Half-Life

               Adored by Andrew Wielochowski

Have you not heard of Half-Life? Or are just interested in the
review?  Well... it's just the same normal train journey to work
for George Freeman, except today he's running late and the train
normally packed with security guards and scientists for the
secret area of the secret Black Mesa research complex is empty.
Once you arrive at your destination you are guided through more
security doors and eventually to your HEV suit and then to the
place, where it all begins.

What first struck me about Half-Life was that it had a plot. Not
many shoot-em ups have a one of those these days, so they're quite
rare things to find. And this is probably one of the main reasons
why Half-Life is so good. It has a story to it. The story unfolds
and becomes clearer and scarier as you go along. The whole aspect
of the story is enhanced by both the levels and the enemies. The
levels are not short of excellent. All the levels are carefully
combined to make one large level with breaks to load up the next
piece. You can cross back into the previous level and all the
aliens you killed will be dead and in the same places. The levels
have been well created and it makes the game that much more
enjoyable. The enemies have the best AI I have seen in any game
yet as do the security guards and the scientists.

The enemies I shall focus on first. The enemies include everything
from lumbering zombies of your former pals to the highly
intelligent stalkers. The lumberers appear to be in a more
confused state and will occasionally take a swipe if you venture
too close and then come the stalkers who will group up and hunt
you down. They can even run from a fight if it is clear they are
losing.  Valve Software has clearly thought about all aspects of
the game, as some of the monsters are confused and you can even
see that they are acting differently due to their new
surroundings.

So what comes next? Viewers of the X-Files and those who know
about the government and all their top secret conspiracies to hide
the truth will know that a large scale clean-up operation comes
next and crack SAS-style troops will be called in to erase the
evidence. It takes you by surprise when you approach these new
people to enlist their help as friends and they suddenly whip out
machine guns and begin firing. But the thing is, these guys are
deadly. They are intelligent and group up and flush you out with
grenades and when you think it's all over they spring traps that
when triggered spray the area in machine gun fire. And they keep
on coming in groups and in singles, but all have one aim, to kill
FREEMAN!!!!

Half-Life has a tremendous atmosphere all through the game, around
every corner there is a new surprise and you're constantly in
suspense as to what will happen next. However you can always solve
the next problem, there is no part in the actual game which will
have you stumped for too long. And this is good because it becomes
a faster flowing and chest-thumping game.

And now for the long BUTTTTT. But even though Half-Life rarely
lets up it does in some places. Firstly to get the best out of it
you need a 3DFX or another graphics accelerator, if you haven't
got one then it ain't worth getting until you do. But the main and
biggest let up is in two parts ... the ending levels. Once you
have reached the end of the Lamba Core, you have to jump into a
massive transporter to be teleported to the alien world. Jumping
into that is like getting through customs, but the alien levels
are like the Krypton Factor. It seems that the gameplay slows down
here. And everything become stupid. Soon we are fighting massive
three-headed monsters and huge monsters which took airstrikes and
large electric discharges to kill back on Earth. And the levels
are much more complex and tacky. My strategy throughout the entire
ALIEN LEVELS (I did not do this on any others) was to turn on GOD
mode and NOCLIP and find the teleporter in each level. That's how
bad they were. Unfortunately the last level you couldn't get to
the teleport so it is just NOCLIP and GOD. The last level involves
killing a big boss, yep you can only kill him by shooting in the
end endless times. Sorry Valve, that is not the way to end games
anymore, BIG BOSSES are a big NO NO!  However the final ending
scene is quite good and makes you feel rewarded.

So once again Sierra taunts its rivals and accepts the position of
KING OF THE CASTLE, for its excellent game ...  HALF-LIFE.
Despite the ending I am telling you this ... BUY IT!  An
accelerator first. BUT BUY IT!















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