The great Valve re-play

[thl]

my only problem with Xen, as I remember, was that it was a little too long. I really liked how alien it was with the plants reacting to me and the health pools and whatnot. Having the Gonarch and the Nihilanth was a bit much though, and it could get frustrating with all the warping going on in the Nihilanth chamber. I appreciated how different it was though.

The biggest gripe I had with HL: Source was the AI. Even if most of HL1's enemy tactics were scripted, they were still effective. The squad-based behavior with dudes trying to flank me, how bullsharks hated other alien races, the guerilla tactics of the ninjas (running one down and shotgunning them in the back was SO satisfying), etc. The combat had a real feel of diversity and danger. With the source engine (especially HL2 and HL: Source) it seemed like every enemy acted the exact same: "oh, you're shooting me? i'll move to somewhere where you can't see me and stand still some more."

As another heavy FPS player back in the late 90s, I can say that Half-Life innovated or improved over every other game in the genre in several ways. Not just the seamless levels (I remember Gave being asked how many levels there would be and him answering "well, it doesn't really work that way but if you want a bsp count it's somewhere around 100" and that getting reported as "Half-Life has 100 levels!") and the combat-less first chapter but just that it had a serious tone with consistent level design. Going back through the facility after the explosion was a new experience because most if not all games before had completely linear maps that only vaguely connected between each other. Duke came close but my memory of that was that it was still just a formality, like the back of the bar led directly to the san andreas faultline or whatever.

Also, talking about story, Half-life was really the first FPS to HAVE a story, at least one not told via text on a screen or in the instruction manual. That it seems simple and tired today is true, but Call of Duty and Medal of Honor and every other FPS realized from Half-Life that it helped to give the player a reason to going around shooting people in the head. Valve's obtuse story delivery system is still something I find fresh and exciting today and it makes me explore the world more to find the newspaper clipplings, graffiti, etc. that fleshes out their world.

two cents added.

[miffy495]

I never remember being filled with rage at Xen. It just made me feel very apathetic, as I recall.

All this talk of HL1... Maybe I should give it another go, for old time's sake. I might really like it now. Hmm! Miffy, how long does a HL playthrough take, roughly?

My Steam account says I'm 8 hours in, and halfway through chapter 12 of 18. Your results may vary if you don't die a million times on the platforming sections as I tend to. I'd say 12-13 hours will probably be about the range of my final play time, maybe less as two of those final chapters are Gonarch and Nihilanth, so just boss fights.

[Twig]

My only problem with Xen was and always will be that stupid low-grav jump pad section. God. I hate that part.

The rest ranges from all right to pretty good, though never as good as the rest of the game.

[Sno]

Also, talking about story, Half-life was really the first FPS to HAVE a story, at least one not told via text on a screen or in the instruction manual. That it seems simple and tired today is true, but Call of Duty and Medal of Honor and every other FPS realized from Half-Life that it helped to give the player a reason to going around shooting people in the head. Valve's obtuse story delivery system is still something I find fresh and exciting today and it makes me explore the world more to find the newspaper clipplings, graffiti, etc. that fleshes out their world.

two cents added.

If you really want to try and argue that Half-Life was the first story-driven first-person shooter, you're just wrong. Period. Even if we're not talking elaborate first-person RPG's like System Shock, there's still games like Dark Forces that predate HL by as much as three years. (Dark Forces has two sequels that each on their own still predate Half-Life.)

These are not games with simple info-dump text screens like Doom, these have elaborate fully-constructed narratives that are conveyed through cutscenes and numerous story events within the levels themselves. (System Shock basically pioneered the audio log gimmick that is to this day all over the damn place.)

[miffy495]

True enough. Also, games like Call of Duty and such that people describe as following the lead of Half Life really aren't. They're still level-based, just very story-heavy and highly scripted level based games. Much like, say, Jedi Knight (as Sno alluded to). It's actually kind of weird when you think about it how relatively few games have actually followed Valve's lead in this regard, given how well-loved their games are. Oddly, most of the examples I can come up with are from Eastern Europe (the first three that came to mind were Cryostasis, STALKER, and Metro 2033). Maybe that's why I'm finding Half Life 1 so refreshing when playing it now? Probably not important, but interesting to think about.

[Sno]

True enough. Also, games like Call of Duty and such that people describe as following the lead of Half Life really aren't. They're still level-based, just very story-heavy and highly scripted level based games. Much like, say, Jedi Knight (as Sno alluded to). It's actually kind of weird when you think about it how relatively few games have actually followed Valve's lead in this regard, given how well-loved their games are. Oddly, most of the examples I can come up with are from Eastern Europe (the first three that came to mind were Cryostasis, STALKER, and Metro 2033). Maybe that's why I'm finding Half Life 1 so refreshing when playing it now? Probably not important, but interesting to think about.

Stalker is so open-ended, i don't think it's really a good example of this.

Cryostasis i haven't played, though i do mean to eventually.

Metro 2033 though, actually, yeah. Remembering it now, it did have a lot of very obvious loading screens, but it did pretty rigidly adhere to its perspective and seamless progression for the duration of its narrative, didn't it?

Edit: Ok though, but so we're on the same page, what then would we describe as a Valve-like experience? For me, it's the rigid adherence to the first-person perspective, it's progression through the narrative with as few apparent seams as possible, it's story-telling via heavily scripted story setpieces and loads of context through subtle environmental details. All in a linear and focused framework.

I think Half-Life might have been one of the first FPS's i played that was so heavily just kind of... Point A to B, instead of having big sprawling self-contained levels to explore. That's probably the part of HL's legacy that i am least happy about. (*Cough*CoD*Cough*) So, you know, i don't think it's right to just completely write of the CoD comparison, i do think CoD actually owes a fair bit to Half-Life. You know? Half-Life was all about those heavily scripted setpiece events, and so is CoD. CoD is loaded with level breaks though, you keep jumping around between small 30 minute battles, there's no sense of there being a journey like there is with all the Half-Life games.

Edited April 29, 2011 by Sno

[Kolzig]

One of my friends values System Shock the most and still says that no other fps game since that has been as influencial and had as good story as that had.

I can't really say anything about it as I have never played System Shock more than 15 minutes, it's really difficult to get running on modern computers and I hope that someday GoG will release both System Shocks Win7 compatible.

[Sno]

One of my friends values System Shock the most and still says that no other fps game since that has been as influencial and had as good story as that had.

I can't really say anything about it as I have never played System Shock more than 15 minutes, it's really difficult to get running on modern computers and I hope that someday GoG will release both System Shocks Win7 compatible.

I think it might be more accurate to say Ultima Underworld is one of the most influential games of all time, as more or less the immediate predecessor to System Shock.

System Shock 2 though, personally, my favorite game. So much love for Looking Glass and Irrational.

As for those games being on GoG, the problem with that is that EA holds the rights to Shock, so just like all those amazing old Bullfrog and Origin games, Shock is just simply a series we'll never see on a service like GoG. So boo hiss.

[Ben X]

I think Pong is the most influential game of all time.

[Ben X]

No, wait, Gibbage.

[thl]

If you really want to try and argue that Half-Life was the first story-driven first-person shooter, you're just wrong. Period. Even if we're not talking elaborate first-person RPG's like System Shock, there's still games like Dark Forces that predate HL by as much as three years. (Dark Forces has two sequels that each on their own still predate Half-Life.)

These are not games with simple info-dump text screens like Doom, these have elaborate fully-constructed narratives that are conveyed through cutscenes and numerous story events within the levels themselves. (System Shock basically pioneered the audio log gimmick that is to this day all over the damn place.)

you're right. statement withdrawn.

[miffy495]

Stalker is so open-ended, i don't think it's really a good example of this.

Cryostasis i haven't played, though i do mean to eventually.

Metro 2033 though, actually, yeah. Remembering it now, it did have a lot of very obvious loading screens, but it did pretty rigidly adhere to its perspective and seamless progression for the duration of its narrative, didn't it?

Edit: Ok though, but so we're on the same page, what then would we describe as a Valve-like experience? For me, it's the rigid adherence to the first-person perspective, it's progression through the narrative with as few apparent seams as possible, it's story-telling via heavily scripted story setpieces and loads of context through subtle environmental details. All in a linear and focused framework.

I think Half-Life might have been one of the first FPS's i played that was so heavily just kind of... Point A to B, instead of having big sprawling self-contained levels to explore. That's probably the part of HL's legacy that i am least happy about. (*Cough*CoD*Cough*) So, you know, i don't think it's right to just completely write of the CoD comparison, i do think CoD actually owes a fair bit to Half-Life. You know? Half-Life was all about those heavily scripted setpiece events, and so is CoD. CoD is loaded with level breaks though, you keep jumping around between small 30 minute battles, there's no sense of there being a journey like there is with all the Half-Life games.

Fair enough about Stalker. I haven't played it for more than about an hour, so I was working on assumptions. I think Cryostasis may even be more in that tradition than Metro though, and the story is also one of those where you never know more than your character, despite how fucking crazy it goes by the end of the game. I ended up going to a few websites to try and see some player theories on exactly what happened, which I hadn't actually done since I wtf'ed after fighting Nihilanth. Play that game.

I'm not positive that CoD owes a fair amount to Half Life. There are a bunch of games that had big setpieces and fantastical stuff going on before Half Life that were still level-based, and in fact had pretty much the same structure as Call of Duty. Hell, Goldeneye on N64 I can see as more of a direct influence than Half Life. That's not to say that the Infinity Ward crew wouldn't cite Half Life as an influence, but nothing that they've aped is what Half Life was revelatory for, just something that they did well that others were also doing. Half Life I take to be interesting because while the critical path is extremely linear, the levels do still sprawl and encourage exploration before you take it.

What I associate with Valve games and would call something following that tradition is that journey that you mentioned. It's a long series of events that you are never removed from, you are the main character every step of the way. Also, a lot of what they do so well is foster a sense of urgency, often through fear but not always, that will keep you moving through this linear plot. Most of all, it's the context. Never being told what's going on explicitly, but being able to glean as much or as little as you want from the setting. Very few games have taken that approach to telling their stories, and that's what I wish more people had taken from Half Life these almost 15 years later.

[Thompson]

Oh man, just had a weird flashback.

Does anyone else remember that Half-Life 2 trailer/teaser that had you fighting a stalker one on one in a city street? There was some kind of hotel with cyrillic characters on it, and you use the gravity gun to pull one of them off the building and the character falls onto the stalker, killing it.

That trailer got me so god damn pumped for that game, then that bit was never in the game.

[miffy495]

Yeah, I watched that hour-long HL2 E3 announcement demo (which is what I'm pretty sure you are talking about) so many freaking times in 10th grade. I was unbelievably hyped for HL2 all through 2003, and then they invented another year of development time. I stuck with them though, and just kept watching that video until HL2 came out. That hotel thing seemed like the pachinko bit from the same video though, more tech demo than gameplay. I was just impressed as hell that they kept that bit where you're fighting the airship on Highway 17 in the game. Man, I can't wait to get to that point again on my playthrough.

[Twig]

Oh god I read "E3" as "Episode 3" and what. Crazy internet people getting into my head. Seeing Episode 3 everywhere. Grrr.

[Thompson]

Oh god I read "E3" as "Episode 3" and what. Crazy internet people getting into my head. Seeing Episode 3 everywhere. Grrr.

At least Gabe has a sense of humor about it!

[miffy495]

Well, that's it for Half Life Source. All told, Xen took me less than an hour, and that was including forgetting how to beat Nihilanth aside from that it had something to do with his head. Y'know, I actually had no problem with Xen this time around. The jumping bits were way smaller than I remembered them being, to the point where they were largely inconsequential. With what I know about the Half Life story now, it was also pretty obvious from the way that they were acting that the Vortigaunt were enslaved and used as labour in the factory that seemed to be incubating those soldier things. In fact, given that the soldiers had the same chest-arms as the Vortigaunt, I can easily see what Gordon blows up on Xen being the same sort of thing as the Citadel on Earth, with Vortigaunt civilians being captured, put in those weird pod things, and turned into the soldiers. Nihilanth also had that little chest arm, which would suggest that he is the same species as well and possibly is to the Vortigaunt what Breen is to humanity. Maybe I'm reading too much into this and giving Valve too much credit for having their shit together all the way back in the first game, but in hindsight, and knowing what HL2 gave us, it all really does make way more sense than it did in the day.

Anyway, that was all pretty cool. I'm especially impressed that the gameplay itself held up so well. I had remarkable amount of fun with it, and don't feel like I've lost any steam (heh) in wanting to continue through the whole series. Even almost 15 years later, Half Life is still a great, great game.

[DanJW]

I came to the same conclusion about the Xen 'citadel', including Nihilanth being equivalent to Breen. The consensus though seems to be that the Xenites are totally separate to the Combine, who just kind of followed them to Earth or something.

I like our version better.

[miffy495]

I came to the same conclusion about the Xen 'citadel', including Nihilanth being equivalent to Breen. The consensus though seems to be that the Xenites are totally separate to the Combine, who just kind of followed them to Earth or something.

I like our version better.

Bah, who's consensus are we talking about? As far as I know, Valve has never confirmed anything and we're allowed to read into it what we want, yes? Fuck the common opinion, our story is cooler.

[Sno]

This is kind of what i was talking about earlier, there's enough in there that you can work together some fun theories, but it's important enough to the story that there should be a more concrete answer instead of all of those games just kind of ignoring that Xen ever happened.

For what it's worth, i also support the Combine slaves theory, that works the best for the overall story, i feel. I suspect the role of the Xen aliens in Valve's story bible probably changed dramatically over the course of HL2's development, but the current permutation of events does strongly support a reading that the Xen aliens had also been enslaved by the Combine.

It's just frustrating that there's really nothing in the game to just frickin` confirm it, it feels so much like a closed chapter in the story that there's no reason to still be so vague about it.

So you're onto the Gearbox add-ons next?

Opposing Force i think might be one of my favorite expansion packs for any game, it's really, really great. (I think it was Gearbox's first game too.)

[miffy495]

Yup, on to the Gearbox stuff. Played the first half hour of Opposing Force earlier tonight just because, and have to say that it feels really weird moving from the Source engine backwards to whatever the engine they originally used was. The movement is definitely less "skate-y" on the ledge-walking bits, but oh my god was trying to swing on a rope in the training course fucking insufferable. 1999 was not kind to physics. There's also a really weird thing where instead of popping "loading" up on the screen when transitioning between maps, the game does a weird "contacting server" thing and looks like it's going to bring me into a multiplayer lobby. Am I remembering incorrectly, or has that always been there? Nevertheless, the intro section still felt great and I'm looking forward to going through it for real.

One thing that I did a lot in junior high that I don't do now is use cheat codes. Beating Half Life today wasn't the first time I've been through the game, but it was the first time I did it legitimately. Opposing Force will be the same way, and I've never even looked at Blue Shift before. In my defense, when I did all that cheating I was 13. I'm a better person now. Still, it's quite the experience to play through these games and actually beat them, rather than just complete them. Whoever it was who mentioned getting to the giant blue cyclops-y thing in HL1 and turning on a bunch of cheats, I think you may be missing out. That section didn't do anything for me either, back in the day. Getting through it this time around was terrifying, having to sneak past the damn thing and eventually lure it into the generator so I could throw the switch and fry the bastard.

I was just killing time waiting for my girlfriend to get home, and read Gamespot's reviews of both Opposing Force and Blue Shift from back in the day. It's really weird to see the way that they were talking about game length back then, especially compared to now. Apparently Opposing Force is "nearly a third the length of Half Life at 10 hours" when Half Life itself took me less than 11. Blue Shift is called criminally short at "4 to 10 hours," which I believe is the range of nearly every non-RPG released in the past few years. Good ol' changing standards.

[Sno]

oh my god was trying to swing on a rope in the training course fucking insufferable. 1999 was not kind to physics.

Heeey, those rope-swinging gimmicks were really impressive back then!

There's also a really weird thing where instead of popping "loading" up on the screen when transitioning between maps, the game does a weird "contacting server" thing and looks like it's going to bring me into a multiplayer lobby. Am I remembering incorrectly, or has that always been there?

Like all of Valve's later games, they also patched the ever-loving shit out of those original "GoldSource" games. I'm almost certain what you're talking about is probably an artifact of later patches, because i don't remember anything like that at all. I just know those games were updated continuously for years. Valve is weird like that. (I actually find this kind of annoying and revisionist. There's a difference between fixing what was broken or imbalanced, and just constantly tweaking and prodding needlessly. Just look at how much TF2 has changed, if you liked the original version of TF2, that is a game you literally cannot play anymore.)

One thing that I did a lot in junior high that I don't do now is use cheat codes. Beating Half Life today wasn't the first time I've been through the game, but it was the first time I did it legitimately. Opposing Force will be the same way, and I've never even looked at Blue Shift before. In my defense, when I did all that cheating I was 13.

Half-Life must have been one of the first games that i was determined play through on higher difficulties without cheating. I mean, outside of console games, which usually didn't have cheats. Still, it was a hugely engrossing experience for my younger mind, and was kind of the first time i realized how much of a game's experience is that sense of risk and reward.

I was just killing time waiting for my girlfriend to get home, and read Gamespot's reviews of both Opposing Force and Blue Shift from back in the day. It's really weird to see the way that they were talking about game length back then, especially compared to now. Apparently Opposing Force is "nearly a third the length of Half Life at 10 hours" when Half Life itself took me less than 11. Blue Shift is called criminally short at "4 to 10 hours," which I believe is the range of nearly every non-RPG released in the past few years. Good ol' changing standards.

So does this just mean that people took longer to play those games, but they weren't necessarily any shorter or longer? I'm not sure what to take from what you've said. Like, collectively, are we all just that much better at figuring out FPS games? The other angle to look at it would be - Reviews grossly inflating the potential duration of a game, which totally still happens all the time.

[miffy495]

Opposing Force is in the bag. Took about 7 hours, which is less than that review said, but also certainly more than a third of what Half Life took me. That was a lot of fun, although less well balanced than Half Life was. I felt like I died unfairly or was put up against over-hard challenges a bit too often, and the health was less well-spaced. I dunno. The whole thing was really good, and I can tell that for 1999 it would have been a revelation compared to just being a bunch of iffy missions in a pack like other games were getting, but you could really tell in the end that this was a Gearbox game, not a Valve one. Makes me wonder if the choice to include them in the replay was a wrong one, but the only non-Valve game I have left is Blue Shift. From what's been said, it will only take me 2 or 3 hours to beat anyway, so I'm going through it.

I'm not sure if I said this earlier or not, and can't be arsed to check, but it really was different playing on the GLDSRC engine rather than Source. The platforming felt way better. I just wish that there hadn't been that fucking rope climbing stuff and any time I had to go down a ladder, I had a quicksave at the top and had to quickload about 50 times after taking fall damage before I could actually get down the damn thing. Thank god ladder-in-games tech has improved since 1999.

On to Blue Shift now, which I have never before laid eyes on. This should be interesting.

[Sno]

Opposing Force is in the bag. Took about 7 hours, which is less than that review said, but also certainly more than a third of what Half Life took me. That was a lot of fun, although less well balanced than Half Life was.

Yeah, i remember Opposing Force being pretty tough in spots. It had some great little scenarios though, the bit where you're crawling through the pitch-black sewers with all those giant aliens always stood out in memory. A lot of cool weapons tool, like the barnacle grappling hook, and the xen teleporter gun. (Did you notice that each "map" in Opposing Force had an alternate Xen area you could teleport yourself to? Sometimes they're just traps, but sometimes you'll find supplies.)

The whole thing was really good, and I can tell that for 1999 it would have been a revelation compared to just being a bunch of iffy missions in a pack like other games were getting,

Well, Opposing Force certainly wasn't the only well-produced FPS expansion pack from the time, i'm also particularly fond of Mysteries of the Sith, the Jedi Knight: DF2 add-on.

... but you could really tell in the end that this was a Gearbox game, not a Valve one. Makes me wonder if the choice to include them in the replay was a wrong one, but the only non-Valve game I have left is Blue Shift. From what's been said, it will only take me 2 or 3 hours to beat anyway, so I'm going through it.

I think the Gearbox add-ons bring some important perspective to the series, as they were for a very long time the last anybody had seen out of Half-Life. (Six years between HL1 and 2.) It's also fairly interesting from the perspective that two of the most influential independent developers in the west both did their first work on Half-Life. I mean, Opposing Force was Gearbox's first game, just as Half-Life was Valve's.

Still... Going to be completely honest here, Blue Shift is kind of a bummer. As i remember, it tried to be a little more low-key and atmospheric, but it ends up feeling like an amateur level pack more than anything else.

I'm not sure if I said this earlier or not, and can't be arsed to check, but it really was different playing on the GLDSRC engine rather than Source. The platforming felt way better. I just wish that there hadn't been that fucking rope climbing stuff and any time I had to go down a ladder, I had a quicksave at the top and had to quickload about 50 times after taking fall damage before I could actually get down the damn thing. Thank god ladder-in-games tech has improved since 1999.

On that note, how weird is it that platforming is such a persistent element in those original games? Even then, it was pretty commonly accepted that first-person platforming was a horrible thing people shouldn't do.

[a purple future]

yeah i had to quit playing HL:S because the stupid ladders/jumping/collision detection was killing me or getting me stuck way too often. switched back to the original and everything was fine again.