Half Life

[one-armed dwarf]

The Half Life 2 documentary made me start up a new save on that game, but then I decided why not play the original. I've played it before but it was on PS2, which has huge auto aim and kinda comes from a point in time where this genre wasn't well served at all on console (arguably, I'd still say this is the case, but PS2 was so much worse).

 

I put it on hard mode, cause I beat Doom Eternal like that so surely I'll be fine. Anyway this game is a dick, it comes from a school of design that feels so odd to return to cause it's really unfair but also that is the point. Not in a Dark Souls way, it's more like it's trying to be an action horror comedy or something. Black Mesa is out to kill Gordon all the time, walk down a hallway and shit is blowing up. They hide things out of sight and then jump you with vortigaunts on both sides and you die. You quick save a lot. There's a lot of 'ffs, how was I supposed to know the platform would crumble beneath me into a room of headcrabs for guaranteed damage or that the elevator would break and drown me in radioactive piss'. But you just continue on anyway

 

I think it's cool though cause it makes Black Mesa feel so dangerous. It helps an old game like this still feel immersive cause the place is trying to fucking kill you all the time, whether it's the extra terrestrials you imported via the bit of cheese you pushed into the laser or cause of the facility's in built security systems. Sometimes when talking about stuff that's old and influential it's easy to file it away as 'important, but not worth going back to'. But a lot of the time the reason that something is influential is cause it was super fucking good and that quality isn't always something which fades over time, even as other things build upon it. The approach to set pieces in Half Life is a lot purer than modern games cause it's always happening around you and you are always in control, you have to react to what's going on and adapt. It doesn't feel like it's awkwardly pausing the bit where you play the game for an interactive cutscene or anything like that. The way it combines combat, exploration, platforming, environment hazards, horror, it reminds me of RE4 in how it constantly introduces new gimmicks and knows when to retire them just in time for something new and fresh. Constant forward progression that always feels satisfying

 

It also still plays really well, far faster than Half Life 2 and a billion times faster than Alyx. I think once they started fucking around with physics in 2 it slowed the pace of gameplay by like a third, at least. Became more about interactivity and puzzling than run and gun violence and explosions. I like how you have to chuck grenades into unknown areas to smoke out enemies, it's more a strategic weapon than it is a damaging one cause of the potential to get sucked punched by some bullshit you don't see. The trap mines are also fun to play with. I'm at the Surface Tension level and will probably beat it over the weekend, then onto HL2. I'll have to play Portal 2 at some point cause that's one I've never completed on any platform.

 

I do remember the final chapter or two being a pile of shit on PS2 so I hopefully it's less of a hassle here, probably not. 

[shinymcshine]

I played HL on PS2 and the last few levels crawled at single digit FPS which rather ruined the experience. Pretty sure I played the 2 player local co-op levels as well, and think they were okay (but maybe that wasn't PS2?).

[one-armed dwarf]

I don't remember FPS issues really, I mainly recall using god mode and no clip to just get the thing over with. For whatever reason, the only memories I've retained of HL1 are its amazing opening and dogshit finale so it's been good to revisit and recognise how good the stuff I forgot is

 

But I am dreading that Xen bullshit all the same, I might still just god mode it if it comes to it but wouldn't feel good about that

[one-armed dwarf]

I beat it late last night, turns out Xen is really short. There's only 4 levels, two of which are quite fast and easy and ends with a pretty fun fight against a scrotum spider. Then you have one which is an unbelievably dull slog through a Vortiguant factory or some shit and then you fight this big stupid baby for ages who keeps teleporting you into a room to jump back to the fight again. A really shit ending to an incredible game. So maybe Half Life 2 is still the better one here, even if HL1's highs are much higher.

 

I will say though that mouse and keyboard made this section a lot easier than before. I remember really struggling with the ballsack monster on PS2, being able to quickly turn around is a big deal in a small arena, squaring off

 

The levels before Xen, Surface Tension, Forget Freeman and Lambda Core, had highs and lows. Surface Tension was really long and had a fun section where 'Barney' helped you open doors as long as you cleared all the enemies out. Lambda Core had you starting up reactors and swimming a lot, and fighting this really annoying enemy who shoots something like bees at you. It probably peaks before Surface Tension, everything up to that level feels like it's building on the ones prior but afterwards it feels much more sloppy. There's some strange things also like snipers in really odd placements which threaten to soft lock the game cause you need grenades to kill them

 

Makes me curious about the Black Mesa remake. I've heard divided opinions but it makes Xen its own campaign and goes pretty hard with it. 

 

edit also beat Blue Shift. That was ok, not amazing. You play from the POV of Barney from HL2, who's "introduced" here. Cool to see the resonance cascade from the POV of people in the base, with aliens just teleporting in killing everyone after a bunch of loud explosions. But it reminds me of some of the DLC you'd get in the 360 era where it's just a bite size of more of the same, and Barney doesn't get many cool weapons compared with Gordon

 

There's another expansion called Opposing Force which is apparently much better but I've had my fill of 1998 Half Life now, will try that one another time.

[spatular]

i had to use cheats to complete this, i was so bad with a mouse and keyboard. about bad performance on ps2 i remember the final level crashing my pc, had to lower the graphics settings to finish it... then remembered i was remembering the wrong game and that was hl2.