A Brief History of Half Life
(Source: gamebanana.com)
“They’re waiting for you Gordon, in the test chamber”. The first words you hear greeted by a scientist when you step foot in Black Mesa, after a 5 minute long tram journey. You strapped on your HEV suit and head towards the test site. You’re told to insert a foreign material into a hadron collider. What could go wrong? What follows after that soon became a huge cult following in video game history. The infamous Half Life series by Valve turned out to be one of the biggest hits in 1998, followed by over 50 award winning titles in video game excellence.
The tale of Half Life isn’t a complicated one, nor even a simple one. It was built on a modified GoldSource engine that powered its graphics that had objects rendered resembling like polygons. Gameplay was simple enough that even a child knows how to control it. Most of the shooting is done fired by the hip, and requires players to scrounge for more health, ammo and armour, but before that, you find yourself latching on to the iconic red crowbar that has become the flagship of the series. Solving puzzles are essential to pave way to another area for progression along the way. It’s game design was way ahead of its time in 1998. With open corridors of a science facility, to a military base while teleporting in an alien world, Half Life certainly led players to more surprises the deeper you dwell into it.
(Source: Valve)
Fast forward to 6 years later, we live to see a sequel produced by Valve. Half Life 2 was also a huge success in sales and critics alike. The graphics certainly have improved with its new Source engine that offers more realistic 3d rendering. Half Life 2 this time offers a more complex plot compared to the previous installment involving politics and liberation of rebel fighters. A surprise to gamers but certainly a welcome one. Half Life 2 sold over 6.5 million copies before spawning another installment called Episode 2, which dreadfully ended on a huge cliffhanger and left us fans without an explanation for 13 years before Valve declaring that they have no interest in continuing Half Life anymore.
(Source: Valve)
But let’s go into detail in what makes Half Life so great. You start off as a nobody, a silent protagonist making his way through hordes of aliens and armed military personnel. The story, unlike most video games which requires cutscenes and long exposition dialogue, Half Life is told through scripted events and NPC interaction along the way. The story and gameplay is very linear, with no fear of getting lost or sidetracked in contrast to other video games. All in all, Half Life offers a huge amount of sci fi experience that is kept alive through community modding and sparked a huge cultural movement. A third sequel would be unlikely anymore but we can still hope one day, one day we’ll get to see Half Life 3.
