Half-Life is a first person shooter game that was developed by Valve Software, and was released for the PC on October 31, 1998.
Full Review
Half-Life Review
By, Nimish Dubey
Backdrop
.hack Part 1 Infection (Dot Hack) begins with a bang. Something disastrous happens to your character‘s real world friend, while innocently playing a 20 million-subscriber base, wildly popular online RPG game (MMORPG), The World. To unravel the mystery of your friend’s misfortune, you become an online, ingame rogue hacker, exploring every corner of The World, even some virus-infected ones.
The hero is armed with the special skills of Data Drain and Gate Hack, and some colorful, talented fellow adventurers to fill the two other available party slots. Different adventurers must accompany you depending on the plot‘s development. You have some control over the others in your party, including upgrading them through trades or gifts. You can play only a single class, Twin Blade. Other characters are from different classes, with varied strengths and weaknesses, from a mage type (Wavemaster) to a bully (Heavy Axeman).
Gameplay
Gameplay takes place in three principal areas – towns, fields, and dungeons. Towns house The World’s servers. There, the player can save the game, buy magic scrolls and useful and unique items, store items, buy equipment, and talk and trade with lots of other players in character online. One town has an unusual ranch to check out, a patent homage to an enduring feature of just about every Final Fantasy.
The town’s Chaos Gate provides instant teleportation to a particular wide-open Field, containing monster encounter hotspots, a mystical spring, treasure, and lots of mysterious food. You enter three distinct keywords, some known at the game‘s onset, and others learned through play. Whatever keywords are entered, the difficulty level of the destination is helpfully revealed. This prevents a low-level party from being massacred. Once the keywords are entered, you travel through the Chaos Gate. (You can enter specific keywords learned to continue the plot, do side quests, or do unlimited exploring. Or, you can instruct the Gate to enter random keywords, and take your chances. There‘s also an option to enter any keywords you wish from a word list.) Every Field houses a single Dungeon. The dungeons, where you spend much of the game fighting for your life, are not overly large in size, and always range between three and five average levels.
Many have compared Dot Hack to Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II (PSO) on the Gamecube. Let us gently discredit this. We feel Dot Hack has far better graphics than PSO. The Fields and Dungeons contain many colorful, over stylized backdrops and settings, including weather effects. Dot Hack’s monsters resemble the beautifully-drawn monsters of the later Final Fantasy’s. Dot Hack’s world is gigantic with a seeming infinite number of locations to explore. PSO’s world is relatively small, and plot is threadbare, with meaningless, though fun, side quests, which instill no enthusiasm in the player. Dot Hack’s plot is deep and complex, with each subplot advancing the story just a little bit further. (Remember though, the end of this game in no way comes close to wrapping up the story, to be completed in the three games to be released later this year.) One visual treat, however, was lifted directly from PSO – the cascading rings that accompany the teleportation of characters to and from different areas.
Combat
Dot Hack’s combat engine can best be described as modified real-time. Much like the action-RPG, Kingdom Hearts, button mashing can be effective to beat monsters. Monster combat icons appear as large yellow twirling landmarks. As you approach, the landmark dissolves, monsters come at you big-time, and, undoubtedly, players will feel a healthy adrenaline rush. Some of Dot Hack’s many monsters do not stand around waiting to be pummeled, rather some you need to catch. Dot Hack lets you turn combat almost into a turn-based affair. The player needs only to hit Triangle in the middle of battle to pause the game instantly. From there the player can give orders to the others in the party, anything from healing someone, reviving another, casting a spell, designating a target monster. Without jeopardizing your party from the hailstorm of monster blows, combat becomes a calmer, more strategic, experience. This will help the many action-challenged. Camera angles play a big role in successful combat. You must be facing a monster to do any damage. As in many games, manipulating opposing environmental elements, like fire vs. water, is a key to successful monster combat.
Dot Hack’s cyberspace setting provides a wealth of Wow-inducing outbursts. The Data Drain option in combat is a great example. When a monster’s approaches zero, the player can Data Drain to reduce a horrendous, gigantic steel robot, for example, into a sniveling, puny monster, easily defeated with a single blow. Data Drain always results in a nifty, rare item or essential Virus Cores so you can Gate Hack areas of The World now closed, but needing investigation. One bad side effect – if you defeat, a Data Drained monster, but a single experience point is earned. One REALLY bad side effect – if you Data Drain too often without giving the skill a rest, you may overload and explode. Game Over. In the case of Boss monsters, Data Drain works the same, but what remains is no sniveling puny monster, but a full-blooded slightly less tough monster. All of this makes for interesting and captivating combat, a large part of the game.
Fresh Features
Dot Hack is replete with new and interesting features that kept us riveted.
To start, the entire background and story of a real world gamer becoming a rascal hacker, penetrating deep into a virus-infected online game, is quite novel. Combine this with Dot Hack’s emulating the look and feel of an online game universe. (Message traffic on the web shows many gamers mistakenly believe Dot Hack is a real online MMORPG, along with monthly fees! No real Internet connection is required.)
Just like in the real word, Dot Hack replicates your excitement level when “New” appears before a popular forum or on your email screen. Some of the game involves receiving emails as the plot develops, as well as new, crucial information surfacing on The World’s Board. (Look out for emails challenging you to a strange game of Tag.) The online game world looks very familiar with a bunch of characters wandering around the game’s towns, with the ubiquitous balloon icons talking typical “trash” to each other, even criticizing “newbies“.
Combat grippingly called for surprisingly strategic decision-making to succeed, not related to the usual attack or defend choices. Do you go for experience and upgrade your character or try for some special equipment or a Virus Core, vital to Gate Hacking? The innovative control of other party members became second nature to us after some practice. The game rewards a player taking chances, like entering a Field or Dungeon rated 5 levels above the player’s current level. On the other hand, the game scoffed at players entering areas much lower rated the their current level, by awarding negligible experience points for victory.
Dot Hack takes progress reports to a new level, by slowly unlocking books that contain much in the way of statistics and information. There’s even a monster compendium with tips for defeating them.
Some might complain about the minimal “Save Game” ability, but we thrived on it. You explore a very hostile cyberspace environment without the facility to save. Only in a server-hosting town is saving possible at the local Recorder. We may be a solitary voice in the Wilderness, but we like this throwback to the good old RPG days. Those of you old enough to remember the Wizardry series, may recall those fingernail-biting multi-combat treks back to the Castle just to save the game. In case you’re really stuck deep in a dungeon, a common item will teleport you to the outdoor field, from where you can simply gate back to town from the command menu.
Many pieces of equipment come with distinctive powerful attack, healing, and status skills, essential to combat dominance. The player must tradeoff whether to equip something that will raise defense or offense or something less vigorous that lets you use a powerful skill. Trading is the most successful way to upgrade equipment.
In a first, Dot Hack comes with a 45 minute anime video. This gives some great background on what’s going on in The World, as well as provide clues for completing the game. In a nice twist, voiceovers for game speech can be set for Japanese or English presentation. Listening to the authentic Japanese voices really keeps you glued to the game.
Though some may scoff at what follows as meaningless, we liked the game’s unlocking of some nifty new “toys” to like, some only available when the game is cleared. You can unlock many different background music play lists. Tired of creepy tunes, just switch to something more upbeat, or futuristic. Just like real world gamers, who constantly change their desktop wallpaper, new and different wallpapers are unlocked along the way. Some are concept art of characters, while others are full blown anime renditions of the characters. This makes for great fun, and seems to pump additional energy into the game. As you progress over a dozen special cut scenes or movies will become viewable after defeating the game.
Though Dot Hack’s extras and new wrinkles enhance the RPG game experience, much of the gameplay will ring true to those who enjoy RPG‘s. Expect plenty of exploration in a huge 3D world, frequent monster combat, tons of treasure to earn and discover, upgrading your character’s weapons and armor, and needing to level before tackling pivotal story dungeons. The status screens for the characters and all equipment are well laid out and easy to grasp.
Time for Completion
Game length in hours always concerns many purchasers. A short RPG normally takes a lot of flack, and many online are asking about Dot Hack‘s time for completion. (Some have questioned whether Bandai should have released a single 80 hour game for $50, rather than four 20-hour games for $200 for a single story. This matter is beyond the scope of this review, but our high opinion of this game as a standalone is obvious.) Our experience, playing the plot without doing side quests or extra exploration, is in the 12 to 15-hour range. Players side-questing and extensively exploring, aside from the main plot, can expect to spend 25 hours to complete the game. You can even continue to advance your character, after game completion, to get a jump start on Part 2 due in May. In the next game, your character can be imported from Part 1.
Furthermore, imagine trying to explore every nook and cranny of the fields and dungeons accessible by a large number of 3-word combinations. Doing that would put the game in the 50-hour range, if not more. However, at a certain point, new items dry up, and a single experience point is earned for any defeated monster, no matter how tough.
Shortcomings
While, as is evident above, there is much to recommend in Dot Hack, certain concerns to varying degrees deserve mention.
From the “Why oh why did they leave this out?“ File. Pregame game board traffic and information about the Japanese version released months ago had many salivating for replaying the game in “parody” mode. This mode apparently converted all Dot Hack’s game world characters into satirical comedians. Sorry to say, this highly-anticipated feature is missing from the version released here.
The game requires massive amounts of button pressing. Every item or treasure uncovered from combat victories or exploration (opening chests, searching expired adventure remains, collecting food for Grunty’s, as examples) must be confirmed with a button press. When there could be 50-100 such occurrences in a single dungeon or field, over the course of the game, finger cramps seem inevitable. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance also required lots of bashing for buried treasure and chests, but the items literally flew into your inventory, a much better way to handle this.
The manual is woefully terse and lacking in some crucial information and guidance. While the ingame tutorials fill in many of the gaps, one extremely important gameplay feature is missing from both the manual and tutorials – instructions on control your characters directly during combat.
Final Word
We got a kick out of Dot Hack. The feeling of “just one more dungeon” dominated our lives for the 3 days to completion. The engaging environment held our attention without much effort. The strategic nature of combat, plus the convoluted plot kept us going for hours on end. The constant unlocking of both frivolous and important gameplay features created a “what’s next” anticipation. Now, if I could only read Japanese better, Dot Hack Part 2 is already out in Japan!
Final Grade: B
| There are good games, great games…and then you have the ones that inspire awe – you know, the type you can’t mention without taking your hat off. Half-Life, I guess, comes in that last category. |
| To appreciate the impact of Half-Life, one has got to consider the era in which it was released (late 1998). Action games were seemingly much stuck in the “shoot the bad guys, load, shoot more bad guys” mode — pretty exciting for some but getting to be just a bit monotonous. Storylines were getting weaker, special effects predictable and the presentation more or less static. In short, first person shooters did not seem to have changed a whole lot since Id hit the world with the Doom series (although Thief had added an element of stealth to the FPS mix). |
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Those were the times in which Half-Life was released and its impact was pretty close to apocalyptic. Here was a game in which the action almost never stopped (there is scarcely a cut scene in the entire game), with brilliant graphics and amazingly realistic gameplay. It would not be a lie to say that almost every major FPS game released in the years that have followed has borrowed something from Half-Life.
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| But enough of the eulogies and let’s get down to basics. The game comes on a single CD and installed with nary a hitch on my Compaq Presario 3311 AP (Athlon 1.4 Ghz, 256 MB RAM, nVidia GeForce 420 MX with 64 MB RAM). It was a trifle buggy to start with but once I patched it up (courtesy all the patches at Sierra), it played pretty smoothly. |
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Half-Life gets under way with you travelling in a train through the Black Mesa Federal Research Facility. The game’s credits roll by smoothly as the train makes its way into the mountains, going through tunnels and even dipping underground. As you go, a recorded message tells you about Black Mesa and its facilities. And it is during this trip that you realise why Half-Life is different – you can move back and forth in the train even as it travels! So even as the recorded message drones on in the background, you can stroll to the rear of the train and enjoy the scenery as it fades away or alternatively walk to the front and see what is coming up. The credits continue to roll and the volume of the message changes depending on your location.
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| As you disembark from the train, you discover your identity. You are Gordon Freeman, a scientist working at Black Mesa, and are required to help out in a key experiment. So you pour yourself into a hazmat suit and get started…and then watch in horror as all hell breaks loose. Something goes wrong with the experiment and Black Mesa is suddenly hit by an invasion of aliens and mutants who run amok slaughtering scientists and other personnel. You have to get out of the facility to survive. |
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Unlike other shooters which would have made Freeman batter and blow his way out of trouble, Half-Lifeadvocates a mixture of stealth and violence. In many circumstances, Freeman has no option but to fight, but he seldom has enough ammunition and has little protection other than his suit (which needs to be recharged to keep it in prime condition). There are no exotic weapons to help him out either – most of the time, he has to rely on a revolver, a shotgun and a crowbar (now accorded legendary status). He does get some heavy weapons from time to time but with ammo being at a premium, he is better off avoiding head-on fights. The crowbar in fact turns out to be his most reliable weapon, conserving bullets by bashing aliens’ heads in. The result is a taut experience with Freeman dodging, rather than looking for, trouble. In between the fighting and the running, there are a few puzzles to be solved and some rather spectacular jumps to be made. Helping him along the way are trapped Black Mesa personnel who see him as their sole hope of getting out in one piece.
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| But as Freeman nears safety, along comes a twist in the tale. The military has been called in to control the situation at Black Mesa. And its instructions involve eliminating the facility altogether – aliens, mutants, scientists, personnel and all, including Dr. Freeman! So even as he escapes one enemy, Gordon runs smack into a new one – and a highly-trained and well-equipped one at that. |
| And this is where Half-Life reaches its apogee. As Freeman desperately tries to get to safety, battling the army on the one hand and the aliens on the other, the action is virtually non-stop. He uses an underground railway, travels across multiple conveyor belts, crawls on narrow mountain pathways, coordinates bombing raids by aircraft, swims underwater and even tussles with a helicopter (the most memorable sequence of the game, in my opinion ever so ’umble). It is also at this stage that you begin to understand just how good the enemy AI is. Unlike the aliens who adopt a simple “charge at sight” approach, the military is far more disciplined. If you do not take out a soldier quickly, it is a fair chance he will duck for cover and then lob a grenade at you! Groups of soldiers scatter in different directions when you attack, exposing you to fire from different directions. And there are a few snipers lurking around as well, ready to take you out even as you try to figure out why your life is ebbing away! |
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It’s all supremely addictive and thrilling stuff. And then…hang on while I head for cover from Half-Life fans…it all goes pear-shaped. It’s not as if the action stops. On the contrary it acquires, quite literally, a whole new dimension. What happens is that Gordon discovers that the only way to rectify matters is to travel to another world using a special portal, and fight and kill some strange alien monsters. Sure, it resulted in some great outer space shots and equally amazing stunts (like jumping onto a moving asteroid) but I was a bit distressed at the metamorphosis of Gordon Freeman from hunted to hunter. Honestly, it all stank of an attempt to drag the game a further hour or so and also took away one of the game’s strongest points – its closeness to reality. Mind you, the climax (my lips are sealed, sorry) is rather satisfying so my advice would be to grit your teeth and play the game to the end.
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| But even those mindless final hours cannot detract from the sheer quality of the game. Even today, the graphics seem outstanding and the enemy AI simply superb. Some of the special effects still give me the creeps – imagine seeing a long tongue come out of a ceiling, grab a person and then pull him up into a hideous mouth – and while the plot is more or less linear, it is packaged so immaculately that one is bound to head over to the game time and again for the sheer thrill of the experience. |
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Mind you, the game does have its problems. I found the sound extremely unsatisfactory. I often could not make out what the human characters were saying and as they seldom repeated their dialogues, this often left me with no other option but to reload the game and then glue my ear to the speaker (nope, there’s no way in which the text of the dialogue can be displayed). Another problem I had was that I often did not know what was happening and had to resort to trial and error (and shamefully, even to a walkthrough) to make my way forward. The stuff about travelling through portals had me totally in knots. Surely the developers could have made Gordon Freeman stumble across a written message sometimes!
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| But these are niggles ever so minor. The fact is that taken in its entirety, Half-Life is an amazing product — path-breaking when it was released and every bit as exciting today. |
| It has inspired dozens of clones, given gamers all over the world several hours of entertainment, and…well, made me look at crowbars with new respect. |
| Now, how many games can claim to have done that? |
Final Grade: 80%
