It’s been a bit since I covered a video game’s birthday. Not since May have I looked at the further aging of a game (Which you can read here), and in November an iconic series turns 20 years. I’m getting the celebration done early, as I have something planned for the month of Thanksgiving as well as next month. Hopefully you don’t mind me doing this early, but I think what I got planned a little further down the line might make up for this. In any case, put on your lab coat, find the nearest crowbar, and have fun looking at the 20th birthday & retrospective of the iconic Half-Life. Let’s begin!
Half-Life (1998)
“Valve, based in Kirkland, Washington, was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Mike Harrington and Gabe Newell. For its first product, Valve settled on a concept for a horror first-person shooter (FPS) using the Quake engine licensed from id Software. Valve eventually modified 70% of the engine's code, adding skeletal animation and Direct3D support.
According to designer Harry Teasley, id's 1993 FPS Doom was a major influence, and the team wanted Half-Life to "scare you like Doom did". The project had the working title Quiver, after the Arrowhead military base from Stephen King's 1980 novella The Mist, an early inspiration for the game. The name Half-Life was chosen because it was evocative of the theme, not clichéd, and had a corresponding visual symbol: the Greek letter ? (lower-case lambda), which represents the decay constant in the half-life equation.
Valve struggled to find a publisher, as many believed the game was too ambitious for a first-time developer. Sierra On-Line signed Valve for a one-game deal as it was interested in making a 3D action game, especially one based on the Quake engine. Valve first showed Half-Life in early 1997; it was a success at Electronic Entertainment Expo that year, where Valve demonstrated the game's animation and artificial intelligence.
Valve aimed for a November 1997 release to compete with Quake II. By September 1997, the team found that while they had built a number of innovative aspects in weapons, enemies, and level design, the game was not fun and there was little design cohesion. The company postponed the release and reworked every level. They took a novel approach of assigning a small team to build a prototype level containing every element in the game, and then spent a month iterating on the level. When the rest of the team played the level, which designer Ken Birdwell described as "Die Hard meets Evil Dead", they agreed to use it as a baseline. The team developed three theories about what made the level fun. First, the level had a number of interesting things happen in it and all when the player came into near proximity of the event, rather than based on time elements, so that the player would set the pace of the level. Second, the level had means to respond to any player action, even for something as simple as adding graphic decals to wall textures to show a bullet impact. Finally, the level warned the player of imminent danger to allow them to avoid it, rather than killing the player with no warning.
To move forward with this unified design, Valve sought a game designer, but found no one suitable for the job. Instead, Valve decided to create the "cabal", initially a group of six individuals from across all departments that worked primarily for six months straight in six-hour meetings four days a week. The cabal was responsible for all elements of design, including level layouts, key events, enemy designs, narrative, and the introduction of new gameplay elements relative to the story. The collaboration proved successful, and once the cabal had come to decisions on types of gameplay elements that would be needed, mini-cabals formed from other departments most affected by the choice were formed to implement these elements. Membership in the main cabal rotated, since commitment required created burnout. The cabal produced a 200-page design document detailing nearly every aspect of the game. They also produced a 30-page document for the game's narrative, and hired a writer, novelist Marc Laidlaw, to help manage that script for the game to assure in-game consistency. The soundtrack was composed by Kelly Bailey.
Within a month of the cabal's formation, the other team members started detailed game development, and within another month, began playtesting through Sierra. The cabal were intimately involved with playtesting, monitoring the player but otherwise not interacting, as to take the player's feedback, including any confusion or inability to solve a game's puzzle, into action items to be fixed on the next iteration of a game. Later, with most of the main adjustments made, the team included means to benchmark players' actions which they then collected and interpreted statistically to further fine-tune levels. Between the cabal and playtesting, Valve identified and removed parts that proved unenjoyable. Birdwell said that while there were struggles at first, the cabal approach was critical for Half-Life's success, and was reused for Team Fortress 2 from the start.
A few days prior to the release, the developers discovered an error in the source code. Developers fixed the error by adding corrections into a single line of the source code. Much of the detail of Half-Life's development has been lost; according to employee Erik Johnson, two or three months before release, their volume shadow service "exploded"; they had to compile what they could from was otherwise stored on individual computers at that time, meaning that only the last month of technical changes were preserved. This included saving the source to GoldSrc.”
Reception for Half-Life was pretty damn high back in the late 90s, and still carries some weight with it today. Computer Gaming World's Jeff Green said that the game "is not just one of the best games of the year. It's one of the best games of any year, an instant classic that is miles better than any of its immediate competition, and - in its single-player form - is the best shooter since the original Doom". IGN described it as "a tour de force in game design, the definitive single player game in a first person shooter" and also said that the history of the FPS genre "breaks down pretty cleanly into pre-Half-Life and post-Half-Life eras". Guinness World Records awarded Half-Life with the world record for Best-Selling First-Person Shooter of All Time (PC) in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, and The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Half-Life for its 1998 "Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development" award, although ironically it would lose to Pokémon Red and Blue.
Best Aspect? Graphically, Half-Life was pretty good looking for it’s time. With real 3d graphics winning out in the FPS market (Thanks to Quake), it was able to show off some stuff. Textures were more realistic, models seemed to be more realistic, and lighting appeared to be natural for it’s time. While it’s definitely dated nearly 20 years later, something about it comes across as less “In Your Face” than what was to come in 2004, and thanks to modders & Valve themselves, it has gained improvements & newer visual elements overtime.
Secondly, the story & character of Half-Life was surprisingly good. Despite it not being the most in-depth story or having the most intriguing characters (*Cough* Gordon Freeman *Cough*), there is at least some meat on it’s bones. You definitely feel concern for some of the scientists & security guards as you traverse Black Mesa, and when you finally travel to the dimension that the aliens come from, you’re wondering what’s happening to everybody back on Earth. The expansions show different perspectives on this, but I’ll get to that in a sec.
Next positive for Half-Life is the gameplay. In all honesty, it’s not that much different than most other FPS games of the 90s. Move around, shoot things that move, find keys, solve puzzles, etc. What makes things different are the more subtle things the game does: there’s little in-game sequences that play out, and in some cases force you to take a different route or use a different tactic. There’s little sounds all over the place that make things come alive, and in a neat twist, there’s no loading screen for each level. There’s quick moments that load each segment, but that’s it. Multiplayer is fantastic as well, with many game modes for everybody to pick & choose from.
Finally, the last positive of Half-Life is the post launch content. There was Opposing Force, which put you in the boots of one of the government soldiers sent to Black Mesa to erase the facility off the map, and Blue Shift, which put you in the vest of one of the facilities’s numerous security guards. Blue Shift also bears the distinction of upgrading the graphics engine to 2.0. Better textures, fluider movements, you name it. In addition to these expansions, some of the mods made for Half-Life (More specifically, Half-Life/Quake) eventually became their own thing. Team Fortress, for example. Even today, Valve still supports this game on their Steam platform. Pretty cool if you ask me!
Worst Aspect? Overrated as heck! Even before it was released, the hype behind it was huge, and caused Activision to force Ritual Entertainment to rush out SiN, & in the ensuing proceed forced it into a cult status (More on that next year for a delayed birthday & retrospective). After it had been out for a while, people where constantly praising the rather thin story and bare-bones characters, to the point where they raised it as high art. That being said....Half-Life deserves to be called overrated less than the sequel. There’s much more meat on the story’s bones, despite it being weak, and the characters seem more interesting, despite not having much to them. Even the setting of Half-Life appear to be more lifelike & fascinating than it’s sequel, and most of HL1 takes place in a science facility!
Half-Life. A classic shooter from the late 90s, and while it might be a little overrated, it definitely deserves a lot of credit. If you want to play one of the best of that decade, then this might be for you. Next game!
Half-Life 2 (2004)
“For Half-Life 2, Valve developed a new game engine, Source, which handles the game's visual, audio, and artificial intelligence elements. The Source engine comes packaged with a heavily modified version of the Havok physics engine that allows further interactivity. When coupled with Steam, it becomes easy to roll out new features. One such example is high dynamic range rendering, which Valve first demonstrated in a free downloadable level called Lost Coast for owners of Half-Life 2. Several other games use the Source engine, including Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source, both of which were also developed by Valve.
Many elements were cut from the game. Half-Life 2 was originally intended to be a darker game with grittier art direction, where the Combine were more obviously draining the oceans for minerals and replacing the atmosphere with noxious, murky gases. Nova Prospekt was originally intended to be a small Combine rail depot built on an old prison in the wasteland. Eventually, Nova Prospekt grew from a stopping-off point along the way to the destination itself.
Valve announced Half-Life 2 at E3 in May 2003, where it won several awards for best in show. Originally slated for release in September 2003, the game was delayed in the wake of the cracking of Valve's internal network. The network was accessed through a null session connection to a server owned by Tangis, which was hosted in Valve's network, and a subsequent upload of an ASP shell, resulting in the leak of the game's source code and many other files including maps, models and a playable early version of Half-Life 2 in early September 2003. On October 2, 2003, Valve CEO Gabe Newell publicly explained in the Halflife2.net (now ValveTime.net) forums the events that Valve experienced around the time of the leak, and requested users to track down the perpetrators if possible.
In June 2004, Valve Software announced in a press release that the FBI had arrested several people suspected of involvement in the source code leak. Valve claimed the game had been leaked by a German black-hat hacker named Axel "Ago" Gembe. After the leak, Gembe had contacted Newell through e-mail (also providing an unreleased document planning the E3 events). Newell kept corresponding with Gembe, and Gembe was led into believing that Valve wanted to employ him as an in-house security auditor. He was to be offered a flight to the USA and was to be arrested on arrival by the FBI. When the German government became aware of the plan, Gembe was arrested in Germany instead, and put on trial for the leak as well as other computer crimes in November 2006, such as the creation of Agobot, a highly successful trojan which harvested users' data.
At the trial in November 2006 in Germany, Gembe was sentenced to two years' probation. In imposing the sentence, the judge took into account such factors as Gembe's difficult childhood and the fact that he was taking steps to improve his situation.”
Reception for Half-Life 2 was also pretty high upon it’s release, despite getting released just a few months after the equally massive Doom 3 (That came out in the beginning of August 2004). Sites like GameSpy, The Cincinnati Enquirer, The New York Times, and VideoGamer.com had given the game perfect scores, while other places like PC Gamer, IGN, GamesRadar, and Eurogamer gave near perfect review. In an unprecident move, Maximum PC awarded Half-Life 2 an 11 on their rating scale which normally peaks at 10, calling it "the best game ever made". I personally disagree with this amount of praise, but I’ll get to that in a bit.
Best Aspect? Once again the graphics are a plus, and this marks perhaps one of the few things that raises it above the original. Valve really gave it their all, as the graphics are far more advanced, and have aged really well for nearly 15 years. Everything comes across so much more smoothly, far better lighting, greatly improved textures, breakable objects fall apart realistically, and models look nowhere near as clunky as anything in HL1. While it doesn’t necessarily deal with the graphics, the other thing that sets Half-Life 2 apart from the original is the physics engine put in. Objects fall over in a manner that’s real, roll around, dragged, you name it. The physics also plays into some of the puzzles, and it’s done in a way that’s real. While it’s not the most amazing physics nowadays, it still comes across as charming.
Gameplay really hasn’t changed all that much from the original HL, but that’s not necessarily bad. Gone is the key searching, and things are placed more on the action & puzzle work elements instead. There’s still sequences the player comes across, and they’re all the better thanks to the graphics used. Ironically, the weapons in Half-Life 2 aren’t quite as much fun. The guns in the original had something of a “Rough-And-Tumble” kind of feel to them. They felt like they had gone through stuff. The weapons in HL2 (Apart from the crowbar & crossbow) feel too clean & manufactured, and not only that, but your selection of tools to use somehow seems smaller. The only new gun that’s fun is the Gravity Gun. Taking advantage of the physics engine, the things you can do with it are hilarious.
Half-Life 2 also had great post launch content. There was Episode 1 in 2006, which took place shortly after the end of the main game, and the Orange Box in 2007, which included Episode 2, the long awaited Team Fortress 2, and the sci-fi weirdness of Portal. There’s also a great mod community for Half-Life 2 as well, though I never saw as many, nor played as much.
Worst Aspect? Much like the original Half-Life, HL2 suffers from a severe case of overratedness. However, whereas the original game doesn’t deserve all of it......this game deserves every single bit of it. Weaker story, blander characters (Gordon Freeman is still silent, and somehow he’s even more boring), less interesting setting, and overall I find myself far less interested in coming back to play it. It’s not to say that there isn’t any entertainment factor, cause there’s definitely a little to be had. However, it feels far more like a graphics test with gameplay elements instead of a full fledged game (Something that Doom 3 did better). This isn’t helped by the fact that the 2 expansions afterwards feel even less interesting than the main game itself (Though the 2nd did mix it up just a little with some interesting gameplay elements).
Half-Life 2. Not necessarily bad, but due to events behind the scenes, along with a host of other issues, makes it a game I’m less likely to talk about. Recommended, but nowhere near as much as the original.
So that concludes my somewhat delayed retrospective & birthday on the iconic Half-Life. Though the series might be dead nowadays, the memories of the original games will live on, and even newer gamers eventually discover this late 90s classic. With that said, this concludes my 4-year anniversary, and so I’m taking a break from the rest of September to begin work on a special Halloween event for the blog. Until then, hope you don’t have your life.....halved.
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Here’s 2 mods from both games. Enjoy!
They Hunger (Part 1/Part 2/Part 3)(Half-Life 1)
Left 4 Dead (Link)(Half-Life 2, but technically it’s own game)
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