I've recently been drawn to some valve games that I remember playing throughout my childhood, later teens, and now into my adulthood. Games such as: Counter Strike (1.6, Condition Zero, and Source), Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and my all time favourite, Half-Life.
The first game of the list I decided to blog about is the original Half-Life collection that I played over a decade ago when I was a child. My family used to own one of those old behemoth computers, and with that computer I found myself playing many games, from Diablo to Starcraft. I was a big fan of the Nintendo 64 as well back then but no games could ever capture my attention like PC games. One of those games were Half-Life. I discovered it when I was going through my older brother's case of CDs. Back then there was no digital copies of games, and you actually had to own the CD copy (depending on the game of course). I flipped through countless CDs and came across a CD with an interesting cover, it was silver and orange and had the words "Half-Life" on it. It looked kind of mysterious to me and I decided to put it into the CD tray and boot it up.
Once the game had finally loaded up, and the menu screen had appeared, I clicked on New Game and entered the amazing world of Half-Life, seen through the eyes of the main protagonist, Gordon Freeman. The game had a slow start, but the music and character interactions kept me interested in playing further. Once the action started though, I couldn't stop playing. I played for hours, slightly hunched over the keyboard and my eyes transfixed upon the corridors of the Black Mesa Facility, the countless aliens chasing around my fellow scientists, and the secretive Gman who is seen for only moments throughout the levels. I played so much Half-Life, that when I closed my eyes that night, I dreamt about playing it. Eventually though, like all good things, Half-Life came to an end. With the death of the final boss, Nihilanth, and the final closing speech of the Gman, the credits began to roll and I wished for more.
Luckily though, there was more! I found another pair of CDs in my brother's case. Both of them held the name Half-Life but had different colours to their CDs. One was blue and held the name "Half-Life: Blue Shift", and the other was green and labelled "Half-Life: Opposing Force". I played through both of them and enjoyed the heck out of them. Blue Shift had you playing as Barney Calhoun, a security officer working in Black Mesa before the incident, and you have to navigate a chaotic science facility while avoiding aliens from another dimension, and government soldiers sent to take care of any witnesses (AKA YOU!). I really enjoyed Blue Shift, albeit it was a bit short and it didn't introduce much to the story and ended rather abruptly. But where Blue Shift ended, Opposing Force began.
In Opposing Force, you play as the character, Adrian Shephard, a member of the military sent in to kill scientists. To be honest I just wanted to kill scientists and play as the bad guys for once but you end up not receiving the orders to kill scientists because of a surprise landing (crashed helicopter). Opposing Force was definitely longer than Blue Shift and was more interesting story wise, and ended on a cliffhanger which kept the story open and left the possibility of a return of Shephard (Spoiler Alert: Never happened).
I found what I enjoyed most about those games was that you played as a silent protagonist which I hadn't really had the pleasure of experiencing much of before. The main character being silent really allowed for me to put myself in the shoes of the character and really feel like I was the one venturing through the game, rather than playing as a character with their own thoughts and ideas. For example, if I wanted to be a mass murderer while playing through the story, and gun down my fellow man, I could. Gordon didn't have to be a good guy or a bad guy, he could be both, or just one or the other. That's what I really found interesting when I played as a character with no dialogue or speech.
The music was well crafted and written, and was very unique to the game. While the music only played for a moment, it really left a lasting impact whilst the player ventured through the ruins of Black Mesa, gunning down multidimensional aliens. A nice track from the OST of Half-Life to listen to as an example of this well written music is: Track 10 - Drums and Riffs. The story was very classic and original in terms of science fiction and I am a huge science fiction nerd. I wish more games could be as original as Half-Life and truly make something that stands out, games like that nowadays are very few in between but when you find them, they are a rare gem.
I decided to blog about my experiences and what it was like to play those games because I wanted to share my first experience with a PC first person shooter that I haven't really played through before. I know Half-Life: Counter Strike is technically part of that list but I decided to leave it for another part to be included with the other Counter Strike games. I am not too experienced writing blogs and this is my actual first attempt. I hope you enjoyed my experience and you can check out the Half-Life series on steam (They go really cheap on Steam Sales). Enjoy the rest of your morning, afternoon, or evening. Until then.
Song Of The Day: Collateral by The Midnight