Half-Life Preview
Half-Life on the PC has raked in more awards than any other video game in recent memory. Read our preview to find out what you can expect from the PlayStation 2 version.
Since its release in 1998, the PC version of Half-Life has won more than 50 game of the year awards from various publications. Broken up into 17 episodes, Half-Life features an immersive atmosphere and finely tuned pacing, both of which are seldom matched within the gaming realm. Half-Life has been flying off store shelves for almost three years now, but oddly enough, a console version has yet to be released. There are hordes of anxious console players out there who have waited a long time to discover the first-person shooting magic that is Half-Life. Sierra and Gearbox are about to give them what they want.
For those who haven't played the PC version, Half-Life's story centers on Gordon Freeman, a hack at the Black Mesa Research Facility, where top-secret experiments are taking place. Gordon is late for work, so he needs to get into his protective suit and report to the test chamber as quickly as possible. Gordon's assignment is to analyze a specimen of unknown origin. Upon receiving the go-ahead, Gordon pushes the specimen into a vortex of energy. Shortly thereafter, the scientists declare that something has gone awry, and flashes of bright light give way to a time rift that lets alien creatures enter Gordon's reality. Gordon's dead colleagues are strewn about the complex, so his first order of business is to fight through the waves of alien beings and get to the surface. Once he's at the surface, he'll discover that a military cleanup crew is on the scene with orders to kill anything that moves.
Half-Life is a pioneer of its genre for a number of reasons. Its strong story elements and cinematic presentation focus on the single-player mode, which is something that's seldom seen in most of today's first-person shooters, which focus on the deathmatch mode. The game is broken up into small chapters, and a save-anywhere feature lets you play the game for short periods of time and still make some progress. The game is structured around this save feature, and because death can come at any time, it's often essential to save after each completed task. Gordon collects a wide variety of objects and weapons during his escape to higher ground, and using the right tool for the job is a necessity. There are 15 weapons total, and the majority of them have multiple uses. The machine gun can be used to fire grenades, and the rocket-propelled grenade can be switched into a fly-by-wire mode. One of Half-Life's more interesting weapons is a small creature that you can cast loose on the enemies.
While there are plenty of weapons to use in Half-Life, acquiring ammunition for them, at least in the PC version, can be a chore. Ammo is found on dead security guards and slain scientists, but there's rarely any ammo just lying about. If you have an itchy trigger finger, you'll quickly find yourself helplessly trying to beat the aliens down with the crowbar. Gordon receives instructions from the few scientists who remain alive and may ask security guards in the complex to cover him during especially challenging portions of the game. Enemies come in a variety of shapes and sizes--some are no larger than a football and will spring up at Gordon's head and start eating his face while others will use electrifying attacks to shock Gordon into submission or slash him to death with menacing claws. The enemy AI can be startling at times--the aliens will notice your laser scope and come running or follow you from area to area if you don't dispose of them.
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- Sierra Entertainment
- Gearbox Software
- Sci-Fi First-Person...
- Release: Nov 11, 2001
- ESRB: Mature
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