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Review: Half-Life

© Dan Finkelstein

A few months ago, I published my review of Unreal, the game that Epic Megagames had worked on for over two years, tweaking every aspect of their ultimate first-person 3D shooter. If I remember correctly, I hailed Unreal as "the first true 'Quake killer'", the "game of the year", and even resorting to such cliches as "Unreal is more than a game, it's an experience." However, while I still love Unreal, I really had no idea that a game would come along that would blow it, and everything that came before it, out of the water.

That game is called Half-Life. Produced by Valve Software and published by Sierra, Half-Life is a first person action game that combines fast Quake-style action with a gripping story, which reveals itself as you play, usually through the actions of the player. Valve has successfully managed to create a game where the player is actually inserted into the game, "casting" him as a real participant in the story.

Half-Life opens with movie-style credits, and a long sequence where the player finds himself on a moving tram, traveling through some sort of research facility. We see robots performing experiments and harvesting minerals. Upon reaching the end of the "tour", the player walks into the research station and is greeted by a team of scientists, who informs us that "they're waiting for you." Half-Life is really the first in it's genre to integrate non-player-characters into the game -- I have no idea how they did it, but the mouth movements of the scientists somehow match what they're saying, giving the feeling as they're really talking to you. If you move around while they're talking, their heads rotate to look at you. If you walk away, their voice gets softer. If you shoot them they die (Sorry, I felt I had to insert that).

Soon, the player finds himself an unwilling participant in a strange scientific experiment, which, of course, goes horribly wrong, infesting the research facility with hundreds upon hundreds of alien creatures from another planet/dimension. The plot thickens very rapidly, however, as once the player manages to fight his way to the surface hoping to be rescued by US Marines, he sees one of the scientists being gunned down. Rescue, it seems, is not high on the priority list of the marines.

So our intrepid scientist character is enlisted as the action hero, trying to uncover the reasons for the Marines' motives, save his own skin, and, of course, bust some alien ass along the way (using an large arsenal of powerful real-life weapons). By the end of the game, we've traveled to the alien planet, destroyed a few Marine helicopters with air-to-ground missiles, and uncovered a complex government conspiracy. The conclusion is a bit strange, and while I won't describe it here, I'll just say that a sequel seems very likely.