Review #206: Half-Life

 Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman.

 Half-Life 2 is an undeniable classic. Half-Life 1, while it didn't receive the highest of critical acclaims, was well received as well. My only experience with HL was, and still is, with the PS2 port, which I played shortly after it was released, Back when I finished it for the first time, I loved it, it was great and quite unlike the second one. It's time I go back to Black Mesa and find out just how well has the game aged.

 In Half-Life you play as the scientist Gordon Freeman, who is in the center of an experiment gone wrong, which results in uninvited guests from planet Xen. At first Gordon must try to escape Black Mesa and survive the invaders, but pretty soon the Government gets involved: Nobody leaves Black Mesa, in an effort to erase the accident from history. The narrative is pretty simple, but for an FPS, it works. There's little in the way of character development, Gordon being a mute hero, but the beauty in the story is in how it's told, there are no cut-scenes in the game, instead, every dialogue and exposure is done in real time, as NPCs talk to Gordon. You are free to listen to them, run around while listening, or just leave them talking to a wall. Honestly, it's done a bit better in Half-Life 2, it's pretty easy to miss important dialogues in this game, still, it was done pretty well for it being their first attempt.

 As far as gameplay goes, while it's a first person shooter, it also has its fair amount of puzzles, beyond 'find the key to open the door', and platforming. Gordon comes equipped with a HEV suit, that greatly enhances his endurance capabilities, lets him run faster, eventually grants him a super jump, and protects him from the elements. Health is restored by finding medikits or medi-stations on the walls, and the HEV's energy, which only applies to the defense capabilities, is restored by finding energy cells or Energy Stations on the walls. This being an older FPS means that Gordon can carry an enormous arsenal of weapons, most are pretty by-the-numbers, y'know, your shotgun, rifle and pistol, but you'll also come around experimental weapons and a couple of alien weaponry. Regardless, as lethal as Gordon is, sometimes the best strategy is to run, if you want to survive Black Mesa, you'll have to learn when to fight and when to run.

 The puzzles are pretty interesting, most of these involve dropping Gordon on a rather open area, and then you have to activate stuff on different rooms in order to open up the way. As a matter of fact, there's many enemy encounters, not categorized as bosses, that are simply too tough for Gordon to handle by himself, so you'll have to use the environment to kill them. It's pretty fun. What's not so fun is the large amount of platforming in the game. Jumping in a first person shooter works as well as you would expect. To be fair, only a few of my deaths were due to platfoming, but many times it felt as if I just barely made the jump I needed, still, jumping in this game isn't very fun, and it certainly could've used less of it. Level design is pretty good, there's the occasional obtuse level in which it isn't immediately obvious where to go to, but it's the exception to the rule. I do like how it's one persistent world, it's not divided by stages, you are always moving forward without 'cut-aways' between levels.

 Back in the day, one of the most touted features was the interaction with NPCs. There's guards and scientists, the former aid you by shooting with their puny guns, while the scientists can heal you. I don't know if this was an issue in the PC version, but in this game, the default speed is sprinting, you can either sprint or walk, in order to run you have to push the analog stick slightly close to the plastic's border, so it's very cumbersome. Thing is, NPCs can't keep up with Gordon HEV's sprint, thus often falling behind, and eventually stop following you. They are not very useful, but it's annoying not being able to rely on them, well, they have a very bad pathfinding, so they may get stuck following you anyways.

 One thing to keep in mind, is that this game is from an era before console games employed autosaving. You'd better save often, particularly before platforming sections, but that's alright, you'll learn the hard way. And hey, look at the bright side, you can save anywhere at any time. A rather helpful feature is Quick Saving, which saves to the PS2's memory, which means the Save is good until you turn off the console, what makes this feature so good, is that reloading a Quick Save is pretty fast, allowing you to retry pretty quickly.  Aiming with the analog stick isn't as precise as aiming with a mouse, which is why the game allows you to lock on, by pressing circle while the reticule hovers over an enemy. It works well, and it does make up for the lack of mouse... but then again, this game allows you to use the PS2 Keyboard and Mouse, if it tickles your fancy!

 Exclusive to this port, well, at the time of its release anyways, is the Decay mode. It's a separate storyline that follows Dr. Gina Cross and Dr. Colette Green, who were in Black Mesa at the moment of the incident. As a matter of fact, their story runs parallel to Gordon's, while it doesn't further the story, it fleshens it a bit. This mode is made up of 10 different stages, and it's meant to be played by two players. You can play it by yourself, but it means switching characters constantly, the character you are not playing as will not move. Ever. They will fight back, often times wasting ammo, but they won't move an inch. Decay is a very fun mode, the puzzles are fairly fun, but playing it by your lonesome is very tedious. There's also a Deathmatch mode if you are so inclined. That said, multiplayer modes in this game have a very small issue.... the models for the guns are gone. You only get the HUD and the targeting-reticule, but no gun, which I felt was a joykill.

 Ah, the presentation... it hasn't aged well. Back in the day, the visuals were an upgrade over the PC version, but nowadays, it looks pretty bad. Animations are rigid and textures are muddy. The color palette is fairly subdued as well. Music is... alrightish, nothing memorable, but the main theme is rather good. Voice acting is... passable. There's nothing particularly outstanding or convincing, but it won't break immersion.

 Half-Life has fairly well were it matters. The presentation has seen better days, and the jumping is pretty annoying, but everything else works really well. It made some pretty nice tweaks on its way to the Console in order to make up for the lack of Keyboard and Joystick, and the Decay extra is great, when played with another person.
 8.5 out of 10.