I’m not young. But 25 years after the hype, I am finally getting around to playing half life (1)! Stupidly missed the free action, but paid a few eurocents for it. They’re totally worth it! Awesome game, holds up very very well after two and a half decades!
The novelty was the story in FPS. Before Half Life, all you have to do is to shoot every moving sprite and grab keys to open doors. The story was a splash screen between the levels.
Nowadays it doesn’t look special to have a story. When I first played Half Life, my mind was blown away.
There were a lot of FPS with story on them, like Hexen (I and II), System Shock, Ultima Underworld (although it was more of an RPG hybrid), Outlaws, Unreal, Witchaven 2, Goldeneye, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Rainbow Six, Dark Forces, etc…
A lot of these had complex puzzles beyond shooting everything and colored keys, but also cutscenes, character classes, convoluted stories and extensive lore. Hell, Marathon and Marathon Durandal had incredibly complex stories and lore for what they where.
The biggest difference was that HL was a story without cuts where there weren’t “levels” nor cutscenes, but scripted sequences to push forward the story.
There were though “chapters” but the change between these was minimal. It was the closest to a cinematic feeling we had to the date.A lot of those other games played like shit compared to HL1 too. System shock 1 is pretty much unplayable by modern standards purely due to controls, just as an example.
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Maybe it’s confirmation bias of my part, but last time I played it, it was still very amazing to go through all the puzzles, not just the story, mechanically it was very well rounded, plus the ai feels really smart and all the details for the creatures’ ai makes them feel like real living beings if you’re able to notice them.
Indeed, the story was part of it, but the level design and the AI scripting was also a big deal in 1998. So much of today’s single-player FPS experience can be traced back to Half-Life.
Even comparing it to most modern shooters, I almost never feel as hunted as I did by the human enemies in HL. A big part of that is definitely the level design, but also the enemies in HL are very mobile compared to most games where the action is all happening roughly 180 degrees in front of you.
I got half life (2?) in a bundle with Portal and didn’t understand at all what the fuss was about. After the introduction, it’s running and gunning through a building, then running and gunning through sewers, then running and gunning through more buildings, then running and gunning through a street, then running and gunning in a swamp, then driving a hovercraft, then running and gunning some more, and that’s where I stopped playing.
You played Half Life 2; and part of the appreciation for it comes from how well it tells the story via showing without telling. There’s no intro monologue which outright says “humanity is under the boot of alien invaders and Gordon Freeman is the only hope for humankind,” instead you hear Dr. Breen welcoming you to City 17 over large screens, see everyone wearing plain blue jumpsuit, watch them get their food from a dispensary, see a massive creature accompany troops down the street.
The second reason that game is beloved is the source engine physics puzzles, which were revolutionary at the time.
Thanks for the reply.
[…Y]ou hear Dr. Breen welcoming you to City 17 over large screens, see everyone wearing plain blue jumpsuit, watch them get their food from a dispensary, see a massive creature accompany troops down the street.
And I liked that! It looked like a Sci-Fi dystopia and I wanted to learn more about it. But then there was no follow-up. Just fighting endless hordes of enemies. That was very disappointing.
Maybe it’s not your thing? IDK, I had a blast playing though those games (HalfLife 2 Episodes 1 & 2 as well,) they’re actually still installed on my PC because I revisit them once a year or so. It’s recommend giving it another spin if you can, there’s a decent story in there.
I also bailed somewhere around halfway through, though Black Mesa had me captivated the whole time (and I’m sure HL1 would’ve as well). I got to the point where you get a new ability (intentionally vague to not spoil anything), and you use that ability to get through enemy turrets.
I don’t dislike it, but it definitely lost whatever I really liked about the first game, which I think is a sense of urgency or something for me. In the first game, I felt like I was constantly on the run, whereas the second has a lot of breaks in the action without a clear idea of the plan. I’m guessing it’ll pick up soon, I just got a bit bored.
I’m guessing it has a solid story, but do far it’s not quite as good as the first.
Also, if you bailed after driving the hovercraft, maybe you didn’t get to Black Mesa East, or Ravenholm? IMHO that’s where things really ramp up: story-wise (you meet more allies), and you get a better glimpse at the endgame. You get a neat tool to use (which also was mind-blowing in 2004, less so almost twenty years later), too.
If you don’t dig it though, I wouldn’t force it. I’m a fan of science fiction more than fantasy, so I’ve never finished a Dishonored game, but I love Prey. Just doesn’t hook me the way I know it could…just not my particular vibe I guess, which I think is OK.
The novelty was the story in FPS.
For me Unreal already filled that place. Of course HL amped it up to 11, but Unreal already had decent story elements for that time. I loved how you could track the fate of fellow survivors over multiple levels at several occasions. The lore strewn around. Reading the log of a guard who you just blew to smithereens and finding out they were handed a crap posting, making you almost feel sorry for him.
The way and scale of how HL handed the story was absolutely novel and something else, but it most definitely wasn’t the first to include story elements.
Before Half Life, all you have to do is to shoot every moving sprite and grab keys to open doors.
Most definitely not true. Just from the top of my head 1997’s MDK springs to mind and the before mentioned Unreal also had nothing to do ‘with shooting sprites and collecting keys’.
or the story was written out in the booklet that was included in the box…
Also the scripted sequences that were all in-engine were amazing at the time.
We were used to cool things happening in a pre-rendered cut scene before, but with HL1 everything happens from the player’s perspective in real-time while you’re in control of them. Even the opening where you put the crystal in the beam and actually cause shit to go haywire felt like an incredible moment of player agency in the world. Like oh man what did I doooo
Now get black mesa
I’ve only played Black Mesa, and did so just last year. I haven’t played the original but had a ton of fun with the remake. I gotta try the second one soon
They are different though (as far as I remember) and while I think Black Mesa did some major improvements, cut some dull parts and modernized a lot of it, but few memorable moments are gone.
I’ll check out the original for sure then. Thanks!
Like what examples of memorable moments gone do you have?
Am I wrong but wasn’t a
spoiler
_____ big fight with a giant like mantis a part that’s gone?
I can’t recall correctly. But I think that’s half-life 2, though.
I’m playing through it for the first time rn too! Never too late to get into a classic like this.
I was more of a CS and Team Fortress Classic player back in the day, but I’ve really been enjoying some HLDM while the playercounts have been up with the update buzz. There aren’t a lot of servers running it but gun game is a lot of fun in it.
