Rating: 
Summary: Quite simply one of the best action games ever made
Review: I'll tell you right now that I love action games. I began playing Wolfenstein 3D when I was eight. Ever since, action games has always been my form of entertainment. I discovered Half-Life exactly one year ago when I purchased PC Gamer magazine. At that time, Half-Life was already a few months old. After reading about all the wonderful things about it, I finally purchased it. I installed it immediately, and the second I started playing, I was hooked in its immersiveness. From beginning to end, you will have a gaming experience you never had before. You take the role of a scientist named Gordon Freeman, who is involoved in an experiment that has gone horribly wrong and has opened a portal to an alien dimension. Armed with only a crowbar, you begin your journey out of the Black Mesa Research Facility and to the surface while battling aliens. The story unfolds with numerous plot twists and surprises. The story is so immersive that there will be times when you forget its just a game.The sound is excellent. With a sound card that supports 3D audio(EAX, A3D 2.0, Direct Sound 3D), the game will become frightengly realistic. The graphics are also very good, using a modifed version of the Quake II engine. The gameplay is superb. The puzzles are smart, the level design is diverse, and the artificial intelligence is nothing short of outstanding. The single player portion is worth the whole price. In fact that's why I got it in the first place. But multiplayer is excellent also, thanks to the Team Fortress Classic mod. If you don't have Half-Life there is no reason to wait any longer. It is about time to find out why Half-Life was awarded Game of the Year by so many publications.
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Game Of All Time
Review: The whole first person shooter genre was started by Wolfenstein 3D, revolutionized by Doom, reinavated by Quake, and Half Life made this genre respectable. You play Gordon Freeman, a scientist at the Black Mesa Research Facillaty who makes one mistake and has to save his life from aliens and soldiers who want him dead. The detail put into this game make this one of the best looking games ever. The sound makes you terriyfied (the good way) with all the screams and guns goeing off in the background. Plus, with Team Fortress, Opposing Forces, They Hunger, and Blue Shift, the fun never ends! With Worldcraft, map making is made easy and fun. The game is not that hard and has role playing elements that make it more of a real experince than virtual reallity. The mutiplayer mode is great, especially with Team Fortress and Day Of Defeat. With Opposing Forces and Blue Shift, everyones story is told which brings amazing depth to the already amazing plot. I suggest everyone buys this game. Ten Thumbs Up!
Rating:
Summary: Addicting and Unpredictable
Review: This game is one of the best games i have ever played. Its addictiing and there are so many ways to do what you want to do and often unpredictable. Wen you die, you dont get pissed (usually dont) because its so good you'll want to do it again and again (you will die alot). If your looking for a good old (1998) game to get, tan look no further tan Half Life (get platnum edition though)
Rating:
Summary: Hands down, best fps of our time.
Review: I don't care what you say, this is the best First Person Shooter of its time. If anyone ever gives this game less than five stars, its because they just bought the game and they think the games engine is a little dated. Ignore them, they probably didn't know that the game came out in 1998, and back then, it was ahead of its time. If you want a game that doesn't have you searching for bobbing weapons and powerups in the middle of a room, and an almost cinematic feel to it, by all means buy this game. Real life weapons are included in this game, such as the Glock 22, .357 Magnum, MP5 Navy with a built in grenade launcher, and lots more. Upon buying this game, you will not only get the Half-Life game, but access to hundreds of mods on the internet. All kinds of mods exist, and a lot of them are very addicting in fun. Some are meant to be serious, but others will make you laugh out loud. But Counter-Strike is the best one of all. Buy this game. Have fun with it. Enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Great story, fun, and addictive - all in one
Review: I've always been a huge Counterstrike fan, but I never really took the effort to play the game for which the engine was derived from until recently. As part of the habit is for any graphics designer such as myself, I usually look for computer games with smooth, quality 3D models and pretty eye candy. Half-Life is one of the few exceptions in which the action and upbeat tempo kept me on the edge of my chair the entire time. Half-Life does not sport the most impressive graphics in comparison to the more modern gaming experiences, but it does sponsor a host of features that will keep its players glued to the computer screen for hours. Rarely do you play good games these days where you cautiously advance through each hallway or door with your heart rate at 6,000 RPMs. You never know when a pack of head crabs will drop through the ceiling, a grenade will land right at your feet, or when an entire wall will suddenly be blown to pieces by a swarm of cover-up marines or bloodthirsty aliens. Additionally, Half-Life's very good plot makes you want to keep playing constantly. There are many un-answered questions that the player must work at to reveal the answers. And of course, the ending to Half-Life does leave you hanging to some extent, but that simply leaves the door wide open for its sequel. One can only imagine how incredible the next Half-Life will be when you mix a very good story and the most advanced graphics engine to date into one bargain. Like I said, quality graphics are the first thing I look for in any game. But Half-Life is one of the few exceptions that I feel very confident in saying its worth every penny. A true gaming experience worth remembering!
Rating: 
Summary: Hot Da.... uh, er, What a great game!
Review: Boy this is a tough one to write about. How can I fairly review a game that has resided on my hard drive since the very day it was released? For the technical minded, Half-Life (H-L) is based on a modified Quake 2 engine, but the modifications simply blow Quake away in almost every aspect. Valve made an excellent move with this choice. It is well known in the gaming community that Quake's engine has some of the most stable networking code in the business. Too bad the video compatibility is a little odd. For the gamer at heart, this game may have a . . . half life longer than Quake itself. Valve made a good move allowing the gaming community to have the WorldCraft level editor and other SDK software. What this means to the average player is that a simple jaunt to a good web page, will yield every manner of new levels, characters, and baddies to download and install to their hearts content. And with Valve's Op-for expansion pack, this game will take up a large amount of space on a lot of hooked players' computers. One of the most notable modifications to Half Life is the apparently intelligent enemies. Shoot the "dogs" and they'll run for cover and regroup with their pals. Let the marines see or hear you and they'll drop a hand grenade on your head. Ninja's don't just run into you, they jump over your head and land behind you. Crabs pop up at the most inconvenient times. A well designed level and a poorly designed level is differentiated by the "intelligence" of the enemies. Although the modifications are great, they are certainly predictable to an extent. Play the game enough and you'll eventually spot patterns to the enemies "thinking". So of course, after defeating the game forward and backwards it would be time to test the Quake engine network code. Needless to say, a 56k modem is NOT recommended. Even though with my experience the network game play is better than the Unreal engine, the modem does this game sad justice. Hopping up to anything better than a 56k modem really makes this game shine. Valve has multi-player levels packed right in with this game, nice big areas with lots of weapons make this game a fun "frag-fest". The levels don't have that disgusting "dark" feel to them. Underground levels have suitable colors and lighting. Out door levels have an expansive feeling (although no where near the "out door" feeling that Unreal does so well). Too bad that H-L has compatibility problems with various video cards. It's really not so much compatibility problems it's really more that valve's default settings for the are usually not the correct settings. (The voodoo video family suffers the worst from this.) By default the video gamma is far too bright for the voodoo 2 card. The decals have the incorrect value. Lighting don't appear correctly. And SLI seems to have an odd effect on the game. Most cards have their unique set of problems, and all of these adjustments have to be done at the command level. Not something to be done by the average gamer. And this game screams to be played by all gamers. With many advanced gamers using the enclosed Software Developer's Kit (SDK) and WorldCraft to make new levels, and in some cases, completely new games. Valve guaranteed H-L's place in the gaming community. Even if the average player has no idea how to use the software to create new levels, they can still go to numerous web sites and download any number of home made levels. The Opposing Force expansion pack and the upcoming Gunman game are direct descendants of users and their Valve's SDK That are purchasable in the store while hot downloads like They Hunger and D.S.S. Darkstar add free life to the game. This leads up to the final gripe with H-L, though not a major one. I have the Team Fortress Classic (TFC) expansion, the Opposing Force pack and numerous "user made" levels and my directory continues to grow. Currently the space taken by H-L and the various packs, levels, and extras has reached 912 MB of space. In contrast Diablo 2 (Full installation) is 1.10 GB, while Diablo 1 is only 10.1 MB! The game's are growing guys and gals, so the PC requirements should be followed like a bible. All in all I would have given more than five stars if the system would have allowed me to do so. But I admit I had to take at least one star away, I did this to force a point onto most people who wish to own a copy of H-L. The game can be played right of the box but to get the full effect of the game, you're going to need to edit the auto start and configuration files. Voodoo 2 owners used to have the H-L Voodoo Doctor but alas, I have not seen his web page in months. H-L really does not like the Voodoo card. ATI Rage Fury does a little better, but you'll get a bizarre "ghost" on occasion. The TNT family does the best out of the bunch with the default values. I understand Valve is working on this issue in H-L 2 (TFC 2?) but we'll have to wait and see. Congrats Valve, this game shoved Quake, Quake 2, Unreal, and Duke Nukem 3D permanently off of my drive. I've since gotten a dual 13 GB drive configuration (26 GB total), I've never even bothered to dust off those games. With the purchase of Bungee software by Microsoft (Please God, Don't let Halo and Oni be X-Box only games.) , the Multi-Player nature of Quake 3, and Duke Nukem (with the Unreal engine) on a perpetual release date, H-L will be a tough game to knock off the "Game of the Year" throne. Has H-L cursed the first person shooter genre? Are developers afraid to knock the king out of the ring? It may look that way.
Rating:
Summary: Buy it for the game itself, keep it for the add ons
Review: At its first release, Half Life was groundbreaking. The graphics were good, the story was excellent, and Half Life was one of the most interactive games around, with lots of moveable or breakable scenery (the vending machines even dispense cans), other characters to talk to and work with, and challenging enemies. If you haven't played a first person shooter since Doom, you are in for a treat. Half Life is very animated -- you will fall through floors, blow bridges and get ambushed. However, Half Life's engine is slightly dated (though still pretty good), but the atmosphere more than compensates if the graphics aren't quite cutting edge. When you finish the single player game (which takes a while) there are a wealth of "mods" available. Valve have given the gaming community broad scope to redevelop Half Life, and there are some brilliant mods around. Some are commercial (like Blue Shift), but the best ones are free. My favourite single player mod is the They Hunger series, a classic zombie thriller by Neil Manke. In fact, I enjoyed They Hunger and USS Darkstar (Manke's other single player mod) even more than the original game. I'm not allowed to post hyperlinks here but you can easily find the mods on the net. There are plenty of online servers that you can connect to for free, to play both Half Life and its mods online. The connection is very easy and most of the work is taken care of by Half Life itself. You just need to select a good server and jump in. In multiplayer, the standard Half Life is lacking. It is dull, old fashioned, every man for himself deathmatch. Of course, you might like that! But happily there is a wide choice in the multiplayer arena. Valve's own Team Fortress (which comes free with the game) allows you to take on different roles (engineer, sniper, medic etc) and play team games such as "capture the flag". There are some fantastic community made multiplayer mods, also available for free. My favourite is Day of Defeat, a WWII mod with everything from detailed uniforms to realistic weapons of the period. Rest assured, mods are not just cosmetic changes. You won't be playing Half Life with different skins. While the engine is the same, the graphics, sounds and gameplay are so varied as to be almost games in their own right. My criticism of the game would be the amount of downloading you have to do. The mods vary between 30 and 100 megs. To play online (in a mod or in the original game) you have to download the latest patches from Sierra. The current version as I write this is 1.1.0.7, which has just been released. Version 1.1.0.6 was pretty good and lasted many months, so I don't expect to see more patches released any time soon. But mods tend to be released more frequently. If you have a slow modem connection, the downloads can take a very long time. Also, when playing online you will find yourself at a disadvantage against people with fast connections. But most people still connect to the net via dialup so many will be in the same position. As to the mod downloads, some file sites will put them on a CD and mail them to you, for a fee. [....]
Rating:
Summary: One of the best games i've ever played.Period.
Review: As my title says: this is one of the best games i've ever played.I loved this game so much because of the suspense factor. I mean around every corner there could be a soldier or an alien waititng to attack you (and as for my personal experince: it made me wizz my pants).Even though there was absolutely nobody plays online,(which is a big part of most games for me)there is a reason. I think the bare suprise(and in my case total horror)of an AI soldier who knows to shoot you right from the begining in greater than that of a real person who probably doesn't notice you.Even without online play I still LOVE THIS GAME and hope the buyer does too.
Rating:
Summary: Slimy aliens, Pissed-off marines, and a LOT OF FUN
Review: I actually stumbled on to this game, I had just gotten a new computer and was looking' for a few games to get me started. Stuff like casino games, and Tetris, etc... And I ran across a copy of PC Gamer and read about this totally kick a@# game and decided to get it. Let me tell you it is worth whatever you pay for it! Half-Life isn't just a blood bath; there are puzzles involved and certain tricks, so parents don't just say "NO" right away read up a little if necessary. The game has a pretty standard story secret government lab is blown up during some sort of nuclear test and the man who is in charge of the difficult tasks such as inserting the probe and messing with various switches, is spared because of this super radiation suit. This is who you are, Freeman. Your objective is to make it out of the lab and to the surface, which happens to be the middle of nowhere (some place like New Mexico or Arizona). Now that sounds easy accept the accident as mutated many of your colleges into slimy monsters. Thankfully some of them survived and are there to help you, if you want to kill them wait till they help you. The government has also gotten involved. They have sent marines to control the situation and eliminate witnesses to prevent press leakage, probably. Terrific game, lots of gore and fun. Another tip the occasional security guard survives, they can also help you and they are great for ammunition as well (you need to kill them for the ammo). So enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: HALF LIFE: Scary as hell, fun as hell!!
Review: half-life is one of the best FPS ever made!! The story is goes like this: You are Gordon Freeman, a scientist working at a top secret labratory in New Mexico, called the Black Mesa Research Facility. when doing a normal routine science experiment, things go terribly wrong and you have opened a portal between an alien world and the Black Mesa research facility!! The point of the game is to fight your way to the surface and make it out alive! but that is no easy challenge, for the alien AI is smart and the damage they can cause can be severe.you also fight soldiers trying to cover up the experiment and trying to eliminate all the witnesses. you will die many times, but somewhere inside you, you have the courage to keep on going. there are also many weapons to choose from in this game, but u must find them first. these are some examples (there are too many to list, ill just list the basics) MP5 submachine gun with a M203 grenade launcher on it, Glock pistol, Crowbar for wacking aliens, Rocket Launcher, Grenades, shotgun, crossbow, and trip bombs. there are many others too!!! this game is not only very hard, but very long. on easy mode it took me about 2 and a half months to beat it. that sounds crazy, but its worth it and soon you'll find yourself addicted and not being able to stop clicking the mouse button. i highly reccommed this game to all FPS addicts. A MUST HAVE!!! >>>>>>>>>
-patrick
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