This one doesn't need too much introduction. The original "Half-Life" is quite the iconic game and, although I don't like it quite as much as other famous shooters of the time, like Doom, Quake or even Duke Nukem 3D, it has some exceptional strengths that really place it aside. If you haven't played it, be aware that its merits were always exaggerated. The few times where its great, its godly great... but it has several and important flaws that prevents it from ever reaching its full potential.

The level design is where most of the fun is with this shooter. The creativity that Valve poured over its varied and extensive levels, full of surprises, is really something to marvel at. To be fair, this entire era was known for its talented and experienced mappers, so Valve wasn't alone in breaking the mold with this important aspect of classic FPS games. But that doesn't change the fact that in Half-Life 1, there is a sheer diversity within the maps that is hardly matched by other, real 3D, shooters of the time, or even current time. You can see there's a desire to push the map design to the limit, and its very impressive how, when put together, are able to give the player the impression of being one large, continuous area. It feels very modern, very cutting edge, even today.

That said, the game occasionally does show that its only a very ambitious mod for Quake under the cover. Many levels require a kind of platform-like, "jump and run" playing that the engine wasn't designed for, and this leads to many frustrating, unnecessary, deaths and accidents. The levels themselves contain lots of environmental hazards which can harm or kill the player easily, and even unintended dangers from design errors, like very large elevator gaps in the edges, from which the players can fall to their deaths. For this reason, the flow of the game is interrupted by dying and loading events much more often here, than if you're playing the competition.

The worse part of this, is that Half-Life is played, to this day, with an autorun always turned on... one that is impossible to disable from the options menu. This means that, unless you keep the speed key pressed as you move around, your character is going to run directly into fatal hazards and the experience may be extremely irritating to many players... and also, not very fun. Luckily, the internet figured out how to write a macro to solve the problem, giving Gordon, the protagonist, the ability to walk carefully. Applying the home-made solution to this problem is a must, but you'll have to tinker with text configuration files.

The music is very well made, complementing the interesting anime-inspired monster designs and plot twists, but its also quite sparse, triggering only in certain events and after that, silence. Considering the length of some levels, the game do seem like missing a bit of acoustic stimulus. Regarding the visuals, the textures and models are of uneven quality. Very good at times, but very unremarkable at others, and always very low-res for current standards. If you want to play Half-Life, you need to be prepared for an old school experience in this sense. I can't honestly say that the graphics were in any way superior to other shooters from the era, but you might not notice when the game is at its best - I recommend actually disabling the bilinear texturing inside the configuration files to get the pixelated look, far easier on the eyes than the blurry mess from the default video filters.

Moving further into other aspects, the gameplay on the guns is not that special. I wasn't nearly as impressed with them as I was with the levels, because the entire arsenal feels both unbalanced and unrealistic. I love revolvers myself, but there's no chance of a .357 magnum doing more damage to a living body than a 12 gauge shotgun, and the revolver in turn being outclassed by the very starting crowbar - which is wielded by the MIT educated arm from Freeman, no less... not exactly a heavy lifter. In Half-Life, you see some confusion about what weapons are supposed to be more powerful than others. Some people laud Half-Life weapon realism, I totally disagree with this opinion.

Among the good things I can say of Half-Life 1, there's one that is probably the most important: it has a lot of heart. For the first and the last time in this series, there was innovation without compromise, and that pursuit resulted in that the highs are higher and the lows are lower. You play Half-Life basically for the good parts, the few hours of genius spread during an entire playthrough. The strong impression of playing Half-Life for the first time and through the better parts of it, won't be easily forgotten by the player, even if this creativity comes at the expense of consistency.

It can be argued that Half-Life was the pioneer in a modern breed of shooters, placing a stronger emphasis on story. By playing it, you can re-live a piece of shooting game history and see for yourself how things we take for granted came to be. In fact, can I be completely honest with you? I think videogames could do with a lot less story these days. There was something incredibly fun in older games which were wise enough to realize that a narrative, a script, is not and should not be the center of everything. Half Life, unlike its peers, took the video game industry precisely in that direction. However, with its excellent and innovative levels, you wouldn't know that. All you can see in Half-Life is an excellent video game standing on both feet, even worthy of being played in the current day, but not lacking many flaws in the gameplay side. An excellent game, indeed... not "the best game of all time", as the ridiculous video game journalism claimed at the time, and sometimes still do.

This one doesn't need too much introduction. The original "Half-Life" is quite the iconic game and, although I don't like it quite as much as other famous shooters of the time, like Doom, Quake or even Duke Nukem 3D, it has some exceptional strengths that really place it aside. If you haven't played it, be aware that its merits were always exaggerated. The few times where its great, its godly great... but it has several and important flaws that prevents it from ever reaching its full potential. The level design is where most of the fun is with this shooter. The creativity that Valve poured over its varied and extensive levels, full of surprises, is really something to marvel at. To be fair, this entire era was known for its talented and experienced mappers, so Valve wasn't alone in breaking the mold with this important aspect of classic FPS games. But that doesn't change the fact that in Half-Life 1, there is a sheer diversity within the maps that is hardly matched by other, real 3D, shooters of the time, or even current time. You can see there's a desire to push the map design to the limit, and its very impressive how, when put together, are able to give the player the impression of being one large, continuous area. It feels very modern, very cutting edge, even today. That said, the game occasionally does show that its only a very ambitious mod for Quake under the cover. Many levels require a kind of platform-like, "jump and run" playing that the engine wasn't designed for, and this leads to many frustrating, unnecessary, deaths and accidents. The levels themselves contain lots of environmental hazards which can harm or kill the player easily, and even unintended dangers from design errors, like very large elevator gaps in the edges, from which the players can fall to their deaths. For this reason, the flow of the game is interrupted by dying and loading events much more often here, than if you're playing the competition. The worse part of this, is that Half-Life is played, to this day, with an autorun always turned on... one that is impossible to disable from the options menu. This means that, unless you keep the speed key pressed as you move around, your character is going to run directly into fatal hazards and the experience may be extremely irritating to many players... and also, not very fun. Luckily, the internet figured out how to write a macro to solve the problem, giving Gordon, the protagonist, the ability to walk carefully. Applying the home-made solution to this problem is a must, but you'll have to tinker with text configuration files. The music is very well made, complementing the interesting anime-inspired monster designs and plot twists, but its also quite sparse, triggering only in certain events and after that, silence. Considering the length of some levels, the game do seem like missing a bit of acoustic stimulus. Regarding the visuals, the textures and models are of uneven quality. Very good at times, but very unremarkable at others, and always very low-res for current standards. If you want to play Half-Life, you need to be prepared for an old school experience in this sense. I can't honestly say that the graphics were in any way superior to other shooters from the era, but you might not notice when the game is at its best - I recommend actually disabling the bilinear texturing inside the configuration files to get the pixelated look, far easier on the eyes than the blurry mess from the default video filters. Moving further into other aspects, the gameplay on the guns is not that special. I wasn't nearly as impressed with them as I was with the levels, because the entire arsenal feels both unbalanced and unrealistic. I love revolvers myself, but there's no chance of a .357 magnum doing more damage to a living body than a 12 gauge shotgun, and the revolver in turn being outclassed by the very starting crowbar - which is wielded by the MIT educated arm from Freeman, no less... not exactly a heavy lifter. In Half-Life, you see some confusion about what weapons are supposed to be more powerful than others. Some people laud Half-Life weapon realism, I totally disagree with this opinion. Among the good things I can say of Half-Life 1, there's one that is probably the most important: it has a lot of heart. For the first and the last time in this series, there was innovation without compromise, and that pursuit resulted in that the highs are higher and the lows are lower. You play Half-Life basically for the good parts, the few hours of genius spread during an entire playthrough. The strong impression of playing Half-Life for the first time and through the better parts of it, won't be easily forgotten by the player, even if this creativity comes at the expense of consistency. It can be argued that Half-Life was the pioneer in a modern breed of shooters, placing a stronger emphasis on story. By playing it, you can re-live a piece of shooting game history and see for yourself how things we take for granted came to be. In fact, can I be completely honest with you? I think videogames could do with a lot less story these days. There was something incredibly fun in older games which were wise enough to realize that a narrative, a script, is not and should not be the center of everything. Half Life, unlike its peers, took the video game industry precisely in that direction. However, with its excellent and innovative levels, you wouldn't know that. All you can see in Half-Life is an excellent video game standing on both feet, even worthy of being played in the current day, but not lacking many flaws in the gameplay side. An excellent game, indeed... not "the best game of all time", as the ridiculous video game journalism claimed at the time, and sometimes still do.