Half Life is 10

Mr E

Hard to believe it came out 10 years ago today.

In many ways, I think I enjoyed HL1 more than HL2. It was just such a fresh experience at the time, and I was hooked on it until I finished it. Apart from the last level or two, it was a fantastic game.

Happy Birthday Half Life....

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/19/half-life-turns-ten-today/

tman

For he's a jolly good shooter...

This is going to sound a bit cheesy, but it totally changed what I expected from an FPS, think I'll give it a long overdue replay soon:)

TerrorFirmer

Ah, memories of playing it at a friends on a 300mhz Celeron and 4mb SiS graphics - for some reason never played it on my own machine of the day which was far better!

Still a great game. Sound Effects and general atmosphere are brilliant - some of the mods, like Day of Defeat, are better then both some of the current releases and also their Source remakes. Shooters typically age terribly but Half life is still very engaging and playable - one of the few games I've owned and kept throughout the years.

Soby

:eek: 10 years..god time flies..Ye i think its due a replay

quarryman

That last level though. Way to ruin it...

DarkJager

quarryman wrote: »

That last level though. Way to ruin it...

noclip

Azza

Yes the game deserves its fair dues.

Will consider a replay of it soon myself.

Mr. Presentable

Oh I feel so old now

Zillah

quarryman wrote: »

That last level though. Way to ruin it...

I hear this is very common. I disagree, I think it was a perfect ending to it.

Pugsley

Jebus, that was yonks ago, may give it another blast if I can find time.

Retr0gamer

God I feel so old now. Still remember when it was released and the PC Gamer review of it. I remember it was released to very little fanfare but some reason I somehow new it was going to be special. It just looked so imaginative compared to the shooters that were being hyped at the time like Unreal and Prey. I was absolutely blown away by the game. With all the rubbish fantasy and space marine games out Half Lifes setting is still original and has yet to be copied.

DirkVoodoo

Was just gonna post an "I feel so old". I remember reading a preview of this and not being that impressed (being new to PC gaming I did not understand all the technical jargon). Then my friend, known on boards as TheCzar, gave me his PCFormat demo cd with "Half Life: Uplink" on it and I was blown away. So much interaction, so much atmosphere, and look at those special forces chaps cut down the door! Far removed from previous FPS which taped a flimsy backstory written on a postage stamp onto the usual corridor scramble in the search for door levers and keys.

I think I played this on my gateway P5 120MHz, 16MB RAM and a 2.0GB HDD.

Still the single best FPS experience by far, it really was groundbreaking when you see that nearly every FPS since has stuck to the rules these guys wrote.

Happy Birthday!

kaimera

thanks for the memories Gordon

Happy birthday! Roll on HL3

L31mr0d

now if only Black Mesa would get out the door, I'd be able to replay through this game in the excellent source engine. I'd say it'll be another decade before we see that mod though

rainbow kirby

Jesus christ, that makes me feel old. :eek:

Think I may have to play through it over Christmas though in honour of the anniversary

Creamy Goodness

, i feel old now.

it's amazing how 10 years pass so quickly when you play a great game constantly.

Voodu Child

Its $0.98 on Steam right now. Ends Friday Nov 21

Kiith

Half Life was probably the single greatest game to ever come out on the pc. For its time, it was head and shoulders (with additional head crab) over its competition. So many briliant moment to be had, with some excellent AI to contend with. Anyone who has never played it should be ashamed of themselves.

So happy birthday Half Life. Its hard to believe you've grown up so fast.

witnessmenow

Retr0gamer wrote: »

God I feel so old now. Still remember when it was released and the PC Gamer review of it. I remember it was released to very little fanfare but some reason I somehow new it was going to be special. It just looked so imaginative compared to the shooters that were being hyped at the time like Unreal and Prey. I was absolutely blown away by the game. With all the rubbish fantasy and space marine games out Half Lifes setting is still original and has yet to be copied.

Im almost positive that prey would have been released around the same time as HL2 rather than the original Half life.

EDIT: July 2006 and according to its wiki

Bubs101

Great game but the worst final boss I have ever played. Ruined the game somewhat for me

tman

witnessmenow wrote: »

Im almost positive that prey would have been released around the same time as HL2 rather than the original Half life.

EDIT: July 2006 and according to its wiki

Guess he meant Sin... Even Retro makes mistakes sometimes:p

Is anybody else celebrating by getting drunk and playing Left 4 Dead???
I am!

TerrorFirmer

tman wrote: »

Guess he meant Sin... Even Retro makes mistakes sometimes:p

Is anybody else celebrating by getting drunk and playing Left 4 Dead???
I am!

Prey was originally meant to come out years ago - as in the best part of a decade ago - but was scrapped. That's what he meant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(video_game)#False_starts

Captain Chaos

I remember first playing the Uplink demo and then saving up to buy the first Half Life Generations pack that had HL1, OF addon, Team Fortress and Counter Strike later that month.

Playing it on my first PC which was a GateWay P3 500mhz, 64mb RAM, ATi Rage 128 8mb graphics card and 6.4gb hard drive. I never got to experience the multiplayer:(.

Not sure if its true but I remember seeing an interview with Gabe and he said that the AI could not move and shoot at the same time but it turned out so well no-one noticed.

Retr0gamer

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Prey was originally meant to come out years ago - as in the best part of a decade ago - but was scrapped. That's what he meant.

Yep thank god someone else knows their videogame history unlike you whippersnappers. It was the biggest piece of vapourware ever until it did get released and the baton was passed to duke nukem forever.

Actually sin was released about a week before half life 1. I loved it and thought it was revolutionary but then half life came along and I totally forgot about it.

We still play this in multiplayer, it's an absolute blast on crossfire and bootcamp.

I would be playing left 4 dead but had to watch a disgraceful football match

Sarky

Has it really been a decade since Dr. Freeman crowbarred his way to fame? It seemss as if he only jusst arrived.

My first memory of Half Life is the game randomly going mute after loading a new section because of my sound card drivers. But damn was it ever fun!

<salutes>

witnessmenow

Lol your answer was even on the page I linked to

In 1995-98 I wasn't aware PCs could play games, so its a bit before my time alright

ProjectColossus

I remember vividly going to buy this with my cofirmation money just after it came out. What an amazing game.

Also, shame on people not knowing about Prey's legendary 11 year (1995-2008) development

Spunge

Just bought it there for 95cent. Lost my cd copy a few years ago and never bought it again. Sweet deal, may play some mods now.

Ross_Mahon

I remember i was 10 years old, sitting in my cousins and playing a game i didn't know what it was? Shooting security guards and scientists...

A few years later i bought the pack with half life and all the expansions, was mad into it! While half way through one of the expansions, i went on holidays to spain, And i was in an internet Cafe playing against Spanish on lan! Was brilliant.

Frisbee

I remember playing this as a ten year old. Was so excited till a few levels in when I started to sh*t myself every time I had to round a corner or something jumped out at me...

Fantastic Game though, one of my all time favourites

Stephen

Those barnicle thingies used give me the creeps :pac:

half life and the whole ecosystem of mods and sequels it spawned.

Remember first playing the uplink demo, a great map which wasn't even in the game. got me hooked. i was playing it on a pentium 200mx with 32mg of ram and windows 95 :P just about ran in software mode but i did'nt care! oh and the first time i used strafe in a fps. :P

Creature

Ah! The military is here to save me! Whooohoo! Good game, great fun but a bit short. Oh no...wait...don't shoot me! I'm not a bloody alien!!


I Half Life

MooseJam

voodoo_child wrote: »

Its $0.98 on Steam right now. Ends Friday Nov 21

cool, I bought it, at that price it's worth it to not have to go rooting in my drawer for the CD

Tar.Aldarion

Oh what a game!

stakey

Dear Half-Life 1, can I please have 10 years of my life back?

Sincerely,
A Half-Life and all of its offshoots addict.

Edit: Sorry, please take me back L4D, please!!!!!!!!

Overheal

MooseJam wrote: »

cool, I bought it, at that price it's worth it to not have to go rooting in my drawer for the CD

I suppose, but when i got steam i started loading in a notepad document i had of old random cd keys from my documents: turns out one of them was the Generations Pack; added all the 1st generation games to my account for no extra cash.

Malice

For a game that was one of Valve's first and that used a comparitively old engine at the time (Quake I), it was an astounding accomplishment!

At the time of it's release I remember being underwhelmed by it. The problem was that I approached it from the Quake mindset of "shoot everything that moves". The first time I played it, I was at a friends house and I took control during one of the first levels where all you were doing was running around talking to scientists and trying to find your biosuit (or whatever it was called).

Months later I got around to playing it from the start and there was no other word for it other than wow! So many memories:

The train journey in the beginning.
Trying to shoot the G-Man.
The headcrabs.
The green tentacle monster.
Thinking the army was there to rescue you.
The big blue monster.

Like others have said, I think I'll have to dig it out and have another play through.

chamlis

I remember seeing it on a computer games show at the time, and recommending it to a friend of mine who had just gotten a new 400Mhz Dell :rolleyes:
He wasn't convinced, but I told him it looked really cool and that in the video you could hit people with a crowbar and when you pressed the elevator button it crashed with scientists in it

Got it myself then and played on my really crappy pc, about 6 frames a second when there was alot going on (remember getting the tranquilizer gun and swimming for my life in "slow motion" )

Played through the generations package there about a year ago. Opposing force is the definition of what an Expansion Pack should be tbh. Blueshift, not so much. But the graphical upgrade is ace.

thelordofcheese

Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is ten years old as well.

We were spoilt, we were.

Kiith

Yup, Ocarina and Half Life within such a short period of time. Two of the best, (if not the best) games ever made. Fantastic memories of both.

TerrorFirmer

Strangely, don't ever remember installing Half Life in the past few years - yet it's on my Steam account under 'Not Installed', Opposing Forces and Blue Shift are also there (have never even played Blue Shift) - does it say that for all accounts and then you have to pay or something? Because I do own the rest of the games showing on the list...

Sarky

Blue Shift wasn't great. You could play through it on hard in a few very short hours, and it didn't add anything new game-wise. Xen was involved, but thankfully not for long. It did round off the story a bit by letting you know how Barney and a few scientists escaped. It was worth playing through once, anyway.

Bubs101

malice_ wrote: »

The train journey in the beginning.

The memories....

TerrorFirmer

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Strangely, don't ever remember installing Half Life in the past few years - yet it's on my Steam account under 'Not Installed', Opposing Forces and Blue Shift are also there (have never even played Blue Shift) - does it say that for all accounts and then you have to pay or something? Because I do own the rest of the games showing on the list...

Well, just installed those games and they all work fine - Half Life, Opposing Forces, and Blue Shift - I've definitely never even installed Opposing Forces since it first came out years ago, and have never played Blue Shift in my life - why do I have them in my Steam account? Never installed Half Life 2 or the Episodes via steam either. Not complaining though. Will probably play them all around Christmas, college holidays and a week booked off from work.

CatInABox

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Well, just installed those games and they all work fine - Half Life, Opposing Forces, and Blue Shift - I've definitely never even installed Opposing Forces since it first came out years ago, and have never played Blue Shift in my life - why do I have them in my Steam account? Never installed Half Life 2 or the Episodes via steam either. Not complaining though. Will probably play them all around Christmas, college holidays and a week booked off from work.

When you bought half life 2, did you buy the silver box version from the shop? the key that came with that included the rest of the half life series. Was nice to get blue shift, as I'd never played it before.

One nice thing about valve is that they have no problem including old games as an incentive to buy new games, one of the better ways to get people to buy the orange box for example.

TerrorFirmer

CatInABox wrote: »

When you bought half life 2, did you buy the silver box version from the shop? the key that came with that included the rest of the half life series. Was nice to get blue shift, as I'd never played it before.

One nice thing about valve is that they have no problem including old games as an incentive to buy new games, one of the better ways to get people to buy the orange box for example.

Never bought Half Life 2.

The only Steam games I've ever bought are Day of Defeat, Day of Defeat Source and Left 4 Dead. So I'm quite puzzled....

Sierra Oscar

Ah, I remember my brother bought if for me as a Christmas present!:D

Bloody great game.

MooseJam

Talking about half-life I can remember playing HL2 but think I got stuck and didn't finish it, did it have sand lions or something like that, god I hated them, anyway looking at my games collection I have HL2 episode 1, am I right in thinking there is HL2 then HL2 episode 1 then episode 2 and there is going to be a third some time in the future, would I need to have played HL2 to play episode 1 ?

Sierra Oscar

MooseJam wrote: »

Talking about half-life I can remember playing HL2 but think I got stuck and didn't finish it, did it have sand lions or something like that, god I hated them, anyway looking at my games collection I have HL2 episode 1, am I right in thinking there is HL2 then HL2 episode 1 then episode 2 and there is going to be a third some time in the future, would I need to have played HL2 to play episode 1 ?

Yes, there is a an HL2:EP1 & HL2:EP2. Valve plan to release HL2:EP3 some time next year.

The episodes continue the storyline arc of Half Life 2 - so yes, you would need to have played HL2 to understand EP1. You should finish it and move on to EP1 & EP2 - I am guessing you would enjoy them!:)

Kiith

You should be ashamed of yourself MooseJam. To think i used to respect your opinion when you'd never even finished Half Life 2