Half-Life (video game)
- This article describes the computer game. For other meanings see half-life (disambiguation).
| Half-Life | |
|---|---|
| File:Half-life-cover.jpg | |
| Developer(s) | Valve Software |
| Publisher(s) | Valve |
| Engine | GoldSrc (modified Quake engine) |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Sega Dreamcast (cancelled), Apple Macintosh (cancelled) |
| Release | November 20, 1998 (NA) |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
Half-Life is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game developed by Valve Software and published by Sierra Studios in 1998, based on a heavily-modified Quake game engine. It was first published for PCs running Microsoft Windows, and was later ported to Sony's PlayStation 2 and Sega's Dreamcast video game consoles, although it was never officially released in the latter's case. It is now published by Valve themselves via their Steam platform.
Half-Life, often shortened to HL, has been heralded by computer game critics for its gripping and atmospheric presentation of the plotline, which would influence the development of other first-person shooters in the years to come. It was among the first games to feature a story that was told entirely in-game and in real time, without the use of cutscenes. Half-Life is also known for its (at the time) sophisticated enemy AI. Its own success continued for years with expansions such as Half-Life: Opposing Force (OP4) and Half-Life: Blue Shift (BS), mods such as Counter-Strike (CS), Team Fortress Classic (TFC), Deathmatch Classic (DMC), Ricochet and Day of Defeat (DoD), and its sequel Half-Life 2 (HL2). Half-Life won over 50 "Game of the Year" awards from numerous publications and was named "Best PC Game Ever" by PC Gamer in its November 1999, October 2001, and April 2005 issues.[1] It is the best selling PC first-person shooter to date.[citation needed]
Single player
The game is set in a remote area of New Mexico at the Black Mesa Research Facility, a fictional complex that bears many similarities to both the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Area 51. The game's protagonist is the theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman, a survivor of an experiment that goes horribly awry when an unexpected resonance cascade (an apparently completely fictitious occurrence; see also 1, 2) rips dimensional seams that devastate the facility. Aliens from another world - known as Xen - subsequently enter the facility through these dimensional seams.
As Freeman tries to make his way out of the ruined facility to find help for the injured, he soon discovers he is caught between two sides: the hostile aliens, and the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a military force dispatched to cover up the incident — including eliminating Freeman and the rest of the scientists. Throughout the game, a mysterious figure known as (but not actually referred to in-game as) the G-Man regularly appears, apparently monitoring Freeman's progress. Ultimately, Freeman uses the co-operation of surviving scientists and security officers to work his way to the mysterious "Lambda Complex" of Black Mesa, where a team of survivors teleport him to the alien world Xen, where he must kill the Nihilanth, the creature keeping Xen's side of the dimensional rift open.
The game's plot was originally inspired by the computer games Doom and Quake, both produced by id Software, Stephen King's short story/novella The Mist, and an episode of The Outer Limits called "The Borderland." It was later developed by Valve's in-house writer and author, Marc Laidlaw, who wrote the books Dad's Nuke and The 37th Mandala. However, the more influential aspect of the single player mode is not the plot itself, but rather how it is presented to the player.
The game tells the story by flowing into scripted sequences that are integrated as part of the game rather than as cut scene intermissions. These sequences range from the introduction of major plot points such as the resonance cascade to bringing the player into a particularly difficult part of a level. Two of the intended results of this style of presentation were to increase immersion and to maintain a contiguous narrative that keeps the player's interest.
Valve implemented other factors to heighten the feeling of immersion, including that the player never sees or hears their own character, who remains a 'silent protagonist' in the plot, and that the player rarely loses the ability to control Gordon, even during monologues. The scripted sequences help flow by keeping the player in the game, whereas cutscenes in other contemporary games had often been a diversion from previous segments of their gameplay. The levels for HL were also divided into small sections to minimize long interruptions from loading.
Chapters
The game storyline is divided into "chapters":
- Black Mesa Inbound — Gordon starts his day riding a tram into the Black Mesa Facility to begin work. On his way he witnesses many interesting things, such as a military helicopter preparing to leave and a strange man in a blue suit watching him from another tram.
- Anomalous Materials — Gordon is running late for an important experiment. After donning his HEV suit (HEV Mark IV), he proceeds to the test chamber to assist with the experiment (Sample GG-3883) , but something goes terribly wrong.
- Unforeseen Consequences — Disaster strikes: a resonance cascade has been triggered, causing massive structural damage to Black Mesa. Worse yet, hostile aliens begin teleporting in across the facility, attacking the confused and terrified survivors, who are left to fend for themselves.
- Office Complex — Gordon works his way to the surface through an office facility filled with panicked scientists and trigger-happy security guards. He finds out that a military force is en route, and hopes to get help from the soldiers.
- "We've Got Hostiles!" — The marines of the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit take control of Black Mesa and begin a cleanup operation, killing aliens and all facility personnel. Gordon learns that the surviving members of Lambda Team will be in the Lambda Complex at the other end of the facility and they may be able to close the dimensional rift; Gordon begins the journey across Black Mesa to reach them.
- Blast Pit — His normal route blocked, Gordon finds himself deep underground in a rocket testing area inhabited by three tentacles. After sneaking around the tentacles' lair and fuelling the engine, he fires the rocket, killing the tentacles, and is able to follow the tunnel it leaves behind.
- Power Up — Gordon arrives at the terminus of a deactivated underground rail system and is forced to fight off hostile marines and a Gargantua. He restores power and begins a journey deep underground.
- On a Rail — A guard informs Gordon that a communications satellite needs to be launched to allow the scientists at the Lambda Complex to seal the dimensional breach. Gordon fights his way through the rail system, finding entrenched marines lying in wait for him, and launches the satellite's rocket.
- Apprehension — Working his way through old, abandoned underground areas, Gordon runs into a team of mysterious assassins and is captured by the marines, who dump him in a garbage compactor (faint Star Wars overtones).
- Residue Processing — Gordon escapes from the compactor and carefully moves through "residue processing," an old and sparsely populated industrial area of the complex filled with hazardous materials and automated materials processing equipment.
- Questionable Ethics — With the help of hiding scientists, Gordon makes his way through a deserted laboratory complex where experiments were performed on Xen creatures, clearly indicating that human scientists had been visiting Xen prior to the resonance cascade. He eventually makes it outside and continues his journey to the Lambda Complex.
- Surface Tension — The surface is swarming with aliens and marines, who have brought in vast amounts of military hardware to try and even the odds against the Xen forces. Gordon destroys several tanks and aircraft while making his way across the bombed-out remains of the Cold War-era buildings on the surface and even navigating a sheer cliffside. Escaping a Gargantua in a parking garage, Gordon tricks the military into bombing a sealed entrance into the fortified Lambda Complex. Surface Tension is one of the longest and most elaborate chapters in the game. This level also features a large building through which Freeman must carefully navigate; trip-mines lie in clusters littering the floors. One false step on Gordon's part can mean detonation of the building and instant death.
- Forget About Freeman! — The marines begin to evacuate Black Mesa and airstrikes begin. Gordon navigates underground water channels and fights against squads of hardened alien grunts on the way to Lambda Core.
- Lambda Core — Gordon arrives in the Lambda Core to find that aliens are all over the place. He brings the nuclear reactor online and discovers the secret teleportation labs which have allowed expeditions to travel to the alien borderworld of Xen. The handful of surviving personnel inform him that an immensely powerful being in that borderworld is keeping the portal between the worlds open, and that he must kill it to prevent the Xen aliens from taking over completely. They activate the teleporter and Gordon is relocated to Xen. This is the last level to feature the Black-Ops assassins.
- Xen — On the strange borderworld, Gordon encounters many of the aliens that had been brought into Black Mesa, as well as the remains of HEV-wearing researchers that came before him. He activates an alien teleporter and is whisked away.
- Gonarch's Lair — Gordon faces a powerful spider-like creature which continually gives birth to headcrabs. After killing it, he finds a portal and enters it.
- Interloper — Gordon arrives at an alien factory and discovers that it is a genetic flesh factory (much like the factory of id Software's Quake II level Processing Plant), manufacturing an army of engineered soldiers (presumably for the invasion of Earth). In addition, the Vortigaunts working there do not attempt to harm him (unless coerced by the Alien Controllers), which suggests that they are forced to fight by rulers of Xen. After making his way through, he finds another portal and enters it.
- Nihilanth — In a vast cave, Gordon finally confronts the powerful and mysterious being that is holding the portal open: the Nihilanth. Gordon destroys the being's shield and so then is able to destroy its vulnerable brain.
- Endgame — Gordon, having just obliterated the Nihilanth, is met by the mysterious G-Man who shows him what he has accomplished (pacifying Xen for an invasion by the HECU, which even G-Man calls "a nasty piece of work") and offers him an ultimatum: either work for his "employers" or be faced with an impossible battle against hundreds of Xen creatures with no weapons.
Weapons
There are 14 weapons available to players in both single player and multiplayer games of Half-Life. Half-Life: Opposing Force added several more weapons. Many reviews of Half-Life mentioned the impressive functionality and "usefulness" of all the weapons designed. Each weapon's damage profile is distinct, none feeling superfluous or excessively powerful; each has a specific advantage in the appropriate situation. The weapons in HL (without expansions) are:
- Crowbar: A simple melee weapon that is iconic of Gordon Freeman and Half-Life.
- Pistol (GLOCK 17, Beretta 92F/FS pistol with the High Definition pack): The first and simplest ranged weapon. Has good accuracy and does more damage per shot than the MP5, but these advantages are offset by a low rate of fire that makes it more useful on weak targets, like headcrabs or laser trip mines. Unlike most other ranged weapons, this pistol is effective underwater. Primary fire is accurate with every shot; secondary fire uses the machine pistol function, and is faster but less accurate. The rate of fire is then comparable with the MP5, but does slightly more damage per shot. Patient players will sometimes use the GLOCK 17 to pick off targets from a distance when sniper weapons are unavailable, as most enemies cannot attack over extreme ranges.
- .357 Magnum (Colt Python revolver): An extremely powerful and accurate gun. It has a long reload time and a 6-round cylinder. Good for dispatching enemies in one hit, especially from a distance. In multiplayer mode, secondary fire gives the player a zoomed view.
- Submachine gun (Heckler & Koch MP5N/M203 grenade launcher, Colt M4 Carbine/M203 grenade launcher with the High Definition pack): Excellent for close-range combat. Has a fast rate of fire that compensates for its poor damage and accuracy. Secondary fire launches an extremely powerful under-slung grenade that detonates on impact. It uses the same ammo pool as the pistol.
- Shotgun (Franchi SPAS-12): Does high damage at close range, but its broad fire cone makes it weak at a distance. It can be reloaded one shell at a time, but is slow to fully reload. Its secondary fire shoots two shells at once.
- Crossbow: A sniper weapon with high damage and accuracy, but with a slow rate of fire and reload time. Like the pistol, the crossbow works underwater. Secondary fire toggles its zoom mode. Multiplayer behavior is quite different: it fires explosive bolts, and when zoomed in is an instantaneous-fire sniper weapon.
- Hornet gun (alien weapon): Also known as the "Hivehand". The same weapon used by the Alien Grunts, this gun is a living creature which appears to be a larvae of some sort (Due to the fact that they sport no legs). After firing out the hornets, the creature turns erect & tense, after a short while though, it returns to its normal breathing state. When the larvae is not used, it appears to be sleeping. It hives, constantly replenishing "hornets" (sometimes known as "thornets") as a way to defend itself. Primary fire shoots up to 8 homing hornets that can hit unseen enemies around corners. Secondary fire launches straight-flying, non-homing hornets that move faster and have a higher rate of fire compared to the homing ones.
- Rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launcher (ATGM-4000 RPG Launcher): Does a large amount of explosive splash damage. Secondary fire toggles a laser designator that guides the RPG to its target. Can only hold one rocket at a time with 5 more in reserve.
- Quantum destabilizer (Gluon/Egon gun): This experimental weapon fires out a concentrated energy which disrupts its target's molecules. It is a extremely powerful gun which literally, because of how it kills, rips apart enemies of any type. It looks and operates similar to the proton pack used by the characters in the movie Ghostbusters. Because of its internal weapon name, weapon_egon, it is also known as the Egon gun; this is probably a reference to the Ghostbusters character Egon Spengler.
- Tau cannon/Gauss gun: Another experimental weapon that rapidly shoots beams of tau particles that reflect off walls if hit indirectly. Secondary fire allows the gun to charge up to shoot a more powerful beam that can penetrate thin walls and pushes the user in the opposite direction. The recoil is deliberately exaggerated in multiplayer so the player can "Gauss jump" very high and reach hidden areas or escape opponents. This feature is a deliberate nod to "rocketjumping" in Quake. If the gun is kept charged for too long (ca 10s), it overloads and damages its wielder.
- Hand grenade: A frag grenade that explodes a few seconds after being thrown.
- Laser trip mine: A high-explosive Claymore mine-like device that can be attached to walls. It is set off either by damaging the mine or by "breaking" the laser "tripwire" emitting from it.
- Satchel charge: A high-explosive that can be thrown a short distance and detonated when the player presses fire. Secondary fire allows the player to place several satchels and detonate them simultaneously.
- Snarks (alien weapon): Aggressive and little alien creatures that quickly pursue their target, pestering and biting, until finally exploding after several seconds (or if shot). If they cannot locate a hostile target, they will turn on the player that set them loose. They can be used, for example, to draw enemies out from their cover.
Additionally, the long jump module can increase the horizontal distance and speed of jumps. This increased mobility can be used to dodge attacks quickly and jump from one platform to another. The long jump is done by moving forward, crouching, then jumping.
Development
Half-Life was the first product for Kirkland, Washington-based developer Valve Software, which was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Mike Harrington and Gabe Newell. They settled on a concept for a scary 3D action game and licensed the Quake engine from id Software. (Valve eventually modified the engine a great deal, notably adding skeletal animation and Direct3D support; a developer later stated that seventy percent of the engine code was rewritten.) The company had a difficult time finding a publisher at first, many believing their project 'too ambitious' for a studio headed by newcomers to the video game industry. Sierra On-Line had been very interested in making a 3D action game, especially one based on the Quake engine, and so signed them for a one-game deal.
The original code name for Half-Life was Quiver, after the Arrowhead military base from Stephen King's novella The Mist, which served as early inspiration for the game. Gabe Newell explained in an interview that the name Half-Life was chosen because it was evocative of the theme, not clichéd, and had a corresponding visual symbol: the Greek letter λ (lower-case lambda), which represents the decay constant in the half-life equation.
The first public appearances of Half-Life came in early 1997; it was a hit at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) that year, where they primarily demonstrated the animation system and game AI. Valve hired science fiction author Marc Laidlaw in August 1997 to work on the game's characters and level design. Half-Life was originally planned to be shipped in late 1997, to compete with Quake II, but was postponed when Valve decided the game needed significant revision.
In a 2003 Making Of... feature in Edge, Newell discusses the team's early difficulties with level design. In desperation, a single level was assembled including every weapon, enemy, scripted event and level design quirk that the designers had come up with so far. This single level inspired the studio to press on with the game. As a result, the studio completely reworked the game's AI and levels in the year leading up to its release. At E3 1998 it was given Game Critics Awards for being the "Best PC Game" and "Best Action Game" at the expo. The release date was delayed several times in 1998 before the game was finally released in November of that year.
Ports
Half-Life was ported to the PlayStation 2 by Gearbox Software and released in 2001. This version of the game had a significant overhaul in terms of both character models, weapons, and more advanced and extended levels and general map geometry. Also added in was a head-to-head play and a co-op expansion called Half-Life: Decay that allowed players to play as the two female scientists Dr. Cross and Dr. Green at Black Mesa.
Versions for the Sega Dreamcast and Apple Macintosh [2] [3] were essentially completed, but never commercially released.
Dreamcast version
Gearbox Software was slated to release a port to the Sega Dreamcast under contract by Valve and their then publisher Sierra On-Line near the end of 2000. At the ECTS 2000, a build of the game was playable on the publisher's stand, and developers Randy Pitchford and Brian Martel were in attendance to show it off and give interviews to the press. However, it was never commercially released. The following year Sierra On-Line showed a PlayStation 2 port at E3 2001. This version was released in North America in late October of the same year, followed by a European release just a month later.
Despite never officially being released, the Dreamcast version was leaked onto the Internet, fully-playable; it contains the full versions of Half-Life and Blue Shift, both with an early version of the High Definition Pack (it was from this port that the pack was spawned), but has a somewhat inconsistent framerate (though never to the point of unplayability) and lengthier load times when the player moves from area to area (around ten seconds, while today's average PC can load an area in around one and a half). Also, there are some saving problems; the number of blocks on a VMU increases rapidly as the player reaches the end of a level. While the game allows you to remove files to increase space, sometimes it still isn't enough.
The console's mouse and keyboard peripherals are supported, if preferred to the standard controller. If the controller is used, the game adds an auto-aim feature, so that when an enemy nears the center of the player's vision, the aiming crosshair will shift over toward the enemy to make shooting them easier. The game's controls are customizable. The game has no multiplayer mode, and lacks the parental feature of the PC version (players cannot turn the gibs off). It does have an interesting password feature, however; with three dials, the user makes various phrases, such as "Otis Loves Dreamcast" (god mode), "Fear and Gravity" (jump to Xen in HL), or "Barney Goes To Work" (skip the intro in Blue Shift and jump right into the main game, pre-resonance cascade).
Macintosh version
Though more or less complete and ready for mass production, the Macintosh port of Half-Life was scrapped because of incompatibility with the PC version's multiplayer mode. The developers also stated that mods for PC Half-Life would not be compatible with the Mac port. Additionally, concerns over the task load associated with providing technical support on more than one end platform at once may have contributed to the demise of Half-Life for Macintosh.
Later developments
The sequel, Half-Life 2, was merely a rumor until a strong impression at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in May 2003 launched it into levels of hype perhaps unequalled by any other game. The player again takes the role of Gordon Freeman, this time several years after the Black Mesa incident in the dystopic Eastern European "City 17" where he must fight as part of a rebellion against an alien regime. After a series of controversies and delays Half-Life 2 was released on November 16, 2004.
Main article: Half-Life: Source
To experience first-hand the processes mod-makers would have to go through with the new engine, Valve ported Half-Life (dubbed Half-Life: Source) and Counter-Strike to their new Source engine. Half-Life: Source is a straight port, lacking any new content or the Blue Shift High Definition pack. However, it does take advantage of vertex and pixel shaders for more realistic water effects, as well as Half-Life 2's realistic physics engine. They also added several other features from Half-Life 2, including an improved dynamic lightmap, vertex map, and shadowmap system with cleaner, higher resolution and specular texture and normal maps, as well as utilization of the render-to-texture soft shadows found in Half-Life 2's Source engine, along with 3D skybox replacements in place of the old 16-bit color bitmap skies. Also redesigned was the crossbow that will pin its targets to a nearby wall (if they're close enough). The Source engine itself, however, is not entirely perfect. Certain control issues are generally regarded as being a problem, such as ladder bounce (where disconnecting from a ladder gives a sideways vector boost, which can be highly undesirable when trying to move near a ladder on a platform over a fall), fall push (where moving off of a platform into a fall gives a sideways vector boost), and jumping from platforms (where the graphics engine tends to lead the player to think a jump can be made later than it really can). Naturally, the Half-Life port possesses the Source engine's control weaknesses as well as its many graphical strengths. Half-Life: Source is available with special editions of Half-Life 2. Day of Defeat: Source was released on September 26 2005.
On June 10, 2005, Valve announced through their Steam update news service an upcoming port of Half-Life Deathmatch, the multiplayer portion of the original game, much in the same fashion as the earlier released Half-Life: Source. No exact release date was given, simply the words "In the coming weeks..." On May 2, 2006, it was released.
Expansions
Two expansion packs by outside developer Gearbox Software have been released for the PC version: Half-Life: Opposing Force (1999) and Half-Life: Blue Shift (2001). The former, often shortened to OpFor or OP4, returns the player to Black Mesa during the events of Half-Life's storyline, but this time from the perspective of the U.S. Marines sent to cover up evidence of the incident. It introduced several new weapons (notably the M249 SAW LMG and a Barnacle grappling gun), new non-player characters, both friendly and hostile (Otis the security guard and the "Race X" aliens, respectively) and new, previously unseen areas of the facility. The expansion is shorter than Half-Life, having 11 chapters to the original's 17.
Blue Shift returns the player to HL's Black Mesa timeline once more, this time as one of the facility's security guards. (This expansion was originally developed as a bonus mission for the canceled Dreamcast version.) Blue Shift came with an optional High Definition Pack that could update the look of Half-Life, Opposing Force, and the new Blue Shift content. In particular, the models' polygon count and texture resolutions were increased, and some changes were made to the in-game sounds, most notably the shotgun. Blue Shift had relatively little new content compared to Opposing Force: aside from a few models (jacket-less scientists and security guards, Otis, and Dr. Rosenberg) all content was already present in the original Half-Life.
Half-Life: Decay was another expansion by Gearbox, released only as an extra with the PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life. The add-on featured cooperative gameplay in which two players could solve puzzles or fight against the many foes in the Half-Life universe.
The Half-Life Platinum Collection was released in 2000. The games included are:
Later in 2002, the pack was rereleased with Half-Life: Blue Shift added.
Mods
From its release in 1998, Half-Life saw fervent support from independent game developers, due in no small part to support and encouragement from Valve Software. Worldcraft, the level-design tool used during the game's development, was included with the game software. Printed materials accompanying the game indicated Worldcraft's eventual release as a retail product, but these plans never materialised. Valve also released a software development kit, enabling developers to modify the game and create mods. Both tools were significantly updated with the release of the version 1.1.0.0 patch. Many supporting tools (including texture editors, model editors, and rival level editors) were either created or updated to work with Half-Life.
Half-Life's code has been released and is also being used as a base for many mods such as the immensely popular and free multiplayer mod, Counter-Strike. Other popular multiplayer mods include Team Fortress Classic (TFC), The Specialists, Day of Defeat, Deathmatch Classic (DMC), Action Half-Life, Firearms, and Natural Selection. TFC and DMC were developed in-house at Valve Software. Counter-Strike, The Specialists, Day of Defeat, and others that began life as the work of independent developers (self-termed "modders"), later on received aid from Valve. Numerous single player mods have also been created, the most important of them listed here in order of popularity: They Hunger (2000-2001, a survival horror total conversion trilogy involving zombies), Poke 646 (2002, a follow-up to the original Half-Life story with much improved graphics), USS Darkstar (1999, a futuristic action-adventure onboard of a zoological research spaceship), Gunman Chronicles (2000, a futuristic Western movie-style total conversion with emphasis on its single player mode) and Half-Life: Absolute Redemption (2000, which brings back Gordon Freeman for four additional episodes and another encounter with the G-Man).
Some Half-Life modifications eventually landed on retail shelves. Counter-Strike was the most successful, unexpectedly becoming the biggest selling online game to date and having been released in five different editions: as a standalone product (2000), as part of the Platinum Collection (2000), as an Xbox version (2003) as the single player spin-off, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (2004), and the newest addition, Counter-Strike: Source, which runs on Half-Life 2's Source engine. Team Fortress Classic, Gunman Chronicles and Day of Defeat were also released as stand-alone products.
Soundtrack
Half-Life's soundtrack was composed by Kelly Bailey.
(Note: Most of the tracks were retitled and carried over to the Half-Life 2 original soundtrack; the names in parentheses are the revised titles used in the Half-Life 2 OST. Tracks 2, 12 and 24 were remixed for the sequel.)
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Trivia
- The PS2 version of Half-Life appears briefly on the popular drama TV series Lost in The Greater Good during a flashback experienced by Sayid Jarrah, one of the main characters. The sequence shows Sayid walking in on several people playing the game:
- Yusef: "Damn it. I'm out of ammo!"
- Hadded: "Use the crowbar."
- Yusef: "That only works on the zombies. Not the big bugs."
- Director Quentin Tarantino (who is said to be a huge Half-Life fan) has reportedly considered the possibility of directing a movie adaptation.[4]
- Both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 draw some inspiration from various adaptations of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds; the three-legged "Striders" that appear in Half-Life 2 are very similar in appearance to Wells's description of the "Martian war machines" in the book, and the Vortigaunts who appear throughout the series are almost identical to the Mor-Tax aliens from the War of the Worlds TV series.
See also
- Half-Life: Uplink - Half-Life demo with exclusive gaming content released in 1999.
- Metamod
- Gabe Newell
- Half-Life 2
- List of Half-Life mods
- Vortigaunt, a frequently encountered Xen species.
References
- "Half-Life 2 with Gabe Newell". An interview by Josh "Storm" Esterov of www.City-17.net (now defunct) with Gabe Newell of Valve.
- "Half-Life History". Information on what influenced HL and HL2, citing Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar ISBN 0761543643.
- Keighley, Geoffrey. "The Final Hours of Half-Life." GameSpot. 1998.
External links
Official
Major fansites/communities
- Planet Half-Life, a popular fansite of HL- and Valve-related topics from GameSpy.
- Half-Life Fallout, another popular Half-Life fansite.
- Half-Life Clan Collision League, a European league.
Development communities
- Valve ERC Collective - features news, discussion, and help on editing and modding Half-Life.
- Valve Developer Community Wiki, a wiki for mod developers.
- Half-Life mods - the game's ModDB listing.
Related resources
- 17's Buddies - more than 10,000 maps to download for HL, HL2 and various mods.
- Half-Life entry at GameFAQs - has FAQs, walkthroughs, (single player) cheats, and discussion.
- Half-Life at MobyGames.
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