Half-Life

Game of the Year 98. Followed by Half-life 2.

Contribute to these, please.

Plot

Spoilers

---

Spoiler warning! The following section contains spoilers that potentionally give away the storyline or important parts of the game or other storyline based media. If you have not completed said game you will want to stay out of the following text.

If the article contains a end spoiler tag you may scroll down to it and continue reading after it.

The goal of Half Life is to make it to the surface and try to escape the on-coming hordes of aliens. The game begins with the player on a monorail tram which travels through a series environments intended to introduce the player to Black Mesa. The entirety of the game is played through a first person perspective from which the player is always in control.

After the initial tram scene, Gordon is presented with the HEV Suit. From there the story begins. The front end of the story takes place in the test chamber. After an unexpected accident occurs, aliens from Xen begin warping in and attacking the Black Mesa scientists.

The player survives the reaction, mostly because of the HEV Suit. The adventure begins and the player sets out on a journey to make it to the surface. Surface Tension is the first chapter in which the player emerges from the underground lair of Black Mesa. This chapter is often seen as being a twist because the player expects the surface to be a more secure environment. Unfortunately, the surface is just as chaotic as Black Mesa was.

Ultimately, the player travels to an unknown environment, known as Xen. The place is home to the aliens who invaded Black_Mesa. Here, the player meets the Nihilanth who serves as the final boss of Half-Life. After defeating Nihilanth, the player is excommunicated from Xen by the G-man.

Characters

There really aren't any important characters in Half-Life. There are only four ally models. Three of the scientist, and one security guard model.

Community

Development (hell?)

Ports

Half-Life: Source

The test chamber scene in Half-Life Source. Note the shadows.

As part of testing out the porting/modding scene themselves, Valve decided to port Half-Life to the Half-Life 2 engine - Half-Life: Source was announced before the release and was thought to be a remake of Half-Life, rather than a port.

Half-Life: Source is largely the same game as Half-Life. The regular Half-life maps have been enhanced with Source features such as pixel shaded water, reflections and improved radiosity from the GoldSRC engine. Ragdolls are also supported, however so is gibbing.

With using the Source engine of Half-Life 2, Half-Life: Source has 3D main menu backgrounds, unlockable chapter selection (although all chapters are unlocked by default) and improved AI (both positive and begative, as [zombies] try to take cover).

Being a port, Half-Life: Source uses Half-Life low definition textures and models. The Source engine supports much higher quality resources - some projects, such as Half-Life: Source: HD, try to replace the textures and models with higher resolution versions.

Half-Life: Source is availible over Steam for $9.95. The multiplayer part of Half-Life: Source is Half-Life: Deathmatch: Source, which is distributed with [Episode One].

Easter Eggs

Trivia

Half-life is a physics term. The Half-life of a radioactive object is the time taken for half it's mass to decay.

Links