Half Life Review

The history of porting Half Life to the console market has been a long and curious affair. Shortly after the Dreamcastâs release, Sierra announced a port for Segaâs machine and then promptly decided to cancel it when the machines imminent demise was forecast. So Blue Shift creators and Dreamcast porters, Gearbox Software, took what they had and decided to bring it to the PS2.



Half Life is widely regarded as one of the finest games ever to be made. Itâs clever use of the videogames medium to deliver a strong sci-fi plot is a lesson to any videogame designer, and its of no surprise that the eagerly awaited Half Life 2 tops most peoples âMost Wantedâ lists.



For the uneducated few (Sierra must be hoping there are some), Half Life pits you as Gordon Freeman, newly assigned to the Black MENSA research corp. 



The game kicks off unlike any other game, as youâre transported to the research facility, credits appear on screen, whilst youâre free to look around and observe the entire environment around you, not bad for an intro sequence and very cinematic.

Once you arrive at the facility the real fun begins, immediately youâll realise this isnât like most FPS. Rather then blowing up every thing that moves, thereâs a tint of tactics to the proceedings. Your fellow scientists populate the building, and youâre free to talk to any of these, usually spouting out mindless babble but occasionally offering the occasional bit of advice. 



You can also instruct them to aid you in your quest, donât have the correct security clearance to open the door just ask one of the nearby scientists to help out. Thankfully this feature isnât too advanced, after all this is a FPS and the last thing you want to be worrying about is commanding other characters all over the place, but it is sufficient enough to be a welcome change from the FPS norm.



Once youâve reached the actual test location, youâve got to assist on a new experiment, unfortunately everything goes wrong; an explosion shakes the whole place up, killing or injuring most of your colleagues, whilst strange mutations begin to appear all over the place. So itâs up to you, Gordon Freeman, the only scientist to either be alive or have a shred of courage to find his way up to the top and get help.



The real beauty behind Half Life is that it feels like an action/adventure movie unfolding around you, thereâs no back tracking or reuse of rooms. Fail to save a security from an alien attack and he wonât be there to help you or open the doors, so youâll have to find another way through, this completely non-linear approach is extremely refreshing.

Visually Half Life is a bit of a mixed bag, all of the character models have been overhauled, now sporting a far greater polygon count and detail, with realistic lip synch and facial expressions. However, overall textures lack fine detail and become blurry when you get close, and occasionally the frame rate chugs when the action heats up. But on the whole this isnât a bad looking PS2 title, however it would have been nice to compare if the Dreamcast version had made it.



PS2 Half Life also features an all-new Half Life extension; Decay. This mode is a two player co-operative mode that runs alongside the Half Life story, but with two different scientists. Like Opposing Force and more recently Blue Shift, this mode is well thought out and adds significantly to the game. Thereâs also a two-player deathmatch mode allowing you to fight on any of the games levels.