VideoGame Genuinely a classic
Several months ago, I played Half Life and stopped at "On A Rail." Then I started up the game again and managed to get through the rest of it in 2-3 days. So now is my opportunity to explain my opinion of this classic FPS.
Storywise, I found this game to be quite interesting. I'm kind of disappointed in myself for stopping just before "Apprehension," which was where the story began to feel more action packed. It means something to me for the game to acknowledge Gordon's status as a One-Man Army. Then the other survivors suggested that he go to the alien world of Xen. Why him? Because at that point, no one else seemed capable enough. And when I get there, I see other corpses with the same suit as Gordon; people who failed when he didn't. I felt proud of myself for being able to stop the Xen armies when no one else could. And then that Sequel Hook with the G-Man! If people have been hyping over a Half-Life 3 for this long (not that it's guaranteed; but still), than I can imagine what people felt when Half-Life 2 was announced.
Gameplaywise, I found some parts (Like the entirety of "On A Rail") to be quite a drag. It wasn't until I made it to "Lambda Core" that I realized I didn't gain anything vital to the story from exploring, and that the game's progress was more linear than I expected. The weapons were all interesting and unique to use, and that means that anyone can play the game their way. My personal favorites were the Shotgun, Revolver and Crossbow (They pack lots of burst DMG.)
Half-Life is Valve's very first game and is what solidified their reputation. I'm feeling excited to play the sequel just to see the difference 6 years can make.
This game gets 9/10 from me.
VideoGame What changed FPS gaming forever...
With a few exceptions, up until 1999 most FPS were about mindless running around and gunning everything you encountered to death for the sake of some Excuse Plot. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing. But Half-Life put an end to that. More or less.
The first peculiar feature is how Half-Life (more or less succesfully) attempts to justify almost everything. In the beginning you don't even have a HUD, it only enables after getting into your Hazard Suit. The plot maybe feels quite dated after the years but back in 1999 it was something unique. No other shooter played with the idea of things getting so severely out of hands.
Another thing is interaction with NPCs. Up until "now" all you could do was shoot them to death (or ignore them if they posed no threat to you). Now your friendlies don't act just as practice targets for the enemy, but actually try to be of use to you. Even though by themselves only the security guards were useful. Scientist actions had to be scripted and not every scientist was so eager to give you that health shot. Still the game suddenly became a lot deeper since sometimes you had to protect them.
Half-Life isn't your generic shooter game, where you can run around all you like with barely more than some door requiring a keycard obstructing your path. Sometimes you barely had enough ground to walk on. You had to resort to some rather unconvetional methods (for an FPS) to get from point A to point B. At times the game felt like a rather sophisticated obstacle course.
Shooting also wasn't the only means of dealing with trouble. For some enemies were Immune to Bullets ... but not to environmental hazards or explosions. Speaking of which the damage resistance mechanic is one peculiar feature I liked very much.
Even though many FPS already employed backtracking, HL gave it a new dimension, by introducing inter-level puzzles, greatly expanding the setting and providing additional depth.
I greatly appreciate, that the game didn't pry the control out of your hands for even a picosecondwell .
HL contained a few notorious glitches though, like the infamous elevator bug - if you rode an elevator, there was a chance your soles got stuck in its floor and you couldn't move or even got killed by obstruction-inflicted damage. Either way you were screwed and had to reload and try again. One way to overcome this glitch was to jump during the ride. (the other one was using the /noclip cheat)
The soundtrack was fairly good but mostly didn't fit the current situation. Or is it just me that 'Sirens in the Distance' sounded like a trainyard and 'Jungle Drums' like a bunch of hobos banging on metal trash cans?
Summed up, Half-Life is a game which spawned revolution in FPS gaming and left an unforgettable experience in any player.