And although this game is now 13 years old, it is amazing how fresh it feels and how it manages to still be more engaging that doays mega-sellers.
Observations:
- There are tons of incidental detail. Enemy Barks, textures explaining stuff, conversations, all add details to the gameworld, which I missed the last times. Probably because I couldn't speak english then. And was 12.
- Fast movement, long jumps, no gun-recoil. They don't make shooters like they used to.
- Firefights are harder than I imagined. I though I would be able to sleepwalk through everything, what with my 10+ playthroughs and 13 years of shooter-experience. But here were several points were I had to stop, figure stuff out, and retry, until I wasn't crushed to death by a giant blue alien.
- Leaving lone, alive enemies behind you, never to be killed, feels kinda strange.
- There are indeed women in the game. There is Dr. Collette/Gina on the tutorial-level, and the female black-ops soldiers. Also, we don't really know the sex of any of the aliens, so there's still that possibility. It seems since then Triple-A games have taken another step backwards (while tripping on a rock and falling off a bridge), as most games barely even pass the first stages of the Bechdel-Test. There are virtually no female generic enemies in current games. Half-Life 2 made half the (friendly) NPCs female, which was much cooler (and realistic, but I try to avoid that word).
- Very little apparent scripting. Although this has always been a positive about Valve Games, in HL2 it got more obvious.
- It is LOADS of fun going in with the details of Opposing Force, Blue Shift, Decay and all info from HL2. Hey, that's "the" barney. There's Kleiner. That's Eli, I guess. Breen is mentioned (although not by name). Here is Gina (Hazard-Course Hologram) supposed to show up. Here I would have met Shephard, would he have been put in retroactively. Also, just nuked Magnussons casserole.
- I am SO glad that Steam lets me play in english, not only in language, but also with the content. Which means: No green blood. No Robot soldiers (which were stupid in so many, many ways). No stupid mistranslated and mispronounced dialogue. No Barney-hologram on the Hazard-Course.
- Jumping-puzzles are a lot easier than I remember. Maybe it's the 13 years shooter-experience paying off.
- At several points I thought "gravity gun", followed by "damn it".
- Snarks (those little bugs you can sic on enemies) are sill awesome. I miss them.
- Watching battles unfold between guards, aliens, and the military is also awesome.
- There is a surprising amounts of jets, tanks and helicopters here.
- In multiplayer, you can play as a woman, and customize the color of your uniform. This was way back in 1998. THIS IS AMAZING. WHY WASN'T THIS A BIGGER DEAL. You can't do these things in current Shooters.
- There are several points where you can land in a dead end, from which there is no escape. DO NOT press quicksave instead of quick-load. FOR GODS SAKE, do not do it. Luckily, quicksave and quickload are now three buttons apart, instead of being next to each other. I am still programmed by Tomb Raider, however, to press f5 to quicksave. Got me some screenshots though.
- It's much shorter than I thought. Back in the day you could boost with 20-30 hours play time, but now I ran through it in 5 hours. Okay, I knew were to go, and knew how to solve all puzzles. I didn't backtrack, looking were to go. I didn't die needlessly several dozen times. I didn't flinch at spots I used to be afraid of. I didn't, upon hitting a roadblock, ride to the next games-store to browse a game-guide (before gamefaqs days).
- It is amazing with how few resources are sometimes used. Moving hexagon: Crusher-thing. Particle-Effect: Sci-Fi-gizmo. Moving Crates: Train with stuff.
- Half-Life Blueshift added a hd-pack, which replaced all textures, 3d-models and sounds with versions which are 7 years newer/better. They haven't been added to Half-Life since then. Interesting.
Well, apart from graphics, this game has aged incredibly well, and in gameplay and story it still outdoes what passes today as a blockbuster.
Go have a try. They are throwing it practically away on Steam from time to time.
-Matthew