Did that already, played through it within a few days last year. ;)

For yet another opinion - only finish it if you really want to go through the story. Use cheats if that makes it easier - is a single player game and no shame in that. But the point that it's not all that important for the next games stands. [Do watch the ending on youtube or so, though, if you decide to skip it - the beginning of Half-life 2 makes a tad bit more sense if you do.]

I'd also try out Opposing Force (and potentially Blue Shift) as the expansions to the first half-life did, by switching to a different perspective while maintaining the same story line / set of events, something quite unusual story-telling wise for an expansion. As with the original it's not necessary to really finish it - but as part of why you went back to half-life was to experience classic gaming a little, and the influence it had, it'd might be worth a bit of time.

Personally I feel Half-Life 2 did a lot far worse than Half-Life did, atmosphere, coherence and plot wise - but plenty of people love it more. As ever opinions vary.

As long as it doesn't do a lot far worse regarding the instakill traps ... ;)

Thanks for the advice though. I hadn't thought of cheating yet, because I usually don't, but you're right that it's a valid option. I did the same back in the days to get through Baldur's Gate much quicker, so I could enjoy Baldur's Gate 2, which I liked a lot better. :P

Never understood why ppl bitch so much about the Xen levels. It personally enjoyed the low gravity nonsense, and the darker atmosphere.

I'm a bit biased too about HL & HL2... I finished the first multiple times since it was released and for me it is one of the best FPS of all time. Many people dislike the Xen levels; i actually liked them, it was the continuation of the story after all. Opposing Force was a pretty solid expansion, some new great weapons, a different perspective of the story etc. As for Blue Shift, i don't even remember it. I think i played that only a couple of times since it was released. To be honest, it is one of my favourite classic FPS.

Then came the HL2; oh boy, that atmosphere, that graphics, sounds & physics, the wonderfulgreatperfect level design, story... I don't even know how many times i've completed it since it was released..

And i don't write these because nostalgia overwhelms me; actually i played them both in 2014! :-)

ps. A mention should be made for the Black Mesa mod; a truly wonderful mod! I returned back to black mesa base & I enjoyed it immensely. Can't wait for the Xen part to be released. The guys that made the remake, surely deserve a donation!

I'm aware of Black Mesa and planned to give it a try after finishing the original, but now I'm not so sure anymore that I'd want to replay the same levels again, even in a greatly enhanced version. Although the screenshots do look tempting ...

Anyway, if I'd play Black Mesa now and they release the rest of the levels afterwards, I guess I'd have to start from scratch a third time in order to see them? Or are they actually released as a different "game", meaning what's available already is like an Episode 1, and the second part will be released as a self-contained Episode 2 that you could play even without having played through Episode 1, in theory?

Can't speak for others but I've never bitched about Xen, but I didn't like it either. My thoughts while playing the Xen levels were "if I wanted to play platform jumping I'd fire up Super Mario Bros." though. It just did not have the same immersive feel of the beginning of the game, and required increasing levels of suspension of disbelief right up to the very end.

The Halflife story line is reminiscent to me of the old 60's classic cult British TV show classic "The Prisoner". When it came out it was a cool new idea that had a good scenario, plot and progression throughout the first half of the entire series roughly. As the story unfolded after the middle of the series though it started to vary greatly in quality and direction and took great leaps in random directions as if the people producing the show ran out of ideas of the caliber the show started with and it appeared as if they turned to LSD for inspiration, and then speed, angeldust, peyote and magic mushrooms before the WTF ending. :)

Now Halflife's latter half on Xen wasn't anywhere near as bad as The Prisoner's latter 1/3 or so but there is a big WTF aspect to both at least IMHO. :) It never affected me loving the game as a whole though. Every game has it's strengths and weaknesses and different people will have different opinions about what they are based on their own likes, dislikes and expectations though too. The game gets high rating and "must play" status in my mind despite the weaknesses it has here and there though.


Black Mesa looks great and I'm eager to play it too but not eager to wait 10 years for them to finish it before I can play it through so I decided to just check the bookmark 2-3 times a year until I get senile. :) Waiting that one out, but hopefully they do finish it eventually and don't end up getting hit by a bus or something. :)

I don't know how it'll be released. I guess it will be a new installer which will install the full game, but who knows, they maybe offer a "patch" or "expansion" version for those who have already installed the previous, unfinished version.. I tend to find the "new & full game installer" more close to reality though.

But i guess if you keep you saved games, you can use them when the full game is released. Anyway, really, i don't know at this moment and i'm just making assumption without any real facts and i wouldn't want to confuse you. Keep in mind that Black Mesa mod is nearly the 90% of the original game so Xen part is only a small percent (at least in the original - i don't know if they'll make more content in the Black Mesa mod version). You can just view a "long play video" of the Xen part of the first HL on youtube if you want to know how it ends. :-)

The ending is basically a massive "STAY TUNED FOR THE SEQUEL" crap-out, so don't bother playing it for the story.

Just like the Episode 2.. That doesn't detract from the story though.. unless the plot of episode 3 - and hopefully the ending - will be bad. (when or if it is made someday)

My problem with Xen was more an issue of it being a low-res giant blob, where there's no sense of significant progression (except moving to and from the factory) and no way for me to easily navigate. I feel like this would be fixed by a high-res port, like Black Mesa, but this segment hasn't been ported yet so I can't be sure. Sometimes I can't even find the door, I feel like I'm walking around a shitty PS1 platformer. I've said in the past that I barely care about graphics in games... unless I can't tell what's going on, and that's exactly what happens in Xen. Oh good, I'm trapped in a room looking for another tunnel where I've got good odds of being turned entirely around without me realizing, because all the walls are blurry gradients.

And it never ends! Video game caves are a boring idea in the first place, but Xen just goes on and on. When I think of Xen, I don't think of bad platforming, or even cool floating platforms. I think of dimly lit tunnels.

Plus the springboards that are absolutely everywhere do not work for me. I'm not sure if this is a problem with the Steam version or what. You can imagine how much fun I'm having when I move forward onto one, hear "sproing," and stay exactly where I am. Then I move off, move back on, hear nothing because the pad hasn't reset, move back on, hear "sproing" and stay exactly where I am. Then I move off, wait longer, move back on, hear nothing because the pad still hasn't--fuck, I've been shot by the Vortigaunt I was running away from, that's why I was here, I remember now. This happens over and over again on Xen, and as you'll note, this means the entire Nihilanth fight is a failure to me as well.

Also, I hate the mechanics of the section where you jump from flying manta to manta, while a fleet of Controllers fry your brains from all angles. It's a cool concept, it just doesn't work. No worse than any other bad puzzle, but in Xen it's at the top of an ugly pile.

The brief Xen segment in Blue Shift fixed a lot of these problems for me and it doesn't bother me at all. It actually captures Xen's intended mood for me. It would have been a great lead-up to the finale when the soldiers storm in, but someone at Gearbox thought it would be more dramatic if you spent another 15 minutes fetching a battery off the shelf.

Half-Life was brilliant at the time and did a lot of things which really moved the goalposts for FPS. But yeah, these days it's clunky and old and hasn't aged as well as the games that it was an evolutionary leap ahead of back in the day.

I'd say that the Zen section really isn't worth it. There are some good points between there and Surface Tension, but in my opinion the Black Mesa mod is all you need to concern yourself with when it comes to the first Half-Life.