Did you know that most FPS games, and a major chunk of games in other genres take inspiration from, and use “Hλlf-Life” as a standard for game design? “Hλlf-Life” was most famous for its storytelling devices. It was the first FPS game to have as big of a focus as it does on the lore and story of its universe. I’m going to talk about many of “Hλlf-Life’s” innovations in game development and storytelling, and also how time has taken a toll on “Hλlf-Life.” I’ll tell this through its gameplay, graphics, & storytelling. I should also mention that I will spoil the main plotline later down the line.

The gameplay is ok. “Hλlf-Life’s” controls are a little wonky. Playing it, I immediately notice that Gordon Freeman is running by default, and at incredible speeds. This is normal for most FPS games of the era. However, most of “Hλlf-Life’s” maps aren’t large sprawling maps I can run wildly around shooting enemies in, but rather small indoor corridors and rooms. This is great for world building and is more realistic, but it makes running feel unnatural and awkward sometimes. Another major thing is crouch jumping and long jumping. Crouch jumping is necessary in “Hλlf-Life” as it enables the player to get to higher platforms that are normally inaccessible. It is performed by immediately crouching after jumping. Long Jumping enables the player to jump farther. This is also necessary for the final Xen chapters of the game. It is performed by Jumping immediately after crouching.

Another aspect of “Hλlf-Life’s” gameplay is the shooting. The shooting is really good for the most part, the only thing that might be difficult to get used to is the DOOM style “weapon wheel”. This is because each weapon is best used situationally and having to quickly find the right weapon for the job can be stressful when under attack. The weapon progression is also exquisite. Through what I can only assume is days of playtesting, the developers have found the perfect moments when the combat starts to grow just slightly repetitive and grant a new weapon to Gordon Freeman. Half way through the game, they also remove all of Gordan’s weapons for a clean slate too. The game also always gives the player a chance to play and test out new weaponry when getting it. Unfortunately that being said, it’s not perfect. Some of the more experimental weapons, while having their purpose, can go unused by the player for most, if not all of the game. In short, the gameplay isn’t too bad for people who’ve played many FPS games or have played “Hλlf-Life” a lot; however, it’s not intuitive for newer players.

The second big thing time hasn’t been friendly too is the graphics, they haven’t aged very well. “GoldSRC”, the engine “Hλlf-Life” runs on, Is a heavily modified version of the “Quake Engine”. Because of the limitations at the time, the polygon count wasn't very high, with npcs looking like PS1 characters. The textures are also very low resolution 32-bit esque textures. The game tries to compensate for this by blurring the textures to make this more smooth, but I think this makes the textures look worse, and there is no option to turn it off in the settings. However, I can turn it off using the console command “gl_texturemode gl_nearest”. Apart from the old low resolution textures, and low polygon count, there are some graphical improvements “Hλlf-Life” has over other FPS games of the era. Examples of this being colored lighting, light mapping, cube mapping, and methods of rendering reflections. An improvement that was made to “Hλlf-Life’s” graphics in 2001, was an added HD texture pack that updated the models and textures of the npcs and weapons. There was also a “Super HD pack” that updated these even further. However, these are very controversial in the community as people think the updated higher resolution weaponry and npcs clash too hard with the still outdated background and environment. Succinctly, the graphics were decent for the era, even having some new technology for it, but they haven’t aged very well.

Finally, the most infamous thing “Hλlf-Life” is well known for is its innovation in Storytelling for FPS games. One of the key rules the developers followed when making the game was that the player should never have control taken away from them. Literally the only cutscene in the entire ten-ish hour long game is fifty seconds. This really helps immerse the player in “Hλlf-Life’s” universe, and makes them feel like they are Gordon Freeman. As for the story itself, while aliens invading the planet is probably the most unoriginal plot line I could imagine, the way the game tells the story and progresses it is amazing. The game starts as just a normal day at work when a cataclysmic interdimensional event causes aliens to invade earth. Gordon Freeman then has to go through the science facility, trying to get to the surface to call for help. Once the military arrives to clean up the invasion, Gordon Freeman quickly finds out the military is not as they seem. The military is killing all the remaining survivors to cover up the incident. Gordon then has to make his way to the surface to fight through the military forces to get to the “Lλmbda Complex” in order to kill the being keeping open the interdimensional portal enabling aliens to invade Earth.

The game tells all of this through dialog I have with npcs, scripted sequences, and other environmental clues. For all of the amazing storytelling this game has going forward, the developers could have done a better job going backwards. “Hλlf-Life” has almost no backstory to what Black Mesa is, who Gordon Freeman is, and any events that happened before “Hλlf-Life 1.” The only snippets of backstory are miniscule parts of dialog in “Hλlf-Life’s” spinoff game series, Portal. It’s not even in the main franchise! In brief, “Hλlf-Life” revolutionized storytelling in FPS games despite the lack of backstory, with the rule that control should never be taken from the player.

In conclusion, “Hλlf-Life” was a revolutionary game in storytelling and technology that hasn’t aged as well with its graphics having low resolution and low polygon count, and unintuitive gameplay. So even though I just spoiled the entire plot two paragraphs ago, and spent a good hardy chunk of this article criticizing “Hλlf-Life.” Anyone should go play the game for themselves, or if they played it before then go play it again after all this time. They might see now how many FPS games, and even some games of other genres use “Hλlf-Life” as the golden standard from game design, and take inspiration from it. Now, if you all will excuse me, “This is where I get off.”