Ladies, Gentlemen and Non-Binary friends I have something to confess which may harm my gamer cred… I’ve never completed the original Half Life. I’ve completed Half Life 2, and I’ve even beaten Black Mesa, the lovely remak, but as far as the original experience goes, never done it!
I started it a fair few times back when I was younger, along with Blue Shift and Opposing Force but never really made too much progress, maybe it’s because I was scared of the ol’ Headcrabs and worried about what else might come, or maybe I’m just easily distracted. Still, I always wanted to go back and beat it one day, so when someone requested the PS2 version on stream I decided what the hell… let’s finally do it.
Okay, so maybe it’s not the ‘original’ experience, but the PS2 version is pretty much a 1:1 port, so I’m counting it.
Let’s get to it, let’s talk about Half Life!
Cheeky Details
Developer: Valve
Release Year: 2001
Platform Played On: PS2
First releasing in 1998, Half Life was the debut game from Valve and would go on to become one of the most critically acclaimed games not just of that year, but of all time. It’d win numerous awards and influence many developers going forward.
Half Life would also spawn something of a legacy, it’d get expansion packs with Opposing Force and Blue Shift, modders would get their hands on it and the popular mods Counterstrike and Day Of Defeat would go on to become legendary titles in their own right.
In the early 2000s we’d also see a sequel arrive, Half Life 2 would also go on to become critically acclaimed, win many awards and also go on to be considered one of the greatest games ever.
Valve would even authorise a fan made remake of Half Life, Black Mesa, released in 2020 after a period fo time in early access. Black Mesa would seek to bring improved graphics, AI, updates to the story as well as expanding the Xen section of the game considerably. Black Mesa is the version I have played through fully and I bloody loved it, but as mentioned, I’ve always fancied tackling the original in some form.
So, for the unaware, Half Life is the story of Gordon Freeman, a scientist working at the Black Mesa Research Facility. One day, things go a little bit tits up when analysing an anomalous material. Portals open, aliens attack, the government send in soldiers to cover it up. It’s not the best day at the office for our lad Gordon.
One of the major things that Half Life did compared to many other games at the time was it didn’t tell the story via, what was then, traditional cutscenes or flavour text between levels, instead it was presented as one continuous world with brief loading screens between them. The story happened around you, with Valve attempting to put you in place as Gordon Freeman. It never left the first person view, you never heard Gordon speak, instead you WERE Gordon, characters were talking directly to you and you were able to move around whilst they were doing what they needed to for the next part of the story.
It isn’t always perfect, and it can feel a little bit silly running around, jumping and crouching on things or whatever whilst characters are chatting to you and telling you what you need to do next. This sense of silliness is somewhat doubled in the sequel when you can pick up and throw objects.
There is also some frustration when you have a lengthy sequence you’ve seen before and are now reliving due to dying or just replaying the game. It’s cool to be put front and centre in such a way, but some sections to make you long for a skip button.
Moving on, how does it all hold up?
Well, as mentioned I’m playing the PS2 version, a version I genuinely don’t hear people talk about too much if I’m being honest. Looking into it, the game was received well for its PS2 port and having played it and comparing it to what I remember of the PC version, Gearbox did a fantastic job of bringing it across to the console. Tech wise, you can definitely feel a little bit of a framerate dip from time to time, but it generally runs smoothly, even when there is quite a bit of action going on. It’s certainly not like Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, which really did seem to struggle.
Everything is generally fine though and I can’t really find anything to complain about, the enemies, the environments, the characters, visual effects, all look great for a 2001 PS1 game. The only tech thing I have a slight complaint with, is more audio, the dialogue felt a little bit low at times and the game would really have benefitted from subtitles!
The one thing that did really strike me whilst playing it though, is how bloody difficult the game could be at times. There were a few factors here, one is the translating to a controller, sometimes it felt a little bit slow to aim accurately in comparison to the speed of the enemies on screen. There were some issues with making more precise movements to get into position correctly and a few jumping puzzles were also fiddly using a controller.
I feel like if I was playing it with a mouse and keyboard, some of the sections I really struggled with, especially chapters like Surface Tension and fighting one particular enemy, might have gone a bit smoother.
For reference, I played the game on easy and there were a few sections that I really struggled with, fighting the soldier enemies, the assassin enemies, the Xen Controllers and most of the Surface Tension chapter gave me a fair amount of grief. At times, it was incredibly frustrating, not necessarily knowing what I could have done better or difference, perhaps the worst instance was the sequence with four Assassins in one room, and I struggle to understand how anyone could do that on a harder difficulty.
Suffice to say my death count was quite high during this one, and that isn’t to mention how many times i died via falling off of things when missing a jump.
Fortunately, the penalty for death isn’t too bad, unless you forget to make liberal use of the games Quick Save function which I would absolutely recommend you do because death can come swiftly from the vast menagerie Half Life throws at you!
And what a menagerie is is, from the iconic Headcrab, to the Houndeye, Vortigaunt, the array of Soldiers, including those pesky Assassins, Alien Grunts and a dodgy looking boss or two, Half Life has a sizable roster of enemies trying to take down Mr Freeman. I will say, it’s the headcrab that I still fear the most, not because they’re hard to deal with, but the pesky buggers ALWAYS managed to make me jump!
Whilst a lot of your time will be spent shooting aliens, you will also be spending a lot of time navigating the facility, and this involves using crates to get around turrets that shoot on sight, navigating some tricky platforming sections, solving some basic puzzles to unlock new areas, it all adds a weight to the world you’re getting around and makes Half Life feel slightly more alive than other first person shooters of the time.
There were a few instances where I got very frustrated with the game, perhaps compounded by the fact that I was streaming it, some of these instances were on me for not being a bit more patient, some of it were because the sections weren’t great, I will add my voice to those who say the final section and boss aren’t exactly great. I don’t think they’re bad but I will say I enjoyed navigating Black Mesa way more than I did Xen.
That said, Half Life is still a must play, the PC version is easy enough to get hold of, has been updated for modern systems and is fairly cheap nowadays, so that’s probably your easiest route in, there is Black Mesa which, as mentioned, is a fan make remake so it’s going to have its share of differences but I can vouch for it, but if you do find yourself with the PS2 version, definitely give it a go, because in any form, Half Life is a special game!