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Half-Life
Valve
First-Person Action
REQUIREMENTS:
Minimum System Requirements
- Windows® 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0
- Pentium® 133
- 24 MB RAM
- 2X CD-ROM drive
- Mouse and Keyboard
- 640x480 SVGA high color (16-bit) display
- Windows-compatible sound device
Recommended System Requirements
- PentiumŪ 166+
- 32 MB RAM
- 3D accelerator card (OpenGL or Direct 3D)
Quintin Stone
Unless you've been under a rock lately, you've probably heard about the
first-person shooter called Half-Life. The game was built upon the Quake I
engine, but it's likely you won't even connect the two games when you play it.
At first glance, you probably won't see what all the commotion is about...
Sure, the game has an actual story to it. Almost as if the game was made
around the story, instead of wrapping a flimsy excuse for a plot around a
shooter. The intro is kind of annoying, because you have to just sit through
it and wait; no hitting the spacebar or escape. But hey, at least this game
has an excuse for sticking you in a hostile environment without any serious
firepower (not like a lot of other shooters I can think of).
There doesn't seem to be anything revolutionary about the game. There are
quite a few nifty little features though. Like the flashlight that actually
shines forward like a real flashlight would, not just as a bright halo around
you. The special effects are really a treat, such as the lightning bolts and
other lighting tricks. Like all wonderful games of the future, Half-Life adds
a realistic touch by forcing you to reload your weapon. And, as a fan of
revolvers, I must admit I was thrilled with the inclusion of one in the game.
There's a focus on aiming in Half-Life, not a spray-and-pray attitude. At the
beginning ammo is scarce, and few of the weapons fire very rapidly any way.
The artificial intelligence is one of the more impressive features in the
game. Opponents actually run from hand grenades... and lob a few of their
own in return! You can hear them yelling to their comrades as they do so,
too. Finally, the game has a truly frightening atmosphere. Creatures leap
at your face from out of nowhere, vile beasts screech and howl, throw slime
and lightning at you. Giant floating brains swoop down from the sky, and
jack-booted thugs fire twin-barreled machineguns at you. Some pretty scary
shit, let me tell you.
After a while, you realize it's all the little things, taken together,
that make Half-Life such an amazing experience. The attention to detail,
the steps taken to assure a more pleasant and realistic game. These are
Half-Life's ultimate selling points. Nevermind that it forces you to change
your color depth to 16-bit, the problems with sound volume, you lack inertia
when jumping up on a moving platform, or that the female ninjas attack you
with weapons but don't carry guns or ammo when killed. (We won't even discuss
how gypped I felt at the ending.) Eventually, when you think about it, you
realize that Half-Life is revolutionary, not because of any grand
scheme, but due to the thought put into it to make it a great game. With this
kind of intelligent game-making, I can only assume that Valve's follow up
venture will be just as successful.
Multiplayer: Multiplayer gaming in Half-Life is a great experience...
if you're on a LAN. Unfortunately, the game's Internet player is simply awful.
Unless you're on a T1 or better (our network is connected via ISDN), even the
games that list the best ping times are virtually unplayable. In fact, the
entire network section seems shodily put together. You can't change any of
your multiplayer setup info without disconnecting from the server you're on.
Actual server connection seems to be some sort of guessing game. Half-Life
will claim to be "retrying" its connection to a particular server, but will
never tell you exactly why you couldn't connect. When it gives up after
4 retries, the most it will tell you is that it failed because you were
disconnected 4 times. Yeah, that's helpful. When you can get a decent, fast
connection, though, be prepared for some changes to the weapons you thought
you knew. The revolver and crossbow can zoom in when the alternate fire key
is pressed. While zoomed, the crossbow fires an instaneous standard bolt.
Unzoomed, it fires an explosive-tipped arrow with splash damage, though less
than the rocket launcher. Speaking of which, its laser guidance system can
be turned off by using the alt-fire key. Doing so makes it a dumb-fire weapon.
This can be tactically necessary at times, because that bright shining dot is
a dead give-away that you're coming. In an instant, you're ready to light up
your enemies with the bright red dot of DEATH. So if you really want
to get in some Half-Life ass-kicking, get your carcass to the next
Free Range Action Gaming LAN party event, and that's all
I'm going to say.
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