Half-Life

Fun game that holds up well to this day, can also be ran on any piece of shit potato

I have now completed Half life and this game is a wonderful piece of art! Just love it, and the fact the game 1998 is crazy.

the greatest video game ever made. an interactive total work of art, akin to kubrick's 2001 a space odyssey or velasquez's las meninas.

though valve was only a fledgling developer in 1998, they took great lengths in creating an unparalleled story-telling experience through their debut product half-life, nearly bankrupting themselves in the process. it would be publishing giant sierra on-line who saw what valve's developers and writers were brewing; what they saw ultimately impressed them enough take a gamble on valve and publish the title. with valve's seasoned developers and writers, as well as sierra's publishing support, half-life showed the world the full potential that an interactive video game could really achieve in 1998, and i'm sure its influence on the video game industry will be looked at in the same light 100 years from now.

if you are looking for the best interactive video game, or are just looking for an action-packed first-person shooter, look no further. don't be fooled by the fact that half-life is nearing 3 decades old - this game has aged like a fine wine. also, endless enjoyment is to be had with the sound effects/scientist dialogue.

to say this is a well made game is understating it, what was I thinking holding back myself for 15 years from experiencing this master piece. I encourage anyone to just give it a chance, PLEASE TRY TO HAVE A "BLIND" PLAYTHROUGH.

Not the best game in comparison to videos games nowadays, but if you put yourself in a time where games were just getting started the game will look a lot better. It has great ai, lots of weapons and a awesome story.

9/10 Would definitely recommend!

I have mixed feelings about this game. I played and finished the game once on Hard, and the game truly felt like a survival-horror experience, and therefore fairly slow and stressful. If that's what you like, this game on Hard will give you that. If you want a more typical FPS experience (like I thought I was going to get), either play this game on a lower difficulty or look elsewhere.

Got this game on a whim after getting my dads old laptop and was blown away by the quality of it. I personally don't mind dated graphics, but even still they hold up so well for 1998. The gameplay and story both rival many of the modern games I've played, and xen, wasn't even that bad fr. absolutely worth it, torn between it and its sequel.

It's amazing how atmospheric this game is even in 2025. I never played it when it originally came out - but I was blown away - but I got stuck to too many puzzles in the end, so I am giving up, but it was one hell of a ride, I'd say this is survival horror first, and FPS as second

sinto muito a quem é fa desse jogo. mas pra uma pessoa como eu que nunca jogou fps antigos no pc, esse jogo é um saco, frustrante e pouquíssimo recompensador

com certez tem sua importância, mas hoje as mecanicas datadas doem

holy shit this game is better than mamy games now and it feels amazing for it being almost 30 years old and i reccomend

Extremely bold and inspired choice to portray U.S. marines as orcs

This game is one of the greatest. It still is one of the best examples of how to tell a story in an FPS without interrupting gameplay to play a cutscene.

good gameplay, good storyline with more action than words; it's just timeless. i wonder how mindblowing this was back in 1998.


also did i mention it can run on a toaster with a celeron?

Everybody must play.


---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☑ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☑ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

---{ Author }---
☑ https://vojtastruhar.github.io/steam-review-template

people love to say this or that game is like a ps3 or ps2 title or whatever console as a way of saying it's outdated. but this game from 1998 feels more modern than most new games. it's truly a timeless classic.

After a decade of putting off playing this game, I finally decided to play it to completion: I understand it now. The critical acclaim, the memes, the quality, the environmental storytelling, the fun, everything: there are so many reasons this game is cemented in history. The lack of hand-holding and the satisfaction of solving the fairly simple puzzles are what made this game a joy to experience from start to finish. You could tell the devs had fun putting the game together (especially during the first half of the game),

All my homies hate Xen though.

scientist_scream7.mp3

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Badass
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

---{ Author }---
☑ https://vojtastruhar.github.io/steam-review-template

Finally reviewed this game after over one year!

this game is called half life because you life and they're half when you are godot fremd life whomst is half and you live half the half livers that arre found in the ividoe game half life and then you can play the expansion pacls when and where yoiu'tr alble to half life the guys there too adrian shepherd and barnold calzone half life

veru game. make sequel.

this is the best game from the 90s that ive ever seen, i love shooting people in this game because i said so.

This game is one of the most funnest game i've experience in a while! The story is great! There's no cut scenes or characters telling the story outright, you can tell while looking at your surroundings! When you see dead scientists on the floor, you can imagine what happened before! Sometimes, the bodies or blood can hint you there's an alien nearby. The story of a resonance cascade in the facility and evading the HECU and aliens is just so unique at the time! The gameplay is quite repetitive but scarily fun too! The characters are also iconic! The scientists' voicelines are hilarious and the akiens are also iconic! The community is quite big too! 10//10 game.

Half life one of the best PC games that I ever came across. I've previously seen players play this fantastic game that's been released for 27 years

I love the gameplay, the story, the characters, the weapons and the most important part that has dlc's that come with the game as well and community mods made by fans of the series. This game is definitely a puzzle for sure as the game doesn't really give you tips nor hints on what to do but it's pretty easy to figure out what you need to do in order to progress through the story.

as again this game is 27 years old definitely a great game so definitely buy this game if Half life interests you plus this game doesn't have any achievements so therefore you can play it however you wanna play the game. Overall great game and cheap definitely get it while it's still listed on steam

This game is great, better than half life 2. No other game is as immersive as this

Although it may seem unappealing at first (no offence) it turned out to be really fun and the length of the game is surprising

Timeless classics! Obviously not as good as the second part, but still very playable.

Only 22 minutes logged on Steam because I have played this game so much off of the CD. This game is a classic for a host of reasons. The second to second gameplay feels really good with gunplay unmatched by any shooters of it's time and which still holds up as adrenline pumping action to this day, and the atmosphere is just as solid - switching between "oh god what happened here" horror to "damn it all, I'm gonna make it" action. It is innovative in it's storytelling due to the lack of cutscenes for sure, but the atmosphere kicks in to push this game to greatness hear as well. There are a few moments where you might get lost, especially in the last few levels, but this skips the moments in a lot of games from the era (and from the modern day if we are being honest) where you look at a room and wonder what purpose it serves. In other words, this game does very little wrong, and is the basis for most of what is celebrated about games which followed in it's footsteps.

I love playing Half life and coming back to it over and over when I feel like it. It's a classic that can be played more than once

If you like zombies, marines, and explosives, this game is for you.

Not as good as everyone recommends. Tons of glaring mechanical bugs that have stayed with the game for many years. Some people may find that entertaining, perhaps funny, but when it impedes progress and lengthens out the game unnecessarily...I see otherwise. The platforming in this game takes away from the experience. The jump pads are a horrible addition to the game, and jump mechanics in general are poor. Valve making the last levels contingent on these mechanics turns everything into a frustrating slog that's just not worth the sweat.

Decent ending, great level design, fun premise. Historically terrible execution on mechanics. Just watch someone play it online who has made it easier for themselves by modding this game into something completely different from what it is: playable.

Yeah I was enjoying the game a lot but that 'On a Rail' chapter got really...
I don't want to say bad but...
No yeah bad is right.
I'll probably try to get through it some other time but right now I can't bother myself to.
Other than that the game is great and still holds up (aside from a few clunky sections) but 'On a Rail' took me out of it, I'm sorry.
Again I do want to beat this game one day but for now...
7/10.

Mostly a hard game I couldn't end but if you enjoy the game you'll enjoy it. I got stuck at trains.

Inarguably one of the greatest FPS games of all time. A must play for those who have spent much time with games made with Valve engines.

Playing Half-Life back in the day felt like the future. It still does, mostly because Valve has refused to release anything that would make it feel like the past. Innovation? They traded it for a marketplace and a Battle Pass. Once a promise that Valve knew how to tell stories, build worlds, and innovate. That promise has been held hostage for 20+ years while Gabe counts Steam receipts in a gold-plated bunker self indulging in Gluttony and Greed.

Phenomenal game, no notes. Level design, encounter pace, weapons, enemies all feel modern even today. Sheer creativity on display, that every single-player game has taken ideas from it.
Every PC Gamer needs to try it.

Rating - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

im recommending this game it is great for speedrunning it is great for anything (how to i change my language it is FUCKING german (stop fucking with the microwave btw)

Half - Life is a groundbreaking title which has left an indelible mark on the gaming industry. The game's seamless blend of storytelling and gameplay creates an immersive experience that captivates players in it's enigmatic world. The narrative unfolds at an immersive pace, allowing the player to uncover the secrets of the Black Mesa Research Facility, and the world that is accessed there, whilst navigating through thrilling encounters and puzzles.

The atmosphere is expertly crafted, with a haunting sound design and memorable environments which enhance the sense of isolation and tension. The intuitive gameplay mechanics make it easy to become entranced in the action while still feeling challenged.

Half Life's innovative approach to first person shooting has set a standard which many games attempt to achieve, and it's legacy continues to resonate with both old and new players alike.

Through Half-Life, we are provided with a comforting reminder of the power of storytelling in gaming, crafting a timeless classic which all should experience.

Amazing shooting gameplay. Better than most modern shooters still. Very satisfying to learn

By modern standards, this game is exceptionally challenging. It pioneered games as we know it. However, the health system is too punishing instead of challenging (the difference being challenging leaves you with a sense of satisfaction, this does not). Searching for health kits off the beaten path can easily leave you with much less health than you went in with. The lack of subtitles and proper audio balancing (quiet dialogue and noisy gunshots on the same slider) makes it a pain to listen to. The lack of an objective marker left me constantly lost. The gunplay was very good, even by today's standards. However, scarce ammo leaves you feeling punished for using it. The story is something I can't really comment on as I couldn't experience it, as I quit out of frustration 20% through. My takeaways are that scientist opened a rift, aliens got out, Gordon makes his way (through blood, sweat and tears) towards the big bad, kills it, G-Man sends him on most missions offscreen. Now to play HL2.

I never fully played this half life but black mesa wich is this game PEAKAKAKAKAKAKAKA

Pretty good for such an oldschool game, bud I'd recommend the source version over the original, since source physics are just funnier than death animations. I haven't played through the whole game yet and I'm planning to finish it soon.

preparing for the whole definitive half- life experience ! thought this was too priceless to give away for free
enjoy

played this whole game on a vr mod (ive got like 10 hours just doesnt show on steam) and i loved every hecking second, buy it or forever be sad

Actually surprising how this game holds up despite being so old. It's age starts to show in some of the areas that get a bit frustrating, but other than that it's pretty good. Also with the game being made decades ago, it runs on basically anything now. Valve games were great when 12 year old me could only really play games on my shitty school laptop. (PLEASE PLAY THIS GAME BEFORE HALF-LIFE 2)

Half Life came out in 1998 and yes, I played it as a child, even though I shouldn't. The German version even had these quirks that you had to fight robots instead of soldiers, so that the game could get a 16+ rating. So me and my friends downloaded uncut patches from the internet just to get blood back into the game. Man, we were sick back then.

In Half Life, you play as Gorden Freeman, an MIT graduate with apparent weapons training (what you need as a scientist), because the game is an FPS which lets you fight against an entire army and a horde of aliens. The story is sometimes so confusing and mysterious that I sometimes don't even understand what it's about. But basically in this game it's about a failed experiment with portals and a subsequent invasion by an alien race from a border world called Xen, and your goal is to escape the research facility in one piece while everything around you collapses.

I like the science-themed setting and the Lovecraftian style of the aliens. As also noted in Half-Life 2, this game has an environmental story telling, meaning no long explanations or overlays, but the game goes for presentation and visual guidance and it does that really well. There are also smaller gimmicks as you can interact with all sorts of objects in Half-Life. Things like a filing cabinet can be destroyed and notepads and other office accessories fly out. This may not sound like much, but back then it was something special and not every game today offers this kind of immersion. After all, the game came out at a time when 3D models consisted of five-sided polygons, so there wasn't a lot of graphics to show off as there is today.

The first chapter is about learning the mechanics of the game and allows you to use what you've learned over and over again. I had the feeling that it was less forgiving than Half-Life 2 and you have to learn things by trial and error, but that's part of the game. With autosaves or quicksaves, it shouldn't be a problem to save before problematic sections and again if you. Sometimes the controls can be a bit choppy, but maybe that's because I'm used to modern controls. The movement speed in Half-Life is pretty damn fast and probably wasn't as unusual back then as it seemed to me at first. The game features a lot of platform action (which I'm not a fan of now) and you do tend to miss and then jump to your death several times.

Speaking of platformer action: There are some parts of the game that are more fun than others, in my opinion, but I had the feeling that it alternates well. It's probably intentional, because I remember Gabe saying in an interview that they took this into consideration. However, the last part on Xen is unfortunately a bit disappointing because they've pushed this platformer issue to the limit. I can understand that they might try to make a different world authentic in this way with Moonjump-like jumps and design the puzzles accordingly. But unfortunately they didn't come close to the puzzles you had to solve in Black Mesa.

What can I say? After all, it's one of the best games i played (and i don't usually play a lot of FPS). If you haven't played the game yet, you should catch up.

Though it is named Half-Life, it has a lot more life than most other games. Its old graphics give me nostalgia, and its gameplay is horrifyingly brilliant. I wish there were more games like this, but it is uncloneable.

This game was an awesome experience it keeps you hooked to the story and Gameplay from the beginning Playing on hard mode does get tiring considering its an old game but still worth the experience 9/10 -1 just for the absurdity towards the end of the game but it was released in 1998 and still better than a lot of games now recommended for anyone into fps shooters with an unique story and absolutely cool main character Also really open ended lore to discuss on and lots and lots of questions

PS: the opposing forces love the grenades

First time playing and just beat Half Life 1 here. ☢️

And oh boy, i can see why its so famous, loved and managed to influence so many games after!

What a fantastic, great & most importantly FUN game! 🤘

Bless 🙏 Gaben.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3468979026

The disappointment I feel for this game is simply immeasurable. It is such an iconic addition to the FPS genre, and has been an inspiration to so many other games - and tons of other media - that it feels wrong to give it a negative review. If I were to say that I enjoyed it, however, that would be a lie. For the good in this, it is evident that a standard was set with this title. The puzzles, the gameplay, the silent protagonist, the guns. For the time that it was made, too, you can tell that so much must have went in to making it what it was. Even some of the other more unique bits of the game, like the movement and the sneaking portions, must have been super novel for when it was released. Normally, I try to be impartial to older titles given advancements in technology and game design making it unfair to compare them to the modern stuff, but I can't overlook the fact that its age shows. It is a buggy mess, and while I am not one to care for graphics so much as gameplay and story, the look of it is unenjoyable and does not have a nostalgic charm to it for me. It was fun to bhop around like it was CS:S, and some of the more common clipping bugs were also tolerable, but its evident that when exploiting those things, that the game is simply not meant to be run that way. For me, the protagonist also felt really hard to maneuverer with the way that counterstrafing made the screen shake a little, how fast the speed was, and when trying to use buttons not having them work for whatever reason. I could have overlooked all of these issues as quirks from an old Source engine title, however, if only the game had kept me interested. While there was a story, every level felt the same to me. Kill some enemies, push some buttons, go around the base. At some point, around the 3/4 mark, I just gave up and got bored with the constant monotony of it all. I do not want to waste another minute of my time slowly picking off enemies as they progressively get harder and larger in quantity. There are a lot of other titles, more modern ones, that do just that and better given their production was conducted in a time when bugs and other quirks could be worked out in development. Like I said, Half-Life certainly set a standard. My regret is not playing it before I had played other games that followed its lead, given they simply can do it better by building off the established norms that this title either created or perfected during its prime. I understand a lot of people probably love it for its nostalgia, or enjoy it for its easily runnable structure, but I simply cannot get into it, no matter how hard I tried to love it. Its a great time capsule, and an influential title, but I can't recommend it when so many other games exist that took all the merit it had and improved on it.

I'm really late to this game so it feels like I shouldn't really have much to say; this game is older than me. That being said, if you're also like me, and you have had zero exposure or knowledge about this game, I 1000% recommend giving it a playthrough. The graphics aren't beautiful in the stereotypical way they can be nowadays but there's something really satisfying about both the graphics and how smooth the game can run on even the worst of computers. I played this on my laptop and it ran better than 95% of ROBLOX games. The sound design is genuinely charming and not once did I feel bored, even though my first and only playthrough was 20 hours long just by exploring every single nook and cranny (it shouldn't take you that long lol). The only major glitch I had was when fighting Gonarch, she got stuck just before the last section of the fight and no amount of reloading saves fixed it, so I had to manually break through the floor. More than anything though, the story really just shines through and sets up an impressively immersive experience given what the game is.
Overall, it's definitely a game I think almost every person should play at least once, and I can't wait to play the second one.
TW: blood, slight gore (1990's pixelated gore)

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☑ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10

the best game ever.

half life has smooooooth controls, amazing storytelling (and world building), funni voice acting, a great range of weapons, pretty level and character design, just pay the 10$ already.