How shoul I play Half Life?
- Thread starter Mersein
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You don't really have to.
But you might as well.
It's only average shooter length, after all. I beat it in just under 8 hours.
But you might as well.
It's only average shooter length, after all. I beat it in just under 8 hours.
I never played Half-life and the story of Half-life 2 was pretty easy to follow, except for maybe one or two subtle lines of dialoge.
Gordon Freeman is a scientist at a place called black mesa. Shit explodes and aliens warp in. He defeats head alien in the alien's home world of Xen (you find out during HL2 that they are all actually on the run from a bigger fish which you'll find out about pretty early on). A guy in a suit with odd speech (the gman) shows up and the end and "offers him a job" which you're forced to accept or face certain death.
Honestly you won't be missing very much if you don't play HL1 first. Heck, if you are that concerned go watch the first and last 15 minutes on youtube, that's pretty much all of the story.
Honestly you won't be missing very much if you don't play HL1 first. Heck, if you are that concerned go watch the first and last 15 minutes on youtube, that's pretty much all of the story.
You'll get more out of it if you start by playing the first one, but the game is certainly showing its age and it might be a bit painful to play through.
If you don't mind playing a game that's from the Quake 2 era (HL1 uses a heavily modified Q2 engine), then I'd say go for it. On the other hand, if low poly makes your eyes bleed, just check out youtube as well as the other suggestions above.
If you don't mind playing a game that's from the Quake 2 era (HL1 uses a heavily modified Q2 engine), then I'd say go for it. On the other hand, if low poly makes your eyes bleed, just check out youtube as well as the other suggestions above.
Casual Shinji said:
There is one moment in Episode 2 where Magnusson mentions a "microwave accident" that is referring back to the beginning of the first game where you could blow up a microwave in a dining room if you pressed 'use' on it too many times 
Half-Life is definitely worth tinkering with if you want to see the roots of modern storytelling, but you won't really miss much if you don't. I recommend playing HL2 before the episodes though
You should enjoy it however you want (There's moderate room for doing things your way. Not Halo level, but some) just so long as you never play the horrible sequel. The shooty bits are there to sandwich a metroidvania feeling of being an isolated rat in a maze trying not to die.
As everyone else has said, it's not necessary to play HL1 but if you can you should, it's still a great game. But you pretty much have to play HL2 before the episodes.
Its worth playing but not required, the graphics are aging (thier is a graphical upgrade in the expansion sets but they are horribly aged now aswell), but its still alot of fun.
Thier are a few inhouse jokes and references to the first HL in HL2 but it doesnt matter if you dont notice.
Thier are a few inhouse jokes and references to the first HL in HL2 but it doesnt matter if you dont notice.
