Half-Life
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- This article describes the computer game. For other meanings, see half-life (disambiguation).
Half-Life<tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: 100%; text-align: center;"> </td></tr>
| |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Valve Software
<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)</th><td>Sierra Studios |
| Release date(s) | PC: NA November 19, 1998<ref name=steamdate>Half-Life at Steam. Retrieved on September 3, 2006.</ref> PlayStation 2: NA November 15, 2001<ref name=metacritic>Half-Life for PlayStation 2 at Metacritic. Retrieved on September 3, 2006.</ref> |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer
<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Rating(s)</th><td>BBFC: 15 |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Sega Dreamcast (cancelled), Apple Macintosh (cancelled)
<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media</th><td>CD, DVD or Steam download</td></tr><tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Input</th><td>Keyboard, Joystick, Mouse</td></tr> |
Half-Life, often abbreviated HL or HL1, is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game developed by Valve Software and published by Sierra Studios. Released on November 19, 1998 for PCs running Microsoft Windows,<ref name="steamdate" /> the game was based on a heavily modified version of the Quake engine.<ref name=gamespotfeature>The Final Hours of Half-Life: Behind Closed Doors at Valve Software. Retrieved on September 3, 2006.</ref> With eight million copies sold since release, Half-Life is the best selling PC first-person shooter to date.<ref name=halflifesales>Half-Life 2's Real Battle. Retrieved on September 2, 2006.</ref> The game was later released for PlayStation 2 on November 15, 2001,<ref name="metacritic" /> and a Sega Dreamcast port was planned, but cancelled as the machine's popularity waned.<ref name=ignnews>Not Given Half A Chance: The Cancellation of Half-Life. Retrieved on September 3, 2006.</ref>
In Half-Life, players assume the role of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist, who must fight his way out of a research facility overrun by aliens and soldiers. The game was the first first-person shooter to feature a story told entirely in-game and in real time, without the use of cutscenes.<ref>http://www.gamespy.com/articles/490/490005p1.html</ref> Heralded by critics for its presentation and numerous scripted sequences,<ref name=avault>Half-Life review at The Adrenaline Vault. Retrieved on September 3, 2006.</ref> Half-Life won over 50 Game of the Year awards,<ref name='goty'>Awards and Honors. ValveSoftware.com (2005-11-14).</ref> and was named "Best PC Game Ever" by PC Gamer in its November 1999, October 2001, and April 2005 issues.<ref name="best-pc-game">Company information from official Valve website. Retrieved on June 11, 2006</ref> The game influenced the development of first-person shooters in the years following its release,<ref name=gamasutra>The Gamasutra Quantum Leap Awards: First-Person Shooters. Retrieved on September 3, 2006.</ref> and is often cited as being revolutionary in its genre.<ref name=gamespotreview>Half-Life for PC Review. Retrieved on September 3, 2006.</ref>
Half-Life's success continued for years with expansions such as Half-Life: Opposing Force and the standalone Half-Life: Blue Shift, mods such as Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, Deathmatch Classic, Ricochet and Day of Defeat, and its sequel Half-Life 2. The Half-Life franchise, including Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat, has seen over 15 million sales.<ref name="franchise-sales">First In Half-Life Episodic Trilogy Debuts at Number 1. Valve Software Press Release. Retrieved on June 8, 2006.</ref>
Contents |
[edit] Gameplay
Half-Life, a first-person shooter, requires the player to perform two kinds of tasks: combat and puzzle solving. Unlike its peers at the time, Half-Life utilized scripted sequences, which range from small events, such as an alien ramming down a door, to major plot points. While most contemporary first-person shooters relied on cut scene intermissions to detail their plotlines, Half-Life's story is put forth entirely through scripted sequences, keeping the player in the game at all times. In line with this, the player rarely loses the ability to control Gordon, who never speaks and is never actually seen in the game. Half-Life has no "levels", opting instead for a continuous world divided by short load times to minimize interruptions in gameplay.
Half-Life's arsenal is comprised mainly of high-technology military equipment and a smaller array of science fiction weapons. Many reviews of Half-Life noted the functionality of the weapons, commenting on how they were all useful in different situations. The game's first weapon, a crowbar, has since become the signature weapon of Gordon Freeman, and iconic of the Half-Life series. Some of the game's weapons were changed in the Half-Life High Definition Pack; for example, the Heckler & Koch MP5 became a M4A1. One of the game's high-technology weapons, a Gauss gun, is capable of firing a powerful beam with exaggerated recoil, so as to allow players to launch themselves high into the air, akin to rocket jumping in Quake.
The game regularly integrates puzzles, such as navigating a maze of conveyor belts. Some puzzles involve using the environment to kill an enemy. There are few "bosses" in the conventional sense, where the player defeats a superior opponent by direct confrontation. Instead, such monsters occasionally define chapters, and the player is generally expected to use the terrain, rather than firepower, to kill the "boss". Late in the game, the player receives a "long jump module" for their HEV suit, which increases the horizontal distance and speed of jumps. This is used for platformer-style jumping puzzles in the later portion of the game.
[edit] Plot
Most of the game is set in a remote area of New Mexico at the Black Mesa Research Facility, a fictional complex that bears many similarities to both the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Area 51, during May or December of 200X, meaning it takes place sometime between the years 2000 and 2009. The game's protagonist is the theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman, a survivor of an experiment that goes horribly wrong when an unexpected resonance cascade (a completely fictitious phenomenon; see also 1, 2) rips dimensional seams that devastate the facility. Aliens from another world - known as Xen - subsequently enter the facility through these dimensional seams (an event henceforth known as the "Black Mesa Incident").
As Freeman tries to make his way out of the ruined facility to find help for the injured, he soon discovers he is caught between two sides: the hostile aliens, and the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a military force dispatched to cover up the incident — by eliminating Freeman and the rest of the scientists, as well as the aliens. Throughout the game, a mysterious figure known as (but not actually referred to in-game as) the G-Man regularly appears, apparently monitoring Freeman's progress. Ultimately, Freeman uses the co-operation of surviving scientists and security officers to work his way to the mysterious "Lambda Complex" of Black Mesa (signified with the Greek "λ" character), where a team of survivors teleport him to the alien world Xen, where he must kill the Nihilanth, the creature keeping Xen's side of the dimensional rift open.
The game's plot was originally inspired by the computer games Doom and Quake, both produced by id Software, Stephen King's short story/novella The Mist, and an episode of The Outer Limits called "The Borderland." It was later developed by Valve's in-house writer and author, Marc Laidlaw, who wrote the books Dad's Nuke and The 37th Mandala.
[edit] Storyline
Half-Life begins with a long expository sequence that situates the player in the game's environment prior to serious action or gameplay. The player-controlled character, Dr. Gordon Freeman, starts his day riding a tram deep into the heart of the Black Mesa Facility, where most of the game is set, on his way to the Anomalous Materials Lab to begin work.<ref name = "hlguideI">Chapter I: Black Mesa Inbound. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on 2006-07-15.</ref> The tram ride gives players a perspective of the facility, setting the mood and serving as a vehicle for some comic relief moments. The ride also marks the first appearance of the G-Man, first shown as a strange man in a blue suit watching Gordon from another tram. When the player arrives at the Anomalous Materials Lab, a front desk security guard informs Gordon that a system crash occurred shortly before he arrived, which has complicated communications between the Black Mesa scientists. The player then must acquire his HEV suit before proceeding to the test chamber.
Once there, Gordon receives a briefing from a group of scientists, who inform him that his job is to push an alien sample into the scanning beam for analysis. As soon as he does, a fictional time-space catastrophe called a "resonance cascade" occurs.<ref name = "hlguideII">Chapter II: Anomalous Materials. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on 2006-07-15.</ref> This event opens an interdimensional portal between Earth and a bizarre world called Xen.<ref name = "hlguideIII">Chapter III: Unforeseen Circumstances. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on 2006-07-15.</ref> During this, the player is briefly teleported there and at one point sees alien life forms known as Bullsquids and Vortigaunts.
Back in Black Mesa, Gordon exits the test chamber and sees that most of the scientists he had spoken to minutes before have died. After finding some survivors, the player discovers that there are no means to communicate with the world outside Black Mesa. Scientists then implore the player to make his way to the surface to get help. Black Mesa has received massive structural damage, and to make matters worse, aliens from Xen begin randomly teleporting all around them. Some are shown to be "wild" alien animals who attack the player because they are unfamiliar with their new surroundings and feel compelled to defend themselves. Others, such as the Vortigaunts, are depicted as sentient and attack Gordon with a clear intent to kill. The player can also occasionally glimpse the G-Man, who watches from out-of-reach places and always disappears before Gordon can get to him.
As the player progresses through the game, he runs into NPC scientists who inform him that human soldiers are on the way to the base to rescue them. However, once the player encounters the soldiers, he discovers that the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, which has taken control of Black Mesa, is not just killing the aliens, but is also killing everyone connected to Black Mesa.<ref name = "hlguideV">Chapter V: “We‘ve Got Hostiles“. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on 2006-07-15.</ref> After fighting the soldiers and eventually reaching the surface of the complex, Gordon is informed by scientists that the secretive Lambda Team may have the means to solve the problems brought on by the cascade. Gordon must then reach the Lambda Complex at the other end of the facility to assist them.
The player is subsequently faced with several tasks, such as killing a giant, rapidly growing creature,<ref name = "hlguideVI">Chapter VI: Blast Pit. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on 2006-07-15.</ref> riding across the facility on a railway system in order to reach a satellite rocket that must be launched in order to reverse the resonance cascade,<ref name = "hlguideVII">Chapter VII: Power Up. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on 2006-07-15.</ref> and fighting a group of mysterious Black Ops,<ref name = "hlguideIX">Chapter IX: Apprehension. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on 2006-07-15.</ref> before being captured by marines and dumped in a garbage compactor. The player escapes without being crushed and makes his way to an older, secret part of the Facility where he discovers that scientists had been collecting specimens from Xen long before this situation occurred.<ref name = "hlguideXI">Chapter XI: Questionable Ethics. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on 2006-07-15.</ref>
After arming himself with advanced prototype weaponry, Gordon again reaches the surface, which has become a war zone. The Vortigaunts, along with Alien Grunts and a giant monstrosity, have begun fighting the marines, who are beginning to lose. They've called in reinforcements, but it isn't enough.<ref name = "hlguideXII">Chapter XII: Surface Tension. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on 2006-07-15.</ref> Gordon must scale cliffs and navigate the bombed out buildings while avoiding both sides as the forces of Xen begin to dominate the battlefield. Finally, Gordon reaches relative safety underground.
Half-Life chapter sequence
- Chapter 1: Black Mesa Inbound
- Chapter 2: Anomalous Materials
- Chapter 3: Unforeseen Consequences
- Chapter 4: Office Complex
- Chapter 5: "We've Got Hostiles"
- Chapter 6: Blast Pit
- Chapter 7: Power Up
- Chapter 8: On a Rail
- Chapter 9: Apprehension
- Chapter 10: Residue Processing
- Chapter 11: Questionable Ethics
- Chapter 12: Surface Tension
- Chapter 13: "Forget About Freeman!"
- Chapter 14: Lambda Core
- Chapter 15: Xen
- Chapter 16: Gonarch's Lair
- Chapter 17: Interloper
- Chapter 18: Nihilanth
- Chapter 19: Endgame
The Marines begin to evacuate Black Mesa and airstrikes begin. At one point, the player must use the military equipment to call an air strike to re-enter the base. Gordon navigates underground water channels and tries to avoid scores of alien soldiers as they pick off remaining marine stragglers.<ref name = "hlguideXIII">Chapter XIII: Forget About Freeman. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on 2006-07-15.</ref> After much struggle, Gordon finally reaches the Lambda Complex, where he discovers that this is where they developed the teleportation technology that allowed scientists to travel to Xen in the first place.<ref name = "hlguideXIV">Chapter XIV: Lambda Core. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on July 15, 2006.</ref> The player reaches the handful of surviving personnel, who have holed themselves up in a small stronghold, and discovers that, unfortunately, the satellite he launched was not able to reverse the effects of the resonance cascade because an immensely powerful being on the other side of the rift is keeping the portal between the worlds open. The player must kill this being to prevent the Xen aliens from taking over completely. The scientists activate the teleporter and Gordon is relocated to Xen.
On the strange border world, Gordon encounters many of the aliens<ref name = "hlguideXV">Chapter XV: Xen. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on July 15, 2006.</ref> that had been brought into Black Mesa, as well as the remains of HEV-wearing researchers that came before him. The player engages in one of the few boss-style battles against Gonarch, a giant headcrab with a huge egg sac.<ref name = "hlguideXVI">Chapter XVI: Gonarch‘s Lair. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on July 15, 2006.</ref> After fighting his way through an alien camp, Gordon arrives at a huge alien factory complex, which engineers and builds the Alien Grunt soldiers.<ref name = "hlguideXVII">Chapter XVII: Interloper. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on July 15, 2006.</ref> After fighting his way through mysterious, levitating creatures, he finds a giant portal and enters it.
In a vast cave, Gordon finally confronts the Nihilanth, the creature who was maintaining the rift, and destroys it.<ref name = "hlguideXVIII">Chapter XVIII: Nihilanth. Planet Half-Life. Retrieved on July 15, 2006.</ref> As the creature dies, it floats toward the ceiling, and explodes in a giant green blast that overpowers Gordon's senses. After awakening, Gordon's movement is restricted as he is confronted by the G-Man. Both are transported to various locales around Xen, while the G-Man praises the player's actions in the border world. The G-Man explains that his "employers", believing that Gordon has "limitless potential", have authorised him to offer Freeman a job. The final teleportation takes the player to the original tram car, which is now flying through space at immense speed. If the player refuses the job offer, the G-Man teleports him to a room full of Alien Grunts, Controllers, and other enemies, stating: "Remember, Mr. Freeman, no regrets." The screen fades out. If the player accepts, by stepping into a portal, he finds himself floating in nothingness and hears the G-Man's voice one last time: "Wisely done, Mr. Freeman. I will see you up ahead." The story of Half-Life 2 assumes that the player accepts the job offer and begins from this point, suggesting that the death ending is not canonical.
[edit] Development
Half-Life was the first product for Kirkland, Washington-based developer Valve Software, which was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Mike Harrington and Gabe Newell.<ref name = "fhhalflife2">Final Hours of Half-Life: The Microsoft Millionaires. Gamespot. Retrieved on 2006-09-12.</ref> They settled on a concept for a horror-themed 3D action game, and licensed the Quake engine from id Software.<ref name = "flhalflife22">The Final Hours of Half-Life: The id visit. Gamespot. Retrieved on 2006-09-12.</ref> Valve eventually modified the engine a great deal, notably adding skeletal animation and Direct3D support;[citation needed] a developer later stated that seventy percent of the engine code was rewritten.[citation needed] The company had difficulties finding a publisher at first, many believing their project "too ambitious" for a studio headed by newcomers to the video game industry. However, Sierra On-Line had been very interested in making a 3D action game, especially one based on the Quake engine, and so signed them for a one-game deal.<ref name = “flhalflife24“>The Final Hours of Half-Life: The Right E-mail, the Right Time. Gamespot.</ref>
The original code name for Half-Life was Quiver, after the Arrowhead military base from Stephen King's novella The Mist, which served as early inspiration for the game.<ref name = "fhhalflife3">The Final Hours of Half-Life: The Valve Difference. Gamespot. Retrieved on 2006-09-14.</ref> Gabe Newell explained in an interview that the name Half-Life was chosen because it was evocative of the theme, not clichéd, and had a corresponding visual symbol: the Greek letter λ (lower-case lambda), which represents the decay constant in the half-life equation.
The first public appearances of Half-Life came in early 1997; it was a hit at Electronic Entertainment Expo that year, where they primarily demonstrated the animation system and artificial intelligence.<ref name = “flhalflife34”>The Final Hours of Half-Life: The Public Debut. Gamespot.</ref> Valve Software hired science fiction author Marc Laidlaw in August 1997 to work on the game's characters and level design.<ref name = "fhhalflife3">The Final Hours of Half-Life: The Valve Difference. Gamespot. Retrieved on 2006-09-14.</ref> Half-Life was originally planned to be shipped in late 1997, to compete with Quake II, but was postponed when Valve decided the game needed significant revision.<ref name = "fhhalflife4">The Final Hours of Half-Life: Reassembling the Pieces. Gamespot. Retrieved on 2006-09-14.</ref>
In a 2003 Making Of... feature in Edge, Newell discusses the team's early difficulties with level design.[citation needed] In desperation, a single level was assembled including every weapon, enemy, scripted event and level design quirk that the designers had come up with so far.[citation needed] This single level inspired the studio to press on with the game.[citation needed] As a result, the studio completely reworked the game's artificial intelligence and levels in the year leading up to its release.[citation needed] At E3 1998 it was given Game Critics Awards for "Best PC Game" and "Best Action Game".<ref name = "fhhalflife4">The Final Hours of Half-Life: Reassembling the Pieces. Gamespot. Retrieved on 2006-09-14.</ref> The release date was delayed several times in 1998 before the game was finally released in November of that year.<ref name = "fhhalflife5">The Final Hours of Half-Life: Reassembling the Pieces. Gamespot. Retrieved on 2006-09-14.</ref>
[edit] Ports
Half-Life was ported to the PlayStation 2 by Gearbox Software and released in 2001.<ref name=metacritic>Half-Life for PlayStation 2 at Metacritic. Retrieved on September 3, 2006.</ref> This version of the game had a significant overhaul in terms of both character models, weapons, and more advanced and extended levels and general map geometry. [citation needed] However, despite the increased level of detail, the style of some of the models (most noticeably the human grunts) was also noticeably altered, meaning that whether they actually look better or not is subject to opinion. The autosave function was removed from the single-player game. Also added in was a head-to-head play and a co-op expansion called Half-Life: Decay that allowed players to play as the two female scientists Dr. Cross and Dr. Green at Black Mesa.
Versions for the Sega Dreamcast and Apple Macintosh [1] [2] were essentially completed, but never commercially released.
[edit] Dreamcast version
Gearbox Software was slated to release a port to the Sega Dreamcast under contract by Valve and their then publisher Sierra On-Line near the end of 2000. At the ECTS 2000, a build of the game was playable on the publisher's stand, and developers Randy Pitchford and Brian Martel were in attendance to show it off and give interviews to the press. However, despite only being weeks from going gold, it was never commercially released; Sierra announced that Half-Life on Dreamcast was cancelled "due to changing market conditions"<ref name = "IGN Article">IGN Article on Dreamcast port cancellation. IGN. Retrieved on July 30, 2006.</ref> (presumably the third-party abandonment of the failing Dreamcast). The following year Sierra On-Line showed a PlayStation 2 port at E3 2001. This version was released in North America in late October of the same year, followed by a European release just a month later. Around the same time, Half-Life: Blue Shift, which was intended to be a Dreamcast-exclusive side story, was released on PC as the second Half-life Expansion Pack.
Although it has never officially been released, the Dreamcast version was leaked onto the Internet, and was proven to be fully playable; it contains the full versions of Half-Life and Blue Shift, both with an early version of the High Definition Pack (it was from this port that the pack was spawned), but has a somewhat inconsistent framerate (though never to the point of making the game unplayable), and lengthier load times when the player moves from area to area (around ten seconds, while today's average PC can load an area in around one and a half). Also, there are some saving problems; the number of blocks required to save on a VMU increases rapidly as the player reaches the end of a level, then drops at the start of the next. While the game allows the user to remove files to increase space, sometimes it still isn't enough.
The console's mouse and keyboard peripherals are supported, if preferred to the standard controller. If the controller is used, the game adds an auto-aim feature, so that when an enemy nears the center of the player's vision, the aiming crosshair will shift over toward the enemy to make shooting them easier. The game's controls are customizable. The game has no multiplayer mode, and lacks the parental feature of the PC version (players cannot turn the gibs off). It does have an interesting password feature, however; with three dials, the user makes various phrases, such as "Otis Loves Dreamcast" (god mode), "Fear and Gravity" (jump to Xen in HL), or "Barney Goes To Work" (skip the intro in Blue Shift and jump right into the main game, pre-resonance cascade).
[edit] Macintosh version
Though more or less complete and ready for mass production, the Macintosh port of Half-Life was scrapped because of incompatibility with the Windows PC version's multiplayer mode. The developers also stated that mods for PC Half-Life would not be compatible with the Mac port. Additionally, concerns over the task load associated with providing technical support on more than one end platform at once may have contributed to the demise of Half-Life for Macintosh.
[edit] Later developments
The sequel, Half-Life 2, was merely a rumor until it was finally revealed at E3 in May 2003, which ignited a firestorm of hype surrounding the game. The player again takes the role of Gordon Freeman, this time several years after the Black Mesa incident in the dystopic Eastern European "City 17" where he must fight as part of a rebellion against an alien regime. After a series of controversies and delays Half-Life 2 was released on November 16, 2004.
To experience firsthand the processes mod-makers would have to go through with the new engine, Valve ported Half-Life (dubbed Half-Life: Source) and Counter-Strike to their new Source engine. Half-Life: Source is a straight port, lacking any new content or the Blue Shift High Definition pack. However, it does take advantage of vertex and pixel shaders for more realistic water effects, as well as Half-Life 2's realistic physics engine. They also added several other features from Half-Life 2, including an improved dynamic lightmap, vertex map, and shadowmap system with cleaner, higher resolution and specular texture and normal maps, as well as utilization of the render-to-texture soft shadows found in Half-Life 2's Source engine, along with 3D skybox replacements in place of the old 16-bit color bitmap skies. Also redesigned was the crossbow that will pin its targets to a nearby wall (if they're close enough). The Source engine itself, however, is not entirely perfect. Certain control issues are generally regarded as being a problem, such as ladder bounce (where disconnecting from a ladder gives a sideways vector boost, which can be highly undesirable when trying to move near a ladder on a platform over a fall), fall push (where moving off a platform into a fall gives a sideways vector boost), and jumping from platforms (where the graphics engine tends to lead the player to think a jump can be made later than it really can). Naturally, the Half-Life port possesses the Source engine's control weaknesses as well as its many graphical strengths. Half-Life: Source is available with special editions of Half-Life 2. This port has been criticised however, for not utilizing many of the features of the Source engine found in Half-Life 2, as it still used textures and models from the original game. Due to this, a third-party remake called Black Mesa is also under development. Day of Defeat: Source was released on September 26 2005.
On June 10, 2005, Valve announced through their Steam update news service an upcoming port of Half-Life Deathmatch, the multiplayer portion of the original game, much in the same fashion as the earlier released Half-Life: Source. No exact release date was given, simply the words "In the coming weeks..." On July 2, 2006, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source was released.
Recently, Half-Life 2: Episode One was released. It is part of a three episode trilogy, of which the second episode is scheduled to be released in summer 2007 (delayed following its originally announced release of winter 2006).
[edit] Expansions
Two expansion packs by outside developer Gearbox Software have been released for the PC version: Half-Life: Opposing Force (1999) and Half-Life: Blue Shift (2001). The former, often shortened to OpFor or OP4, returns the player to Black Mesa during the events of Half-Life's storyline, but this time from the perspective of the U.S. Marines sent to cover up evidence of the incident. It introduced several new weapons (notably the M249 SAW LMG and a Barnacle grappling gun), new non-player characters, both friendly and hostile (Otis the security guard and the "Race X" aliens, respectively) and new, previously unseen areas of the facility. The expansion is shorter than Half-Life, having 11 chapters to the original's 19.
Blue Shift returns the player to HL's Black Mesa timeline once more, this time as one of the facility's security guards. (This expansion was originally developed as a bonus mission for the canceled Dreamcast version.) Blue Shift came with an optional High Definition Pack that could update the look of Half-Life, Opposing Force, and the new Blue Shift content. In particular, the models' polygon count and texture resolutions were increased. However, the style of some of the models (most noticeably the human grunts) was noticeably altered, meaning that whether they actually look better or not is subject to opinion. Some changes were also made to the in-game sounds, most notably the shotgun. Blue Shift had relatively little new content compared to Opposing Force: aside from a few models (jacket-less scientists and security guards, Otis, and Dr. Rosenberg) all content was already present in the original Half-Life.
Half-Life: Decay was another expansion by Gearbox, released only as an extra with the PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life. The add-on featured cooperative gameplay in which two players could solve puzzles or fight against the many foes in the Half-Life universe.
In 2000, a pack titled the Half-Life Platinum Collection was released, with these games included:
In 2002, the pack was re-released with Half-Life: Blue Shift included.
In 2005, Half-Life 1: Anthology was released,<ref>Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 1: Anthology available now at North America retail outlets. valvesoftware.com. Retrieved on September 9, 2006.</ref> containing the following games:
[edit] Mods
From its release in 1998, Half-Life saw fervent support from independent game developers, due in no small part to support and encouragement from Valve Software. Worldcraft, the level-design tool used during the game's development, was included with the game software. Printed materials accompanying the game indicated Worldcraft's eventual release as a retail product, but these plans never materialised. Valve also released a software development kit, enabling developers to modify the game and create mods. Both tools were significantly updated with the release of the version 1.1.0.0 patch. Many supporting tools (including texture editors, model editors, and rival level editors like the multiple engine editor QuArK) were either created or updated to work with Half-Life.
Half-Life's code has been released and is being used as a base for many multiplayer mods such as the immensely popular and free Counter-Strike. Other popular multiplayer mods include Team Fortress Classic (TFC), Day of Defeat, Deathmatch Classic (DMC), Action Half-Life, Firearms, The Specialists, and Natural Selection. TFC and DMC were developed in-house at Valve Software. Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, and others that began life as the work of independent developers (self-termed "modders"), later on received aid from Valve. There was even a free team-based multiplayer mod called Underworld Bloodline created to promote the Sony Pictures movie Underworld.
Numerous single player mods have also been created, like USS Darkstar [3] (1999, a futuristic action-adventure onboard a zoological research spaceship), The Xeno Project 1 and 2 [4] [5] (1999-2005, a two-part mod starting in Xen and again including spaceships), Edge of Darkness [6] (2000, which features some unused Half-Life models), Half-Life: Absolute Redemption (2000, which brings back Gordon Freeman for four additional episodes and another encounter with the G-Man), They Hunger (2000-2001, a survival horror total conversion trilogy involving zombies), and Poke 646 [7] (2002, a follow-up to the original Half-Life story with improved graphics).
Some Half-Life modifications eventually landed on retail shelves. Counter-Strike was the most successful, unexpectedly becoming the biggest selling online game to date and having been released in five different editions: as a standalone product (2000), as part of the Platinum Collection (2000), as an Xbox version (2003) as the single player spin-off, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (2004), and the newest addition, Counter-Strike: Source, which runs on Half-Life 2's Source engine. Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat and Gunman Chronicles (2000, a futuristic Western movie-style total conversion with emphasis on its single player mode) were also released as stand-alone products.
[edit] Soundtrack
Half-Life's soundtrack was composed by Kelly Bailey.
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(Note: Most of the tracks were re-titled and carried over to the Half-Life 2 original soundtrack; the names in parentheses are the revised titles used in the Half-Life 2 OST. Tracks 2, 12, 13, and 24 were remixed for the sequel.)
[edit] Trivia
- Director Quentin Tarantino (who is said to be a Half-Life fan) has reportedly considered the possibility of directing a movie adaptation. Valve has stated however that they have had no contact with Quentin Tarantino nor any of "his people." Valve went on to comment that, "We've had many conversations with folks in Hollywood, but have no commitments for a HL movie at this time." Many professionally-written scripts for a Half-Life movie have been sent to Valve, but turned away, as Valve said they all "sucked."<ref name="hl-movie1">Biography for Quentin Tarantino at the Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on June 11, 2006.</ref><ref name="hl-movie2">Tarantino to direct Half-Life movie?. GameSpot News, Rumor Control. Retrieved on June 11, 2006.</ref>
- The font used in the Half-Life logo is DIN 1451, with the lower case lambda character substituted for the "A."
- Half-Life, as well as its two expansion packs Opposing Force and Blue Shift, are all double entendres, named after scientific terms. "Half-life" refers to radioactive decay, "opposing force" refers to Newton's third law, and "blue shift" refers to a shift in light's wavelength towards the blue end of the spectrum due to the Doppler effect. It may also refer to Cherenkov radiation. The lower case lambda character used on the Half-Life logo is also known as a radioactive decay constant.
- When Gordon puts on his hazard suit in the first level, there are two empty hazard suit slots. According to Decay developer Gearbox's CEO Randy Pitchford (aka Duvalmagic) these belonged to (or were used by) Decay protagonists Gina and Colette.<ref name=hlsuits>Gearbox forum thread</ref>
[edit] See also
- Half-Life: Uplink, a Half-Life demo with exclusive gaming content released in 1999.
- Half-Life: Uplink (film), an unreleased film adaptation of the game.
- Half-Life 2, the 2004 sequel to Half-Life.
- Gabe Newell
- Black Mesa (game mod), a total conversion mod remake of the original Half-Life, built from the ground up using the Source engine.
- Category of Half-Life mods
- Metamod
- .smd
[edit] References
<references/>
- "Half-Life 2 with Gabe Newell". An interview by Josh "Storm" Esterov of www.City-17.net (now defunct) with Gabe Newell of Valve.
- "Half-Life History". Information on what influenced HL and HL2, citing Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar ISBN 0-7615-4364-3.
- Keighley, Geoffrey. "The Final Hours of Half-Life." GameSpot. 1998.
[edit] External links
[edit] Official
[edit] Major fansites/communities
- Planet Half-Life, a popular fansite of HL/HL2/CS/DoD/TF from GameSpy.
- Half-Life Gaming, a popular fansite of HL/HL2 from UGO.
[edit] Speedruns
[edit] Development communities
- Valve ERC Collective - features news, discussion, and help on editing and modding Half-Life.
- Valve Developer Community Wiki, a wiki for mod developers.
- Half-Life mods - the game's ModDB listing.
- Half-Life Improvement Team - Their forum contain a lot of Improved models, not just for HL. Also the home for Blue-Shift: Unlocked
- The Whole Half-life - One of the largest active Half-life modifying communities
[edit] Related resources
- Half-Life entry at GameFAQs - has FAQs, walkthroughs, (single player) cheats, and discussion.
- Half-Life at MobyGames.
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