Don’t say you don’t about Half Life. If you do – shame on you and good that you’re here to learn about it, because this is one of the most important games EVER!

Half Life is a FPS1 series by Valve2 that started out in 1998 where you play as Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist, who causes a rift in the space-time continuum, letting aliens enter our world. While you try to survive the alien forces, the government tries to cover up the incident by sending soldiers that kill everyone on their way. On your way out you have to shoot, jump and solve some logic puzzles.

Now what makes this game so special that I fished it out of my walk-in gaming closet? Let me tell you there are several reasons:

  • I remember Half Life being one of the most exciting FPS of my childhood
  • I wanted to find out, if it would still be fun despite its old looks
  • The anthology pack features two additional spin-offs that I’ve never played
STORY
Half Life 1 Opposing Force Blue Shift
Summary: You play as physicist Gordon Freeman causing an accident that leads to an alien invasion. Summary: As Corporal Adrian Shepard you are one of the soldiers to fly to the incident at Black Mesa. But the Black Ops already start covering up what’s left – yeah, that means you! Summary: You are Barney Calhoun, a security officer in Black Mesa. Your day starts out with technical failures of all kinds, culminating in the struggle for desperately trying getting out of the complex.
Just when you’ve seen enough aliens the military arrives on the scene. It makes you refink your tactics and motivates you to go on. You get to see Gordon Freeman from time to time, which is nice, but not too spectacular. At least you get to fight with other NPCs more often that in HL1. Calhoun is much more connected to the scientists than the other two are. Nevertheless he has to fight alone the whole time. The story ends when Freeman is captured by the soldiers.
★★★★★
motivating story with some twists and turns.		 ★★★★☆
cooler than Freeman, but quite long drawn-out.		 ★★☆☆☆
Barney, as a security officer, should know how to get out of there in a few minutes, right? Guess what: He doesn’t.
CONTROLS & EQUIPMENT
Half Life 1 Opposing Force Blue Shift
For a guy in a big suit, Gordon handles extremely smooth. There is just one move that you’ll never learn. I call it the crouch – jump. Before jumping you shortly crouch down and then quickly press ‘jump’. As Shepard is not smart enough to do stupid jumps like Freeman – Thank God! – you can forget about this crouch-jump thing. Instead he can climb on ropes. Don’t expect anything fancy from Calhoun.
14 weapons and you can carry them all. Take a leaf out of that book all you game designers. Yeeehaaa! Shepard brings in a Desert Eagle with laser pointer, a sniper rifle and a machine gun. I don’t like the new alien weapons. Nothing new. Lame.
★★★★☆
Do people really jump further by crouching? I definitely don’t!		 ★★★★★
finally, some guy in a suit that suits me.		 ★☆☆☆☆
Hmm. WTF?!
GRAPHICS
Half Life 1 | Opposing Force | Blue Shift
The graphics look old, but still okay. People move their mouths when speaking, the zombies behave greedy enough and water looks like a soup you can swim in.
★★★☆☆
Not too fresh, but not too ugly after all.
REPLAYABILITY
Half Life 1 Opposing Force Blue Shift
Gordon’s story is the most appealing one. There are some excellent scripting moments that make you want to go on with the story. Shepards story lacks some variety. Nevertheless I like his arsenal of weapons the best. Also, fighting with his buddies and trying to keep them alive gets me every time. Lonely little Calhoun – Will he ever make it out of Black Mesa? He did it once, but not again with me.
★★★★☆
Finally something to spend your holidays with every 3 years.		 ★★★★★
I like weapons and some guys fighting next to me. Great stuff.		 ★☆☆☆☆
There is no reason I can fink of to play this thing again.
RESULTS
Half Life 1 Opposing Force Blue Shift
★★★★☆ ★★★★½ ★★☆☆☆

Half Life Anthology is a great set of games3 that should be worth a few of your bucks. Summer holidays prepare yourself to be gamed away.

  1. FPS = First Person Shooter [↩]
  2. founded in 1996 and also responsible for the great game Left4Dead ★★★★½ [↩]
  3. Yes, I didn’t talk about Team Fortress Classic. Instead, I focused on the Single Player content. [↩]

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