Half-life, made in 1998, still played by people. You play as Gordon Freeman and you make a Residance Cascade sanario and you are placed in a personal holocaust. You must battle Aliens and even the Army. Gameplay is awesome, to some extents. Well, telling the story more complicated, The story starts out in Sector 5 of the Black Mesa where Gordon Freeman is to test a sample retrieved from Xen. From there, the Sample causes the Test Chamber to cause a Residence Cascade and causes to open up a portal from Xen to Earth. From there, Gordon grabs the familiar Crowbar and faces what is next. From solving puzzles, to defeating baddies, he must get to the Surface.
The Gameplay Expirence may vary. You could die every 2 seconds, you can never die. It varies of how you play your cards right. If you go and shoot walls, waste ammo, act like and idiot, there's not chance you will survive. This game lacks one thing, Health and Ammo pickups. Basically, it's never there when you need it the most. The all the "Bosses" in the game are NEVER defeated by guns. They are defeated by Various other things you must find. The Tentacle trio, you defeat by that huge flamethrower looking thing attacted to your room area.
Now, Let's break this down as a Game Programmer would. The Graphics are standard, they are not too bad, yet the textures are what makes it lack. Meaning, good polys but streched textures make it look like crap. Theres a Hi-Def Pack that comes with Blue Shift that makes the game look 100% better. Higher polys and the textures are not blown up. The sound effects are Mono WAVs, meaning theres no Surround sound, no mp3 support. The sounds can be modded VERY EASILY, which makes the sound expirence alot better. Plus, it needs to be PCM, I believe. The Engine itself made Counter-strike, the #1 Multiplayer Action Game, possible. If it wasn't for the mods, Half-life wouldn't be as popular as it would be but if it weren't for Half-life, many of the games like Dues EX wouldn't be possible without the inspiration. The Engine consists of advanced AI and pretty good easy C++ that a newbie, Sounds and models that are easily modded. Any person with a average IQ could do.
