Half-Life is a legendary and revolutionary masterpiece that still holds up until this day.

The Half-life franchise, a well-known behemoth of a series that revolutionized the video-game industry with its then innovative game-play and narrative, a story told with zero cut-scene interruptions, having direct control over your character during every scripted sequence, breaking no immersion. That is not the only thing it brought to the industry, from believable level-design where the entire world and levels having a sense of continuity, a very believable health system to NPC scripting that set new standards in the industry in 1998.

The Half-Life games hold a special place in my heart.

And none of them would’ve been possible if its wasn’t for the success of the first one.



What can you expect from this game? Well, first – this game carries some of the best level designs I’ve ever seen, from complete freedom of exploration to smartly hidden secret, vent-shaft crawling and well placed enemies and puzzles. The pacing of Half-Life is especially great, there was never a dull moment in Half-life were things felt out of place – everything happens in a certain order but without being predictable at the same time.

Sh*t goes south when you are least expecting, leading to some really cinematic events that occur through out the game becomes something surreal due to the fact that you are still in-control and have to use your quick-wits to get out of the situation. For example, Immersive scripted scenarios like these requiring your interaction is what makes this game so good.

We all the know the iconic crowbar-wielding, HEV-suit-wearing, maniac who carries around 30 freaking weapons around while crawling down the nearest ventilation-shaft. Gordon f*cking Freeman.

The story is told through the perspective of a scientist that works for Black Mesa; a secret research facility located somewhere in the border of Mexico. Minutes after beginning a test with some sort of anomalous material, the experiment triggers a Resonance Cascade opening to an alien dimension, allowing every creature to teleport into Black mesa and start f*cking sh*t up. After that, all hell breaks loose. But, of-course, GFF, the man, the myth, the legend, picks up a f*cking crowbar. Supposed that this is your first time, I leave the rest for you to find out.

“When their only experience of humanity was a crowbar coming at them down a steel corridor.”

Half-life has a grim-atmosphere, where there are countless deaths around you and everything is a clusterf*ck of events – but at the same time, the game carries some sort of charm, especially the voice acting of the NPCs and the AI and so on.

The puzzles of this game aren’t those that stop you where you stand and force you to think, rather the puzzles almost always put you under some sort of timed pressure where you just have to quickly figure things out or face your death. Trail and Error is key in this game, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

To add to the badassery of Freeman, there is an amazing soundtrack by Kelly Bailey that plays at the perfect moments to hype you the heck up, Some of these soundtracks are so good that they got remastered and reused in the second game as well. The sound designing of this game is also very well done.

Visually this game is very dated, you can judge from the screenshots – It’s a game made in 1998, what did you expect? But for this game, you have to look past the graphics and focus on everything else it does so right.

Thanks to the modding community, this game holds a tremendous amount of replayability.



Thought I recommend at-least a single vanilla playthrough to understand why this game is praised by many, after that – there a tons of mods to give you your money worth. We got:

Sven Coop – The Entire campaign in co-op!

– The Entire campaign in co-op! Brutal Half-life – Just like the brutal-doom mod, makes the game a glorious festival of fast-paced adrenaline pumped gut-spilling.

– Just like the brutal-doom mod, makes the game a glorious festival of fast-paced adrenaline pumped gut-spilling. Absolute Redemption – Fan-made non-canon continuation of the game with believable original voice acting.

Half-life, until this day, has so much going for it – and it is never too late for you to join it.

Dr.Skid out!