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Half-Life
PlayStation 2
Half-Life: A Different Take on the FPS
4/5 stars
In the interest of full-disclosure, I'd like to start out by saying that I generally don't like first-person shooters. I decided to give "Half-Life" a try based on two things: First, I had read quite a bit about the game that said it was significantly more puzzle-oriented than the typical shooter. Second, the series of “Full-Life Consequences” parody fan-fiction/Gary's Mod Youtube videos made me want to learn more about the real story of Gordon Freeman (who was John Freeman's brother).
Presentation
The presentation of "Half-Life" is its weak point. While I have read that the PC version looks significantly better, I have not played the PC version to compare. The PS2 version of "Half-Life" suffers from incredibly low-resolution textures on everything. The environments, people, and monsters all look blurry and pixilated. Chain-link fences, in particular, look horrible, and it is difficult to tell if it's possible to shoot through them or not. The polygon models themselves are moderately decent-looking, and don't suffer from any jaggies when playing the game on a 60GB PS3. The animations for monsters look relatively convincing, but human characters all dwell in the muck at the bottom of the Uncanny Valley. What hurts the human characters even more than their bad textures and awkward animations is the fact that there are exactly four (4) different character models for scientists and one (1) character model for security guards. None of them are able to really develop as characters because they have dozens of doppelgangers running around the Black Mesa facility. A rather trivial graphical complaint I have is that there are no reflective surfaces in the game in which to catch a glimpse of Gordon Freeman. If it wasn't for his picture on the game's box, a player with no prior knowledge of "Half-Life" wouldn't even know what their character looks like! I would also like to point out that "Half-Life" gets its “M” rating solely due to the fact that some monsters vomit up human anatomy when killed (skulls, spines, femurs, etc.) and Gordon can cause dead bodies to explode into showers of said anatomy by hitting them with his crowbar. This gore isn't particularly realistic, but it is a bit over-the-top for a game that's supposed to be more intellectual than twitchy.
The audio in "Half-Life" isn't particularly good either. Weapon sound effect, monster sound effects, and music are passable, but not outstanding. The radio chatter between humans sounds absolutely awful, and is nearly incomprehensible most of the time. Human dialog sequences have a fuzzy quality that sounds like a compression issue.
Overall, "Half-Life" looks and sounds like a much older game. The last PC FPS I played was "Quake 2," many years ago. I can't see much progress over that game's presentation in "Half-Life."
Story
"Half-Life's" story is, at the same time, typical and atypical. Gordon Freeman is a recent MIT graduate with a Ph.D. in physics. He has given up a boring, but stable, teaching position at a European university to become a much lower-ranked “Research Assistant” at the Black Mesa facility in the southwestern United States. Gordon starts the game on the tram going to a typical day at work. He can play some practical jokes on his co-workers, such as over-microwaving somebody's ramen or turning off the lights in an office, before reporting in for duty. Gordon's project involves placing some kind of exotic matter into some sort of cascade array (accompanied by a lot of technobabble from NPCs). There is, of course, an accident, and the experiment in which Gordon was participating begins to open portals all around the facility, through which unpleasant monsters appear.
So the typical accident causes the typical monster invasion. Now the atypical part begins: The player controls a geeky research assistant who must escape to the surface from the bowels of the underground Black Mesa facility. Gordon has limited ammunition, and soon discovers that interdimensional monsters aren't the only things in Black Mesa that are trying to kill him. These aspects give "Half-Life" a distinct survival horror sub-text, which is significantly more interesting than most survival horror games because it does not involve hordes of zombies (just the occasional headcrab-possessed corpse).
I was somewhat disappointed that nothing from “Full-Life Consequences” was present in "Half-Life." I can only assume that Ravenholm and all that good stuff is in "Half-Life 2."
Gameplay
The first thing that impressed me about "Half-Life's" gameplay is that the controls are completely customizable. I didn't like everything about the default setup, but I was able to tweak it to perfection. More games need to allow control customization of this caliber!
Much of the gameplay in "Half-Life" reminds me a lot of "Metroid Prime" (the only FPS that I like), except not quite as good. The player has two tools at their disposal that make "Half-Life" a merciful game for those who aren't obsessed with FPS gameplay: Lock-on and Quicksaves. The lock-on feature is similar to the one in "Metroid Prime." Pushing a button causes Gordon's targeting reticule to lock onto an enemy, with some fine adjustment available on the vertical plane only. The fine adjustment allows for head-shots, which typically kill enemies with less ammunition expenditure. Otherwise, the lock-on feature is great simply because the player can move Gordon behind cover without losing track of where the locked enemy is. Quicksaves are essential due to the fact that enemy encounters are quite brutal. Most enemies have perfect aim and can deal 20% damage to Gordon's ear if it so much as pokes out from behind a crate or a corner. The ability to save ANYWHERE and between EVERY encounter makes it possible to have plenty of do-overs without repeating a bunch of unnecessary, frustrating steps.
The range of weapons available for Gordon to use is quite impressive. He starts out with nothing but a crowbar, but soon finds a small-caliber pistol. As the player progresses through the game, Gordon will have access to military grade weapons, such as an assault rife, grenades, a guided RPG launcher, a shotgun and a sniper crossbow. Toward the end of the game, Gordon can pick-up experimental Black Mesa laser weapons and even some weapons used by the interdimensional invaders.
A significant amount of the gameplay in "Half-Life" revolves around, not shooting, but exploration. Gordon can typically take at least one side path per major area, which leads to bonus health and armor packs as well as extra ammo and weapons. It's possible to get early access to better weapons just by thoroughly exploring each area and looking for secret passages. Some exploration leads to vantage points that allow the player to take out enemy positions with less risk to Gordon's health. Jumping sections/puzzles abound, which can ruin a first-person game. Fortunately, the jumping sections in "Half-Life" are well-designed (i.e., mercifully easy) and don't lead to the typical frustration of jumping without the ability to see the character's feet.
Most bosses in "Half-Life" also prove to be different from the typical shooter. All but one is a giant moving puzzle that can't be killed just by unloading a massive amount of ammunition into it. These bosses require the player to move Gordon around and through cover and find objects in the game's environment to hurt the boss in question. The one boss that IS just a drawn-out shooting battle came as an abrupt and unpleasant surprise.
Finally, the PS2 version of "Half-Life" comes with a bonus 2-player cooperative campaign called “Half-Life: Decay.” While I have only had the opportunity to play through the first two levels of this bonus mode, the puzzles seem to be on-par with, if not better than the single-player game. Unfortunately, "Decay" has a ranking system that can be difficult to work with when one of the two players is incompetent. "Decay" can be played alone, alternating between the two characters, but it's not nearly as fun as playing with a friend.
Overall
Overall, "Half-Life" is an excellent first-person shooter. While not as good as "Metroid Prime," the story is interesting enough and the gameplay is solid enough to negate most of the sub-par presentation. I'd actually go so far as to say that "Half-Life" was the original 'first-person adventure' that inspired Retro Studios' re-envisioning of "Metroid" in 3D. I recommend that everyone at least give "Half-Life" a chance, even those who hate the FPS genre. At the present time, the game is remarkably inexpensive, so it would make a solid choice for an impulse buy.
Presentation: 2/5
Story: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Overall: 4/5 (not an average)
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