Why Is Half-Life A MASTERPIECE?!

oh hey dad do you think you can help me study for my theoretical physics exam dr gordon i don't suppose you could help me pry open this box [Music] act man when are you gonna review half-life [Music] science fiction and video games go together like schwarzenegger and carl weathers they're the two nerdiest things in the world besides anime good old science fiction films like aliens would go on to inspire countless games across the world including the legendary half-life hailed as one of the greatest video games of all time this gem takes a spot in almost every list on the subject it's been given over 50 game of the year awards in his first adventure gordon freeman cemented himself as an icon and kickstarted valve's rise to stardom spawning a franchise of several single and multiplayer expansions some remakes yet only one direct sequel which is kind of strange half-life is among the top 5 rated pc games on metacritic at one point it even held the guinness world record for best-selling fps on computers some even go so far as to say it's the most important shooter ever made holy headcrabs batman what a list of achievements rarely does the gaming community and especially the internet in general come together and unanimously agree on something because we're all supposed to hate each other remember your subjective opinions are objectively incorrect half-life one is awesome and everyone should play it thank you for watching this video now please direct your attention to the like button share this on myspace really helps me out guys now some of you might be asking act man why are you reviewing half-life of 40 year old game well if you've played any shooter in the last 23 years then it's time for you to pay some respects to one of the goats of course you can't talk about how great half-life is without mentioning the crater of an impact it made on valve gaming shooters and sequel conspiracy theorists is this image real but you also say to me act boy just because something made a huge impact to change technology doesn't automatically mean it's worth anything today nobody uses the freaking typewriter anymore that's true some things are only valuable in the time period they lived in but here's a more relatable example goldeneye sure it brought first person shooters to consoles but then xbox came out with a controller that made shooters worth playing on consoles so while goldeneye may have changed the industry for the better it's not really something people are dying to go back and replay on the nintendo 64. so how is half-life any different from goldeneye that's a fair question is half-life 1 worth playing now or has its legacy and importance become less relevant what made it so special that it inspired countless other developers to emulate its formula why was it so successful and 23 years later is half-life 1 still a masterpiece well let's push this thing into the thing get invaded by aliens and rev up our crowbar straight into this watch this hey gordon what do you think of the raycon everyday e25s he's not gonna well act man one thing's for certain these earbuds are definitely worth talking about you are absolutely right gordon act man do you want to tune out all the gunfire and alien screeching in your life are you tired of outdated cords getting in the way then you my friend need a pair of raycon earbuds raycon has arrived from another dimension to offer you premium audio quality at half the price of other top brands the charging port can be taken on the go it's a perfect compact design that'll easily fit into the pockets of your hev suit the earbuds hold up to six hours of play time and the charging port up to 24. it's impossible bluetooth pairing is as simple as picking up a crowbar and raycon offers several cool designs and colors co-founded by ray j i just got off the phone with mike tyson and he loves these headphones wish he didn't bite that one guy's ear off because now he can only listen to half the glory i use my raycons anytime i go out on a run or work out seriously these are amazing earbuds and if you use the link buy raycon.com act man you better believe your sweet headcrabs you're getting a percent discount off your entire order that link by raycon dot com slash act man is in the description and pinned comment thank you raycon for sponsoring this video how did we evolve from apes to humans that's one of life's great mysteries isn't it just kidding nobody cares what's more important is how fbs titles evolved from this to this but you see it's possible to trace the roots of an idea or invention and discover where it originally came from that path from point a to point z is the lineage before we get into the gameplay i want to trace the lineage of shooters to and from half-life one and in doing so help you understand just how pivotal this game was and still is it's a landmark if you will a homo erectus one of the biggest turning points in our evolution as a species was when primitive caveman learned how to control and use fire if wolfenstein 3d and doom was the shooter genre understanding how to use fire then half-life was the genre learning how to harness electricity so yes gabe newell is the benjamin franklin of first person shooters a lot of valve games originated from a mod of another you can look at pc gaming overall as a series of work built upon itself take that new game valor ant for example it basically looks and feels like a cartoon version of counter-strike global offensive which was a remake of counter-strike source cs source was based on the original and the original was a mod for half-life one valve built half-life one on a modified version of its software's quake engine and quake was the spiritual successor to doom and wolfenstein 3d which started the whole damn shooter craze in the first place none of this means half-life is somehow the great great grandfather of black ops cold war and russell adler or whatever the important thing is i can draw a line from valorant released just last year back to half-life and say half-life played a part in this game's existence this is a direct result and effect of half-life's legacy and how it is still inspiring others to this day there's a lot of stuff we take for granted in video games and shooters nowadays things like scripted sequences cut scenes fluid animations smart ai a decent story i said a decent story a decent story there you go but a lot of what made single player shooters so popular over the years can be traced or at least indirectly linked back to half-life what do i mean well i'll show you good morning and welcome to the black mesa transit system half-life begins with what every shooter starts with today and what almost no shooter started with prior to 1998 a cut scene you dropped into the shoes of dr gordon freeman who's late for work morning mr freeman looks like you're running late oh i forgot to shave my stylish goatee oh well a robotic voice narrates the history of the facility talking about its policies as you hear the blaring sounds of industrial equipment in the background this announcement feels like a corporate speech that you're forced to listen to before being hired one that's been manufactured to sound as pleasant as possible yet the upbeat tone of the woman's voice contrasts the ominous music as you're taken on rails through the black mesa facility in new mexico new mexico is also the site of the roswell ufo crash in 1947 in case you wanted some extra foreshadowing little history lesson for you we see security officers scientists at work it wait how the hell did they get into those offices i don't see any doors you ride through workshops filled with mechanized goliaths that move out of the way i think you see ripley and apone at one point we passed missile launch bays before heading down a mine shaft where a readied helicopter gets prepped for takeoff here's something about the black mesa hazard ah what the voice continues on about health care and the importance of radiation screening as you pass over pools of toxic waste now that's what you call ironic so while this whole section is meant to come across as just another day at work for gordon the player can't ignore the warning signs right in front of them despite whatever pleasantries were being told through the speaker we're seeing toxic waste missiles and military action throughout black mesa an indication that you know maybe something not so cool is going on down here and wait who's that guy gordon freeman in the flesh oh well i'm sure he's not important finally you arrive at the sector c test labs where an officer lets you off the tram morning mr freeman now this opening sequence does a fantastic job of setting the tone and introducing you to the world of half-life you get the sense that this is going to be a gritty sci-fi adventure with some dark humor mixed in no i'm not trying to say half-life invented cutscenes in video games symphony of the night did that time monster you don't belong in this world but why don't we take a look at the introductions of other popular shooters at the time get yourselves ready for the opening cinematic of wolfenstein 3d [Music] there is no cinematic here's how doom starts dope nothing there quake nope duke nukem 3d damn those alien fans do not pay for shooting up my ride well he mentions his ride was shut down and he likes titties i mean that's that's something i guess goldeneye is a brief intro for each mission but it's just to show the player where they are do you see the first thing that made half-life stand out it went against every shooter's first instinct because you weren't given a gun in the beginning and immediately started blasting everything in sight valve showed restraint now that there's a problem with jumping into the action right away i bet loads of people with adhd couldn't sit through this but it was only a matter of time before someone came along and said let's write some context for why you're shooting aliens i could sum up the general attitude towards shooting games back in the 90s by quoting john carmack the father of the genre no disrespect to him this was a common sentiment at the time story in a game is like a story in a porn movie it's expected to be there but it's not that important john i'm glad this quote is now outdated because the stories in pornos have gotten way better you see back in the 90s doom was the hottest out there and everyone wanted to copy it that is until half-life came along kind of like how a few years ago enhanced movement was really popular until battle royale started shifting away from that in this sense half-life was like pubg except it wasn't a pile of garbage made by a group of greedy who tried claiming ownership of a genre we are concerned that halo may be replicating the experience that half-life is known for while i will go on record and say doom is probably the most influential game of all time when you compare the openings of half-life to these other titles and even doom there's no contest story characters this is my hiding spot context and build up these were not the things that made doom so awesome and doom didn't become obsolete when valve released half-life they simply iterated and evolved the formula little did valve know this simple addition of a non-combat area and scripted sequences that happen in real time would become the new norm in video games and set the foundation for the next 20 years worth of shooters bioshock halo call of duty battlefield metroid prime fallout uncharted battlefront titanfall none of these franchises would be where they are without half-life you can really see how strong this trend is when you look at destiny a game that tried to shift shooters away from telling stories i don't even have time to explain why i don't have time to explain it didn't work out so well battlefront 2015 black ops 4 overwatch these games were derided because half-life made it a standard if you're making a shooter people expect a story along with it i'd have a serious case of blue balls if this was the only part of half-life that had this level of effort put into its story in scripted sequences but thankfully my balls are a-okay don't be fooled by the graphics ladies and gentlemen the opening and entirety of half-life has aged as well as keanu reeves so you stroll into the anomalous materials front office and one of the scientists and security officers tells you you're needed for some kind of experiment yeah just another day at work anyways you go down to the hey that stench i've smelled it before you start talking to more scientists and at this point you start to wonder why you're suspiciously not given the full details of what's happening now now if you follow standard insertion procedures everything will be fine i don't know how you can say that although i will admit that the possibility of a resonance scenario is extremely unlikely gordon doesn't need to hear all this yes i do i'm the guy on the front cover everyone's waiting on gordon so he grabs his classic hazard environmental suit before heading down into the main reactor some gadgets on the wall start breaking it's about to go critical making you feel a bit worried what the hell is going on with our equipment it wasn't meant to do this in the first place guys i don't know what you're up to but it it sounds like something is gonna go horribly wrong jordan we have complete confidence in you all right well i'll do it but i'd hate to say i told you so i knew it don't ever give up my son so the anti-mass spectrometer goes haywire causing a resonance cascade which is just fancy talk for aliens are here now leave it to science to screw everything up you get a brief glimpse of this foreign world before being transported back oh god they're watching me now it's time to assess the damage dead scientists and officers are everywhere the place is a total wreck a man desperately tries to revive another oh jesus but at least we're given a new objective please get to the surface as soon as you can and let someone know we're stranded down here only one problem doc i ain't got no weapon would you kindly find a crowbar or something thanks atlas now this is starting to get interesting this is where the fun begins just gonna call the elevator and i'll uh i'll get the next one even with its primitive graphics the storytelling in half-life is just as engaging as it ever was like when you walk into this office you see a guy being pulled into the vents he reaches out desperately for aid another dude tries to help [Applause] jesus it's both comical and frightening there's so many scenes and moments like this that show off the chaotic state of things without explicitly telling us what's going on over the last 72 hours five colonies yeah not that again the game doesn't start with us being told how black mesa is filled with aliens the place is and you gotta go clean it up as gordon freeman we are an active witness and unwitting participant in everything that plays out betrayal it must have been a trip for gamers back then to see for the first time other humans that weren't actively trying to murder you let alone watch these officers and scientists walk around like real people order drinks from a vending machine work at a computer get attacked by a giant tentacle monster there's a couple guys in the bathroom taking what i assume is a fat dump no i mean this was all advanced stuff npcs even refer to you by name their heads turn as you'll walk by but you can also interact with things like starting the microwave and watching it explode or pushing an alarm button that pisses off your co-workers my god are you doing come on gordon you trying to get me into trouble these moments add a lot of depth and charm to the game it's what i like to call world building a lot of big budget games nowadays rely on pre-rendered cutscenes to tell a story with little to no interaction on the player's behalf or they bombard you with pointless and boring quick time events yawn valve sees the value of keeping the controller in the player's hands they don't snatch it from you point at the screen and shout look look at how hard we worked on this cut scene nobody cares but it can't wash everything away uh can i skip this no this goes on for 20 minutes okay there's a charming simplicity in the way you keep control of gordon for 99 of the game makes the environments that much more believable and immersive because everything happens in real time when a bridge is supposed to break the camera doesn't zoom out show the bridge breaking and then zoom back in it just breaks there's nothing wrong with pre-rendered cutscenes but games are an interactive medium do you get what i'm saying remember how epic this scene in halo 3 was [Music] what's up moments like these can be way more powerful in a video game when you show restraint and don't take control away from the player let them look around and appreciate it themselves let them stay in the moment this is the philosophy that half-life sticks to and if you notice it's the same thing with bioshock both have silent protagonists gordon freeman is the perfect vessel for you to imprint yourself in the labs of black mesa your reactions are his reactions he doesn't scream at the first sight of a zombie like a wimp in fact the only thing we know about gordon is he's a 27 year old theoretical physicist who graduated at mit with a masters in beard trimming any character traits or personality beyond that is whatever you make of him i honestly can't find much to complain about aside from the npc's glitching out at times well that and getting stuck on geometry is always a but these issues are few and far between so half-life is less of a power fantasy and more a tale of survival horror gordon freeman isn't an action hero with years of experience he's just a freaking nerd trapped in an intergalactic conflict and eventually he becomes that action hero but first gordon has to scavenge the corpses of soldiers and scientists for weapons i'll take that unlocking abandoned caches of weapons secret experimental tech my man gets his hands on every tool and weapon he can to push back this nightmare you can even wield a severed hand of a grunt with infinite ammo that shoots homing needles where have i heard that before this is one sexy sandbox and i bet that's a sentence you don't hear too often one thing i wish shooters did way more of is give weapons a second function whether it's a barrel mounted shotgun noob tube and emp blast different types of ammo it just makes the weapon way more cool it could even be something simple like left click for semi-auto fire and right-click for rapid half-life does this amazing thing where it takes a standard familiar gun and puts a slight twist on it to make it unique how many games have i played where a shotgun can fire one or two slugs at the same time like one other game you can shoot rockets straight or use the homing function that follows your cursor every weapon has these small additions but together they make a huge difference in the way half-life is played i mean bugs bugs are a weapon in this game oh they turn on you need i say more back to the horror half-life is proof that graphics aren't the only thing that makes a game scary there's a sense of terror around every corner as you hear the grotesque burbling of aliens in the dimly lit corridors a crappy flashlight is sometimes your only source of light i hate fighting headcrabs in the dark and it seems throughout this dark adventure we are being followed watched from afar ah hello gordon freeman because of the random teleporting aliens can ambush you from anywhere sometimes they pop in and destroy parts of the level but other times they're smart and ambush you from behind throughout the levels you see bloody mess after bloody mess what the ah zombies a live headcrab clutches the skull of a helpless scientist eager to start the horrible transformation seeing a headcrab scientist stroke out while a computer monitor flashes illuminating blood all around god it's spooky valve was really smart with the enemy placement surprise headcrabs can come out of the ceiling through vents zombies will bust down walls you're constantly on edge man thank goodness we get some occasional backup though gordon makes his way through the destroyed facility and into the office complex where the helpless survivors get picked off one by one a lone scientist talks to you everyone's heading for the service but i think they're crazy not to stay put someone is bound to come by and rescue us yeah we should wait for someone to save us well this is boring off i go hooray the military is here to save us oh it's a setup can't go down the situation gets even crazier as we now have three factions mixed up in the fighting after reaching the surface it's revealed that the military have taken control of black mesa and are attempting to bomb it our only means of rescue seemingly lost at this point you probably noticed there's no nav marker or compass showing you where to go no objective in the corner telling you what to do the game respects the player's intelligence in figuring things out on their own this was a deliberate choice to encourage exploration off the beaten path but the way half-life handles its levels is equally impressive half-life may be bold and brash but it does not belong in the trash on the surface it looks kind of like doom a speedy main character with an arsenal of weapons battling in labyrinth type levels with health packs ammo and all sorts of goodies scattered around but valve did something incredibly risky and unusual they attempted to merge three styles of games into one it's a recipe as unique as it is hard to make right though i'm sure gordon ramsay could do it it can be easily undercooked or overcooked here's how to do it properly aside from these games i can't think of many shooters that emphasize puzzle solving and platforming as much as the combat itself most don't even try just throw me into an on rails turret section let the game take me exactly where i need to go i don't want to get lost oh yes please put up invisible barriers everywhere my tiny american brain cannot comprehend so we got three things going on there's your story and dialogue sections combat puzzles and platforming half-life is these components in alternating order the first two levels for example you'll learn about the black mesa facility through the story and then have to platform through some traps before getting a crowbar for combat and then you solve a puzzle to get through to the offices this is what keeps gameplay fresh from start to finish later on they start mixing and matching the force so you may have to solve a puzzle while you're platforming on conveyor belts or you could be fighting aliens at the same time you're jumping around on a minecart or there might be a giant green monster you can't kill with conventional weapons so you have to solve a puzzle to burn its ass half-life never stays on one type of gameplay for too long or have you do the same thing over and over again no gimmick overstays its welcome yes bioshock i said it it's perfectly paced gameplay focusing on build up and it triggers your critical thinking skills to kick in that is what the half-life series is all about but the reason i enjoy the puzzles is because they're not that difficult sometimes i don't have patience for the puzzles and platforming and there are some frustrating areas like this slippery ass bridge that not even luigi could jump on ugh just get over there come on get over there oh there's sharks in the water too if i screw up great hate these jumps where you don't make it if you're one pixel off you know it's a real jumping across tiny platforms when you move like sonic the hedgehog here's one complaint the movement slow the hell down gordon i know you can walk but i often found the control was inhibiting my ability to make these jumps like here i can't even swim up through this hole i can't get up go through the hole what the where did it go oh my god also yes i did have to look up a youtube guide a few times the platforming gets real crazy when you head to zen and you get this gravity suit that lets you long jump 50 yards overall i'd say the puzzles and platforming are fun in their own right but they also make the levels far more interesting to play through and look at but how's the course shooting my god does it kick ass i could run through how awesome all the 14 weapons are and go into extended boring detail about how unique the 16 enemy types are and how every encounter feels different so i'll just say it's tuned to near perfection it's nice that half-life doesn't punish you hard with some straight-up i mean you can respawn in like two seconds the difficulty is perfect any potential dangers are clearly telegraphed to the player you almost always feel like each death was your own fault and not the games that's a rare difficulty to achieve it's the mark of a smart game even if you separate half-life's legacy and take an objective look at his gameplay it's solid hell i'd say it plays better than most shooters out there and at the very least it offers something totally different mark laidlaw is the expert writer behind half-lives narrative and i wanted to give the guy some credit please enjoy this two-second round of applause well done thank you half-life was written in a way to give you enough details that you end up wanting more i want more it's one of those stories i end up googling to satisfy my craving for answers what were the scientists trying to accomplish by putting this thing into the thing it's never explained exactly how and why aliens came through the portal at least not till later games and i like it that way it sparks intrigue so black mesa is crawling with aliens from a foreign world and the military is shaking things up even more because they're trying to bomb the whole area throughout the game you actually hear the marines talk to each other about the mission they question orders there's a lot of moral ambiguity here and even as gordon freeman we have to wonder about our own actions did we cause all of this but dr freeman soon becomes priority target number one as he's proven to be the deadliest nerd amongst the dungeons and dragons fan club at black mesa at one point the marine's sole objective is to take him down but then gets even wackier because the marines aren't doing their job so alex mason and a bunch of black ops assassins get sent in to kill everyone including the marines holy crap i can't handle the thickening of this plot freeman's goal is to launch a satellite into space which will somehow stop the invasion and the portal and you do this but shockingly it doesn't work spoiler alert your ass has been captured one of the rare instances where you lose control but instead of being executed on the spot gordon is thrown in a trash compactor and narrowly escapes a cliche death battling your way through the waste disposal you end up in a research lab and make a grisly discovery turns out the scientists have known about zen and the aliens this whole time and have even captured specimens for research why the did you do that [Music] up until this point we've obviously been on the side of the geeky scientists getting massacred but this revelation calls their motives into question moral ambiguity what kind of conspiracy is happening at black mesa the was i going to work for all these years what did they hope to learn from these aliens and why were they meddling in their world it's much too unpredictable don't let it overcharge do you mean upon reaching the surface yet again the tide of battle has clearly shifted in favor of the aliens who make coordinated strikes against the soldiers the military bringing out tanks and other to combat the aliens but it's not enough we overhear a radio transmission that the military is retreating forget about freeman we're abandoning the base if you have any last them on bomb targets map otherwise get the hell out of there repeat we are pulling out and commencing airstrikes this actually makes the player feel more uneasy because now gordon is the only person fighting against the aliens with no other force there to distract them after battling our way to the lambda complex we discover another group of scientists have held out against the odds they tell us the satellite didn't work because an insanely powerful being is maintaining the connection with the portal there's only one thing to do we've gotta destroy that monster and end this war patch me in doc i'm ready it's ready you must go now at last we arrive at zen the homeworld teased to us in the very beginning many believe these last few chapters are the low point of half-light and i partially agree it does feel a bit rushed but the mystique and wonder behind it all is there it's not a planet but a series of floating islands in a nonsensical order it's bizarre and weird but it's clear other humans have been sent here as their bodies are found throughout after some extreme platforming we come face to face with the mother headcrab herself get away from me you gordon pushes forward into hostile territory past the army of alien grunts and into the lair of the nihilist [Music] who taunts us yeah shut your mouth baby it's an epic multi-stage boss fight as we're teleported from room to room fending off waves of enemies until we obliterate this giant floating baby once and for all if i go down i'm taking you with me yes i did it and now i shall die and be remembered as a hero for all time it's you the mysterious man gordon freeman in the flesh the g-man reveals himself impressed on our handiwork and tells us his employers believe we have limitless potential we get a slight resolution to this whole conflict and at the end we're back where we started although not exactly two men in a tram heading towards the unknown g-man gives us a hobson's choice and that there's only one thing being offered and what he gives us is an illusion either live and work for me or i use my super powers to kill you time to choose well since it's rather an anti-climax after what we've just survived there's only one destination wisely done mr freeman i will see you up ahead gordon freeman status hired for six long years these were the last words we'd hear about the fate of dr gordon freeman half-life has an incredibly captivating story one that leaves you with way more questions than when you started who is the g-man why does he talk like somebody pretending to be human what are his motives who are his employers was this all just a power struggle between other alien groups whose power far exceeds our comprehension many of these questions have never ever been answered leaving fans to speculate for decades and that's why it's so fun to talk about the story of half-life i praise dark souls for this too the endless room for interpretation maybe half-life reminds us the disastrous effects of meddling in things beyond our understanding at the end of the day nobody can deny half-life 1 has more than earned its reputation as one of the ghosts this game stands shoulder to shoulder alongside doom quake combat evolved cod 4 bioshock every master class first person shooter out there is homies with half-life it's a pivotal moment in the evolution of gaming and something that deserves every bit of respect and recognition it gets half-life's legacy is still seen and felt today through the lineage of shooters not to mention the advancements it made in the modding scene its formula still being replicated even without the nostalgia and circle jerking it's a damn competent shooter capable of surprising you at every turn you gotta commend valve for taking such huge risks and doing things most shooters were too afraid to try half-life 1 is still worth playing 23 years later i had so much fun with its unique blend of platforming puzzles shooting action and horror in my seven and a half hour play through there was never a dull moment the ai was advanced for the time but it does show its age yet it's easy to see how the mpcs and dynamic enemy behavior blew people's minds back in the day wolfenstein and doom are the granddaddies of the first person shooter genre however half-life was the title that showed everyone shooters could do more than shoot and half-life showed the world not every action hero needs to be a cigar smoking alpha male dude bro sometimes the quiet nerdy scientist on his way to work gets thrust into an epic race of survival it's no surprise why valve went from a nameless nobody to a household name after releasing their first game because half-life was and always will be a masterpiece you

Channel: The Act Man

Views: 1,952,845

Keywords: half life, half life 1 review, half life review, black mesa, act man, the act man, act man review, half-life 2, half life 2, video games, gordon freeman, half life gameplay, half-life 3, valve software, valve, gabe newell, half life story, half life explained, half life retrospective, half-life alyx, Half-life 2 episode 1, act man half life, g-man, the g man, g man explained, g man half life, opposing force, blue shift

Id: Jdl2g1CF0G4

Length: 39min 7sec (2347 seconds)

Published: Thu May 20 2021