Half-Life

Dr. Gordon Freeman is a scientist in a remote lab who survives an accident - some sort of portal is opened and soon alien creatures are attacking from everywhere. Armed with a limited supply of weapons, the man in the white lab coat unleashes some serious hell.

This game is often considered "the" first-person shooter (along with "AvP," etc.) and to be fair it is very good. The cinematic experience of the story is involving and it takes its time getting started - which is good. Once it does, it's non-stop action and highly entertaining.

I can't say this is the greatest FPS I've played. Nowadays the graphics are sort of outdated, too. It's not as good as the sequel (or so I've heard) but I won't put it down - it's still an excellent, excellent game...

Overall this is a must for any PC gamer.

This game requires patience, quick wits, quick fingers, and good problem solving skills. So do games like Mortal Pongbat. What makes Half-Life exceptional is the senses-shattering realism which laces the entire in-game environment. The textures are realistic, the colours appropriate, the sounds rich and flawlessly integrated for stereo separation (as in a monster on your left will always be heard from your left speaker), the level of interaction possible with the environment and the human characters is above and beyond what one might expect (FYI: punch the red button under the security guard's desk to set off an alarm and make everyone mad!), and the monsters are just as scary, slimy, and vicious as they come, and backed by a good AI to boot. The level design is incredible, with a perfect balance of problem solving and creature-killing, and the environment and enemies never seem repetitive, so you always have a sense of progress and a need to trudge on in the hopes that your goal might be just around the bend. All this makes this came perhaps the most addictive and awe-inspiring game of all time. And if you pass it and get bored, try the new alternate-take-on-the-same-story game, Opposing Force. And then if you get bored, join the even MORE addictive world of Half-Life online gaming (Team Fortress Classic or Counterstrike)!

This game is so unbelievably amazing... it is suspenseful (I still jump when the headcrabs fly at me in the dark vents), action packed (some of the fights against the commandos are incredible), thought provoking (the ending leaves you to think... but only if you choose to live... you'll see), with a great storyline... very original.

I agree on the fact that a movie should be made... but not about Gordon Freeman unless it takes place before the game. It should be about the scientists... what were they exactly working on? It also could be about one of the guards.. or the aliens themselves.

Bottom line: One Great Game

Half-Life was breath taking. Before then we had not seen a game that put you in such an enviroment. The game was like Star Wars in many ways, it did not have much of a budget or anything and it turned out to be the best game of 1998 and still to this day does a game have to approve upon it.

You play Gordon Freeman, not a tough Marine just a scientist in quantum physics, the story unfolds when you go to work at the Black Mesa Research Facility and every thing goes bad that day. The story is told with in game cut scenes, not cintematics telling you whats happening, YOU LIVE THE STORY.

Also after the most wonderful single player game there is its multiplayer like Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress 1.5, Deathmatch Clasic ( Quake all over again ) GO DM 2! Also there is some good expansion sets for Half-Life, like Half-Life: Opposing Force, made by Gearbox, as well as Blue Shift ( very short ) also made by Gearbox. But Valve did it with its master piece so lets hope they do it again.

As far as immersion goes, you simply couldn't have done any better than Half-Life. Half-Life pioneered many firsts in the genre when it was released in 1998. The biggest innovation is that the game NEVER shifts away from your perspective of the action. This means that there are no cutscenes, no early explanations of the backstory, and that your character cannot talk (giving you room to talk during the game, if you need to). Half-Life does NOT disappoint when it comes to fooling you into thinking that you're experiencing all of this in real life. Other innovations include seamless level transitions, having to reload your weapon occasionally, and a passable excuse for a heads-up display (since your character is a scientist, he must wear a hazard suit that comes equipped with HUD readers for health, shields, weapons, and ammo). The only thing I can think of that isn't realistic about Half-Life is the fact that you simply walk over objects to pick them up. However, since the game is pretty fast-paced, having to pick up items manually would have been quite frustrating in the heat of battle.

Of course, the gameplay isn't the only thing that Half-Life has to offer. The disturbingly realistic graphics and sound (for the time) also combine with the gameplay to further immerse you into the experience. Half-Life uses a heavily modified version of the already stunning Quake engine, which broke new ground in 1996 for creating realistic environments and characters with polygon-based true 3-D graphics. Half-Life has higher polygon counts, better lighting, and more detailed textures than in Quake, making the graphics that much more believable. To top that all off, a skeletal animation system makes for extremely realistic character animations. Overall, the graphics and animations are just so good, they even make Unreal's graphics look lame. I'm not joking around! This is as good as video games could look and sound at the time!

You've also got an excellent variety of weapons. In fact, there's probably more weapons than any other shooter at the time. You've got a crowbar (for melee combat), pistol, revolver, machinegun, shotgun, crossbow, rocket launcher, particle gun, flamethrower, alien arm (which shoots out lethal "bugs" and has an infinite ammo supply), grenades, pipebombs, laser trip mines, and a cute alien bug that runs up to enemies to bite the crap out of them. What more could you want?

But the most surprising aspect of all is that Half-Life didn't come from a high-profile developer at the time (like 3D Realms, id Software, or Raven Software). This amazing piece of work came from a newcoming developer that we didn't even know about at the time -- Kirkland, Washington-based Valve Software. But even if Valve wasn't a high-profile developer at the time, you could tell from this game that their goal was clearly to create the best game ever. You simply aren't a gamer if you don't at least try Half-Life. A definite 10 / 10 to this one!