Research and Development

Here is another entry into my Half Life series of articles. This one is about the Half Life 2 mod Research and Development (Indie Elitist review), which uniquely is a action FPS puzzle adventure, set within the Half Life universe (Half Life Universe, The Story Thus Far). In Research and Development you are are not given any weapons and you solve a lot of logic puzzles, but that does not mean that it is without action, explosions, death, combine, and zombies; in fact you encounter all of these in large quantities and dispatch more then a few of them though interesting and unique means.

Definitely worth a playthrough, so if you are interested check out its homepage.

Half Life: (Blue Shift, Opposing Force)

There were two expansions too Half Life (review, story synopsis) made, both by the outside developer Gearbox Software, Blue Shift and Opposing Forces. Both games are moderately short and take place at the same time as Half Life and like Half Life as set within Black Mesa and the alien world Xen. Additionally, they both have negative and positive aspects and while they overall hold the same Half Life feel play very differently.

Blue Shift added a High Definition pack that upgrades both Blue Shift and Half Life, if you so desire (note: it is not the default and it actually rather tricky to get Steam to even do it). But other then this it pretty much relies on content from the original Half Life set within new levels and challenges. In this game you play the security guard, Barney Calhoun and what I loved the most about it was the how tactical it often got while you were fighting groups of enemy soldiers, requiring intelligent use of grenades and remote controlled bombs to prevent you from being overwhelmed (which I found was not necessary in the original Half Life).

Opposing Force adds a bunch of weapons and removes a few others from the original Half Life, overall making your entire arsenal usable and far better then the original. In it you play Adrian Shepard, a US marine and one of the enemy characters in the original game (though not specifically). The best part of this game is, by far, the new and powerful weaponry, but one of the bigger features is the addition of the ability to control a squad of soldiers, engineers, and medics who help during battle and in the case of engineers are sometimes needed to progress. Unfortunately, these squad controls are also the worst implemented aspect of the entire game and are not even adequate in simply getting all of your squad to follow you around.

Both of these games were a pleasure to play and both are great in there own way and I would recommend them to anyone.

Half Life Universe, The Story Thus Far

I have been playing a lot of Half Life (1, 2, 2: Episodes) games recently and one key aspect of all of them is the passive plot. There is a lot going on in the Half Life universe but it is not shoved down your throat, you have to work for it and often you will be in the dark and have no idea what is happening. So I recently set out to figure out what was going on while I was playing the Half Life games and what did I miss between and before the games, the following is a summery of my findings (for more detailed information check out The Half Life SAGA Story Guide).

Prior to the our first contact with the Half Life universe in Half Life original quite a lot was going on. Apature Science was developing its portal technology and GlaDOS was made operational; And the Combine Empire invades the Vortigaunts's, unseen and unnamed, homeworld. A long interplanetary war ensues and in a final desperate act they flee to Xen (the alien world that you encounter in Half Life), a "dimensional transit" station.

GMan orchestrates The Resonance Cascade by supplying the test sample that Gordan Freeman uses. The denizens of Xen notice and begin to flee to earth but the Combine has already taken notice itself. The Black Ops are sent in to clean up the incident and kill anyone they find. Barney Calhoun escapes the facility with a group of scientists (Blue Shift). A third never named race of aliens start teleporting to Black Mesa and attacking both the humans and aliens from Xen they find there; Shephard kills the Gene Worm facilitating this second invasion, and who is itself coming though a portal to Black Mesa at the time. He is then taken into custody by GMan to prevent the story of Black mesa getting out and the facility is destroyed in a nuclear explosion, originally set by the Black Ops, disarmed by Shepard, and then rearmed by GMan (Opposing Forces). By the time of the arrival of the second aliens, Gordon Freeman has already travelled to Xen and now he defeats Nihilanth, the leader of the Vortigaunts (freeing them from his slavery like absolute control), and is recruited by GMan to work for him and put into stasis, ending Half Life.

The following is a recount of the chaos that ensued between the original and Half Life 2; Sometime within this mess it is believed that the events of Portal take place. The Resonance Cascade spreads creating The Portal Storms depositing aliens from Xen all over earth. The human populations huddle together in urban areas behind fences and armed guards abandoning the outside world to the aliens. The Combine launch an all out assault on earth using these Portal Storms, and the Vortigaunts ally with the humans in this struggle. The Combine immediately start building their Citadels and converting humans to the Overwatch. Dr. Breen is modified and made administrator of earth, and in his first act he surrenders earth, and for the most part major opposition is ended (7 hours after the invasion started). The Survivors disperse into the country and rebel fighter groups start to form while the remaining major cities are renamed to City 1, ..., City 27, etc..

Humanity is repeatedly told that this is simply a traditional period in joining the Combine's Universal Union, but of course the Combine has already started their Borg like genocidal assimilation of the Humans and enslavement of the Vortigaunts. The Overwatch implement their Suppression Field, blocking human procreation. A chemical is put into the water to make people gradually forget the past and the Combine begin to drain earth's oceans.

Gordon Freeman returns from stasis, sent by GMan to help the rebellion. He lands a huge blow against the Combine at Nova Prospekt sparking a major rebellion. Continuing to be directed by GMan, mostly from the shadows, Gordon is successful in destabilizing the reactor of Combine's capital on earth City 17's Citadel. GMan's objective accomplished, and the Citadel about to blow leaving the Combine leaderless and fractured, GMan returns Gordon to stasis ending Half Life 2. Episode 1 starts immediately after this with GMan going back to rescue Alyx Vance but being blocked by a group of Vortigaunts who rescue her themselves, transporting her to the Citadels base and then forcing Gordon Freeman out of stasis and sending him after her. These Vortigaunts continue to block GMan from now on, severely restricting his ability to guide and communicate with both Alyx and Gordon. Before they lose the Citadel completely, the Combine set it to create a super portal and send a transmission to their homeworld asking for reinforcements. This portal is created and the request sent, destroying the Citadel in the process and ending Episode 1, but soon after the resistance is able to shut down this portal and in the process learn the location of the long missing Aperture Science research vessel, the Borealis, thought to have far advanced portal technology on board. And in the final scene of Episode 2, Eli Vance, one of the leading scientists of the resistance and Alyx's father is killed, by a newly hatched Combine advisor.

So the Combine on earth have been thrown into a fractured chaos and reinforcements from their homeworld have been delayed, but the Combine Advisors have also just entered the scene and proven to be nearly unstoppable personally and likely will prove quite effective at regaining control of the dispersed Combine forces.

Half Life 2: (Episode 1, 2, Lost Cost, Mission Improbable)

While Half Life 2 (my review) has a moderately self contained story and is a full game, the end of it does not end the Half Life 2 story arc. From the onset three episodes were planed that would take place immediately after the events of Half Life 2 and would theoretically provide some sort of stable situation regarding the Combine and the resistance. Simply named Episode 1 (2006), Episode 2 (2007), and Episode 3 (unreleased, and long delayed), this series rivals the original Half Life 2 game in quality in many aspects; And together with the non-cannon short game Lost Coast, and dare I suggest, non-official (but with a similar quality) Mission Improbably mod, you get the entire Half Life 2 universe.

What I really liked about the two episodes was that they were not at all afraid to try something new. They are filled completely with short, interesting, and unique situations and quite possibly better then the much longer Half Life 2; whether you are exploring a huge complex antlion burrow, defending against waves of Mawmen in complete darkness, or lobbing bombs onto striders, it is just terrifically unique and well worth playing. And one tiny, but very much appreciated, improvement made in Episode 2 is the separating of the flashlight from the suits main power and a improved battery for the flashlight.

Your partner, Alyx Vance, sniping through the window in Episode 1.

A tiny section of the beautiful antlion nest in Episode 2.

Lost Coast is a short tech demo/single level Half Life 2 game. While you play Gordon Freeman and you are playing in the Half Life 2 world the story's events are not considered canonical as far as I can tell, and there is really no timeline that could include them and make sense. Lost Coast takes place completely on some cliffy coast, where you must travel up the cliff face and explore the monastery on the top, shutting down the Combine headcrab artillery. Its decent, nothing special compared to the rest of the Half Life 2 collection.

While you never get to go to this town, across the water, it is almost
always visible and plays an important part in the plot.

There is just one more Half Life 2 game I want to talk about, and I believe it is the only other game of note that features Gordon Freeman set within the Half Life 2 universe. Mission Improbable is a three episode (only the first two are currently released) Half Life 2: Episode 2 mod with a completely new story. While the gameplay of this mod is actually very well done, it is the visuals that impressed me the most. It looks absolutely amazing; By far the best to be seen in the entire collection of Half Life games. With huge open spaces where you can see for miles and actually go there, the graphics are simply fantastic. Add to that great solid gameplay and interesting situations and puzzles and you get a game that is every-bit as good as the other, official, Half Life 2 games mentioned here.

Half Life 2 (a review and a comparison to the original)

Half Life 2 is the 2004 sequel to the critically acclaimed original Half Life (my review) and set fifteen years into the future. Since Gordon Freeman's victory, things have taken a turn for the worse and the earth is now under the totalitarian and dystopian rule of the Combine. These Combine, in addition to running a quite normal totalitarian police force, also employ a few alien monsters/creatures you will recognize as well as a few new ones, which they unleash onto the resistance.

In Half Life 2 you run, you jump, you shoot, you platform, you drive, and you solve physics based puzzles. The puzzles are actually quite good, if far too infrequent and being physics based make the game seem really down to earth and immersive. The platforming, and in particular the driving, is also quite well done and entertaining, but I think more of it could of been done without the constant pressure of enemy fire; Which is really my biggest gripe with the game, the near constant action.

For the most part you are in firefights, and while I think that Half Life 2 handles this action better then the original I sure enjoyed the greater amount of peaceful and non-action sequences in the original. Additionally, while the plot of the of the original had a few mysterious unexplained sections you had a basic idea of what was going on and what you did not know; This is not at all present in this sequel; You are working for the still completely mysterious G-Man; Fighting against an enemy that you have never seen before and other then the obvious observation that they are some sort of totalitarian police force you only know their name, you know absolutely nothing about where they come from, what they want, or even what they have been doing; And the rebels, you suddenly appear after fifteen years and everyone takes it in stride, does not even bother to get you caught up in recent events, and apparently have recruited the vortigaunts, a common enemy from Half Life who apparently have become a race of Yodas (incredibly wise and powerful) in your absence.

For the graphics I am somewhat divided, Half Life 2 still looks great and has even better graphics then the original is a few ways but I also think that a few things look significantly better in the original. Overall, I would say that Half Life 2 is superior but it is not quite as cut and dry as you might expect, but no matter where you think it stands with regard to the original it still holds up even to today's standards in attention to details and high resolution realism (while it is obvious that the original looks dated).

Overall, played basically back to back with Half Life original, it is simply not as good a game as the original. It is still a great game, and different enough that I hesitate to say it is objectively worse; I sure enjoyed the original  more, but I am sure that some people will enjoy Half Life 2 just as much or even more. But Half Life 2 does not really need to be compared to it predecessor and standing with the other games of its era it looks quite good, and it is undoubtedly one of the top FPSes of its decade.

Half Life

Recently finished playing Half Life: Source, which is simply Half Life ported to the Source engine. It has the same levels, same graphics, same everything; Wrapped in a shiny new and theoretically better engine. It is simply a fantastic game with a wide range of entertaining experiences to offer. Playing the game I could not help but stop and think that they really don't make FPSs like they used to. There are elements of horror, action, tactics, and even a few puzzles.

It is simply an amazing game full of unique and enjoyable gameplay. On the the most acclaimed parts of this gameplay is the enemy AI; While the monsters act quite normally for games of that era the human squads act far more realistic then ever before seen. They will run away if losing and even have a habit of flanking you. Overall it is a simple system that seems to be based on damage ratio (do significantly more damage then you take, particularly in a short period of time, and you can cause the enemies to turn tail and run) which adds a significant amount of tactics and strategy to the game. Adding to this are remote controlled bombs, vicinity detonated mines, and turret emplacements and a plethora of unique weapons.

But above and beyond the AI and the action and shooting is what really makes the game. There is a ton of platforming, exploring, and even a few puzzle like challenges. The shooting as actually a minority of the gameplay, it is really the platforming and exploring that the game is about, i just wish that more developers understood that a FPS does not have to be all shooting and that anything done in enough repetition is boring.

My mini-review of Half Life.