Comments on: Half-Life Turns Ten Today

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 03:11:30 +0000

Ive beat both parts and im playing it again. Very fun and interesting game with a twist.

By: Fumarole

Fumarole — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:16:52 +0000

For those of that haven’t done so, be sure to check out Freeman’s Mind. It really changes the way you’ll see this classic game. There are five episodes so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J80KD4BG7M

By: Cooper42

Cooper42 — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:50:27 +0000

Aww, that’s made me just that tad less jaded today and a bit misty eyed, thinking back to just how good half life was.

Happy Birthday…

By: Andrew F

Andrew F — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:18:54 +0000

Also valve learnt a lot from half life about endings…they realised they can’t do endings very well

??? The last levels on Xen are rubbish, but the actual ending is complete genius!

By: Mooey Poo

Mooey Poo — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:46:46 +0000

Kotaku stole your joke!
http://kotaku.com/5093625/happy-birthday-half-life-now-you-are-ten

You should sue

By: Psychopomp

Psychopomp — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:39:11 +0000

@Pags, I wish I could have luck like that with glitches…

As for Nostalgia, bullshit.

First off, I’m 18.
I played Thief: The Dark Project two years ago, thought it was brilliant.
I played Half Life 1 on both expansions just before Half Life 2 came out for the original Xbox(Shitty PC back then). Thought it was brilliant.
Played Deus Ex 1 a few months before Deus Ex 3 was announced. Yet again, thought it was brilliant.
Discovered Xcom last year. Brilliant is too kind, possibly my favorite game ever.
System Shock 2, a few months before Bioshock came out. Brilliant, though I liked Bioshock more.

MY theory is that the cause of people not going past the first few levels of an established classic is the same thing that leads to, after talking someone who has never played Half-Life 2 before into trying it, you feeling physically ill as you watch them attempt to barrel through the opening of the game, not paying any attention to anything. Eventually you just say “FUCK IT! STOP, LOOK TO YOUR LEFT! WHY ARE YOU BARRELING FORWARD LIKE THIS? STOP AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU! SEE THAT GUY? TO YOUR RIGHT! HE’S BEING INTERROGATED, THAT’S WHAT! DON’T JUST WALK AWAY, GO TOWARDS HIM!”

Uhmm…

So yeah.

By: Juggernath

Juggernath — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:16:02 +0000

I remember when this first came out, I was in elementary school and found a magazine with some beta screen shots. I became obsessed with it. Unfortunately I wasn’t a gamer then. Didn’t have a computer or anything. Until about 2 years ago, I had forgotten about this game. I bought it on impulse and decided to play it. My thoughts? It is probably the greatest game I’ve ever played. Half Life was my introduction into PC gaming and I loved every minute of it, and it sequels.

By: MadTinkerer

MadTinkerer — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:15:42 +0000

“Said terror is not simply because it makes me feel so very aged, but also because it’s been so long and yet still most FPSes seem entirely ignorant of what HL did with setpieces, incidental detail, gaming-specific narrative style, pacing and world-building.”

That is why most of the FPSs I own are Valve games. Games like Prey and UT3 pale in comparison (the latter I played for less than half an hour before uninstalling and never looking back). Only hybrid games like Bioshock, which is just as much an RPG as an FPS, are capable of entertaining me as much as the Half Life series.

By: Cycle

Cycle — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:55:32 +0000

“They were originally advertised as being interactive (e.g., you see a scientist being dragged off into the vents by a zombie, blow the zombie away rescuing the scientist), and that would have been really mind-blowing. But they just weren’t.”

That’s one of the reasons I was more impressed by Goldeneye. That also had in-game cutscenes, but there were also interactive, even if it was very minor in some cases… such as getting slightly different text if you met someone with very little health remaining.

By: malkav11

malkav11 — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:46:29 +0000

The origin of very little genre-standard stuff, really. About the only thing I can think of that I’d definitely associate with Half-Life first would be having all the cutscenes in-engine while you’re wandering around. And I’m not that fond of that. As theoretically immersive as it may be, it also means they’re a) unskippable and b) it’s easy to miss the cool stuff by looking the wrong way.

They were originally advertised as being interactive (e.g., you see a scientist being dragged off into the vents by a zombie, blow the zombie away rescuing the scientist), and that would have been really mind-blowing. But they just weren’t.

Well, okay, and the tram ride. Although it seems like that’s just now really coming into vogue.

By: sinister agent

sinister agent — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:32:36 +0000

There is one thing that almost every shooter since copied wholesale, though, and pretty much the worst – the opening level where NOTHING HAPPENS, SLOWLY. And of course, you know you’re not going to be truly threatened as you’re unarmed (or merely unable to use a weapon or any of your abilities or equipment for no apparent reason until the tutorial gets to that point), and you’re just going to be led by the nose through a tiresome, unskippable intro that would be much more enjoyable if you could just sit back and watch it instead of jumping through its hoops.

In Half-life, it was original, set the scene superbly, made great use of the time to show you around the facility, gave an impressive sense of setting (how much of the facility appears in the intro, and then never again?), and for most of it you were ferried about anyway, so could sit back with a cup of tea. Almost every game since that’s copied the concept completely missed the point.

I remember playing half-life a couple of years after it came out, and thinking the fuss really over the top. I still think people overestimate it, but it was a great game, and its original approaches are to be commended.

By: Cycle

Cycle — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:02:41 +0000

I played Marathon and Goldeneye before I played Half-Life, which made it seem not all that impressive. Sure, it has some awesome bits, but I found most of it to be pretty tedious to be honest.

Half-Life Uplink was a great demo, though… it pretty much has all the awesome stuff from the full game condensed into ann hour or so of gameplay. That also probably made me feel a bit dissapointed… the full version had lots of boring bits between awesome bits, and the demo made me expect NON-STOP AWESOME, which I don’t think iti delivered.