HALF-LIFE

                  Review by Stefan Herber

It's official - the greatest game ever according to reviewers and
readers of nearly all the gamer magazines. It's made a fortune for
the ailing developers Sierra. It has spawned several add - on
packs so that the involved can prolong their enjoyment. In other
words it's the gaming equivalent of a combination of "Casablanca"
and the Bond films. So why is it so wonderful?

The first thing to mention is that I think it lasted 9 months on
my hard disk before I finally got round to completing it. I had a
brief fling with first person shooters some years ago, which
reached their summit with that underrated game "System Shock". (I
haven't yet played the sequel). Here we had it all - the action,
the tension allied to a very strong plot. I've played a few
since then - notably Quake and Duke Nukem - but they quickly
palled.  "Ah" said the reviewers - "the great thing about Half

-Life is the very strong plot that keeps you immersed."  What
plot?

In this game you are a mild mannered scientist who has to become a
superhero to save the world. It seems that your evil research
organisation (have you ever heard of a benign one in this type of
game) have been conspiring to import evil aliens for their own
purpose. (If this was ever explained I missed it.) So now you have
to shoot all manner of evil aliens ending with the real nasty. As
usual you have a variety of weapons which improve as you progress
and to be fair there are a number of puzzles which make it more
than a mindless shootout. There's plenty of gore and a million
ways to be killed; thankfully you can save anywhere and the game
often autosaves prior to key sequences.

But at the end of the day it's "Doom" with better graphics and a
suggestion of a story line. I finished it out of bloody-
mindedness more than anything else. I always seemed to have an
excuse for doing something else or playing another RPG. It didn't
take me 9 months of solid playing, I promise you!

The combat is very difficult at times and there are a number of
very tricky arcade sequences that'll have you saving every few
seconds. By now you'll know if this is for you - it isn't for me.
But of course I'm in the major minority.














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