Games

When it comes to the genre of first-person shooters, there have been several gamechangers during its lifespan. The mass-popularisation of the genre through id's Doom was an early one. The success of 2001's Medal of Honour: Allied Assault inspiring dozens of 'realistic' shooters using real weapons and history was another. But towering over all of them is Half-Life . Released in 1998 it transformed the genre from mindless shooting to something based more around characters, personal narrative, puzzles and full immersion in the world it depicted. More recent shooters have seemingly ignored the lessons laid down by Half-Life , becoming lost in a few short hours of tiresome, badly-acted cut-scenes and even more tiresome gimmicks like regenerating health and cover systems. Yet returning to Half-Life , or introducing it to new players, is almost impossible. What was a fantastic-looking game on release is now a painful collection of blocky models and low-res textures. What is n...

The long, long-awaited game Black Mesa has finally gotten a release date : 14 September, or just twelve days from now. Relive the classic dialogue: "Forget about Freeman!" "They're waiting for you, in the test chamber." "ARGH!" Black Mesa is a fan-made mod for Half-Life . It recreates the entire game of Half-Life in the latest version of the Source Engine, with vastly superior graphics. Made with the approval of Valve, Black Mesa has been in development since shortly after Half-Life 2 was released in 2004. It's actually been in the making for longer than Half-Life 3 and both of the episode expansions for HL2. The Black Mesa team have added a caveat however: the game will only go up as far as the Lambda Core level (at the end of which you teleport to the planet Xen). The team is still working on the controversial Xen levels (most fans' least favourite part of the original game) and looking for a way of making them more compelling. Still, ...

Valve have, famously, said very little about the status of the next game in their core Half-Life franchise. In fact, the head of Valve, Gabe Newell, has been reticent to even comment about it, outside of the standard "It'll be done when it's done," comment and mutterings about Valve Time . On the Seven Day Cooldown podcast, Newell is asked a question about Ricochet , a minor and highly obscure title that Valve released in 2000 and which Valve themselves do not acknowledge on their own website. Coming after a series of Half-Life questions, Newell suddenly starts talking about ' Ricochet 2 '. Given that the chances of a real Ricochet 2 are non-existent, it seems probable that he was actually talking about Half-Life 3 / Episode 3 (the fact that both Newell and the show's presenters keep laughing is a bit of a giveaway). So based on his comments, the situation seems to be that: A team is currently working on Half-Life 3 / Ep3 and the freeform work stru...

Chell, a test subject at Aperture Science, has successfully destroyed the insane AI known as GLaDOS and escaped from the facility. Unfortunately, injured in the final battle, she was 'rescued' by a robot from the facility and returned to cold storage. Awakening many years later, Chell finds herself once against trapped in the facility. With the help of a friendly AI, Wheatley, she must flee once more...something made harder when GLaDOS is brought back online. Released in 2007 as an add-on to the 'Orange Box' compilation, Portal was a surprise success for its developers, Valve. It won several Game of the Year awards and glowing plaudits for its conciseness and the cleverness of its central mechanic, not to mention the frequently hilarious writing (and the brilliant closing song). Portal 2 has a lot to live up to and is put in a difficult situation for a sequel. Sequels are usually bigger, more epic and larger in scale than the original, but the Portal concept wouldn'...

The non-appearance of the next game in the Half-Life series has become a bit of a running joke in the gaming community over the past few years, but in the last few months slivers of evidence have started mounting up that Valve are close to some sort of announcement about the future of the franchise. However, a recent comment by a Valve employee seemed designed to end such speculation, hinting that any announcement about the game is still some way off. Rock Paper Shotgun has highlighted some of the problems gamers are having with Valve over the issue. History The Half-Life series is a best-selling first-person shooter gaming franchise developed by Valve Corporation. It consists of the games Half-Life (1998), Opposing Force (1999), Blue Shift (2000), Half-Life 2 (2004), Episode 1 (2006) and Episode 2 (2007). Valve have also developed Portal (2007) and Portal 2 (2011), which are set in the same universe but follow a mostly-unrelated character and storyline. The Half-Life series is f...