Do you like video games?
Do you like really, really good video games?
Do you like really, really good video games that have won dozens of awards and are considered some of the greatest titles ever produced in video game history?
Then listen up, nerds, because today is your lucky day - the entire Half Life franchise is 75% off on Steam for the next 42 hours, as of 4:00 PM Pacific Standard Time. You can buy the Half Life Complete pack (containing nine games and a playable tech demo) for ten bucks, easily the best value, or you can buy the four main games (Half Life, Half Life 2, Episode 1, and Episode 2) for less than three bucks each.
Still confused or uncertain? Here’s a brief overview of the franchise.
The Half Life series begins, obviously, with the original Half Life. The game tells the story of Gordon Freeman, a young theoretical physicist working at the Black Mesa Research Facility - an enormous underground complex in Nevada that makes weapons and technology for the United States military. Early in the game, Gordon participates in an experiment that accidentally tears a rift in the fabric of space and time and releases hundreds of hostile and deadly aliens from another dimension into Black Mesa - now he has to fight his way through the facility, relying on his protective hazard suit to keep him alive so he can try and get help. Half Life came out in 1998, the first title ever released by the now-famous Valve, and won over 50 Game of the Year awards from various publications. The game features a well-balanced mix of combat and puzzles, pits the player against a variety of enemies that fight in different ways and require you to think strategically, and slowly unfolds a complex yet subtle narrative that reveals some unsettling secrets about the truth behind the Resonance Cascade. It’s great fun, and the controls and visuals still hold up pretty well, even though the game is only a few months away from being fifteen years old.
Half Life is supplanted by two episode-sized games developed by Gearbox between 1999 and 2001, which each take place during the events of the original game but in different areas of the facility. The first one is called Opposing Force and details the adventures of Adrian Shepard, a soldier sent to Black Mesa as part of a squad attempting to control the alien outbreak. How much of Opposing Force is canon in the Half Life universe is a debated topic, as it introduces new enemies and plotlines not seen in the original game and is made by a third-party developer; but what happens to the facility at the end of the game is confirmed to be canon, and Valve has mentioned wanting to bring back Shepard for another game someday. It’s worth a play in that case, especially because you get to use different weapons from the original, making it a unique experience. The second Gearbox Half Life episode is called Blue Shift, and tells the story of Barney Calhoun, a security guard working at Black Mesa who tries to find a way to escape the facility. Calhoun is an important NPC in Half Life 2, so Blue Shift is also considered to be mostly canon, and even though the game offers little in terms of new gameplay it’s short enough that it’s still worth a playthrough. Both Opposing Force and Blue Shift are included in the Half Life Complete pack, currently on sale for only ten dollars, and like the four main-series Half Life games they have support for both Mac and Windows.
The next game in the franchise is the famous Half Life 2, developed by Valve and released in 2004. HL2 takes everything the original did, and does it better - the gameplay, story, graphics, aesthetics, weaponry, AI, characters, and level design are all improved from the previous title. Half Life 2 takes place twenty years after the first game, and you return to controlling Gordon in a world completely changed by the horrific events of two decades past. In the years since Black Mesa, your actions during the Resonance Cascade have made you a hero, and you accidentally draw the attention of the totalitarian alien empire that now rules the planet - now you have to flee from their armies and learn your way around this changed Earth, all while trying to solve the mystery behind the eerie man in a suit who claims to be your “employer". It’s a long, engaging, well-written game that deserves the overwhelming critical acclaim and awards that have been granted to it. Half Life 2 is without a doubt my favorite FPS of all time - it’s more than worth a play.
Half Life 2 is followed up by Episode 1 and Episode 2, which came out in 2006 and 2007. Unlike Blue Shift and Opposing Force, which could be considered the episodes of Half Life, the Half Life 2 episodes are Valve-made and actually continue the story instead of merely supporting it. Episode 1 picks up where Half Life 2 leaves off and shows the aftermath of your actions during the previous game - in fact, it was originally titled “Half Life: Aftermath" - and the repercussions you’ve created for the resistance effort and the alien overlords. Episode 2 picks up where Episode 1 leaves off and continues the storyline laid out by certain events in the previous game. Both episodes are probably among the more story-heavy titles in the Half Life franchise, due in part to their smaller size, and there are enough new gameplay features introduced in both that they stand out well on their own.
Those six games make up the core canon of the Half Life series. There are a few other spinoffs - non-canon multiplayer mods like Deathmatch and the original Counter Strike and Team Fortress games, another Gearbox-developed Half Life title for the PS2 called Decay that never saw an official PC port and is difficult to find nowadays, the Portal games, which take place within the same universe as the Half Life games but only overlap with the Half Life story in the form of small easter eggs and offhand references, though there are hints they may converge to a greater extent in the future - but it’s the six titles outlined here that tell the narrative Half Life is so famous for, and which are currently on sale through Steam.
Half Life is easily one of the highest-quality franchises in video game history. It helped define the FPS genre and it championed the idea that video games can be used to tell stories. Every aspect of the games is carefully thought out and organized - combat, puzzles, exploration, and plot sequences are all arranged to prevent player fatigue and make sure people keep having fun. The enemies are widely varied, the weapons handle well, the graphics hold up great when considering their age, the characters are interesting and likeable, the aesthetics are fantastic… Perhaps the most notable quality of the Half Life games, though, is the story and writing. Not only do the games weave a complex tale of chaos, rebellion, dystopian rule, unnatural monstrosities, horrific implications, and secrets kept for decades; they also focus on keeping the player as engaged and immersed as possible. You never relinquish control of Gordon Freeman - even when the character is immobilized, you still control his view. Everything impressive he does is something impressive you do. There are no cutscenes; instead, the game furthers the story by telling it through scripted sequences run by the AI-controlled characters, most of which the player can choose to ignore (though you’re missing out if you do). It’s no wonder that the wait for the next title has reached memetic proportions - Half Life is a fantastic series in almost every aspect of game design, and most importantly, it’s really fun to play.
And right now, you can get all the main games in the series for ten bucks.
What are you waiting for?
(One last important note - the Half Life series can be pretty intense and requires a lot of content warnings! The obvious ones are guns, blood, bombs, violence, and gore, since this is a FPS; less obvious warnings include quite a bit of body horror, genocide, suicide, police brutality, murder, manipulation, and loss. Let me know if you have a specific phobia or trigger you suspect might be in the series, I’ll let you know how and when it comes up as spoiler-free as possible.)