Half-Life. it's a game I love, but even so when I wanted to type this up, my mind would just blank. got maybe a paragraph or two in and I couldn't go further. so - fuck that. scrapped the entire thing. reinstalled the game and played through all of it. and now here I am, memory refreshed - the steel corridors of Black Mesa etched into my mind.
RUN
you are not a demon fighting space marine, or a hardened bubble gum chewing badass. you are a nerdy theoretical physicist - you have probably never even held a gun in your life before, and you are late to work, so play like one. Half-Life's combat is deceiving, for lack of a better term. I remember the first time I was thrown into the midst of its gunplay. up to this point I recognized the Quake movement, the early 3D visuals, I mean shit - this is literally a 90s shooter. surely it plays like one? so I RUN into the face of an HECU soldier, shotgun in hand, blast him point blank and he tanks it. doesn't even flinch. and then I'm dead.
the game is a lot smarter than it lets on. a lot of people I watch play the game fall for the same thing - it's in that boomer shooter bubble so there's a lot of stuff you would think you can get away with, but that's where Half Life draws the line between itself and its predecessors. Its combat is much more tactical, forcing you to think much harder about your position in a firefight. the enemies are far too aggressive for you to take cover in one spot and duck and shoot, but conversely leaving yourself out in the open will almost certainly result in certain death. nearly every encounter in the campaign is designed to sandwich you between those dilemmas. ultimately the gunplay isn't something a player will master the first time, or even the second or third, but do end up achieving that complete control over your arsenal, it feels slick as all hell.
you shouldn't bring a knife to a gun fight, but you can bring a crowbar.
THINK
half life's levels are fairly linear compared to other shooters of its time, no longer do you have to run around the map looking for keys to progress, there's only one way to go and it's forward. in spite of that fact though, these levels feel far more in depth than anything else before it - why is that? perhaps it's the larger reliance on player intuition, a deeper emphasis on environmental design, you're taught very early on to THINK and use your surroundings to progress, at some point you just see a vent cover and immediately you think "oh, crowbar." ranging from tiny things like that to more involved environmental puzzles, like pushing boxes to make your own platforms, calling airstrikes to clear the path, and so on, and so forth.
interestingly, a lot of these principles are thrown out near the game's finale as we dive into xen, a part of the game a lot of players - myself included, at one point found frustrating, but I find now to be bold and exhilarating, it inverts the design philosophy up to this point completely, alien in every way… both visually, with it's fleshy terrain and murky waters, but also alien to the game itself, as the player now finds themselves in an area that they cannot interact with the same way they did black mesa... perhaps it goes too far on this front, regardless of intention, xen suffers a lot from its overambition, but in a weird way, I enjoy it for that. valve weren't afraid to get weird to deliver their point, for better - or for worse. maybe that's just me fresh on the copium hot off the heels of my 8th replay, though.
SHOOT
BLACK MESA RESEARCH FACILITY - BLACK MESA, NEW MEXICO
from the moment you start half-life, you know this game is different. instead of being thrusted immediately into the action, you begin on a tram. there's someone speaking, not someone you know, and yet this all seems so… casual. you can't leave the tram, you have no gun, you can't even see your own health. instead there's scientists everywhere, security guards, all moving and working without even noticing you. the train sometimes stops for the facility to catch up and let you through, there's a robot handling power tools - you get a brief glimpse at the exterior of the facility as you witness a helicopter take off, a lot of this goes by rather quickly, you're still a bit lost on what exactly is going on… and then it hits you.
SUBJECT: GORDON FREEMAN. MALE, AGE 27
this all might seem rather rudimentary today, nowadays long opening cinematics in shooters especially are equally a staple and meme of the genre, but I can't think of many that are as endearingly cool as half-life's opening. this applies to it's narrative as a whole, it's weaved so effortlessly into the gameplay, not often does it actually have to stop you dead in your tracks to catch you up on what's going on, a lot of that is communicated through the levels themselves, talk amongst scientists and security guards that the military is coming to rescue you, which is great! then you start seeing claymores and turrets laid around the place, a bit strange… but they're probably fighting through the alien invasion as much as we are. and then finally, you see a soldier. expecting them to behave like the friendly AI security guards, you approach, only for them to kill the scientist nearby, and immediately start firing at you. no pause, no dialogue, you're being killed, so just SHOOT. suddenly it becomes very clear that this is no rescue mission and there's nothing to do but move on with your escape, with something new to watch out for. beautiful.
LIVE
half-life's 25th anniversary is next year, and with each day we inch closer to that milestone it becomes a bigger franchise of why this game kicks ass, and will forever kick ass. every year that passes by it becomes a bigger "fuck you" to the notion of video games aging, it's design not only transcending it's own time period but still gliding over so many releases to this day. I love half-life, I love its sequels a little less, but at the end of the day I love these games. it's a shame that the future of the series is so uncertain, even in spite of Alyx's release two years ago. it's a complete dice roll on whether we'll ever see the next installment, whether or not this franchise even has the means to LIVE. valve has moved onto different things now, which stings a little, but even if we never see the conclusion to all of this, I can die happy knowing we at least got this out of it all. I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way too. just recently at the time of writing this review, the game broke its concurrent player record on Steam, reaching 12,000 people playing at once, and I think that's special. it's a fraction of the player count games like Dota 2 or CSGO pull on a bad day, but it feels good that all these years later this game and its fans are still kicking. I can't find a way to put it more eloquently, so let me just say it outright. this game fucking slaps.
this has been a very hard review to write - I think the most difficult part of doing a writeup on a game is making sure you don't let your thoughts and impressions escape you, getting them all on a page before you inevitably forget what you want to say, and that's what happened with Half-Life. it's a game I love, but even so when I wanted to type this up, my mind would just blank. got maybe a paragraph or two in and I couldn't go further. so - fuck that. scrapped the entire thing. reinstalled the game and played through all of it. and now here I am, memory refreshed - the steel corridors of Black Mesa etched into my mind.
RUN
you are not a demon fighting space marine, or a hardened bubble gum chewing badass. you are a nerdy theoretical physicist - you have probably never even held a gun in your life before, and you are late to work, so play like one. Half-Life's combat is deceiving, for lack of a better term. I remember the first time I was thrown into the midst of its gunplay. up to this point I recognized the Quake movement, the early 3D visuals, I mean shit - this is literally a 90s shooter. surely it plays like one? so I RUN into the face of an HECU soldier, shotgun in hand, blast him point blank and he tanks it. doesn't even flinch. and then I'm dead.
the game is a lot smarter than it lets on. a lot of people I watch play the game fall for the same thing - it's in that boomer shooter bubble so there's a lot of stuff you would think you can get away with, but that's where Half Life draws the line between itself and its predecessors. Its combat is much more tactical, forcing you to think much harder about your position in a firefight. the enemies are far too aggressive for you to take cover in one spot and duck and shoot, but conversely leaving yourself out in the open will almost certainly result in certain death. nearly every encounter in the campaign is designed to sandwich you between those dilemmas. ultimately the gunplay isn't something a player will master the first time, or even the second or third, but do end up achieving that complete control over your arsenal, it feels slick as all hell.
you shouldn't bring a knife to a gun fight, but you can bring a crowbar.
THINK
half life's levels are fairly linear compared to other shooters of its time, no longer do you have to run around the map looking for keys to progress, there's only one way to go and it's forward. in spite of that fact though, these levels feel far more in depth than anything else before it - why is that? perhaps it's the larger reliance on player intuition, a deeper emphasis on environmental design, you're taught very early on to THINK and use your surroundings to progress, at some point you just see a vent cover and immediately you think "oh, crowbar." ranging from tiny things like that to more involved environmental puzzles, like pushing boxes to make your own platforms, calling airstrikes to clear the path, and so on, and so forth.
interestingly, a lot of these principles are thrown out near the game's finale as we dive into xen, a part of the game a lot of players - myself included, at one point found frustrating, but I find now to be bold and exhilarating, it inverts the design philosophy up to this point completely, alien in every way… both visually, with it's fleshy terrain and murky waters, but also alien to the game itself, as the player now finds themselves in an area that they cannot interact with the same way they did black mesa... perhaps it goes too far on this front, regardless of intention, xen suffers a lot from its overambition, but in a weird way, I enjoy it for that. valve weren't afraid to get weird to deliver their point, for better - or for worse. maybe that's just me fresh on the copium hot off the heels of my 8th replay, though.
SHOOT
BLACK MESA RESEARCH FACILITY - BLACK MESA, NEW MEXICO
from the moment you start half-life, you know this game is different. instead of being thrusted immediately into the action, you begin on a tram. there's someone speaking, not someone you know, and yet this all seems so… casual. you can't leave the tram, you have no gun, you can't even see your own health. instead there's scientists everywhere, security guards, all moving and working without even noticing you. the train sometimes stops for the facility to catch up and let you through, there's a robot handling power tools - you get a brief glimpse at the exterior of the facility as you witness a helicopter take off, a lot of this goes by rather quickly, you're still a bit lost on what exactly is going on… and then it hits you.
SUBJECT: GORDON FREEMAN. MALE, AGE 27
this all might seem rather rudimentary today, nowadays long opening cinematics in shooters especially are equally a staple and meme of the genre, but I can't think of many that are as endearingly cool as half-life's opening. this applies to it's narrative as a whole, it's weaved so effortlessly into the gameplay, not often does it actually have to stop you dead in your tracks to catch you up on what's going on, a lot of that is communicated through the levels themselves, talk amongst scientists and security guards that the military is coming to rescue you, which is great! then you start seeing claymores and turrets laid around the place, a bit strange… but they're probably fighting through the alien invasion as much as we are. and then finally, you see a soldier. expecting them to behave like the friendly AI security guards, you approach, only for them to kill the scientist nearby, and immediately start firing at you. no pause, no dialogue, you're being killed, so just SHOOT. suddenly it becomes very clear that this is no rescue mission and there's nothing to do but move on with your escape, with something new to watch out for. beautiful.
LIVE
half-life's 25th anniversary is next year, and with each day we inch closer to that milestone it becomes a bigger franchise of why this game kicks ass, and will forever kick ass. every year that passes by it becomes a bigger "fuck you" to the notion of video games aging, it's design not only transcending it's own time period but still gliding over so many releases to this day. I love half-life, I love its sequels a little less, but at the end of the day I love these games. it's a shame that the future of the series is so uncertain, even in spite of Alyx's release two years ago. it's a complete dice roll on whether we'll ever see the next installment, whether or not this franchise even has the means to LIVE. valve has moved onto different things now, which stings a little, but even if we never see the conclusion to all of this, I can die happy knowing we at least got this out of it all. I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way too. just recently at the time of writing this review, the game broke its concurrent player record on Steam, reaching 12,000 people playing at once, and I think that's special. it's a fraction of the player count games like Dota 2 or CSGO pull on a bad day, but it feels good that all these years later this game and its fans are still kicking. I can't find a way to put it more eloquently, so let me just say it outright. this game fucking slaps.
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luminosity
1 year ago