Half-Life

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heh. the snrk

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Introduction

Half-Life (1998) is the first installment of a first-person shooter video game series created by Valve. You play as Gordon Freeman, a scientist who suddenly finds himself faced against aliens and the U.S. army after a failed experiment. With the help of fellow scientists and security guards, Gordon fights his way through the laboratory and the above-ground New Mexican desert to reverse the experiment's destruction. Half-Life is also Valve's first game, which is the same company that made other titles like Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Left 4 Dead, just to name a few! (I'm mostly going to talk about the first game because I have yet to play Half-Life 2...)

Resonance Cascade

The Resonance Cascade is the catalyst for everything that happens in Half-Life. i will write more here but it is 10 pm and a school night

Why I'm Obsessed

I could go on and on and on about why I love Half-Life so much. It's an interest i've been into almost as long as I was into Homestuck (and my Homestuck phase lasted a WHILE). I first played it during the end of summer in 2023, around late-July and early-August? It's a little funny how I decided to play it, actually. I'm not really into first-person shooters (FPS), but my friend's younger brother gifted me the first two games on Steam during the summer sale. So, I thought, "Sure, I guess I'll play Half-Life." I also wanted to play it to watch Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware (which will get a section later on this page) because my other friend liked it, but I wanted to actually experience the game myself first.

I was BLOWN AWAY. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. Again, I had never played FPS games before it, but I fell in love with Half-Life. I think what really drew me in was the story. I'm a huge nerd, I love science fiction and stories about scientists (mentioned that in my about me page!), so it was basically right up my alley. I also really liked how the player had complete control over everything throughout the game. Rather than cutscenes, you learned everything through characters talking to you. I was a little surprised at how you could just play the entire game straight without any breaks (loading screens, dialogue cutscenes) because not many games do something like that. Actually, there's ONE cutscene, but it makes sense because Gordon gets ambushed and is robbed of all his weaponry by soldiers.

That's another thing, you can make Gordon ANYONE. He can be anything you want him to, he's a completely silent protagonist. I'm not saying I prefer silent protagonists over ones who can talk because both have their pros and cons when it comes to telling a game's story. I will say that players can insert themselves into Gordon's shoes easier *because* he doesn't say anything, it's just the nature of silent protagonists to be easier to project onto. You can make Gordon violent and kill every guard and scientist he sees. You can make him try to save every guard and scientist he sees. Now, this leads me into my next topic...

Fan-Content