First Impressions
Gameplay
Sound
Graphics
Multi-Player
Final Comments
Final Rating

First Impressions:
I remember seeing Half-Life for the first time just over a year ago at a local Quake/LAN Party here in the Seattle area. And it was then and there that a gentleman by the name of Gabe Newell showed up with computer in-hand to show us a game in progress that, up until that point, was a game that I had only heard about. However, when Gabe fired up that early version of Half-Life, I just remember how the whole room (150 people) was silenced and awestruck. I remember him showing us things like the dynamic sound effects, which changed depending on the environment your character was in. I remember him showing us how all the characters in the game were modeled in 3D Studio, and how fluid the movement was. Along with all of this next-generation stuff came "scripted animation sequences" and how much realism they added to the games.

Well now well over a year later we finally got our grubby little hands on the final copy, and both Kyle and I were in for some serious shell shock! Everything I had seen over a year ago totally exceeded all my expectations. As we try to offer you not just a "Plain Vanilla" review, you’ll get to hear about this game from two of us. Quite simply, games like this kick so much butt, that it’d be real hard for one person to try to cover everything!

Gameplay:
Duane: For me, I have yet to play a more immersive game period. From the word "go", I found myself completely engulfed into the pseudo world that is unfolded before your eyes. Everything is here, from colored lighting to rooms so dark you have to use a flashlight (nice effect). During the time Kyle and I were playing we were telling each other that if we only have a nickel for every word of amazement while we played, that we’d both be millionaires! It’s hard to describe into words how surreal the Half-Life world is, but I’ll try to give a couple examples.

I was reminded of a Saturday Night Live TV commercial they made as a spoof on Adult Diapers called "Oops, I crapped my pants", the first time I saw an Osprey hover above me and troops started rappelling, and shooting at me on the way down. To top that off, they group once they are on the ground, and then split up to try and hit you from different angles!! And speaking of smart AI, if you try and hide behind something, like crates for example, the troops will start lobbing grenades over the crates to hit you! If you wound them seriously enough they will run and seek some help. This is the kind of AI that Unreal talked about but never delivered.

Another episode that comes to mind, is the first time I laid eyes on an alien creature that was so huge, it took up the entire pit at the bottom of the room, it had no eyes, but could "hear" where you were walking to, and would attack that location. I don’t know how many pairs of underwear I had to go change while playing this game, but I’m sure my wife knows… =p

Kyle: Well thankfully my parents potty trained me so I didn’t have that much of a problem =) I can totally understand where he is coming from though. From the first moment when you start the game you are on a train heading down to your lab. You hear the voice of a transit system computer (The perfect female computer voice) talking you through procedures. But this isn’t just your typical game intro. You can freely move around inside of the transit car (Which is actually more or less a subway car that is tied to some type of rail either on the ground or the ceiling), watching the detail they put into all the scripted animation sequences. People inside awesome crab like robots moving boxes, people re-arming helicopters and other people on other tramcars starring at you or just into space as you ride by. The attention to detail that they give you in the first opening animation sequence is not lost throughout the rest of the game. Infact I think it gets better the further it goes along.

In terms of AI. The first time it really hit home for me was when I said to myself (And Duane who was on the phone with me) "That guy did NOT just reach for the phone and call for help!". Well sure enough he did. The game is just amazing with its AI. Like Duane mentioning above. People running and fighting in-groups. Using the surroundings to supply cover. I remember another time where you run into this rather large gun in a warehouse that you get to take control of. As soon as you start using it all the enemy guys run behind the crates to hide from you. It is awesome! Now one cool thing that they did is turn enemy AI the opposite direction. Throughout the game you come upon security officers called Barneys. Who if you talk to them will either stay there and guard a certain spot or they will fallow you and help you! They are actually pretty use-full. You can also find Scientists that will heal you and open special doors for you. Thinking of them, the last part of AI I will mention is when shooting close to scientist. If you shoot near them or throw a grenade kinda close to them they will actually cover their ears and duck a little! It’s the little attentions to detail that make this game worthwhile.

This game also had some of the most original characters I have ever seen. From people such as Barney Cops (As mentioned above), the Dr.’s, the little alien things that suck your brains out. And the soldiers that come to "clean up" this little government facility. As a final comment I want to mention something about the Ninja people. Yes the Ninja people. This is probably the single coolest bad guy I have ever seen in a game to date. They basically have silenced pistols and run towards you shooting. Then will do a quick back flip over a crate. Run away and then come at you again. They swarm in on you and if you can bring yourself away from thinking of how you are going to be worshiping the software programmers at Valve for the rest of your life you will need to move quickly to survive their attack.

Sound:
Duane: For people that don’t "really care" about how a game sounds, Half-Life will make you soil your pants, guaranteed! And you don’t even really need a 3d sound card; because the game is coded from the ground up to have dynamic sound effects! My heart almost went to my throat the first time I heard one of the aliens groaning at me. Sound is a critical part of this game, from the way your footsteps change sounds depending on the surface you are running on, to the ambient sounds as well. I have yet to hear a game that does a better job of making you "feel" as if you were there!

Kyle: I totally agree again with you here Duane. The first time I saw a person in the game speaking to me, where I could see his lips move with the words that where coming out of his mouth, and the most amazing thing to me how you could spin around in a circle while somebody is talking to you and literally hear the sound coming from each speaker in respect to where the person was standing. It is totally amazing. Granted this is not a new feature in games but in a game such as this, a First Person Shooter, the attention they paid to detail, even simple things (Not to say it is simple to program that. But the thought of it) like matching the spoken words to the characters mouth just makes the game that much more!

Graphics:
Duane: When a game can suck you into it the way Half-Life has done to us here at GamersDepot is leaves little doubt that the graphics are a huge factor in that. I think the most striking thing for me, graphically, was the shift in the color palette in the Quake2 engine from your typical "earth tones" to a vibrant color scheme that leaves no traces at all of it’s Quake2 cousin. Just about everything you could ask for is here. Everything from the colored lighting to the character animations is totally done first class. Another key element worth mention here is the gun modeling, which is some of the best I’ve seen so far in a FPS. Now I know some people out there might disagree with me on this one, but Half-Life to me surpasses Unreal in the graphics area, simply because it’s not "overdone" w/ fog here, and fog there, no unnecessary fillers! =p

Kyle: When Duane first told me that HL was made on the Quake2 Engine I was in total disbelief. This game reminds me nothing of Q2. The first time I took out my crowbar and started beating the heck out of some small weird alien and saw his blood (or whatever you want to call it) getting sprayed all over the walls I couldn’t stop playing! Now I’m not some sick wacko that gets off on blood and violence. I need blood, violence and sex to get off! So while this game only offers me 2 of the 3 I pretty much just sat there drooling like a maniac. Infact I had to run out and buy more buckets to catch all the drool!

The Level design that they implemented here is unreal in itself. Yes they have lots of Crates everywhere. Which I might add you can blowup. As a quick side note here that is another really cool thing in this game. If you see a bomb or something on the ground. Chances are you can do something useful with it. Big explosions are useful aren’t they? Okay back to the level design. This is actually where you lose me on the game. For the first � of the game you had me totally hooked. Infact all I could think about during my days was coming back to play Half-Life! It was that good. Now I mentioned before that number. � of the game. Well for the last � or so of the game you are taken off of "earth" and into some other weird Alien world. I don’t know if I was just disappointed to know that the game was almost over, or if I was disappointed at the Alien Architecture. I think they had a lot of cool ideas. But it just didn’t do anything for me. Im sorry. Of course I think im attributing this to how soon the game ended.

Multi-Player:
Duane: Do you get tired of doing the ole’ "Server hunt"? Or do you get tired of waiting for Gamespy to refresh its server listing? Well wait no more! Half-Life has the best online gaming menu system we’ve ever seen in a game!  Using their network-marketing partnership with WON, you can tell the game to find a whole list of servers, and then sort them all out with various filters. When I played online with a 33.6 modem it first seemed kind of laggy. However, after about 1 minute it went away. If you are fortunate enough to setup a 100baseT LAN like we did, you are in for an unforgettable experience. After about 5 minutes of killing each other the map started looking like ground zero in the Gulf War. You see, when you blow something (or someone) up, your bullets, or explosions leave "Beauty Marks" all over the place. Truly a sight to behold!

Kyle: I have to agree with Duane here again. My 33.6 Modem connection was horrible. Really not even worth playing on. One thing they obviously where not able to copy over from Quake 2’s engine was its superb multiplayer speed. Which is fine with me since im getting ADSL in 2 weeks anyway! But for those of you without cable modems/DSL/etc. I think you will be a little bit disappointed. For LAN parties and everybody else though this game is amazing. I mentioned above about the blood spattering on the walls. So imagine if you will your averaged sized FPS Death Match map. Then imagine that everytime you shoot some guy blood is going to splatter on the floor or really just anything close to him/her. Add about 25 more players, about 20 minutes of playtime and as Duane mentioned it starts to look like a war is going. What a concept huh?

Final Comments:
Duane: Valve Software really has something special in this game. For being the first game they’ve made, our hats are off to them! Thanks Valve for giving us the best that PC-Gaming has to offer! All I can say is I can’t wait for Half-Life 2 !! (or whatever their next title will be called!)

Kyle: I can’t say enough good things about this game. For a company that has a founder that worked on MS (I mean jeash they came from programming MS Bob! Yuck!) they have done an amazing job. And I definitely look forward to whatever they come out with next. Thinking back to my previous comment about how fast this game ended for me I want to clear that up. It might have something to do with the fact that I really didn’t sleep for 3 days. I’m sure my neighbors loved the sound of gunfire in the morning.

Final Rating: 6 DROOLS!! / GAMERSDEPOT GAME OF THE YEAR!!!
                                         

Be sure to check out our screenshots using the SSVI!

Minimum System Requirements

• Windows� 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0
• Pentium� 133 <--- yeah right, if you want to play at 5 frames per second!
• 24 MB RAM
• 2X CD-ROM drive <--- do people still have these? geesh!
• Mouse and Keyboard <--- umm if you don't have these, how do you run Windows?
• 640x480 SVGA high color (16-bit) display
• Windows-compatible sound device (GD Recommends a SB Live, or a Diamond Monster MX300)

Recommended System Requirements

• Pentium� 166+ (GD recommends at least a PII266)
• 32 MB RAM  (GD always recommends 64MB)
• 3D accelerator card (OpenGL or Direct 3D)

Review by Duane Pemberton & Kyle Krum
Editors for Gamers Depot

Other products, graphics or company names that appear on this site are or may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective holders.