Who needs Half-Life 3?

Posted by admin on January 16th, 2014

There have been a few mentions of Half-Life 3 in the press over the last week, but I say “who needs it, have you played Half-Life lately?” Now before I get attacked by the whole Internet let me say that I am looking forward to the release of Half-Life 3 but while we are all waiting there are other games to play.

I played Half-Life when it originally came out (in 1998) and it was awesome then and you could totally see why it won so many plaudits. Now, graphics aside, it still seems like an absolutely fantastic game, it’s got a great feeling of tension, fantastic weapons and enemies from the get go and an excellent story. It feels (to me at least) like a well rounded single player FPS.

“Tension” you say? You never know what’s going to happen next in Half-Life. Are you going to round a corner and run into an alien or some human assailant, is the lift you’re in going to fail and crash downwards or are you going to be faced with a tricky puzzle whose solution will allow you to move forwards.

“Fantastic weapons? Don’t you start the game with a crowbar?” Yes and what a weapon it is, when you don’t have it you feel utterly bereft and when you do have it you use it, constantly. Crate needs breaking, grab the crowbar, head-crab needs killing grab the crowbar, stuck in a difficult situation yep you’ve got it, grab the crowbar. The crowbar became iconic, much like the shotgun in Doom and when you pick it up initially in Half-Life 2 it immediately feels ‘right’. The other weapons are great too and all have a heavy meaty feel and great sound effects to boot.

And the enemies, from the head crabs and zombies through to the HECU soldiers, they are all different, have different strategies and they are all different to kill. Head crabs are the worse for me, I will never get the hang of dealing with their jumping attacks.

Half-Life, still a classic but oh those graphics do look dated.

Maybe instead of waiting impatiently for the release of Half-Life 3 you should check out Black Mesa a free, reimagining of Half-Life using the Source engine to provide up to date graphics. I thoroughly recommend it, now where’s my crow bar.

(You can download Black Mesa from http://www.BlackMesaSource.com for free and if you want the true classic experience Half-Life is available on Steam here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/70/?snr=1_7_15__13 for a very reasonable £5.99)

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