So, due a fellow member's prompting, I have bought the complete valve pack, containing all the glorious best-sellers in a single affordable packet (well, at least until the sale is over). In this series of threads, I will look at each of the games as I finish them. First up is the classic shooter half-life. Half-life follows the story of Gordon Freeman, theoretical physicist at the Black Mesa institute. During a teleportation experiment, he accidently starts an alien invasion. With his co-workers dead, the facility falling apart and Spoiler the military killing everyone as part of a massive cover-up , Gordon Freeman is the last hope to stop the invasion. Why is he the last hope? Because he wears an HEV, a Hazardous Environment Suit, capable of withstanding exposure to fire-arms, radiation and all sorts of nasty stuff. I'll get to a few holes in this later. The game is fairly old, so the graphics are not top-notch. Still, I enjoy seeing black mesa in all its sciencey glory. There is a very apparent flaw at a number of points though, where two textures overlap and start flickering. It's very annoying, distracting, and should have been easy to fix if the testers or level designers had been paying attention. Other than that, I have no real qualms about the graphics. The game itself is fun, with interesting enemies, small puzzles and even a couple of tactical dilemma's. You start unarmed, in a laboratory that's falling apart. Strange creatures, the iconic headcrabs, are running around and dozens of dead scientists can be found. Everyone beliefs rescue is imminent, as long as they can get to the surface. But when you get to the surface; surprise, Spoiler the military is trying to kill everyone and bomb the place into oblivion. You have been told that the only people who can help you are in the lambda complex, and getting there takes most of the game and turns you from a bad-*** scientist into a bad-*** killing machine, with armed to the teeth with military, alien and experimental weaponry. A few of the early stages overstay their welcome, especially the one with the helicopter. Exploring black mesa is one of the most fun things in the game, and most areas outside of it are not that interesting. Spoiler The gameplay takes a dive around the Xen area, where you travel into an alternate dimension to stop the alien overlords. It's not as much as the gameplay getting bad, as more fitting a completely different game. Suddenly, all you get is jumping puzzles, lower gravity, super-jumping, three kinds of enemies and traditional boss fights (of which the game previously had none). Also, the bosses are a ten foot spider with a giant testicle and an over-sized fetus with a machine up its ***. As I said, the game takes a dive. Most of the game is still very good though. I do have some minor issues with the game. Some of the early in-game rooms make absolutely no sense design-wise (endless pits where the only way to cross is by jumping suspended crates). It also seems weird that you are the only person that can safe the day, despite there being at least two other HEV suits in the complex. The movement in the game was way too fast for me at first and made me very dizzy, but I got used to it. Overall, I very much liked playing half-life, though I absolutely loathed the final boss. ****ing broken jumping puzzle. But it's the hallmark of a good game where you are willing to forgive that. final score: 7.5/10. next up: one of the expansions of this game; half-life, opposing force.
anyone know if there is any mod for half-life that simply adds more black mesa? Would love to try that.
