Review - Half-Life

“Half-Life” is a first-person shooter released on PC in 1998. Both Half-Life and its sequel Half-Life 2 have long been considered legendary shooters and established PC superiority in the shooter genre long before consoles even had a chance. Over a quarter of a century later, does Half-Life still hold up as a decent game, or is it a relic of its generation?

After I found out that my old Surface Pro 7 could emulate some PS2 games and I started leaning into Steam a little more, I started looking through Steam games that I already owned but never experienced. In particular, I bought a whole bundle of Valve games (I think it was The Orange Box) including $115 worth of games for $5.19 back in March 2023. Man, I love Steam sales.

Although Half-Life 2 is probably the game that I hear discussed more, I figured it made more sense to start with the first game in the series. Plus, with a game that came out in 1998, I figured my laptop should have no issue running it. Like... at all. Fortunately, I was right, although you wouldn't believe it from auto-capture videos.

As I played, I tried to keep in mind that this game was nearly 30 years old. Anything that felt familiar from other games, it was entirely likely that it STARTED with Half-Life and other games copied it. In particular, I noticed an enormous amount of similarities to Doom 3, and that's when a lot of things clicked into place for me.

Doom 3 was my first Doom game, and I really enjoyed it. However, a lot of people seemed to hate it. After I went back and played the original Doom and Doom 2, I understood why. Doom originated as a game where you run around and blast demons to death, not a FPS horror-suspense game. Then Half-Life happened.

Several points in Half-Life felt absurdly familiar, and I realized WHY Doom 3 played the way it did, as well as why so many people hated it. Doom 1 and 2 were great, but Half-Life was so ridiculously successful, it caught the eye of pretty much every game developer in the industry. When id Software saw Half-Life, they decided to take a lot of it as inspiration for Doom 3, which made the game fundamentally different from its predecessors. I get why id wanted a piece of the pie, but they made too many changes from their core formula. They've since returned to the original design with Doom (2016), Eternal, and The Dark Ages to great success, but the context of Half-Life made me understand so much more about Doom 3 and its reception.

I won't tell you that Half-Life wasn't a little raw and a bit dated, but I did have a good time playing it. Obviously, I've wanted to give myself a bit of a breather, but I absolutely plan to go back and play the legendary Half-Life 2 with the proper background.

Story -8/10

The story of Half-Life shines less because of what the story entails, but rather HOW the story was told. The content isn't anything special; a scientist opens a portal that allows aliens to attack Earth, and you begin to find out that there is more afoot than just a research facility. However, the fact that the story just happens organically around you was huge for the time. No forced cutscenes, just an experience unfolding.

There aren't a ton of named characters, which can be isolating (likely as intended). Gordon Freeman is on his own for the most part, taking up arms against a very aggressive and prolific enemy.

It's sci-fi, but not like... way off the wall sci-fi. Yes, opening up a portal to allow aliens in obviously isn't hard sci-fi, but it fits the theme of that generally unsettling idea of what shadow organizations MIGHT be doing in the confines of underground government facilities. It's a good balance of what could happen with some stretches to make it an interesting story.

General Gameplay - 8/10

Much like the story, gameplay is explained very organically. You discover dangers and mechanics by observing. When an NPC runs out into a hallway and gets gunned down by a turret nearby, you immediately realize what NOT to do. Forced tutorials can feel slow and cumbersome, but I've also seen games that tried to do the whole organic teaching thing and didn't do it well so I stumbled through confused or ended up watching a guide. Half-Life hits that sweet spot between over- and under-explaining, and it's a thing of beauty.

Health and armor are restored with strategically placed (but limited capacity) stations. Therefore, you have to be careful about not taking too much damage between segments. You don't get guaranteed restores between chapters, but there are definitely lulls in the action when you can ignore damage for a bit.

There are puzzles, but this definitely isn't a puzzle game. Moving around boxes and pushing boxes is about the extent of the logic required, but that's a good thing. I would hate for the game to lean too heavily into the puzzle element and alienate fans of shooters, but I do think the amount of problem solving included is appropriate and beneficial.

Combat - 4/10

This might be the one place that Half-Life's age really shows, as the combat wasn't very fun for me. There is fortunately an aim-assist setting that I am very much accustomed to as a traditionally console player. But even with an aiming that automatically snaps to targets when close, the combat just feels clunky and frustrating.

Headcrabs, the bread and butter enemy used everywhere, are entirely too fast and do entirely too much damage compared to what I would expect. If you get overrun with enemies, you are GOING to die. And even if you do manage to survive a difficult encounter, you're forced to choose between continuing on with the amount of resources you have left or restarting from your most recent save and trying to do it better. Health and armor refills can be punishingly sparse, and ammunition can be unnecessarily plentiful or you might nearly run out and be left smacking enemies with your crowbar.

Bosses in particular were a real struggle. A lot of the time, I didn't realize if I was actually doing damage, or how exactly I should be engaging with the boss. I made it through, but it was definitely the most frustrating part of the game for me.

Difficulty - 7/10

There's a reason that the hardest difficulty of BioShock Infinite was called "1999 Mode." Games in the late 90s were HARD, even on the middle setting. It's been a long time since I needed to care about resource management in a shooter. And that's if I managed to get through an encounter at all. There were several segments, especially toward the end of the game, where it was a struggle to make it past the first few enemies. If I survived through to kill all of the enemies in an area, I would sometimes just accept my current ammo and health levels in hopes that I would come across a recharge station and some ammo drops.

Sure, I could've played on easy, but I try to keep to the default setting for a good understanding of the intended difficulty. In this case, Half-Life was rough. At the time, it was probably considered less punishing compared to its contemporaries, but with a good couple decades of FPS titles since then, the genre has trended consistently easier in the 21st century.

Graphics - 4/10

I realize it was 1998, but the game does not look good. Point blank. I understand why, and honestly it's probably just as good as anything else released around then. That's the same year Ocarina of Time came out, so it's a reasonable comparison. But just realize, it's a lot of low-polygon resources that haven't aged well.

Music - ?/10

Was there music in this game? I genuinely didn't even notice.

Performance

This game could run on a potato. If you're playing it on anything that hasn't yellowed from the years, it's probably going to run fine. I would be concerned about compatibility, but Valve does great about making sure Steam games run even on modern hardware, and the Steam controller input API means you can even play it with a controller. That gets it an A+ from me.

My Take

The Good

Half-Life was revolutionary from a storytelling perspective and probably influenced every modern FPS you've ever played to some degree.

The Bad

Graphics in the 90s didn't look great, and they look even worse now.

The Ugly

The difficult combat can be polarizing unless you're prepared for it.

Overall - 6/10

I struggle to give an honest rating to Half-Life that doesn't need to be qualified to some degree. It's a lot like the original Metroid, in that we have decades of great games that exist in no small part because of Half-Life. You can't play a game in a vacuum, and obviously you have to make comparisons to its successors and the genre as a whole.

Half-Life is raw, clunky at times, and simply not as polished as modern shooters. However, Half-Life walked so that Half-Life 2 and games since could run. And even if it didn't influence probably hundreds of later games, I do still think it's worth experiencing, either in its original form or in the 2020 fan-made reimagining "Black Mesa." Any seasoned gamer should definitely give it a try.