Hello! Thank you for stopping by for my first ever review of a game!

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TL;WR: Yes, if interested at all, play the game! A great, if not MUST experience. Half Life 1 does hold up to being fun, very well (imo ofc). Moral of the story: Keep an open mind.

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Introduction - Valve's debut game "Half-Life" in 1998

Let me preface this by saying I am a relatively new gamer, as I never owned any gaming device of any sort until building my first PC this year. Mainly played Skyrim and Portal, and now I have just completed Half Life 1 for the first time and as a teen I enjoyed this game very much! And because so would encourage it to all, especially the younger generation and those who are inclined to try out this game or any classic old game that doesn't have graphics or even a story for that matter that compare to the modern games we see today. Half Life, this is a game that shines the best when showcasing its gameplay and atmosphere.

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In fact, I would go to even as far as to absolutely recommending (playing first) this game over "Black Mesa". That's the fan remake built from the ground up with maps/levels/chapters redone & updated (not just the graphics, but the gameplay mechanics as well). Playing Half Life at this point is almost for learning purposes for knowing the potential quality of gameplay and atmosphere that was present in a game during the time this was made, and seeing how much was further developed in its sequel. Because of that, HL1 and Black Mesa are two completely different experiences with the same story (as most remakes are!). Also the story in HL1 is rather minimal and would only require a quick read and summary of if you are only playing for the story, meaning don't just play for the story for HL1.

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You can always go play Black Mesa after, which should be much more enjoyable now after experiencing Half Life. Personally I haven't yet, but Black Mesa looks breathtaking. However, original Half Life 1 holds up very well (and reportedly even better with the gunfights/combats in certain levels than Black Mesa with the redesigned levels).

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Personal Experience (mostly pros)

- I mentioned a lot about the gameplay being awesome.

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This is because of certain chapters imo especially Questionable Ethics, Surface Tension, and Xenhaving great, intense shooting at aliens and even gunfights against the army. Of course, you are shooting at enemies throughout the whole game, but there are moments in the game where it successfully, greatly nails down the feeling of adrenaline and intense fights unlike any other. Fun! That's when I knew I loved the game. Mowing down armies of enemies, especially soliders who are often tactical in taking cover and flanking, makes you feel like a BADASS.

And here's the thing, the weird thing. I don't get the same feeling when playing modern shooting games, which is probably because they try to incorporate those moments too often where you are bombarded with shots, bombs, and other loud noises. Half Life has a nice balance between venturing through eerie hallways cautiously and scenes where you go guns blazing!! Furthermore, kind of cheating, but because it is an old game it really makes those moments feel special, iconic even. It makes you go, "Wow, they really did that?".

I was completely caught off by surprise and astonished when:

One of my favorite moments in the game. Something you do lots in the game is sneaking in the vents, and occasionally shoot the soliders from above through the openings. You are practically invulnerable against shots in a vent. In one of these moments where you sneak in the vents, the soldiers for the first time start shooting holes and blowing up the vents, and it all (including you) come crashing down defenseless. I went, "Huh??", totally lost and clueless. Furthermore, the scene was beautifully played out in these quick sequences. I loved that

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- Now enough with the gun/shooting gameplay. The second, equally important part of gameplay were the puzzles.

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I did just play Portal series beforehand, and I really did see how Portal shares many similarities and inspiration of Half Life. The puzzles in Half Life were quite fun, and it's as if they took what was good about the puzzles in Half Life, and further expanded it. (In fact, I'll go ahead and play Portal series AGAIN after I'm done with Half Life games). Challenging, but fun! Loved it when the game mixed puzzles and shooting together, such as needing to shoot certain things or enemies before shooting something else, before shooting the boss. Or simply doing puzzles just to get to enemies, certain levels, with shooting in between. Balance of it all.

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- Atmosphere

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Yep, loved that as well :) Throughout the game, you are either coursing through dark, eerie levels and hallways cautiously awaiting for alien ambushes or out guns blazing in facilities and stations filled with soldiers. Makes you feel like some experienced veteran.

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Cons

Now with my thoughts being expressed as completely positive, or with whole post actually, there are definitely some cons I would like to point out and address.

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- Story and Dialogue

Personally, I think story and dialogue is rather weak compared to any modern games of now, like hell.

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(EDIT:

Some people are disagreeing a lot (which is perfectly fine but)

The things they described of the story they thought were good was about story-telling, which I agreed with, but it definitely wasn’t the actual plot/story. Escape the underground facility filled with villains, with no actual dialogue related to the plot until the very end.

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"I think it should be noted there's a difference between a games story and its story telling.

The post pat, overdone, cliched story ever can be gripping and brilliant if done with amazing storytelling. The unique way in which games as a medium can tell stories is still being explored." (Source )

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Experiment blows up, aliens appear, you are told to escape. That's the beginning, afterwards you don't hear much at all mid game until the end when a character you meet briefly talks to you. Your character doesn't speak at all, classic Gordon. The only thing you really hear from the usual scientists and guards standing around in labs is that they may give you a hint or two of what to do, rarely. If you try to interact with them, they'll either say along the lines of "I'll follow you", or "I'll stay here".

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However, the simple lines from unsuspecting soldiers can be hilarious, "I didn't sign up for this shit, who ordered this operation anyways," cracked me up.

I wish they had more of the "Wall threats"! There were words on walls at times, saying along the lines of "DIE FREEMAN". Reminds me of the iconic Portal messages on the wall. Definitely took inspiration from Half Life and made it leagues better.

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Weak story, but you know what, like Portal these games emphasized gameplay more and that's fine! Escape, that's all, and enjoy the game while you're at it.

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- Difficulty

This is the important one here. I'd like to play extremely challenging games, as I tried a bit of my friends' Hollow Knight and Dark Souls. However for HL1, at normal/default difficulty, some levels are downright impossible unless you are some psychic. It's not a matter of mechanics in the game, but rather the lack of information being given.

This game barely hands your hand, actually it slaps your hand. You'll look around for ages for the solution for a particular puzzle, until searching it up on Youtube watching a guy by the name of BigMacDavis. The enemies can be extremely challenging, you often cannot go guns blazing with them as they are too strong in the late levels. There is always a way to deal with them easier, such as using a particular weapon and standing where you can see a slight glimpse of the alien from the corner of the hallway but it-can't-see-you type of deal. In fact, killing most aliens requires you to be strategic and having a plan/method, not necessarily because it was intended that way, but because they are utterly hard to kill at times. Most of the tips and tricks I had to learn from the youtuber previously mentioned.

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Final Notes

- Graphics

I never had a problem with this actually in terms of how "outdated" it looks compared to modern games, but would actually list this as a pro! Why? Because of this game, really did feel like I opened myself to a whole new plethora of gaming experiences I wouldn't get elsewhere and I was able to appreciate many other old games and get into them much easier.

Take original DOOM and Age of Empires for an example. I loved trying them out and playing for a few hours while progressing in Half Life! Feels as if graphics, especially here or any old game, is now for me no longer a problem.

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Half Life itself, I actually liked the graphics and wasn't at all hard to look at once you get into in the game, it had it own charm. Definitely different, but not bad. Nice enough actually.

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- Advice

Before anything though, I initially felt physically, very sick moving around in the game, apparently due to playing 16:9 screen and/or high frame rates. If you experience this, I fixed my problem immediately by pressing "~" ingame to go into the console mode, and type "default_fov 90". Or anything above/around 90, however you like. I think the actual default value was 70 or 75. Most like 100, try it out, but I think the "loading" label in the middle of the screen was not looking right for me.

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Conclusion: Play the game if you're interested at all! One hell of an experience. I had an absolute blast, loving it :D

Thank you for reading :)