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Description

Screenshots

Promo Images

Trailer

Alternate Titles

"戰慄時空" -- Traditional Chinese spelling

"半条命" -- Simplified Chinese spelling

"Quiver" -- Working title

"Hλlf-Life" -- Cover / in-game title

"Bantiao Ming" -- Simplified Chinese title

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Trivia

1001 Video Games


Cancelled ports

Half-Life , at one point, was completely finished for the Dreamcast console. Prima (the Official Strategy Guide folks) even had a Dreamcast-exclusive guide published. Unfortunately, the game wasn't published - probably due to the fact that SEGA announced that they would no longer produce new Dreamcasts. In certain circles of the Internet, a leaked copy can still be found and ran on a Dreamcast.

, at one point, was completely finished for the Dreamcast console. Prima (the Official Strategy Guide folks) even had a Dreamcast-exclusive guide published. Unfortunately, the game wasn't published - probably due to the fact that SEGA announced that they would no longer produce new Dreamcasts. In certain circles of the Internet, a leaked copy can still be found and ran on a Dreamcast. A Macintosh port was in the works from Westlake interactive and reached beta before being cancelled because of concerns about responsibility for tech support.

Development

Engine

German version

Gina Freeman

id Software

Innovations

The between-episode text which appears, overlaid on the screen, before slowly fading out (adopted not just in other computer games, but in several different Linux windowing systems too)

A training segment which is presented as an integral part of the storyline

The practice of rendering cut-scenes with the in-game engine

Blood-splatters and other persistent stains

Semi-random NPC speech and 'interaction' in an otherwise straightforward action game

Weaponry which needs to be manually reloaded between magazine changes

Constant playflow: the levels directly connect to each other

Inspiration

Lambda

Mods

Plot

References

The security office is in sector 7G. Homer Simpson works in a sector with the same name.

The Gluon Gun was nicknamed "The Egon" after the Ghostbusters Character Egon Spengler. The Gluon gun projects a plasma stream similar to the ones used by the Ghostbusters.

Character Egon Spengler. The Gluon gun projects a plasma stream similar to the ones used by the Ghostbusters. The surnames on the lockers where Gordon goes to collect his HEV suit are of people from the development team. Gordon also has a book by Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw in his locker.

References to the game

Remakes

In 2004, Valve released a re-mastered version using Half Life 2 's Source engine, called Half-Life: Source.

's Source engine, called Half-Life: Source. In 2012, a group of fans released a remake of their own, called Black Mesa. The team's goal was to provide a completely new and more modern version of the original experience, since according to them, Valve's remake "didn't fully live up to the potential of a Source engine port of Half-Life". In fact, most of the game's content remained unchanged: Half-Life: Source mainly added new water and physics effects, but didn't upgrade the game's textures or character models.

Sales

Shotgun

Sound engine

University of Innsbruck

Awards

Computer Gaming World April 1999 (Issue #177) – Game of the Year January 2001 (Issue #199) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame March 2001 (Issue #200) - #1 Game of All Time (Readers' Choice) March 2001 (Issue #200) - #2 Game of All Time (Editors' Choice)

GameSpy 2001 – #2 Top Game of All Time 2012 – #1 Top PC Gaming Intro

GameStar (Germany) Issue 12/1999 - #17 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking

PC Gamer April 2000 - #1 in the "All-Time Top 50 Games" poll October 2001 - #1 in the "Top 50 Best Games of All Time" list April 2005 - #1 in the "Top 50 Best Games of All Time" list

PC Player (Germany) Issue 01/1999 - Best Game in 1998 Issue 01/1999 - Best Shooter in 1998

Power Play Issue 02/1999 – Best Action Shooter in 1998

Retro Gamer October 2004 (Issue #9) – #38 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)



Related Web Sites

Half-Life (Windows) on Jun 06, 1999 doj (39) added(Windows) on Jun 06, 1999

Other platforms contributed by Sciere (658945) and Kabushi (248016)

Black Mesa Research Facility is an ultra-secret laboratory under government contract, conducting top-secret and extremely volatile experiments. The scientist Gordon Freeman a Black Mesa employee. This morning, as usual, he pits his way to the research facility for a run-of-the-mill experiment. However, when the experiment initiates, Gordon realizes that it might not be as ordinary as he thought. Odd things begin to happen as he makes his way to one of the Black Mesa test chambers. Even weirder things happen when he starts to move the test sample towards the antimass-spectrometer.At that moment everything goes horribly wrong. Aliens from the planet Xen have suddenly invaded the facility, injuring or killing many of the employees. The Marines have come to the facility to kill off the aliens and the surviving witnesses of the accident. Gordon understands what that means: he will have to fight his way through aliens and Marines to get to the top of the Black Mesa complex and much beyond.The story ofis told entirely in-game: everything is seen through the eyes of the protagonist. Most story elements unfold via scripted sequences, triggered by the player reaching a certain area. If other characters have information to reveal, they address the player directly. The Black Mesa complex in the game is not made up of distinct levels, but is mostly a continuous world, where it is possible to backtrack through large parts of the game.The game's weapon arsenal is, to a large part, made up of realistic weapons like pistols, machine guns and explosives, but there are also futuristic energy weapons developed at Black Mesa as well as organic weapons acquired from the invading aliens. Most weapons feature an alternate firing mode.Enemies fall into two categories: aliens and human soldiers. While most of the aliens are not very bright, the humans display some relatively advanced artificial intelligence: they seek cover, retreat when hit and try to drive the player from his cover by throwing grenades. Some of the alien enemies can not be killed by normal means. The environment must be used against them instead, going with a general tendency of the game to alternate the combat with environmental puzzles.appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.Very early beta footage of the game, as well as interviews with some of the programmers, is available on the Diablo expansion pack Hellfire , released by Sierra a full year before the game ever shipped. Sierra already had advertisements forin many of their products back then.In its first finalized form, as it would have been published if the original release date was kept,was nothing more than a total conversion of Quake with new enemies and levels. In the one additional year spent on development the game transformed into the form that led it to critical and commercial success.was released a full year after Quake II and it's a common belief that it was based on theengine. This is not true. It is based on the originalengine and it's more than fair to say that it was modified beyond recognition by the Valve team. Amongst the additions were built-in 3D accelerator support, skeletal systems and shadow casting (the latter didn't make it into the game). Valve now refers to this engine as "GoldSrc". This is probably how the "Source" engine from Half-Life 2 got its name.There is a special German version which features robots as enemies, green blood instead of red and innocent people cannot be killed any longer. The robot design was outlined by Sierra's Germany division, then sent to Valve in Seattle, where the artists created and implemented the tin soldiers. The changes in the game's code and art, together with the text and speech localization, served to delay the German version by full four months. By then, even casual gamers had already purchased the original version, which was freely for sale up to its ban. However,proved to be so immensely popular that the German robo-version still sold over 50,000 copies, so the venture was ultimately successful for Sierra.On December 16, 1998, the US version ofwas put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games Apparently, Valve had written a part for Gordon's wife, Gina, to appear in the game, this idea got scrapped but she still made it to the game, her model was the one used for the holographic trainer.When id Software saw what Valve was doing with their engine, they were reminded of their original idea for a seamless, story-based DOOM and thought it would fail. It didn't.was influential in many little ways, popularising several gameplay devices which have subsequently become standards, such as:According to Valve's Gabe Newell , originallywas inspired by Stephen King 's novella. However the game evolved so much from the preliminary concepts that the only things that remained were the horror/technology combination and the designs for the Bull Squid and the blind tentacle.lambda symbol is not the scientific symbol for half-life, but is instead the decay constant in the differential equation for exponential decay. The actual scientific symbol used for half-life is t1/2. Counter-Strike was not a freak occurrence. Valve made the game editor immediately available, produced the mod Team Fortress Classic as an example of a finished mod, and also sponsored "Mod Expos", events where modders could present their work to other gamers and the press.According to planethalflife.com: "the material that makes up the three green triangles protecting Nihilanth is the same as the crystal sample which you pushed into the beams to start this whole mess in the first place. Valve Software originally intended to make this connection more obvious but never did."The game makes an appearance in season 1, episode 22 of, a popular TV series. Some in-game action is shown, and the characters shortly discuss the use and the effectiveness of the crowbar as a weapon.As of 2007, the game sold of over eight million since its release.There's a minor technical error with the shotgun. It's presented in the game as a double-barreled weapon, and the alternative fire mode shoots two shells at half the speed. However, the shotgun is modeled on a single-barreled weapon, the popular Franchi SPAS-12, which appears in several computer games. What looks like a second barrel is actually the under-barrel tubular magazine, which holds the shells.was one of the first games to utilize a software-driven environmental sound engine. Effects are applied in context of room size and surfaces of reflection. Reverb effects are calculated in realtime and applied on the fly as sounds are triggered.In the game manual, the first two pages contain a fictional letter from the administrative offices of the Black Mesa Research Facility to Dr. Gordon Freeman, concerning his upcoming employment. The address on the letter indicates that Freeman was a visiting fellow at the Institute for Experimental Physics, University of Innsbruck, before moving to Black Mesa. In contrast to the common practice of using fictitious addresses for storytelling purposes, the listed address is actually real. As confirmed by the official university website , "Technikerstraße 25, A-6020 Innsbruck" is the real-world location of Innsbruck University's Institute for Experimental Physics.