Half-Life: Game of the Year Edition

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Summary: Half-Life for Counter-Strike
Review: What I am looking for a counter-strike full product, and not only half life.As far as i know counter strike is an add-on for half life, will i need half life to run counter strike or will it be run as an astand alone cd? im my office we played counter strike and it has much greater disk space more than a gb so will i need to combine half life game of the year edition, or just a counter strike. Can anyone help me at [e-mail], thnx!

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Summary: How could 50 magazines lie?
Review: The topic here is, obviously, this game, Half-Life. I must say, it is all I do. I play HL non stop AT LEAST for an hour a day because it is such a great game. (Yes I have a life) The single player is great. Not only is there tons of adrenaline pumping action, plenty of guns, and so many different enemies and their ways of dying, but it has a STORYLINE! And a good one too. It's about government conspiracy, etc. Anyway, one could play single player for hours on end and not get bored with it. I stayed up for 2 nights playing it the day I got it. I haven't stopped playing it for a year.

But this isn't even getting into the fun part. Where Half-Life excells is in its engine. It's so reliable and good that there are over 40 modifications to the game, including another one by Sierra, allowing a lot of extended single and multi-player gameplay. The multiplayer is awesome, but could be better. Finding specific servers is a hassle, and finding other players is impossible, unless you meet in the chat. WON.net isn't all that user friendly, but it supplies the goods. There are so many options of gameplay that you'll never get bored with it! I am serious, buy this game now! Even if you're skeptic, go download the demo. You will love it. This is the game of all games for everyone into those first-person shooters, action games, and especially multiplayer. No wonder it was Game of the Year in 50 magazines!

Rating:
Summary: Highest Praise
Review: I'm reviewing this game now having played it religiously for over 15 months. No game has ever held my attention for nearly so long a period. Even though newer and probably better games are on the horizon to claim the #1 spot due to technology advancements- Half-Life will likely forever hold my fondest gaming memories.

In my opinion, Starcraft was the first game to have truly amazing online support. Including quick and easy updating, ease in finding fast games, and a constant stream of new maps and game play variations to keep it interesting. Half-Life with Won.net was the first game to bring that kind of support to fans of first-person fragging. Single player was great, but once you visit the online Half-Life community... kiss your other hobbies goodbye. I praise valve for creating this game- quite possibly my favorite of all time. Never has a FPS had such amazing weapons, and well-tuned multiplayer maps. Thanks to won.net, finding on-line games have been a snap with filters to find exactly what you are in the mood for and a fast connection.

Like Starcraft again, Valve constantly released free maps, and variations including Team Fortress Classic- a whole other game in itself, which quite frankly deserves a five-star rating of its own. With 9 unique classes, and goals more detailed then simply "killing", TFC added cunning and strategy to a gaming genre that previously relied on reflexes and the memorizing of maps. It truly feels as though you are on a team in fierce competition. This game is a sport.

To top it off, Half-Life gamers themselves were able to make their own maps, character skins and mods- propelling this game and its community into unbeatable longevity. It has been more than a year and a half since this game has come out, and still new FPS games are hard pressed to mimic its appeal. Even though everyone must know its reputation by now, I feel obligated to pay tribute to this amazing game.

It will be interesting to see if any game will ever be able to match its popularity. My money is on Valve's next game, Team Fortress 2.

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Summary: Did I miss something?
Review: First, Half-Life itself. The game survives on its mediocrity.

Graphics - at the time, the graphics were good (thanks to the Quake engine), but by no meens exceptional in any way. Everything looks pixelated and like it's a sprite.

Sound - Everything sounds believable, but not 'real'. Every weapon in the game sounds like a muted version of its real life equivilant. The music kicks in every half an hour or so, and, at that point, is more of a distraction than a mood enhancer. The enemies are probably the best part of the sound department. However, because they're 'aliens' any sound you give them would sound believable.

Plot - Take away the psuedo-physic talk and replace 'another dimension' with 'Hell' and you pretty much have the same storyline as Doom; nothing special there.

Weapons - Probably the best part of the game is in the weapons, but, again, they're really only mediocre. On the plus side, you get about 300 weapons, but on the negative side, you probably won't be using a lot of them much. For example, the harpoon gun is used to fight underwater enemies, but is very ineffective on land which sounds good at first. Then, you realize that there are, like, two places that you're fighting underwater enemies. Another would be the trip mine. After considering it for some time, I can't think of a place that I would even consider using one in the game. And why would anyone wait for a 'zombie' to walk into one when you could blow them away with a shotgun instead.

Boss battles - There's not really much battling being done. The game either makes it very clear how to beat a boss or makes you wander around getting killed for about half an hour trying to figure out how to kill it. They went for a brains over brawn approach, but I want SOME brawn being used.

Elevator bug - Makes the game almost unplayable by my standards. The way this bug works is as follows: You hop on an elevator of some sorts (if the bug hasn't already stoped it), start either going up or down, freeze, slowly die, restart from whatever place Valve decided to save your game at. It's unbelievably frustrating when you have to retrace 15 minutes worth of work over something so stupid and relatively easy to fix.

Half Life multiplayer - There are about 6 multiplayer levels that come with this game, and all of them suck. You'll find yourself running back and forth through the same corridor (because the levels aren't circular like they should be) trying to find someone or a half-decent weapon.

About Day of Defeat and Counter-Strike - First, they are not Half-Life. Second, they were not created by Valve. They were mods created by gamers which were later adopted by Valve. They are not even included on this CD as far as I know. You must download them seperately, which would be fine with me if Valve actually gave their buyers working links to update and download their products.

Bottom line - Half-Life is a mediocre game, at best, that you can breeze through in a weekend. If you're looking for Counter-Strike, just buy the actual Counter-Strike CD and save yourself some hastle.

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Summary: Popularity does not imply quality, people...
Review: Even when this game first came out, it was fairly mediocre. Let's move on, shall we? There are many, many games that topple Half Life and Counter Strike released since 1998.

Contrary to what the Amazon editorial had to say about this game, Half Life is not the bloodiest (Soldier of Fortune), is not the smartest (No One Lives Forever), and is not the scariest (System Shock 2 or Clive Barker's Undying).

Half Life is a hypefest.

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Summary: Half-Life Heresy
Review: Most critics insist that Half-Life is the best game ever, but I must disagree. I will say that it has perhaps the best gameplay of any shooter, but it does have its drawbacks.

One of the best traits of half-life is that although it has much the same gameplay as any other shooter, it seems to have done it exceptionally well. Like most shooters you walk, run, climb, jump, crawl, and shoot, of course, but in Half-life it's so utterly engaging. I'm not sure why, but I believe the great gameplay is a result of the intuitive nature of the puzzles and combat. You can look around and say: "Ah ha! That's the way." And in most cases you are right giving you a satisfying feeling of knowing that you used your brain well. However, as another reviewer noted, in some cases you get nailed with a "gotcha," you die, and it's time to gawk at the ol' loading screen. Nevertheless, it's not that hard after you play the game for a while, and who doesn't want a challenge?

The weapons are average and include the standard machine gun, shotgun, and pistols along with grenades and other weapons you pick up along the way. You can also use guns set on turrets. All your weapons pack a punch, and you shouldn't be dissatisfied with any of them.

Enemies include monsters and "grunts." They're decent looking, and the grunts have good AI. Some of the "boss" monsters need to be killed with special weapons that you fire from pressing a button on a wall. It's very satisfying to see one of the big monsters finally go down.

The sound is exceptional except for the voices of the NPCs. I'm not sure why their voices are distorted. It might be a bug.

Speaking of bugs, this edition of Half-life has a bug that causes you to stick to some of the lifts which can be very annoying. Sierra should have fixed this bug by now. I used cheat codes to get around this problem, however.

As for cheat codes, use them! As difficult as this game can be, you can finish it using these codes, but try the game without them at first, of course.

What really drags this game down is the graphics. Although they aren't poor, they aren't that great either. In some of the levels the design is so plain and smooth I feel like I'm in a tin can. This problem gets in the way of Half-Life being a truly great game.

To sum it up, I'd say Half-Life is a good, solid shooter. It can be so absorbing, but it won't wow you either. And such an opinion will get me in trouble with all those rabid Half-Life fans, no doubt!

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Summary: No such thing as a definitive review--but here's my story...
Review: Play Half-Life and find yourself hard-pressed to find a more beautifully laid-out, strategized, and perfected (on a relative scale, of course) game to come out of the industry. Easily within classic status among the best of the best, Half-Life still manages to have detractors. My best guesses as to their reasoning are to a couple of factors: strict console gamers would have a hard time developing a liking for PC style first-person shooters, and, quite honestly, the game is odd. Your vantage point never leaves the first-person, you never hear your character speak, he is never out of your control--cutscenes or otherwise--and you're often presented with gruesome scenes of carnage and death. Plus, the game feels powerful, which can be slightly discomforting. Guns recoil and grenades are lobbed with incredible realism (for 1997, but still true for today), and the artificial intelligence is so seemingly real that you'll be surprised to see you aren't hooked up to a network.

The fact is, Half-Life is an experience, and it may not be for everybody (although sales figures would suggest otherwise). The emotions, sweat, and stress caused by playing Half-Life are the results of developer Valve's desire to up the ante for the video game market. And, boy, did ever they succeed.

Rating:
Summary: this game sucks
Review: There are traps in this game where you always die no matter how good you are. Things such as the floor falling out from you and thing falling on you always kill you the first time. Only after you know about it can you avoid them. This game is also still full of bugs. The game control itself also is bad.

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Summary: this game is ONLY AVERAGE
Review: All those great reviews must have been done while the players were smoking something. This game has lousy controls and is frustrating to play. This game also suffers from cheap setups that you as a player cannot avoid until it is too late. Things like falling office equipment, the floor falling out from under you, all kill your player no matter how good you are. Only after you KNOW about the traps can you avoid them. So you must die at least once at each trap before you can go on. Cheap. As far as Half Life 2 is concerned? NO THANKS if its more of the same!

Rating:
Summary: Kind of overrated
Review: Probably like a lot of other people, I saw all the rave reviews about this game so I decided to buy it. I paid 20 dollars for this game and I think thats about the most this game is worth. The story line of this game is pretty good and so are the graphics for its time. What is less than perfect are the controls. Your character moves way too fast. Say you are going down the stairs. If you press forward and release, your character will keep on going down the stairs by himself. In tight and tricky areas this perpetual sprinting mode you are in becomes annoying.
This game is comparable to Quake 2 in depth and development but with slightly more details in the graphics. However, the way the screen is rendered, the 3D environment is not as well done as Quake 2. As a result if I play this game with my eyes too close to my monitor, I get motion sickness from the jerkiness from the screen. I never had this problem with any Quake games.
If you enjoyed the Quake 2 series and would like another game of its type to keep you occupied until DOOM 3 comes out give this game a try. Just keep in mind that all those game of the year awards are a bit exaggerated. After my experience with this game however, I do not plan to buy Half-Life 2 when it comes out this year.