Reviewing EVERY Half-Life - Critical Nobody

whoa based on my previous reviewing every projects you might think the only games I ever play are the ones that have me tiptoeing around every thread I come across but that couldn't be further from the truth I equally enjoy games that have me picking up a shiny death-dealing instrument and cutting loose on droves of bad guys zombies aliens demons I've put down tens of thousands of each over the years and no matter how many times I do it using a mouse or controller to repeatedly pull a trigger remains a satisfying pastime there are plenty of great and once great titans of the genre to look back fondly on battlefield doom halo but when it comes to major well-known influential shooters there are a few series as revered and cherished as half-life I was a bit late to the half-life party myself playing each of its entries a few years after their initial release as a result I don't have quite the furious love for them some others do but it's a series I am mentally respect and have lots of fun blasting through every time I revisit them in preparation for the long-awaited return to the universe thanks to VR I couldn't help but play through everything half-life related once again and as I've said before if I'm going to take the time to do that there's no reason I shouldn't take the opportunity to make a prolonged video record of my thoughts on each this will include the base games all their expansions and a few extras I think are worth mentioning and in case you're wondering you know I will not be covering this I have not played hunt down the Freeman I have no desire to play hunt down the Freeman just know did you know the guy that made that thing now apparently works for Activision Blizzard alright Joe let's save your friends from spiders with vaginas if you just want to get my thoughts on one game in particular like for example half-life Alex you'll find timestamps in the description and in the pinned comment down below I don't know why I keep doing this to myself but strap in for an extended look back at all things half-life [Music] we start our journey in 1998 the year a new unproven studio called valve software released their first game a little title simply known as half-life this debut would go on to achieve massive critical and commercial success and is considered one of the most influential titles in the FPS genre and gaming as a whole talk to some old school players and there's a pretty good chance they'll break down the medium into two distinct time periods before half-life and after half-life but exactly what about it was so groundbreaking and does the game hold up well enough to be fun after more than two decades spoiler alert to the second question yeah it's still pretty fun you're placed into the hazardous environment suit of dr. Gordon Freeman and always mute scientist working at the Black Mesa research facility what starts as a relatively normal workday quickly becomes dangerous when an experiment goes awry causing a deadly resonance cascade that tears open rifts between our world and an alien border world after surviving at the epicenter of the event Gordon must fight his way through his former place of employment taking on not only the various creatures that roam the halls but also squads of military commandos dispatch to the base to wipe out any trace of the goings-on witnesses included now that story isn't the most original in and of itself a catastrophic events and attempted cover-up a lone hero fighting back against the odds it had been seen before and was seen many times after but it was the way this story was told that was so revolutionary see most games shooters especially didn't really have much of a narrative to speak of or told their story through non interactive cutscenes where you were simply shown what was going on but in half-life you're not just a witness to things unfolding you're directly participating in them the game had a strict commitment to the first-person perspective never taking you out of it for a single second and while scripted moments routinely happen around you you remain in full control when they do with only one very brief exception I can think of it's your choice whether to stop and gawk as your colleagues are torn to pieces or walk on by without a care in the world for example it's always entirely up to me when I execute every single NPC I come across because most of them are dead weight anyway because I think it's funny I have a problem level design was another aspect that made half-life stand out for lack of a better descriptor the various sections of the Black Mesa facility don't feel very video gaming you weren't falling into random lava pits or hunting down the blue key card for the blue doors instead great pains were taken to make the layout plausible as a relocation offices factories laboratories were all designed in a logical arguably mundane way to further contribute to immersion with each area naturally flowing into the necks separated by only the briefest of loads this design choice also applies to weapon and ammo pickups you won't find a shotgun in a lab workers belongings because it wouldn't make sense there but finding one in a security station totally fits it's still something that stands out about this series as not even many games today pull this off with the same level of competency that's not to say things are flawless though even though half-life is primarily a shooter there are extended periods of downtime platforming across various hazards these bits are pretty simple to navigate and break up the action but some sections overstay their welcome and hopping from surface to surface and first-person has never been particularly fun there are also certain parts throughout the game that are designed in such a way as to catch first-timers off-guard pretty much guaranteeing an instant death or at least significant damage something will explode fall on top of you or the ground you're walking on will break away and without prior knowledge of these events you can find your journey coming to a very abrupt end and these deaths just feel cheap hell even if you know they're coming some of these will take a chunk of health away no matter what you do in fairness there's always convenient health packs or stations immediately afterwards to make up for the hit as if the developers are apologizing for the practical joke but it's like someone slapping you in the face and then giving you a lollipop sure thanks for the candy but I could have done without the slap the opening hours of half-life have a notably different vibe than the rest of the game building up atmosphere came to survival horror as lights flicker zombies bash through doors and you're exclusively relying on close-range weaponry Plus this is where you first see barnacles and for some reason these damn things have always freaked me out just the idea of being grabbed by one and lifted up to be devoured is so unsettling anyone else with me on this anyway it's when the military shows up an hour or so in that things shift into a more action-heavy direction and it's about time we talk about the gunplay the shooting in half-life is fine it's in no way bad but it's also not the best most guns have meaty impact and feel good to fire but the reliance on hit scanners as was common for the time can make some fights feel like extended bouts of Rock'em Sock'em robots if you don't recognize the term hit scanning refers to attacks that hit the target the very moment the attack is launched provided the entity firing has line-of-sight basically if a bad guy can see you when they fire their weapon they are going to hit you and no amount of bobbing or weaving is going to stop that this works when fighting aliens as they either don't have ranged attacks or they obviously Telegraph when they're about to do one like the vortigaunts giving you time to get out of the way when dealing with soldiers however it more or less boils down to both sides unloading into each other until one wins the enemy AI is pretty good for the time pushing their advantage and calling out orders to their squad mates and there is some strategy in ducking in and out of firefights by running behind crates pillars or whatever other obstructions each arena allowing you to regroup or flank but the bottom line is that the majority of the time when you're shooting at someone they will also be shooting at you and it's pretty much impossible to get through these encounters unscathed I'm not going to say it's a hundred percent impossible because I'm sure someone will link me to a crowbar only no damage blindfolded speedrun but for the normal everyday humans among us it's just not going to happen much like the platforming traps I mention though health is always waiting for you after these heated battles showing the developers recognize the limitation and made efforts to mitigate the problem therefore making this complaint less of an issue there is one area in which most agree half-life truly falters and that's in its finale in a last-ditch effort to put a stop to the ongoing calamity Gordon goes through a portal and into an alien world known as Xen and these last few levels are simply poor they aren't broken or anything but their design is so basic and uninteresting that once the novelty of being on some other world wears off which takes about two minutes this whole section becomes a slog it only takes about an hour to get through but it's a very boring hour with long jumps between floating platforms and encounter with a testicle crab a drawn-out Factory section health stations that take three times longer to rejuvenate and an annoying final boss fight in a low-gravity room it just feels rushed lacking the care and attention that the rest of the game clearly had I've heard numerous half-life mega fans say that every time they replay it they stop when they get here and even valve employees have acknowledged the failings of the Xen levels it's only one small part of the package so it doesn't ruin the rest of the game but for a title with such a pedigree as this it can't help but feel like it deserves a much better final impression we can't conclude without also mentioning half-life's multiplayer I wasn't around for its heyday and if you plan to play it in current year then expect all the text in any active server to be in Russian but it's a frantic and chaotic deathmatch experience it's not something I'd find myself going back to on the regular these days but I can see the appeal when viewed through the lens of 1998 when something like quake was still thriving the deathmatch was incredibly popular for a time and kept its relevancy for quite a while thanks to a very active and dedicated modding community and if you have any doubt of that just look at games like day of defeat or counter-strike both started their lives as mods for half-life so does half-life hold up 22 years after the fact for the most part absolutely the same strengths it had when it released are still apparent now and while its combat and platforming haven't aged quite as gracefully as other aspects of its design they're still good enough to carry the experience aside from some janky animations and two instances where NPCs revealed themselves to be the thing by absorbing me into their being the game ran totally fine which isn't surprising as valve is pretty good at making sure their marquee titles stay up to date for modern hard if you haven't yet played it yourself I recommend it half-life took the world by storm receiving over 50 game of the Year awards and quickly had fans clamoring for more luckily for them more is exactly what they got on the one-year anniversary of the originals release half-life got its first of two follow-up expansions called half-life opposing force while valve was involved in its development they were busy working on other projects so the primary developer for this and other subsequent content for the base game was actually gearbox software yes the very same gearbox software that would go on to make Borderlands and some other stuff they'd rather people not talk about so it was like a seven seven and a half game those who remember the glory days of PC expansions tend to put opposing force on a pedestal declaring it one of the greatest of its kind since I was primarily a console boy growing up I can't speak to the validity of that claim as I didn't play it myself until like four years ago but I can't say with certainty that it excels at its job of providing more half-life while also adding many new things to shake up the experience as the subtitle implies opposing force does not have you playing as an innocent black Mesa employee but as corporal Adrienne Shepard one of the Marines sent it to the facility to mop up once things went pear-shaped however before his transport can touch down it's shot out of the sky and Shepard now separated from his team must fight through the alien threat and elite black ops trying to accomplish what the military couldn't seeing similar events unfold from the other side not only provides more context to what was going on while Freeman was doing his thing but also lets you explore even more of the black mesa complex you'll briefly move through familiar ground every once in a while I'll be it from a different angle but for the most part every place you're fighting in is entirely new adding to the overall scope of the base and giving you a deeper look at just how much these scientists we're messing with things they probably shouldn't have been the core gameplay of opposing force is the same as og half-life same platforming same shooting field same occasionally cheap deaths so there's no point in going over all that stuff again what is worth talking about are all the new things this expansion starting with weapons there's an impressive amount of new combat toys to mess with both of the human and non-human variety you get a wrench and a knife a desert eagle which four places the Magnum an LMG that shreds whenever the game decides to actually give you ammo for it a solid sniper rifle a devastating spore launcher that you basically feed to reload the displacer cannon which is pretty much a discount BFG a barnacle grapple that's pretty underutilized outside a few times you have to reach higher ground and a shock roach that's too weak to be useful in my opinion that's quite a lot of new stuff and while some of these armaments are definitely better than others the efforts shown off here to add fresh content is incredibly admirable and you'll need that firepower too in order to deal with the new enemies mixed in with the old baddie as we all know and love are a new headcrab zombie these quick little bastards Shock Troopers that desperately need to get some Sun and these big boys there are also many many more black ops commandos running around including a new male variant who are just as annoying as their female counterparts it's admittedly a little weird that none of these opponents ever crossed Gordon's paths but that's a nitpick because all the extra foes help make encounters refreshing again the flashlight is replaced with night vision though I personally find this change to be a downgrade as you're limited to only being able to see what's directly in front of you maybe this was done to add tension to certain parts like this tunnel section but I'll take a flashlight I can shine wherever I want any day the other notable addition our squad mates there are times when Shepard will link up with members of his unit and some of them have special abilities Engineers can open seal doors that block progress but they're only needed for this a few times and they're usually a stone's throw away from the obstruction then you have medics who can be a real lifesaver able to heal both you and your teammates the problem is that despite being hardened Semper Fi spouting dudes with big guns they tend to be ineffective during actual combat and will plunder into an early grave pretty quickly honestly the standard black mesa security guards were better dealing with threats plus given the frantic nature of half-life's firefights there's a pretty good chance one of your stray bullets or splash damage from an explosion will hit your comrades causing them to turn on you instantly further making them a liability leading and fighting with a faithful platoon is a cool idea and fits given the context of the situation but it's just not fleshed out very well you can run through this campaign in roughly three and a half hours and I'd say it's time well spent some of its new ideas aren't executed the best but overall opposing force does a quality job at fleshing out the world of half-life further with an alternate perspective and adds more than enough new elements to make it stand out from the base game I can't say definitively whether or not it's the best expansion but I can say it's pretty darn good unfortunately I can't give that same compliment to its follow-up 2001 saw the release of half-life blueshift the second and final expansion to the 1998 original blue shift cast you as Barney Calhoun a normal everyday security guard at Black Mesa that you unknowingly caught a glimpse of at the start of Gordon Freeman's hectic workday when things inevitably go bad it's up to Barney to track down scientist dr. Rosenberg who might know a way out of this terrible situation this is a title that's hard to speak about at length for the simple reason that there isn't much to it it offers a bit more half-life and literally nothing else while opposing force threw in a bunch of new weapons enemies and tried to introduce a new mechanic or two blue shift has none of that you'll only ever get your hands on guns from the base game and even then not all of them making Barney's loadout the most limited of the three protagonists and the aliens and soldiers you'll be fighting are the same ones Gordon took on with no variation the only real gameplay difference here is that you can't use HEV charging stations since our hero lacks any form of specialized suit having only standard body armor he instead has to find replacement gear on the dead bodies of his co-workers it's a nice detail I guess but it's just the same mechanic presented differently so it doesn't change anything without having anything interesting gameplay wise you might think the novelty of seeing yet more areas of the facility would carry things along but blue shift also doesn't offer much here you explore some sewers some train yards Xen and a power plant the that's pretty much it if those places sound uninteresting to shoot through it's because they are it seems that even during a potential world ending event lowly rent-a-cop Barney Calhoun is stuck doing tasks only marginally more exciting than his usual nine-to-five to give you an idea of how underwhelming all of this is our other protagonists got grand boss fights as their finale but Barney just gets a few normal army grunts that you can just run past I'm not trying to say that blue shift is terrible because the core of half-life does still work but as an expansion it fails to really expand to anything you can get through it in less than two hours and all it ends up doing is explaining how some people made it out of the base a narrative detail that most people could have easily inferred on their own it's unquestionably the most skippable piece of content half-life has if you're the kind of person that needs to see and do absolutely everything in a series you won't have a bad time but you also won't remember what you played a week later and that wraps up all the content released for half-life 1 well unless you venture outside of the PC version blueshift wasn't the only half-life related product to hit shelves in 2001 as the original game was also ported to the PlayStation 2 the same year this edition is actually how I first experienced half-life having no prior knowledge of its acclaim or influence at the time I'm not here to talk about the port itself because I remember it being a fine translation with the same campaign and some visual upgrades instead I'll be discussing the most notable addition to the ps2 version which was an exclusive co-op campaign called half-life decay focusing on two female scientists doctors green and cross the pair team up with dr. Rosenberg and new face dr. Keller to send a distress signal and potentially reverse the resonance cascade as I said this content only officially appeared on ps2 which would normally make it difficult to play today but thanks to some dedicated Ukrainians it was made available on PC in 2008 in the form of a mod and that's what I played for this video with the exception of some visual oddities at times the mod runs well without any game breaking issues and offers online play whereas the console version was strictly split-screen despite the clear cooperative focus it is actually possible to play this whole campaign solo swapping between both characters with a button press but it's not an experience I'd recommend since the second person doesn't move forcing you to leapfrog through the same areas twice over and that gets tedious really fast make sure to blackmail a friend into playing with you like I did with my longtime partner in crime damn dude he exploded [Laughter] unfortunately playing half-life with a friend is the only new thing decay offers as there aren't additional weapons or enemy variants to speak of but the novelty of taking on houndeyes and vorticons with a buddy is certainly cool there's some actual thought put into the idea of having two people for puzzle solving routinely having both players split up to contribute to solutions in different ways or having one cover the other while they perform some kind of task the number of opponents you'll encounter at once is increased to compensate for the additional firepower a duo allows for I also think some baddies are more bullets Bungie than normal namely the Armed Forces and these guys seem to be more explosive happy than I'm used to the increased grenade and satchel count is likely just a result of there being more guys to throw them but there were quite a few times where everything was going fine only for a random boom to end at all or Dan and I just suck that is also an equal possibility one of half life's biggest claims to fame was the unbroken flow of moving from one area to the next but decay abandons that in favour of normal level structure that has beginnings and endings my assumption for this change is to have obvious break points so a pair could easily come back to the game if they need to stop levels aren't all that long if you know what you're doing but they do lack any form of save feature or checkpointing so if one player dies or say unintentionally murders the other cuz they weren't thinking things through you'll be playing the entire level from the start and that can get annoying if a section is giving you some trouble even if you and your buddy find yourself stumbling from time to time you'll see the credits roll after around 3 hours it was it was a time that's the most fun I have with a pants on well Dan wasn't enthusiastic about the whole thing I think decay is a decent cop adventure and if you want to spend an evening playing half-life with a friend there are certainly worse ways to kill some time also remember not to smack blue barrels with a crowbar we learned that the hard way you know the automatic doesn't suck what did you do might seem like I'm scratching the bottom of the barrel at this point but in 2004 a handful of months before valve put out some other niche cult hit they worked on they released half-life source this is a simple port of the original game onto Valve's now-famous Source engine full disclosure having been knee-deep in all things half life back to back I just couldn't be asked to play through this from start to finish so I just jumped around a handful of chapters to see if there were any notable differences and to be fair there are the game looks maybe a tad bit sharper there are added particle effects lighting is improved but it's also made darker areas a little brighter in a way that I think takes away from the atmosphere water looks much better weapon models are more detailed though many of them seem prepared to ride a turtle on the highways of Valhalla and there's now a proper physics engine resulting in objects being believably tossed around the environment and bodies rag dolling when killed a feature I couldn't help but take full advantage of every chance I got unsurprisingly the gameplay is almost identical you're unlikely to notice any significant difference until you get the SMG which does feel quite different to use I'm not sure I can explain why it's one of those things you'll only identify with if you play both releases of the game side by side but I guess I'd describe the combat as feeling a tad looser I also ran into some minor bugs in this version that I did not see whatsoever before barnacle tongues clipping through ceiling tiles which gives away their presence NPC is making pained sounds for no reason as they follow you no this guy practicing for his audition on mine freak and I'm not sure if this is a bug but a room I know for a fact had a spawn trigger in the original game just had the enemies already waiting in there when I showed up half-life's multiplayer also made the transition and it works but there's something about it that simply feels off to me making me prefer what I played before again it's one of those things it's hard to put into words you'll just know what I mean if you play both versions for yourself based on my brief time with it half-life source seems generally functional but pointless the improvements are so minor that I don't see much reason to play it over the original especially when you take into account the previously unseen glitches looking around a bit it seems like most half-life faithful despised source and will take every opportunity to caution people against it and given some of the other problems I've watched and read about concerning the port I think I'm gonna take the same stance as them but while the port itself may have been underwhelming its existence did have one very good unintended side effect some people were expecting half-life source to be a dramatic update over the original but when it turned out not to be a group of very passionate fans decided to do the work themselves in their spare time and development began on a mod known as black mesa well the project started all the way back in 2004 a playable version wouldn't see the light of day until 2012 and even then it was an incomplete build impressed by what the independent devs now known as crowbar collective had done valve would give the team permission to sell their game on Steam and in 2015 it appeared on the storefront in an early access state where it remained for several years Black Mesa would eventually release its full 1.0 build in March of 2020 which turned out to be remarkably convenient timing when I decided to put this video together some people might argue it shouldn't be included at all since it's not an official half-life product but given the sheer scope of the project and the fact that it's officially endorsed by valve themselves I think it deserves to be part of the conversation this is not a simple remaster or texture pack black mesa is a from the ground up total remake of the original half-life built on the Source engine there is not a single piece of this thing that wasn't entirely redone from scratch making it feel like a wholly fresh experience even if you've played the 98 classic to death the most immediately obvious upgrade are the visuals this game is absolutely beautiful easily one of the best-looking titles on the engine incredible lighting and detailed environments contribute to a much thicker horror atmosphere than before there's also the new character and weapon models all of which look great I really like the added touch of each gun to having a special introductory animation even if the one for the hive hand made me pretty uncomfortable staying on presentation dialogue has rerecorded with a greater variety of actors all of whom do good work and additional lines are added to more naturally tie the events of the narrative into the expansions and sequel along with others that provide winks and nods fans will surely be able to pick up on the new soundtrack by Joel Nielson is also high quality with nice ambience tracks when appropriate followed by blood pumping rock anthems in climactic battles in short this game is sexy from top to bottom another huge change are level layouts and some of the progression beats while there are parts of the facility that are more or less one-to-one recreations of the original geography many others have been tweaked or completely overhauled you'll notice this change immediately as the game holds off on giving you a firearm for noticeably longer which does an effective job at elevating tension even with the bigger changes if you know your way around oh gee half life everything will seem familiar to some degree but slightly altered and added puzzles and combat encounters playing out in different ways or in areas they previously didn't will ensure you don't feel like you're just going through the motions combat naturally feels much different as a more modern release the movement and shooting are smoother to control but various alterations to the weapons themselves add further contrast the SMG has a smaller magazine and grenade limit for example and the crossbow is slower to fire for the trade-off of increased damage ammunition in general seems a bit more stingy in the remake which in turn forces less of a bullet hose mentality and a little more careful consideration of what you're shooting at fire fights are still hectic and fast-paced though and the inclusion of rag dolling and wonderfully gory jibs makes impactful hits oh so satisfying and yes that sentiment also applies to my scientist murder fetish I think Black Mesa is more difficult than classic half-life overall at least until you get used to the swing of things primarily my early encounters with the military tended to go south pretty quickly at first I felt like a polygon writer trying to play doom and it took me a few deaths to really figure out why it's because the commandos learned how to move and shoot at the same time I was used to their behavior from the og game where enemies moving positions gave you a moment of respite that you could use to unload or regroup but in Black Mesa the moments where these guys aren't filling you with lead are fewer and farther between once I got used to this new flow and started playing a bit more cautiously though everything quickly evened out while the content on earth is a balanced mix of old and new the part of half-life just about everyone agrees is its weakest the Zen levels are entirely rebuilt when you arrive in what I like to call the land of desktop wallpapers the difference is immediately obvious there are much more intricate layouts with actual thought put into them routine platforming and item collection puzzles keep you engaged the long jump module which seemed like an afterthought before is now utilized regularly in smart ways especially for a bunch of intense chases and sequences that used to be minor speed bumps are now converted into grand set pieces these levels are without question a massive improvement over their original incarnations and really showcase the ambition of the crowbar collective team but they also demonstrate a textbook case of over ambition and showcase why bigger isn't always better you could plow through the original Zen levels in roughly one hour and while it wasn't a fun hour at least you were in and out quickly the Zen levels in Black Mesa take four times longer to get through and not all of that content is killer the first half is consistently good and while I think there is fat that could be trimmed none of it is bad by any means but when you get to the interloper chapter which coincidentally is also the most loathed chapter in half-life pacing comes to a screeching halt as you spend forever in this dull ass Factory solving a series of drawn-out puzzles and working your way up an endless sea of boring conveyor belts that are eventually accompanied by obnoxious waves of aliens for many of these sections there are crystals placed just about everywhere that give you a constant energy source for your tau cannon to help you deal with all the [ __ ] quick message to all developers if you feel the need to essentially give players unlimited ammo for long parts of your game just so they can get through it you haven't designed a good level taking a part of the ninety-eight classic pretty much no one liked and stretching it out into a 90 plus minutes log was not a good idea and no amount of gorgeous art direction can save it at least the final boss waiting for you at the end of all this is 100 times more enjoyable than it used to be Black Mesa also comes with multiplayer but it's bad a non-existent community means you'll be lucky to find a full game in the first place but even when you do matches are laggy missing tons of animations and boil down to everyone spamming explosives because it's the only reliable way to kill players that are skipping around it's not worth any of your time play this game for the campaign black mesa is a clear labor of love and it shows the time and dedication from everyone who worked on it is to be admired and celebrated is this project a replacement for the first game I would say no as the pair are so different from one another that I see each as their own unique experience there's really no reason not to play both don't look at Black Mesa as the one and only way to experience Gordon Freeman's debut instead see it as a reinterpretation and companion piece to the 98 classic and you'll come away with a greater appreciation for both well-done crowbar collective you did good it probably goes without saying that the sequel to the game many considered a turning point for the medium had a fair bit of hype around it and in 2004 half-life 2 hit the scene if you thought the love for the first installment was off the charts the fervor over half-life 2 absolutely dwarfs it tons of perfect 10 ratings dozens of Game of the Year awards and it's a title that many consider one-up if not the best video game to ever grace this humble little planet we call home as was also the case with the first game I did not play Freeman's return when it was the new hotness only seeing it through a few years after the fact when it was re-released as part of the Orange Box it might be because of this delay that I don't personally see half-life 2 as the Holy Grail but that doesn't mean I don't think it's a great time with many impressive qualities that still have weight today set 20 years after the resonance cascade ever silent theoretical physicist gordon freeman is awoken from stasis and put back to work by the mysterious g-man turns out inadvertently opening portals to another world caught the attention of the technologically advanced combine empire who were able to arrive on and subsequently conquer earth in a mere seven hours enslaving the population and establishing total authoritarian rule placed in the middle of city 17 gordon quickly meets up with a resistance prominent members of which happen to be some familiar faces from black mesa and a couple new ones most notably alyx vance a spunky hacker and mechanic who works alongside our hero at various points with Freeman's help bolstering morale our ragtag group of freedom fighters works to overcome their ruthless oppressors Valve's philosophy of delivering an unbroken first-person narrative that rarely takes control away from the player and designing environments in logical or believable ways remains true here what half-life 2 really adds to its storytelling bag of tricks is an emphasis on characterization while the first games cast consisted of the same handful of interchangeable scientists and security guards the sequel establishes several likable companions with diverse personalities Alex her father Eli dr. kleiner Barney Calhoun Judith Mossman these are people you remember thanks to great voice work and Fay chill animations that give every syllable spoken a charm that still looks convincing years later even propaganda spewing antagonists Wallace Breen has an undeniable charisma that makes him hard to hate the actual beats of the plot aren't particularly complex even my first playthrough there was never some oh my god I never saw that coming moment and there are some pretty long periods of time between character scenes which can make it feel like Gordon is taking on the entire combine army by himself but what's here is delivered well and makes it so you're always happy to see a friendly face like any good follow-up should half-life 2 takes the various things that worked about its predecessor and expands on them the core of what you'll be doing here is similar shooting hostiles platforming and puzzle solving but there is a major addition that significantly changes how these actions look and feel physics half-life 2 was not the first game to make use of physics but where most other games implemented them sparingly here they're heavily integrated into every aspect of the design in combat defeated foes will crumble and rag doll which is always fun and explosions routinely cause chaotic chain reactions that send debris flying every which way on the flip side you'll weigh down platforms stack objects to aid you in reaching previously unreachable spots and hop across hazardous obstacles by creating a makeshift path using whatever is laying around the abundance of these generally simple jumping and logic puzzles can absolutely feel gimmicky at times but being able to manipulate the environment to such a degree makes them far more interesting than they otherwise might be of course you can't talk about physics without calling attention to the most iconic weapon in Gordon Freeman's toolkit aside from the crowbar the gravity gun as the name implies this little wonder can shoot out a pulse that aggressively pushes things out of the way and can grab most loose objects including ones that would otherwise be out of reach which can then be gingerly placed down or hurled forward at terminal velocity this essentially turns anything laying around into a potential projectile slice zombies and two with a saw blade hurl some poor fools grenade right back at him or use that barrel over there as a battering ram the gravity gun alone adds all kinds of flavor and flexibility to the interactions of half-life 2 and its use in the games finale which sees the weapon supercharged letting you hurl waves of enemies around like Raggedy Ann has got to be one of the most enthralling ending sequences ever programmed half-life 2 also excels in two other ways first it has great gameplay variety frequently mixing things up chapter 2 chapter 2 keep the experience fresh you go from frantically running from the combine to an extended airboat chase to using traps to deal with zombie hordes and Raven home to driving across the coastline in a buggy to carefully avoiding antlion swarms to commanding those antlion swarms while storming a prison - teaming up with resistance fighters in a massive push against the combine there's a whole lot being thrown at the wall and nine times out of 10 what's thrown sticks the other notable aspect that jumps out to me about half-life 2 is its excellent conveyance how it introduces and teaches players new gameplay elements by letting them observe how they work on their own as an example when a new enemy appears in pretty much every other game a text box will pop up or some other character will expose at a bullet point list explaining its likes and dislikes in this game when a threat is introduced it's always done in a way that doesn't put the player at immediate risk and clearly demonstrates that something is bad news usually wordlessly when you encounter your first barnacle you immediately watch it grab and devour a bird head crabs are first seen being killed by a friendly NPC the first zombie you come across is cut off from you by a chain-link fence you're warned of the consequences of stepping on sand before immediately seeing what happens to someone who does all of this really stuck out to me because I feel like we don't see this kind of natural conveyance as much as we probably should sure other games demonstrate stuff in this fashion - but they usually can't resist the urge to then stop everything to hammer the point home because the designers think you're an idiot there are times when a character will explicitly tell Gordon how something works but they only do it when it would make sense like when Alex gives him the gravity gun it's an aspect of half-life I've really come to appreciate as good as I think the game is overall it absolutely has its flaws so let's put all the praise to one side for a bit my first issue is the shooting just like the first halflife it's totally fine it's satisfying and guns have meaty sound effects but that hit scanning problem I brought up before is just as present now in fact I think it's actually more prevalent since you're more often fighting guys with guns namely the combine once again you can maneuver around to try and mitigate damage but no matter how slippery you are it's all going to boil down to you and whoever you're shooting at unloading into one another and just like last time valve clearly recognized this issue and put a bandaid on it by making health pickups or regular occurance it can't help but take away some of the gratification of overcoming a tense firefight when you know going in you'll be taking a beating and then immediately having all that damage undone then there's the pacing while the previously mentioned variety is great many chapters feel like they go on a bit too long the biggest culprits being water hazard and highway 17 the two sections that feature a drivable vehicle I'm sure these parts were incredibly impressive for their scale at the time but they can't help but drag when you're forced to stop and deal with roadblocks multiple times for each between long sections of uninteresting travel it also doesn't help that driving both the airboat and buggy don't feel very good with floaty handling and a tendency to get jostle by the weirdest bits of level geometry also later levels have groups of friendlies tagging along with you in a squad and while they're okay at dealing with threats they have a tendency to regularly get in the damn way especially in tight spaces prepare to treat these guys like a defensive line having to brute-force through them more than once my last complaint will seem minor to most of you but it's a pet peeve of mine that I have to draw attention to I really really hate when a game gives you a flashlight that drains only to have it recharged in a few seconds whenever it's turned off like why bother having it turn off at all then it adds nothing to the experience but inconvenience this was also a thing in half-life 1 but I didn't call it out because the flashlight in that game lasts for quite a while odds are good that by the time it would have fully drained you'd have already turned it off yourself so it was rarely a problem but here the flashlight only lasts for a minute so it's turning off all the freaking time and to make matters worse for some insane reason your torch shares the same power meter as sprinting and oxygen so if you're walking through the dark in activity you do with some frequency then decide you want to run well too bad [ __ ] oh your legs don't work because you wanted to see where you were going I can't tell you how many times I came to a body of water and started to dive down only to have to immediately surface because using my flashlight means Gordon forgets how to hold his breath to anyone that says half-life 2 is software perfected I give you exhibit a to the contrary also you can't shoot friendly NPCs in the face so 0 out of 10 half-life 2 also had a deathmatch component but I can't really say much about it because the only active lobbies I could find a play on were nightmares I'm talking custom games on overseas servers with random sound effects wildly altered damaged values and bullets Bungie players that were either the result of extreme lag or tampering I'm not going to hold any of this against the game itself but I'll say with confidence that if you want to play some multiplayer within the framework of half-life 2 it's called Garry's Mod I'd also like to mention half-life 2 update released in 2015 developed by dedicated fan and community member Philip Fichter half-life 2 update predictably updates half-life 2 with visual enhancements like improved lighting dynamic shadows increased details bug fixes and various other tweaks I only briefly messed around with this version and if I'm being honest I had a hard time seeing much difference but I'm no expert one new addition I did notice though was the inclusion of community commentary which is cool because half-life 2 never got any official developer commentary the individuals responsible for the fan project provide insight and you'll hear the familiar voices of some notable YouTube personalities detailing Valve's thought process on certain aspects of their design as far as I've been able to gather most agree this is a fine version of the game some even say it's the definitive one so there's no harm in trying it for yourself or using it for a first playthrough half-life 2 is beloved for a reason and while I have my issues with it preventing me from declaring it the greatest thing since sliced bread it remains an impressive achievement worthy of all the rest in the world over 15 years later it still excels in areas that many modern games falter on if you haven't played it yourself you absolutely should but that's only the beginning as there's still plenty of half-life 2 content to talk about including something that was left on the cutting room floor in 2005 valve put out half-life 2 Lost Coast as a free download for owners of the base game this section is going to be pretty short because all Lost Coast is is a small piece of content that was cut from half-life 2 specifically a piece that was planned to be part of the highway 17 chapter it has Gordon fighting up some cliff sides jamming an artillery launcher in a church and taking out a hunter-killer chopper it takes maybe 10 minutes to plow through and offers the same gameplay you've already seen plenty of so there's not much to say on that front it acts as a nice little bonus and provided a testing ground for some new graphical features on the source engine most notably high dynamic range or HDR it also marks the debut of Valve's developer commentary feature allowing those working behind the scenes to explain their process and detail their use of certain techniques it proved to be a worthwhile add-on and would be included in every major release the company put out from that on showing up in other games like portal left 4 dead and the half-life 2 episodes speaking of which instead of forcing fans to wait several long agonizing years for a new entry in their most popular series because valve would never do that they decided to instead adopt an episodic release model this way players could continue the half-life story a piece at a time with smaller gaps in between entries the first of these three planned episodes aptly named half-life 2 episode 1 came out in 2006 it picks up directly where half-life 2 left off and focuses on the duo of Gordon and Alex desperately trying to escape from city 17 before the Citadel's core explodes and wipes out the surrounding area a few additional things are set up like Alex downloading a valuable piece of data that the combine doesn't want you to have but as far as moving the overall plot forward there isn't much your time is spent trying to get the hell out of Dodge and once you've successfully done so the credits roll it feels like the first act of a grander tale because that's exactly what it is and it's for that reason that most considerate the least remarkable standalone piece of half-life 2 content that's not to imply that episode 1 isn't worth playing though as even the weakest of half-life 2 is still pretty good while the overarching plot doesn't escalate much it's made up for by the further characterization of Alex while she played a prominent role in the base game and teamed up with Gordon quite a bit in its second half here she's by your side for 90% of the adventure this time spent together serves to make her more likable than she already was flushing out her personality as she seems to have a comment for pretty much everything you see and do and she's great to have in a fight proving to be a valuable ally thanks to her dramatically improved AI alex is now incredibly competent at taking down threats holding her own right alongside you show gun down zombies without hesitation and during one section provides reliable sniper cover as you move down a street she's so good that you might find yourself leaning on her especially in the first half when you don't have as many weapons as you might be used to it's best to look at this game as an extension of half-life 2 rather than an expansion because it basically offers more of what you did before you'll get to go ham with the overcharged gravity gun again move through dark tunnels taking down zombies and help resistance members in skirmishes against combine soldiers it's all pretty familiar ground there are a couple new things added Alex can hack roller Minds making them hostile toward enemies though you're only given the opportunity to use them a few times and a new baddie in the form of a zombie combine that likes whipping out grenades and suiciding toward you combine zombie it's that's like a zombie alright Zomba and get it given its shorter three hour runtime episode one also has pretty good pacing with some standout sequences like the Afra mentioned sniper cover section and a badass tear through a hospital crawling with entangled undead and combine forces things do drag right near the end with this overly long part where you have to ferry multiple groups of human through the same small map as enemies continuously spawn it's not bad but it is very repetitive and can't help but feel like padding made to stretch out the runtime a little conclude with an underwhelming fight against a Strider and our first piece of the half-life epilogue draws to a close I think most people that dismiss episode 1 do so because it's last few gameplay segments Liva not great final impression and it's story provides more setup than substance but when all is said and done it's more half-life 2 with the added bonus of a lovable companion that's able to kick just as much as as you you absolutely should not skip it not only for the reason of it being good but also because it acts as a solid leaden for what was to come the story continued in 2007 with the predictably titled half-life 2 episode 2 while episode 1 felt mostly like build up episode 2 really pushes the narrative forward with interesting revelations and some unforgettable moments that hint at a truly exciting finale many consider this to be half-life 2 at its very best and I find it hard to disagree with that assessment having successfully made it out of the now destroyed city 17 Gordon and Alex continue on to meet up with their friends in hopes of stopping the combine portal now hanging ominously in the sky their journey proves to be full of obstacles however starting with Alex being critically wounded having you work with a unique group of allies to save her life there's an exhilarating defense section where you mow down antlion swarms to defend a choke point from multiple directions and another memorable sequence where you team up with aboard agon pal to fight through their den this is followed up by an extended road trip and a newly introduced muscle car complete with numerous intense pit stops before culminating in a frantic section where you put the pedal to the metal to transport bombs capable of instantly bringing down the multiple Striders bearing down on the resistance base it's all pretty exceptional stuff and wraps up on a legendary cliffhanger that almost certainly left fans with their jaws firmly planted on the floor well episode 2 does a great job of moving the story along providing many details to ponder on there is one aspect of it that always stuck out to me is weird and that's the introduction of dr. Magnussen I don't have a problem with him as a character his fussy and smug personality fits in just fine and is a nice contrast to the generally upbeat cast but he literally comes into the plot out of nowhere and everyone acts like he's been there the whole time if he was briefly seen or at least mentioned once or twice previously I wouldn't have a problem but the way he's yeet ydynt ooh the goings on without any acknowledgment of that facts can't help but feel jarring well I again wouldn't call episode 2 an expansion it does add in to new enemy types first there's the antlion worker a luminescent bug creature that spits toxic sludge at you their inclusion mixes up the now-familiar encounters with antlions forcing more maneuvering to avoid the projectiles the more prominent addition to the batty roster though are the hunters a sort of hybrid of Strider and normal soldier these fast tanky bastards hit hard and are capable of going just about everywhere you can you're routinely forced to take on two or more of these things at a time and each encounter is a challenging endeavor that makes battles noticeably more intense the new car also handles a bit better than what you've driven before feeling noticeably more weighty though it's still that great but all that crap is small potatoes compared to the insane game-changer implemented in episode 2 a change so monumental it alters the very core of the experience in ways I can't even begin to describe finally after two installments they gave the flashlight its own power supply seriously though I'm so happy they finally did this no more am I stuck without the ability to sprint or breathe underwater for the crime of wanting to see I still think it's dumb that the flashlight runs out at all but you know what I'll take what I can get episode 2 can easily be argued as the series high note and that's saying something it's very well paced mixes up the gameplay in fun ways and as the middle chapter 2 a story sets up what was to come with confidence while making the player ponder the fascinating implications once everything was wrapped up the half-life faithful were left reeling waiting with unmatched levels of anticipation for the follow-up would humanity's succeed and their struggle for survival what was the G man's endgame how exactly would the journey of the Freeman conclude these were just a few of the things that fans were asking and they'd keep asking for a long long time half-life 2 episode 3 the much anticipated conclusion to the episodic trilogy never saw the light of day fans waited and waited for any kind of update on its release but aside from some leaked concept art valve remains silent on the status of the game for years they actively put out other critically acclaimed titles during that time but the finale everyone was waiting for remained far from public view in 2011 Studio co-founder Gabe Newell definitively stated that the company had moved on from the episodic model naturally leading fans to assume a full-fledged sequel was on the way and it wouldn't be long until we heard news of a half-life 3 episode 2 came out thirteen years ago and at the time of this video the most we've seen of a half-life 3 are the endless memes poking fun at its non-existence everyone who ever held that iconic crowbar in their hands seemed to accept that we'd never see a return to the half-life universe and all we could do was dream about what could have been that was until November 2019 when the world was stunned by a sudden unexpected announcement after a hiatus only rivaled by the likes of Duke Nukem Forever valve shocked everyone by actually announcing a brand new half-life game called half-life Alex which was a prequel that was to be exclusive to virtual reality from where I was standing the immediate knee jerk reaction as this news broke was a collective are you kidding me and I understand why some fans felt this way not only did the next installment in a series people had been waiting over a decade for not continue on from the episode two cliffhanger but playing it required additional hardware that costs at minimum hundreds of dollars but once that dust settled I saw a generally positive reception to the announcement sure it wasn't the sequel everyone hoped for but it was a new half-life game and with valve having a vested interest in the VR space with their own headset there was reason to be excited I'm relatively new to the medium having only received a headset for Christmas a few months back but in that time I've played some great stuff both of the casual and non casual variety pulling an actual trigger and nailing a head shot you had to physically line up by eye is undeniably one of the most satisfying gaming activities you can do right now provided valve brought their once legendary standard of polish and care to the game Alex had all the potential in the world to be a top tier experience now that it's out and I've had a chance to play through it from start to finish is it a quality title worthy of the half-life name yeah it's pretty awesome for those of you worried about what you're about to see let me save some things up front first I played through half-life Alex using an oculus rift s so my opinions are based on my time with that Hardware second aside from a basic setup I will not be spoiling any plot details third all of the footage is only from the first half of the game I can't guarantee some of you won't consider certain things to be visual spoilers but if I've included it here then it's not something I consider to be detrimental for a first time player and finally if any hitches or stutters you might see should not be blamed on the game playing and recording we are at the same time is relatively strenuous on a computer and my PC is a bit outdated everyone good ok moving on in three two one set five years before the events of half-life 2 your virtual hands belong to the titular alyx vance doing her thing as a resistance member but when her father is captured by the combine for seeing something he shouldn't have alex takes it upon herself alongside her guy in the chair russell to rescue him and uncover the truth about a super weapon earth's conquerors have tightly locked up it's a bit weird to have a voice protagonist in half-life for once but alex proves to be just as likable as before and the back-and-forth between her and the eccentric inventor in her ear is both endearing and doesn't overstay its welcome the narrative is straightforward but engaging the whole way through and has an ending that is holy [ __ ] and that's all I'll say about that half-life alex has options for just about every level of comfort you could think of making it incredibly accessible I played entirely standing with limited room scale and full stick movement but you can play sitting down move via teleportation you can play entirely with one hand if you want there are even separate options for how you climb ladders although the game will cheat you to the top for convenience no matter what and whether Barnacles will lift you off the ground should you get caught by one on launch day the option for smooth turning which means normal camera control you'd expect from an analog stick simply did not work forcing me to use snap turning for most of the game including all the time I was recording though that issue was patched within a day there is no jump button with leaps done strictly via teleporting and actions like climbing through windows are done by simply walking into them as that would almost certainly be a nightmare to realistically mimic whether you're a VR veteran or the type of person that feels like they want to vomit all over themselves performing even basic actions Alex will have a setup that works for you the game consists of the familiar components you'd expect from a half-life game combat exploration and puzzle solving and each element is impressively polished many titles before this have succeeded at transforming motion controllers into satisfying firearms and the same can be said about Alex popping rounds into numerous zombies and combine you encounter frantically ejecting and real magazines in the middle of a fight grabbing a headcrab out of the air mid leap and finishing it off with a few quick shots it all feels really good your arsenal is pretty limited as there are only three weapons to speak of a pistol a shotgun and an SMG all of which are one-handed and permanently stuck to your appendage of choice all of these death-dealing tools can be upgraded with a handful of attachments like sites and extended mags making them more efficient and effective and two kinds of grenades that appear more and more frequently as you play make quick work of small groups unfortunately melee is not an option whatsoever which feels like a weird omission given that this series is synonymous with a crowbar if you're feeling creative you can use objects to block attacks I once used a suitcase to deflect a headcrab into a barnacle but trying to use a blunt instrument against your attacker in an offensive manner will only result in bad times this is easily one of if not the best-looking VR game to date offering an incredible sense of scale and the remarkable level of detail conveys the disgusting oppressive violent setting better than any previous entry the atmosphere here is top-notch and while the game is not scary though I did jump once or twice when something caught me off guard that ever-present horror vibe the series has always had to some degree is the strongest it's ever been you'll be getting a good look at everything - as you're encouraged to search every corner for health ammo and resin which is your currency for weapon upgrades most objects in the environment are interactable so you'll routinely be swiping or throwing knickknacks out of the way and opening drawers looking for goodies this is where the gravity gloves come in allowing you to effortlessly flick distant objects towards you so you can snag them out of the air you'll be using these things constantly as they let you pick up things without having to bend down and it always feels cool to swiftly grab an incoming item and smoothly move it over your shoulder into your backpack puzzle wise there are the usual find object a to insert into slot B obstacles but primarily you'll be making extensive use of Alex's multi-tool this lets you hack storage containers by turning an orb to match symbols or guide one point to another open upgrade stations by correctly lining up laser points and divert power by following wires hidden in the walls as the game goes on these simple mini games become more complex though not really in ways that make them harder just more drawn out a few points where you're required to follow circuits for like two or three rooms will have you wanting the whole ordeal over and done with overall though these hacking diversions are pretty quick and fun to solve though they can pop up a bit too frequently for their own good the first half of the game falls into a familiar rhythm before too long look around a bit gawking at all the pretty sights avoid slimy tongues dangling from above and deal with some head crabs and zombies both of which are predictable and easy to take down combine soldiers show up to complicate things every once in a while and while they're AI isn't that advanced battling them still requires the use of cover as even one of these guys will melt you if you're standing in the open for some firefights I was literally on my hands and knees hiding behind cars rushing to different positions and fumbling to reload as quickly as I could it felt so cool but I was also becoming used to the formula so the wow factor was starting to wane alex is second half though which as a reminder I'm not showing you any footage of elevates everything considerably mixing things up with unique encounters locations become more visually diverse there tend to be more bad guys to deal with it once a new enemy or two show up to knock you out of your comfort zone and there's an entire tense chapter that forces you to waste an irresponsible amount of vodka I classify the first 50% as very good and the second 50% as pretty outstanding every piece of half-life alex is remarkably polished it's only real failing to someone like me is that depending on what VR games you've played before it doesn't really do anything new and can feel a bit limiting no matter what your experience alex is bound to impress but the level at which it will impress will vary depending on whether or not you've played something like bone works phone works came out at the end of last year and kind of stole valves thunder by providing everything this game does and then some a good variety of one and two-handed firearms a slew of melee weapons an elaborate physics model where even your character's whole body is taken into account the ability to get around obstacles in creative ways and extra sandbox and arena modes that allow for fun pickup play sessions rife with potential experimentation the consequence of all this complexity is more frequent jank and somewhat tech demo we feel but looking at bone works and Alex side-by-side can't help but make valves efforts seem a bit safer in comparison half-life Alex takes about 10 hours to see through to the end and that includes frequent scavenging that allowed me to buy all but one gun upgrade and occasionally stopping to throw [ __ ] around because breaking stuff is never not fun I've seen some reviews claim the game is 15 hours long but unless you really really like staring at sky boxes I don't see how you reach that mark playing normally there are no extras outside of the linear story which I do think is a missed opportunity VR is inherently more physically taxing than sitting at a desk with a keyboard and mouse so having a side mode that lets you mess around and kill waves of headcrabs or something for a quick session would have done a lot to keep people coming back on a frequent basis there also is no developer commentary feature which is a shame because valves insight into how their games are made have always been an interesting listen I guess they chose to omit it because they'd have to spend most of the audio tiptoeing around what the hell they've been up to for the last decade should you run out and buy an oculus or an index just to play half-life Alex no of course not that's silly but if you're fortunate enough to have a headset laying around or you acquire one in the future it's absolutely a must play it's both a quality VR title that executes everything it sets out to do with conviction and an outstanding half-life game that lets you interact with the world like never before and provides revelations that will have far-reaching repercussions for the story going forward it may have taken forever to see the series continue but there's no question that valve has once again struck a high note and that's all the half-life I did it I'm done if you've made it this far thank you for going on this journey with me did you like the video think about leaving a rating to let me know have any thoughts on the series or opinions on my hot takes tell me all about it in a comment I think I did a good job and want to see more content for me hit that subscribe button and check out my channels backlog because you might find something else that tickles your fancy in the mean time this is where I get off wait a minute this is the wrong stop hey hey let me back in hey [Music]

Channel: Critical Nobody

Views: 1,029,226

Keywords: critical nobody, review, video games, gaming, gameplay, criticalnb, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life: Alyx, Opposing Force, Blue Shift, Half-Life: Decay, Half-Life: Source, Black Mesa, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Half-Life 2: Episode Three, Half-Life 3, Gordon Freeman, Alyx Vance, G-Man, Valve, Valve Software, Gabe Newell, Reviewing Every Half-Life, overview, retrospective, Half-Life review, half life review, half life, half life alyx review

Id: bNRLQuax4ms

Length: 67min 16sec (4036 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 01 2020