Why is the original Half-Life considered so important?

[an annoyed writer]

Some also considered Half Life to be important for having a protagonist who wasn?t a super-soldier like doom guy or the archetypal macho man like Duke Nukem. Gordon Freeman was mainly just a random dude with a doctorate, a hazard suit, and raw tenacity on a really bad day at work. When you are surrounded by super soldiers and action movie badasses, being a random nerd is regarded as innovation.

 

[jademunky]

Let me count the ways:

- Environments that looked like a place that could exist in the real world
- Human enemies that acted like humans and did not just suicidally rush you (they would do things like try to flush you out with grenades and cover one another)
- Allies who's firepower you could rely on (and not liabilities that you had to drag along with you)
- Pacing of gameplay where you did not just run and shoot but also platform and solve puzzles
- varied environments
- varied enemy types which demanded you use all of your weapons
- said weapons were fun to use and felt very different from one another
- that awesome "boss battle" with the blind tentacle monster thing in the missile silo
- story integrated into the gameplay with very little exposition (It really just gives you the outline of a story and trusts you, the player, to let your imagination fill in the rest)

*Edit* or just go with what Dalisclock said