“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

I have never been a PC gamer. When Half-Life came out for the PC, I was still rocking my Commodore 64 (which was just a teensy bit short in the RAM department). Besides I was too busy with my PS1 to worry about insanely awesome FPS games with pitch perfect atmosphere; I had some Battle Arena Toshinden to conquer.

In all seriousness Half-Life dropped with the force of a judo throw from Segata Sanshiro (which is equivalent to 10 megaton bombs.) It completely revolutionized the FPS genre. Everything from the graphics to the story to the puzzles to the combat pushed the genre in fantastic new directions. Even dedicated non-PC guys like myself stared enviously at our buddy’s copy and hoped for a console port.

Instead of a nameless space marine shooting legions of monsters, you are theoretical physicist Dr. Gordon Freeman. As you help your fellow scientists with some anomalous materials for their teleportation experiment, a resonance cascade is triggered which opens up a portal to the world of Xen. Aliens come pouring through this portal and at first, you are just trying to make your way to the surface to escape the research facility.

The game presents its story through a series of scripted sequences, rather than cut scenes. This means you never feel like you’ve lost control of the action, even when the game is herding you along predetermined paths.

Half Life is perfectly paced. The gameplay is constantly evolving and presenting you with new challenges. Just as you get used to fighting aliens, the marines show up and present an entirely different challenge. Then right as you start to think you’ve gotten the hang of the marines, you have to adapt to a whole new way of fighting enemies.

There are a couple of spots that are a pain in the butt and there is a little too much jumping for my tastes, but at this point I am nitpicking about the number of cup holders in the Bugatti Veyron.

Why did I pick this game?

I picked this game because it is amazing. You can only play so many Rise of the Robots and Skeleton Warriors before you need to rock out to something amazing. There is a reason that Valve is one of the most respected video game developers in the industry, and it all started with the original Half-Life.

How does it hold up with time?

I actually came to the Half-Life party way late. It was well after the PS2 version came out that I finally sat down and seriously played the game for the first time. So all of this hyperbole is for a game that was no longer on the bleeding edge of technology when I played it, and yet it remains one of my favorite games of all time.

The only thing that doesn’t stand the test of time is the graphics. The character models and textures really show their age.Everything else about Half Life is still fantastic. The combat is still amazing, and the rest of the industry is still trying to figure out how to tell a story as effectively.

I don’t think Half-Life is the greatest game of all time, but it is definitely in the discussion. If you consider yourself a gamer you need to play experience Half-Life. It stands as one of the true milestones in gaming history.

On a very special episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, we are joined by special guest Randall Johnson… er.. Smith… Portman… Guy. You know, from the JPAG.

In What We’ve Been Playing, Randall kicks us off with “Battlefield: 1943″ and also super nerdy D&D talk. We talk about the second episode of “Tales of Monkey Island”, Jonah is in the Beta of “Champions Online”, while Jesse talks “Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance” with a focus on the games’ story and has also finally finished “Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time”. Brittany gives her thoughts on “Tomb Raider: Underworld” while Wesley reports on the iPhone game “Hysteria Project”, the original “Half life” and the XBLA hit “Shadow complex”. We also all give our takes on the “Batman: Arkham Asylum” Demo.

In the news there is once again plenty of Capcom related stories, as Jesse gathers the bulk of our show notes. Also, we discuss the World of Warcraft expansion: Cataclysm, the PS3 Slim, the fantastic looking 3D Dot Game Heroes, and much more.

In Let’s Talk About Stuff, we discuss our plans for the upcoming Penny Arcade Expo (PAX to it’s homies) and which panels we are looking forward to checking out this year.

All this plus the usual hijinks on the latest Barrel Roll Podcast.

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Show Links:
Outro Music – “Fortuna (Star Fox)” by The OneUps

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