Half Life is one of the most widely acclaimed first person shooters of all time, and over twenty years later it still has its fans. Nobody can deny that it was a brilliant game when it initially came out, but a slightly trickier question is whether it’s still good, as there is some debate about whether it's aged well or not.
For context, I’ll just outline my history with this game so you know where I’m coming from. I did not play this game when it first came out, as I was too young at the time. Growing up my parents let me play video games, but they were slightly wary of them, and never let me play or own any M rated games. So the only time I ever got to play first person shooters was every once in a while at a friend's house. We played games like Halo, Call of Duty, and Gears of War. And while these games seemed okay, they didn’t really grab me, and I only really played them because my friends wanted to. For a while I thought first person shooters as a genre just weren’t for me.
Then one day an uncle of mine introduced me to Half Life, and let me play through it on his laptop. I was instantly hooked. I realized that first person shooters could be both interesting and awesome. Sure, the graphics were a bit dated, but the gameplay was solid. And from there I found other games from Valve like Half Life 2, the Portal games, and Team Fortress 2, all of which I also thoroughly enjoyed.
So I still have a lot of fondness for Half Life, which makes it a little harder to judge it impartially. But I didn’t play it until over a decade after its initial release and I still enjoyed it, so that has to count for something. Nonetheless, I replayed the game recently to see if it genuinely holds up. And I would say that it does…mostly.
The most obviously dated aspect of Half Life is the graphics and overall visual presentation. It’s not exactly easy on the eyes, and it does look rather rough and janky at times. The game opens with an unskippable tram ride, and while it does help establish the environment and the narrative, it goes on for a bit too long, and since the visuals aren’t as mind blowing as they were at the time it is a bit tedious. It’s also pretty obvious that the game reuses the same character models over and over for the guards and scientists, and since this was still the days of early 3D gaming the characters haven’t quite escaped from the uncanny valley.
The game also has some rather mean traps and hazards, a few of which are easily avoidable on repeat playthroughs, but others will still give you a hard time even if you know what’s coming. This isn’t too annoying though since you can save and load whenever you want. After suffering through games like Castlevania 3 where checkpoints were far too spread out and you had to redo whole levels at the slightest mistake, Half Life’s difficulty really doesn’t phase me considering you’re never in danger of losing that much progress if you die.
The story of Half Life is nothing special, at least on paper. You play as Gordon Freeman, a scientist working for Black Mesa. He takes part in an experiment that goes horribly wrong, and now a bunch of aliens are invading from another dimension, and you have to shoot your way through them all. The story is a pretty standard sci-fi B movie plot, but what makes it so effective is the way Half Life uses the interactive medium of video games to its advantage. You never leave Gordon Freeman’s perspective, and there aren’t really any cutscenes, as you maintain full control over Gordon even during the moments when the various characters are talking to you. This makes it easier to stay fully immersed and invested in what’s going on.
The game starts off calm and unassuming, with Freeman running late for work, and you get to explore Black Mesa for a bit before everything goes horribly wrong. From there things gradually escalate more and more. As the game unfolds there’s tons of examples of environmental storytelling, from the caged aliens indicating that the scientists had already been capturing and studying them long before the present disaster, to the way Freeman witnesses the US military and alien forces clashing. But none of it is forced down the player’s throat, and it’s up to you to decide how closely you pay attention to the story and the background details. It’s a very engaging and organic method of storytelling that wasn’t really possible before video games.
The gameplay is also pretty solid, for the most part. All of the weapons are satisfying to use, and there’s quite a wide variety to choose from. There is some platforming that gets a bit annoying, particularly in the later Xen levels, but like I said before the ability to save and load whenever you want makes this not really a big deal, since if you die or take too much damage you can just go back a little and try again. Some of the level design is a little weird and at times confusing, but it’s not too bad. And the game paces itself incredibly well, alternating between slower sections and action heavy sections almost perfectly so the player doesn't get bored or overwhelmed.
Overall I would say that Half Life is in the same category as Ocarina of Time. It was a groundbreaking pioneer of its genre that has had a profound impact on gaming as a whole, and it is still worth playing if you can forgive the dated graphics and rough around the edges gameplay. I know some people prefer more recent games that are prettier and more polished, and if that’s your preference that’s fine. But personally I still think Half Life is a good game, and you should play it at least once, even if it’s just to say that you did and you didn’t like it.
One last thing worth touching on is Black Mesa Source, the from the ground up remake of Half Life. How does it compare? It's more of a reimaging than a remake considering that while it does have the same overall beats as Half Life, it has enough differences that it ends up feeling like its own distinct experience. It’s hard to say which is better. Black Mesa Source does have better graphics, better presentation, and is overall more polished. But at the same time it does introduce some new flaws of its own that weren’t present in the original. There’s a few sections in Black Mesa that feel like they really overstay their welcome, particularly in the Xen levels. The most egregious one is the Gonarch section. In Half Life it’s a fairly simple boss that you fight, defeat, and then move on. But in Black Mesa it just keeps going for ages. It’s like the developers were trying to make Gonarch feel like the Xenomorph from Alien, a scary and deadly foe that is pursuing you. The trouble is that it really doesn’t work. Valve have admitted that Gonarch is basically just a spider with a giant ballsack, and its appearance isn’t particularly frightening or intimidating, it just looks silly. So trying to have a prolonged section based around fleeing from this thing ends up being annoying, not scary.
Half Life was also more consistent and fair in its difficulty when it came to the combat, while Black Mesa has quite a few obnoxious difficulty spikes that are a pain to get through, including the previously mentioned Gonarch section. Black Mesa also completely nerfed the snarks, which annoyed me because I liked using them in Half Life. It also raises the question of why Black Mesa didn’t just cut out the snarks altogether now that they’re useless. That last point is a bit petty, but I felt like touching on it.
Black Mesa is a great game in its own right, but I don’t think it can replace the original Half Life considering just how different it is. Half Life is also useful in putting Half Life 2’s accomplishments into perspective. If you go back and play Half Life 2 nowadays you might not see what the big deal was. But if you play Half Life, and then play Half Life 2, it makes it easier to understand what a dramatic leap forward Half Life 2 really was in terms of creativity, innovation, and technology.
As for which version of Half Life you should play I would recommend going for the original one. I wouldn’t recommend Half Life Source mainly because it’s not as consistent as the original. It has the original textures and models, but then also has realistic looking water that looks really out of place.
One last recommendation I would make is to check out Freeman’s Mind. It’s a comedy series that features Gordon Freeman’s thoughts as he makes his way through Half Life, and it is hysterical, and worth watching even if you don’t like Half Life.
Anyways, those were my ramblings about Half Life. I hope you liked it, and feel free to let me know what you thought.
Final arbitrary score: 9/10
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