The feeling of relief, as you safely reach ground level, turning into doubt and betrayal, as you are greeted by the bullets of the cover-up soldiers, is still unparalleled.

- The set pieces. The intro on the train, the chamber accident at the beginning, the falling lift, and so on. It was lightyears ahead of its time in that respect. It petered out after the beginning, but it was still awesome.
- The spatial puzzles. The fan that blows you up vertically, the blocks in the green goo, the platforming on Zen, etc, etc, etc. It made you think without frustrating you. Again, I’d never played anything like it.
- The sound effects. I can still here that fucking whirring noise when you switch over weapons. And the suit’s voice. They definitely did the right thing pulling them over into Half-Life 2.
- The combat against the soldiers. This was groudbreaking. Everything about it was thrilling. Multiple paths through sections, the grating voices of the soldiers, the way they flanked you and worked in packs, the secondary grenades on the SMG. Very cool.
- The epic nature of it. It went on and on and on. I’m not sure I ever got bored of it. I must have booted up Half-Life single-player 10 times since it launched.

I loved it. I admit it. It was amazing. Half-Life 2 was nowhere near as good, in my opinion.

I couldn’t agree more, Blerk. I always wondered what the fuss was about with Half-Life. I understand that the protagonist is a Scientist, but that really is forgotten after the first level, isn’t it? The first level in Black Mesa seems to embrace the fact, but after that Gordon just becomes another faceless man, with a gun.

I actually had exactly the same play experience as you, for the long and short of it. I loved the lead in to the game, but in the later Black Mesa stuff, and especially when Black Mesa was left behind, it just became incredibly boring. And the expansion packs where one actually took control of an army bloke were the worst of the lot.

I’d rather see something like Blood or Stryfe have a renaissance, they were PC FPS games that really broke the mold.

Now there’s an interesting subject.

The first level is super-awesome. After that the story sort of fizzles out and it’s all a bit… boring.

The en.

D.

That’s not going to work is it.

Apart from the crappy Zen levels.