RetroAhoy: Half-Life

they're waiting for you Gordon in the test chamber half-life is a definitive first-person shooter they're rubbed shoulders with the greats like doom and quake its heralded as a shining beacon of the genre with a seamless narrative and compelling world but some might say its luster has tarnished with age so what did half-life do that no game had done before what helped to define its lasting appeal and why do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties PC gaming in the mid-90s was awash with a wave of first-person shooters ever since the release of doom at the end of 1993 there were scores of derivative attempts to replicate its success for every memorable Tomb clone there are ten more forgettable once and while shooting pixelated enemies in a texture map maze is fun without innovation the genre was a risk of getting stale by late 1996 3d accelerator cards were starting to gain traction within the PC gaming market with the introduction of 3d effects is voodoo series of cards offloading scene rendering onto a dedicated GPU meant a huge jump in potential performance far superior frame rates and resolution it wouldn't be long before developers would take advantage valve software were founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington their first project was to be a science-fiction themed first-person shooter expanding on the horror themes in earlier FPS like doom and quake with influence from other genres like Resident Evil and films such as alien half-life's working title was quiver inspired by Stephen King's novella the mist which featured a military base call to Arrowhead and would influence the game's plot cuivre may also be an oblique reference to quake as halflife made use of a heavily modified version of the 1996 games engine as well as some components from quake two's edtech2 engine first publicly shown in early 1997 and e3 half life was planned to release later that year but a priority of quality however expedience valve time led to the game's eventual release in late 1998 it starts on a day like any other you are placed into the shoes of a seemingly ordinary man twenty-seven years old a mighty graduate Gordon Freeman he is a silent protagonist a man of action not of words and with the game's first-person perspective and lack of cutscenes he don't see much of his face either the original character model was much more distinctive Ivan the space biker with a full beard and an intense stare but the Gordon Freeman we know today is more reserved on the game box main menu and loading screens that the final bespectacled visage of our protagonist appears quiet unassuming and he's late for work the game opens with a tram ride a 10-minute tour that serves to introduce the player to the world of Black Mesa you're free to move around the carriage but you're along for the ride meanwhile an automated announcement system spills off safety announcements drenched with foreshadowing it's an interesting way to introduce the game's world and a distinctly different one for that scene in doom or quake no longer are you placed into a maze like level with a gun in search of an exit instead your path spans the entire game half-life is very linear but it's all by design on a rail this story is already in motion the events that follow are inevitable it wouldn't be much of a game if everything went right the resonance cascade event Tazo rift across dimensions and ushers in an alien incursion it marks the end of what should have been a routine scientific experiment and the beginning of a struggle to survive and in a way it was all your fault maybe this never would have happened if you weren't running late maybe you were just following standard insertion procedure maybe Gordon Freeman isn't the hero of this story a life is not afraid to explore ambiguous morality and while it's possible to waltz through safe in the knowledge that you're the good guy the game does sprinkle some seeds of doubt along the way from the act of kick-starting a transdimensional Cataclysm or inadvertently sending scientists plunging to their doom or slaughtering soldiers by the Dozen there's not much Gordon won't do in his desperate struggle to escape black Mesa is no stranger to questionable ethics slowly the scope of the experimentation that took place at the top-secret facility is revealed weapons research captive alien specimens and even nuclear missiles a hazardous work environment then luckily you are supplied with the equipment you need to endure it the hazardous environments or HEV suit is the game's way of explaining Gordon's immense capability for survival an incredible feat of Engineering it's capable of absorbing kinetic impact radiation by a hazardous material and yet limber enough to nor hinder movement nor to prevent passage through the smallest of spaces your suit is your Aegis the Wolcott is a shield without a sword the game waits a while before granting your weapon but when you find your first offensive option it is a particularly iconic one a simple tool forged by fire and flung into a position of importance a symbol of defiance the crowbar is the half-life series flagship weapon and it proves it's worth throughout the game from smashing crates clearing a path or as a desperate defense against an oncoming enemy when all other hopes of salvation have run dry but then fate always was on Gordon's side the same can't be said for the aliens you encounter there are a variety of transdimensional visitors and the majority aren't friendly the parasitic headcrabs take influence from aliens facehugger and turn their hosts into mindless zombies the vortigaunts are an enslaved race capable of shock tactics the groats are half a tonne of disgruntled alien and there are bigger even more noxious abominations that await in the darkest depths of black mesa aside from alien threats there is a domestic force which stands in your way the hazardous environment combat units deployed to clean up and contain catastrophic events at any cost their orders extend to silencing any civilian survivors naturally this leads to some tension one of Gordon's key weapons against these trained soldiers is the element of surprise often taking to the maze-like ventilation ducts to evade and outmaneuver insurmountable odds from confined space to cavernous complex the walls of Black Mesa contain many secrets but there's always a certain familiarity to be found in the human construction Xen was different the last portion of our flyff is a divisive one you are flying into a strange alien world as part of a desperate attempt to undo what was set in motion from the very start of the game a truly alien landscape with floating islands made of some unknown chitin and a shift in focus to teleport to puzzles and long jump platforming paired with a jump in difficulty the last few chapters are the most grueling and I'll generally consider the weakest part of the game Zen is indeed a strange and unfamiliar place but by far the most alien thing you'll encounter it's just a regular guy in a suit it's easy to miss the demon's appearances but once you notice him watching in the distance he seems to turn up everywhere his nature is a mystery an agent of some unseen eldritch force perhaps just a passive observer or entered a conflict grander than any human mind could ever comprehend r5 was released to critical acclaim hailed as the best shooter since the original doom it marks a pivotal moment in FPS history and a cherry atop the golden era of PC gaming software were founded in 1999 and were contracted to work on porting half-life to other platforms and to produce expansion packs the PCs first expansion was opposing force which cast you into the boots of Adrienne Shepard a member of the very force sent him to clean up Black Mesa and eliminate Gordon Freeman blue shift was the second PC expansion although it was originally intended to be part of an unreleased Dreamcast port abandoned due to the platform's imminent demise you played Barney Calhoun one of the many Blues suited security guards in a quest to escape Black Mesa the ps2 version emerged in 2001 featuring cooperative play and an exclusive expansion in half-life decay in terms of multiplayer it was half-life's mods that overshadowed its own deathmatch mode like doom and quake before it modest flocked to the new fps in some cases porting ever established mods to the Gold Source engine action half-life and Team Fortress classic both have roots in quake with a latter's class-based team action eventually spawning a sequel day of defeat blended objective paced multiplayer with the then-popular world war 2 setting and the incredibly popular counter-strike which in all its forms has stayed near the top of most played lists for more than a decade wild multiplayer modes gained the greatest share of the limelight single-player mods like they hunger showed what a few talented phone could do with the engine half-life sling charity was greatly expanded by its modding scene which is just as well considering how long a sequel took to arrive a worthy follow-up to a game like half-life is a tall order a revolutionary game builds greater expectation than just more of the same thankfully valve like to take their time with things after six years and some drama along the way half-life 2 would eventually appear in late 2004 alongside its new Source engine set some years after the original the event in half-life cast mankind into an interdimensional war it had no hopes of winning and thus gordon freeman re-emerges as some kind of Messiah certainly a departure from the original and with perhaps two greater focus on the new engines physics capabilities half-life 2 is nonetheless a great game in its own right with the rising tide of video game budgets the argument for episodic content was becoming more compelling although in hindsight it seems Valve are not well-suited to releasing anything piecemeal half-life 2 episode 1 was released in 2006 and episode 2 a year later both offering a direct development of half-life 2 story along with technical improvements to the Source engine and as for the third episode one day perhaps in the mean time valve seemed to be investing more effort in multiplayer titles such as Team Fortress 2 Counter Strike global Offensive and dota 2 and of course valve are also responsible for the most popular digital distribution platform on the PC steam the trade of in-game items must be more lucrative than the one-time purchase of a single-player title but still some yearn to Don the HEV suit once more long-awaited modern visual upgrade for half way black mesa finally came out in 2012 after eight years and development not quite the sequel we're looking for but still a good opportunity to revisit the original half-life's impact post release is unquantifiable countless games will have taken influence whether directly or not it dispensed with the level by level approach of earlier FPS games instead offering an unbroken experience from start to finish it's seamless universe and complete lack of cutscenes marked the death of old school FPS a bifurcation of the genre into pure action multiplayer titles and more cinematic single-player games no longer were level walls just containment for arena style action instead the scenery itself helped sell the story from it's claustrophobic vents to its massive noisy industrial plants black mesa is equal parts believable and incredible the experiential narrative was the perfect vehicle for horror with scripted events that could respond to the player or force them to flee later scary games which certainly take note the tense atmosphere in games like doom 3 fear and Bioshock all have roots in the techniques first seen in half-life it also open the doors for other experience led games as you Don Gordon's HEV suit and half-life titles like Medal of Honor allied assault similarly thrust you into the boots of a soldier in a more believable and immersive way than ever before truly a turning point for cinematic video games its influence brought and memories fond half-life is a classic while today it's graphics are dated and its innovations are taken for granted it nevertheless marks a watershed in the way games could tell a story from start to finish it is a seamless and shining example of what every videogame aspires to be an experience very much for watching and until next time farewell

Channel: Ahoy

Views: 1,817,650

Rating: 4.9623995 out of 5

Keywords: xboxahoy, Half-life, retro, retroahoy, gaming, Game, Games, Video Game (Industry), Shooter Game (Media Genre)

Id: bp5vOgz8vyI

Length: 17min 9sec (1029 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 19 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/MyNameIsRobPaulson]

This guy is an incredibly talented presenter/narrator. Its channels like this that make YouTube an incredible medium. Bravo.

[u/intrusive_thought]

Now re-downloading the original Half -Life on steam. BTW, Black Mesa was a magnificent revamp of the game. Somewhat disappointing though that they didn't include Xen. Although it was EXTREMELY difficult, I found it to be a very satisfying experience to grind through. Edit:spelling

[u/Circumspector]

I really miss the mod scene that HL provided. All sorts of free games of varying quality... The Specialists, Science and Industry, FireArms, Brainbread.

HL2 modding wasn't nearly as strong.

I miss my middle school days of wasting all my time playing TFC and the like with my friends.

[u/wilburtino]

I agree with everything he says but sort of perplexed why he didn't include portal/portal 2 into it as there's a lot of cross over. Very entertaining and interesting all the same.

[u/Strobepomf]

For those of you who were hesitant in the past, or just don't enjoy the genre, I highly recommend playing through Half Life 2. The pacing and level design still shines today, and the Ravenholm level has some of the most tension I've experienced in a video game to this day. It's really all the little things that come together to make playing through Half Life such a memorable experience, from the iconic radio blurb the enemies make when they die, to the ominous sound of scuttling head crabs, the environment feels so immersive. Do yourself a favor and play the game, the gravity gun alone will merit hours of enjoyment.

[u/[deleted]]

Wow, Half-Life was one of the games that cemented my identity as a (PC) gamer. Along with Halo, Unreal Tournament, and even Roller Coaster Tycoon these games were so amazing at the time and I enjoyed them immensely.

As a kid who never had the opportunity to grow up with an NES, N64, or PlayStation (Mom thought video game consoles were mind-sucking timewasters but my dad supplied me through pc games) , these games are what introduced me to gaming and why I still love it today.

[u/bootleggedmuffin]

Made me think of this review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkRne9Haj3g An talented youtube games reviewer who I believe died a few years ago. His channel is still up and has less than 5,000 subs. Thought he could do with some love

[u/[deleted]]

I was expecting him to go more into the innovations that Half Life brought to the genre based on the introduction.

[u/[deleted]]

Check out Freeman's Mind if you haven't already!