Game Review - by Jeremiah Pratt
Half-Life combines the visceral action of legendary action games like Doom with great storytelling in the tradition of Stephen King. Named "Best PC Game" in the Best of E3 Show Awards from Unified Gamers Online, Half-Life blends action, drama, and adventure with stunning technology to create a frighteningly realistic world where players need to think smart to survive.

Throughout the game, both friends and foes behave in sophisticated and unpredictable ways, a result of Half-Life's powerful and innovative artificial intelligence. The intensity of the game also reflects the strong storyline, created by award-winning horror novelist Marc Laidlaw. Of course there's also a variety of exciting multiplayer scenarios, and an easy-to-use interface that will have you connected to the game of your choice in just seconds.

Storyline:
The Story is immerse, so immerse I can't do it justice. Anyway you're a scientist with minimal security clearance. Security clearance you ask? Well you're not any ole scientist you happen to be working on some top-secret stuff. As you enter the shuttle service expecting it to be a regular day at the missile silo. Things begin to get interesting, while at the device you've been working on. You're loading in samples, and then the device blows up and begins emitting strange lights. You black out, when you awake, every thing is a mess. But here's when it gets nasty, while waking up you're in a weird alien world. After you wet your pants, bang you're warped back to the lab. Well it doesn't take a genius for you to figure out something super freaky is going on. Time to get outta here and hey what the hell is that! Now there's aliens running around and messing up your colleges. You don't know what to do or who to trust. You have one thing on your mind escape, and find out what's going on! You don't care which order these goals are accomplished. Just as long you stay alive. Ultimately, you feel like the staring actor in a new sci-fi flick.

Graphics:
The Graphics, are kick a** everything is detailed and well textured. Your environment is very pliable. Certain creates can be smashed via crowbar. And you can shoot glass, TV's, coke machines, and much more. Keep in mind you do have limited ammo heheh. You will not find any cheesy color lighting, or over used lens flares here folks. Everything is tied together beautifully. There are fire alarms that if you push doors shut. Triggers that activate platforms and so on. Plus the game moves just as smooth in non-3Dfx. You can barely tell the difference. Each character/alien has individual skeleton structures. Making them unique and special. You will experience mouths moving as talking, full body motion, and interesting alien attacks. Its really hard to explain you'll have to see for yourself :p

Sound FX:
The Sounds FX's are ripping as well. You'll experience, cackling of broken electrical wires, subtle hums of deadly lasers. And even that annoying sound attack of one the aliens. Oh and they love to travel in packs too. Explosions come up every where, and listening to the grunts call out commands can freak ya out. Unfortunately I can't talk about the soundtrack. I'm guilty of rocking to Quake II while playing.

Gameplay:
The Gameplay is helluva fun. You can completely mess everything up or fix it. Don't matter, as I mentioned before the environment is really flexible. Giving you the feel of a good horror movie. That is Half-life's greatest accomplishment the feel. Each element added together makes you creep, shriek, and stay sharp. I can't tell you how many times I jumped because a whole bunch of aliens came outta the ceiling. Actually, the alien's come from all angles, making you dread each step you take. The weapons that were available I enjoyed. Plus the auto-aim helps, I repeat it helps allot. Although the weapons are limited to just five: crow bar, handgun, shotgun, machine gun, and grenade. You're sure to have allot of fun with the grenades. These babies's bounces off the walls like a rubber ball. I got real kick out of banking shots i.e. hitting a grunt behind the create. The AI is really good, as each alien can react intelligently. Some will run away, some will stalk you.

I can't get away without telling you about the hazard course. This is a built in tutorial on how to play the game. Bam, how many games have that hell ya. The hazard course will run you through all aspects of the game. Plus it will familiarize you with the hazard suit. You can't lose if you can complete the hazard course efficiently.

Overall:
I wish I could tell you more, but I'm still speech less. From what I played this game is huge. I loved the fact that I didn't know what the hell was going on. Or who to trust, I was at the edge of my seat the whole time! The graphics were ahead of their time; the sound effects are cool. Save the Earth? Well, maybe. But that's a pretty low priority compared to saving your own skin.