They're waiting for you Gordon.
In the test chamber.
Half-Life is a definitive first person shooter that rubs shoulders with the greats like Doom
and Quake.
It's heralded as a shining beacon of the genre, with a seamless narrative and compelling world
- but some might say its lustre has tarnished with age.
So what did Half-Life do that no game had done before?
What helped to define its lasting appeal?
And why do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties?
PC gaming in the mid-90s was awash with a wave of first person shooters: ever since
the release of Doom at the end of 1993, there were scores of derivative attempts to replicate
its success.
For every memorable Doom clone, there are ten more forgettable ones: and while shooting
pixellated enemies in a texture mapped maze is fun, without innovation the genre was at
risk of getting stale.
By late 1996, 3D accelerator cards were starting to gain traction within the PC gaming market
- with the introduction of 3DFX's Voodoo series of cards.
Offloading scene rendering onto a dedicated GPU meant a huge jump in potential performance:
far superior frame-rates and resolution.
It wouldn't be long before developers would take advantage.
Valve Software were founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington.
Their first project was to be a science fiction themed first person shooter - expanding on
the horror themes in earlier FPS like Doom and Quake with influence from other genres
like Resident Evil, and films such as Alien.
Half-Life's working title was 'Quiver' - inspired by Stephen King's novella 'The Mist', which
featured a military base called 'Arrowhead' and would influence the game's plot.
Quiver may also be an oblique reference to Quake, as Half-Life made use of a heavily
modified version of the 1996 game's engine - as well as some components from Quake 2's
id Tech 2 engine.
First publicly shown in early 1997 at E3, Half-Life was planned to release later that
year - but a priority of quality over expedience - 'Valve Time' - led to the games eventual
release in late 1998.
It starts on a day like any other.
You are placed into the shoes of a seemingly ordinary man: 27 years old.
MIT graduate.
Gordon Freeman.
He is a silent protagonist: a man of action, not of words - and with the game's first person
perspective and lack of cutscenes, you don't see much of his face, either.
The original character model was much more distinctive - 'Ivan The Space Biker' with
a full beard and an intense stare - but the Gordon Freeman we know today is more reserved.
It's only on the game box, main menu and loading screens that the final bespectacled visage
of our protagonist appears.
Quiet.
Unassuming.
And, he's late for work.
The game opens with a tram ride: a ten-minute tour that serves to introduce the player to
the world of Black Mesa.
You're free to move around the carriage, but you're along for the ride - meanwhile an automated
announcement system spools off safety announcements drenched with foreshadowing.
It's an interesting way to introduce the game's world, and a distinctly different one to that
seen in Doom or Quake.
No longer are you placed into a maze-like level with a gun in search of an exit - instead
your path spans the entire game.
Half-Life is very linear - but it's all by design.
On a rail, the story is already in motion: the events that follow are inevitable.
It wouldn't be much of a game if everything went right.
The 'Resonance Cascade' event tears a rift across dimensions, and ushers in an alien
incursion.
It marks the end of what should have been a routine scientific experiment and the beginning
of a struggle to survive.
And in a way, it was all your fault.
Maybe this would never have happened if you weren't running late.
Maybe you were just following standard insertion procedure.
Maybe Gordon Freeman isn't the hero of this story.
Half-Life is not afraid to explore ambiguous morality - and while it's possible to waltz
through safe in the knowledge that you're the good guy - the game does sprinkle some
seeds of doubt along the way.
From the act of kickstarting a trans-dimensional cataclysm, or inadvertently sending scientists
plunging to their doom, or slaughtering soldiers by the dozen, there's not much Gordon won't
do in his desperate struggle to escape.
Black Mesa is no stranger to questionable ethics - slowly, the scope of the experimentation
that took place at the top-secret facility is revealed: weapons research, captive alien
specimens - and even nuclear missiles.
A hazardous work environment, then.
Luckily, you are supplied with the equipment you need to endure it.
The Hazardous Environment, or HEV suit, is the game's way of explaining Gordon's immense
capability for survival.
An incredible feat of engineering, it's capable of absorbing kinetic impact, radiation, biohazardous
material - and yet limber enough to not hinder movement - nor to prevent passage through
the smallest of spaces.
Your suit is your aegis - but what good is a shield without a sword?
The game waits a while before granting you a weapon, but when you find your first offensive
option it's a particularly iconic one.
A simple tool, forged by fire and flung into a position of importance.
A symbol of defiance.
The crowbar is the Half-Life series' flagship weapon, and it proves its worth throughout
the game: from smashing crates, clearing a path - or as a desperate defence against an
oncoming enemy when all other hopes of salvation have run dry.
But then, fate always was on Gordon's side.
The same can't be said for the aliens you encounter: there are a variety of transdimensional
visitors, and the majority aren't friendly.
The parasitic headcrabs take influence from Alien's facehugger, and turn their hosts into
mindless zombies.
The vortigaunts are an enslaved race capable of shock tactics:
the grunts are half a tonne of disgruntled alien;
And there are bigger, even more noxious abominations that await in the darkest depths of Black
Mesa.
Aside from alien threats, there is a domestic force which stands in your way: the Hazardous
Environment Combat Unit.
Deployed to clean-up and contain catastrophic events at any cost, their orders extend to
silencing any civilian survivors.
Naturally, this leads to some tension.
One of Gordon's key weapons against these trained soldiers is the element of surprise:
often taking to the maze-like ventilation ducts to evade and outmanoeuvre insurmountable
odds.
From confined space to cavernous complex, the walls of Black Mesa contain many secrets,
but there's always a certain familiarity to be found in the human construction.
Xen was different.
The last portion of Half-Life is a divisive one: you are flung into a strange alien world
as part of a desperate attempt to undo what was set in motion at the start of the game.
A truly alien landscape, with floating islands made of some unknown chitin, and a shift in
focus to teleporter puzzles and long-jump platforming.
Paired with a jump in difficulty, the last few chapters are the most gruelling: and are
generally considered the weakest part of the game.
Xen is indeed a strange and unfamiliar place, but by far the most alien thing you'll encounter
is just a regular guy in a suit.
It's easy to miss the G-Man's appearances, but once you notice him watching in the distance
he seems to turn up everywhere.
His nature is a mystery - an agent of some unseen eldritch force: perhaps a passive observer,
or a hint of a conflict grander than any human mind could ever comprehend.
Half-Life was released to critical acclaim.
Hailed as 'the best shooter since the original Doom', it marks a pivotal moment in FPS history
- and a cherry atop the golden era of PC gaming.
Gearbox Software were founded in 1999, and were contracted to work on porting Half-Life
to other platforms - and to produce expansion packs.
The PC's first expansion was Opposing Force, which cast you into the boots of Adrian Shephard,
a member of the very force sent in to clean up Black Mesa and eliminate Gordon Freeman.
Blue Shift was the second PC expansion, although it was originally intended to be part of an
unreleased Dreamcast port - abandoned due to the platform's imminent demise.
You play Barney Calhoun, one of the many blue-suited security guards - in a quest to escape Black
Mesa.
The PS2 version emerged in 2001, featuring co-operative play and an exclusive expansion
in Half-Life: Decay.
In terms of multiplayer, it was Half-Life's mods that overshadowed its own deathmatch
mode.
Like Doom and Quake before it, modders flocked to the new FPS - in some cases porting over
established mods to the GoldSrc engine:
Action Half-Life and Team Fortress Classic both have roots in Quake, with the latter's
class-based team action eventually spawning a sequel;
Day of Defeat blended objective-based multiplayer with the then-popular World War 2 setting;
And the incredibly popular Counter-Strike, which in all its forms has stayed near the
top of most-played lists for more than a decade.
While multiplayer mods gained the greatest share of the limelight, single player mods
like 'They Hunger' showed what a few talented folk could do with the engine.
Half-Life's longevity was greatly expanded by its modding scene - which is just as well,
considering how long a sequel took to arrive.
A worthy follow-up to a game like Half-Life is a tall order - a revolutionary game builds
greater expectation than just more of the same.
Thankfully, Valve like to take their time with things.
After 6 years and some drama along the way: Half Life 2 would eventually appear in late
2004, alongside its new Source engine.
Set some years after the original, the event in Half-Life cast mankind into an inter-dimensional
war it had no hopes of winning: and thus Gordon Freeman re-emerges as some kind of Messiah.
Certainly a departure from the original, and with perhaps too great a focus on the new
engine's physics capabilities: Half-Life 2 is nonetheless a great game in its own right.
With the rising tide of video game budgets, the argument for episodic content was becoming
more compelling: although in hindsight it seems Valve are not well-suited to releasing
anything piecemeal.
Half Life 2: Episode 1 was released in 2006, and Episode 2 a year later: both offering
a direct development of Half-Life 2's story, along with technical improvements to the Source
engine.
And as for the third episode?
One day, perhaps.
In the meantime, Valve seem to be investing more effort in multiplayer titles, such as
Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and DOTA 2.
And of course, Valve are also responsible for the most popular digital distribution
platform on the PC - Steam.
The trade of in-game items must be more lucrative than the one-time purchase of a single-player
title - but still, some yearn to don the HEV suit once more.
Long-awaited mod and visual upgrade for Half-Life, 'Black Mesa' finally came out in 2012, after
8 years in development.
Not quite the sequel we're looking for - but still a good opportunity to revisit the original.
Half-Life's impact post-release is unquantifiable: countless games will have taken influence,
whether directly or not.
It dispensed with the level-by-level approach of earlier FPS games, instead offering an
unbroken experience from start to finish.
Its seamless universe and complete lack of cut-scenes marked the death of old-school
FPS: a bifurcation of the genre into pure action multiplayer titles, and more cinematic
single player games.
No longer were level walls just containment for arena-style action: instead, the scenery
itself helped sell the story.
From its claustrophobic vents to its massive, noisy industrial plants - Black Mesa is equal
parts believable and incredible.
The experiential narrative was the perfect vehicle for horror: with scripted events that
could respond to the player, or force them to flee.
Later scary games would certainly take note: the tense atmosphere in games like Doom 3,
F.E.A.R. and Bioshock all have roots in the techniques first seen in Half-Life.
It also opened the doors for other experience-led games: as you don Gordon's HEV suit in Half-Life,
titles like 'Medal of Honor: Allied Assault' similarly thrust you into the boots of a soldier
in a more believable and immersive way than ever before.
Truly a turning point for cinematic video games.
Its influence broad and memories fond: Half-Life is a classic.
While today its graphics are dated and its innovations are taken for granted, it nevertheless
marks a watershed in the way games could tell a story.
From start to finish, it is a seamless and shining example of what every video game aspires
to be:
An experience.
Thank you very much for watching - and until next time, farewell.