Valve’s much-delayed 3D epic Half-Life finally showed
its face to the press a few weeks ago with the release of a demo entitled "Day
One," which will ship with a number of graphic and sound cards later this fall. We
got a chance to play it. Simply put, Day One is a preview of the first part of the game.
And what a preview it is.
Most of us have been exposed to Half-Life for the better part of a year and a half, and
all throughout the twists and turns of its development, Valve kept promising something
different. Sure, the skeletal animation system looked great, allowing for huge creatures
and fluid motion; the AI was touted as revolutionary; and the promise of a dynamic story
with character development was the centerpiece of Valve’s pitch. But would they
deliver a good game? Truthfully, everyone knew Half-Life was going to have a fresh take on
the action genre, but I don’t think anyone really expected it would come together so
well.
What Half-Life does to action games is really very simple: It takes the raw addicting
fast-paced formula of your favorite 3D shooter and adds elements of an adventure game.
There are characters that talk to you and run through the levels, as well as a story that
makes you feel like there’s actually a reason to keep playing the game; to discover
what lies around the next corner. This melting of genres into one cohesive game experience
is why Half-Life is so special and revolutionary.
In Half-Life you play the role of Gordon Freeman as he ventures around a top-secret
science lab on the day of a major experiment. As you might guess, thing’s don’t
go quite as planned with the experiment, and the dramatic results are what shape most of
Half-Life’s storyline. Obviously I’m being purposely mum on details in order to
avoid spoiling the story. However, without question, even the Day One demo presents a very
unique game experience with a lot of variety. One minute you are fighting in the closed
corridors of a science lab and the next you are outdoors with a helicopter hovering
overhead and army troops scurrying around in packs of six trying to pin you to the wall
with bullets. This is a sight to behold: Near the end of the Day One demo, the action
really picks up, and thanks to smart enemies, you feel challenged by their tactics instead
of the number of bullets flying out of their automatic weapons. Indeed any action game
that can transcend this level of cat-and-mouse gameplay deserves to be applauded.
Half-Life is such a game.
If there are any concerns about Half-Life, the first is that the artwork and some of
the special effects aren’t up to spec with, say, the visual texture of Unreal.
Nevertheless, the cleaner look to the graphics works well with the institutional feel of
the first few levels, although it remains to be seen how much variety there is during the
rest of the game. Additionally, although the game does take strides towards adding
characters and interactive elements to the environment, at times you feel as if you are
operating inside of a bubble – It’s like the world is carrying on without your
involvement, even though you want to interact. For all the great artificial intelligence,
some of the scientists are still pretty binary in their dialogue with your character,
meaning that they only have a few generic responses to your actions. The next step for a
game like this would be to have characters that react to what you are doing even if you
aren’t directly in contact with them. For instance, if you shoot out a video monitor,
characters would be in another room, hear the sound of the explosion, and run out to see
what happened and comment on it. Half-Life doesn’t seem to get to this level in the
Day One demo, and as mentioned before, this causes some of the scripted sequences to seem
a bit too structured in development. Then again, Half-Life does do more in terms of
scripted events than any other 3D game to date. As is often the case, when one game pushes
the limit, you wonder what could be done to push the limit even further. There’s
still a lot of potential to explore smart characters and plot development in a 3D action
game but Half-Life at least gives us an inkling of what’s to come.
So, what’s the verdict on Day One? Half-Life looks to deliver what Valve promised
back in April of 1997 when it was announced: A compelling 3D game that is unlike anything
else on the market. If the game is to be remembered for a few key assets, the AI and
interwoven plot will likely be at the top of the list come the game’s full retail
release in early November. But even now, Half-Life is a strong contender for Game of the
Year – It celebrates everything that is right with gaming and pushes gameplay to a
new level. Often the best measure of how important a game is involves how it affects
future products. With the release of Half-Life, there’s no question that 3D action
games will no longer be able to get away with vast polygon caverns draped in murky
textures with two torches on the wall and a little spider as an enemy. Gamers will demand
more after Half-Life. More characters. More plot. More interactivity.
Half-Life raises the bar, and our expectations for the future. It crystallizes the
definition of a solid 3D game experience: one that challenges your mind, tests your
reflexes, and appeals to your emotions.
