Counter Strike Source Zombie Escape

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Aug 3, 2024, 1:43:47 PM8/3/24

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Valve's first product, Half-Life, was released on November 19, 1998, and published by Sierra On-Line for Windows.[1] Players control Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist at the Black Mesa Research Facility, where an experiment accidentally causes a dimensional rift and triggers an alien invasion.[2] Unlike many other games at the time, the player has almost uninterrupted control of Freeman, and the story is told mostly through scripted sequences.[1] Half-Life received acclaim for its graphics, gameplay and seamless narrative. It won over 50 "Game of the Year" awards[3] and is considered one of the most influential FPS games and one of the best video games ever made.[4][5]

Half-Life was followed by an expansion pack, Opposing Force, on November 1, 1999,[6] developed by Gearbox Software.[7] Players control US Marine corporal Adrian Shephard, who fights a new group of aliens and black operations units.

Opposing Force was received favorably by critics,[8] many citing the game as being as influential on setting expansion pack standards as the original game had been in influencing the overall genre.[9][10][11] The game won the Computer Game of the Year Interactive Achievement Award of 2000 from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.[12]

Blue Shift puts the player in the position of Barney Calhoun, a security guard working at Black Mesa. The game takes place within the early parts of Half-Life, with Calhoun attempting to escape the facility with a small group of scientists. Blue Shift also includes a High Definition pack, which upgrades the quality of the models and textures in both Blue Shift and the preceding games in the series.[16] Critics praised the atmosphere and new graphics, but noticed the lack of new content and short length.[17][18][19]

Released on November 14, 2001, Decay received a weak but overall positive reception from critics, many reviewers stating that it was fun to play through with a friend, but that the game's more puzzle-oriented gameplay detracted from the overall experience.[22][23][24] An unofficial Windows port was released in September 2008.[25]

On November 16, 2004, Valve released Half-Life 2. The game had a six-year development cycle, which saw several delays and the leak of the game's source code in October, 2003. Half-Life 2 returns the player to the role of Gordon Freeman. Set twenty years after the original game,[26] Earth has been occupied by the Combine, a transdimensional race that exploited the events of the first game to invade. The G-Man inserts Freeman into City 17 in Eastern Europe to combat the Combine occupation. Considered one of the greatest video games of all time, Half-Life 2 was praised for its advances in computer animation, sound, narration, computer graphics, artificial intelligence and physics, and won more than 35 Game of the Year awards. Half-Life 2 was the first game to use Valve's Steam content delivery system, a system that eventually led to Valve falling out with publisher Sierra Entertainment.[27]

On October 27, 2005, Valve released Lost Coast, a short, playable tech demo demonstrating high-dynamic-range rendering (HDR).[28] Consisting of a single map, Lost Coast is based on a cut segment of Half-Life 2.[29] The player, as Freeman, climbs a cliff to destroy a Combine artillery launcher in a monastery.[30]

In May 2006, Valve announced a trilogy of episodic games that would continue the Half-Life 2 story, with the final episode planned for release by Christmas 2007.[31] Valve's president, Gabe Newell, said the approach would allow Valve to release products more quickly after the six-year Half-Life 2 development, and that he considered the trilogy the equivalent of Half-Life 3.[32] According to Newell, where Half-Life saw the G-Man transform Freeman into his tool, and Half-Life 2 saw Freeman being used by G-Man, the episodes would see G-Man lose control.[32]

Episode One was released on June 1, 2006. The player controls Freeman as he and Alyx escape City 17 before a dark energy reactor core destroys it. It introduced several graphical effects, including new lighting features and more advanced facial animation. The story focuses on Alyx. Episode One received a generally positive critical reaction, although the short length was a common point of criticism.[33]

Episode Two was released for Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 10, 2007 as part of the compilation The Orange Box. It was distributed digitally on Steam and at retail by Electronic Arts. Episode Two focuses on expansive environments, travel and less linear play. As Freeman, the player travels with Alyx into the surrounding countryside, pursued by Combine forces. Episode Two's new technologies and gameplay features were praised by reviewers; however, though it was significantly longer than Episode 1, the length was again a point of criticism.[citation needed]

Valve released Half-Life: Alyx, a virtual reality (VR) game, on March 23, 2020, for Windows.[34] In this prequel to Half-Life 2, players control Alyx as she and her father Eli establish the resistance against the Combine in City 17. Described by Valve as its "flagship" VR game, it was developed using the Source 2 engine and supports all PC-compatible VR headsets. Players use VR to interact with the environment and fight enemies, using gravity gloves to manipulate objects, similarly to the gravity gun from Half-Life 2. Alyx was released to acclaim.[35] Reviewers at publications such as VG247, Tom's Hardware and Video Games Chronicle described it as VR's "killer app".[36][37][38]

Several Half-Life games have been canceled, including Half-Life 2: Episode Three,[39] a version of Half-Life 3,[40] and games developed by Junction Point Studios[41] and Arkane Studios.[42]

The Portal series, which takes place in the same universe as the Half-Life games, is a series of puzzle games developed by Valve. The first game, Portal, was released on October 10, 2007, followed by Portal 2 on April 19, 2011.[43][44] The Half-Life writer, Marc Laidlaw, opposed the crossover with Portal, feeling it "made both universes smaller", and said later: "I just had to react as gracefully as I could to the fact that it was going there without me. It didn't make any sense except from a resource-restricted point of view."[45]

In April 2000, Valve acquired the rights to the fan-made modification Counter-Strike. After some cooperation between the original team and Valve's developers,[46] Valve sold the game in retail, retitled Half-Life: Counter-Strike.[47] Set in various locations around the world with little connection to the events of the main Half-Life story, the game is a multiplayer shooter in which players assume the roles of members of combating teams of the governmental counter-terrorist forces and various terrorist militants opposing them. Due to originally being a mod of Half-Life, the game shared several assets with the 1998 game, including Black Mesa containers, vehicles and scientists, with the Black Mesa logos visible in several maps in the retail version implicitly setting them in the same universe. It was bundled with Half-Life in many subsequent packages, including Half-Life: Platinum Pack and Half-Life: Platinum.[48]

Black Mesa is a third-party remake of the original Half-Life, developed and published by Crowbar Collective and made in the Source engine. Originally published as a free mod in September 2012, it was approved by Valve for a commercial release.[52][53] It was fully released on March 6, 2020 for Windows and Linux. It was praised by reviewers, who likened it to an official Valve game. On the review aggregator OpenCritic, Black Mesa had an average 87/100 review score with 100% approval rating based on 14 reviews.[54]

Half-Life has also inspired a number of fan-made mods, some which have gained recognition on their own. Garry's Mod started as a sandbox mode using Half-Life 2 assets but since has become a commercial product and given users the ability to incorporate other assets.[56] Among notable fan-made campaigns is Minerva, which was designed to extend the story from Half-Life 2.[57]

The Half-Life franchise has received critical praise for its in-depth fictional universe, including numerous characters who would go on to become well-known in the gaming sphere. The original Half-Life introduces Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist working at the Black Mesa Research Facility who serves as the main silent playable protagonist for the franchise. Freeman is hired and put into stasis by the G-Man, an enigmatic and questionable businessman with capabilities and powers beyond any ordinary human being. The expansion packs to the original game introduce other protagonists and characters, such as Corporal Adrian Shephard in Half-Life: Opposing Force and Black Mesa security guard Barney Calhoun in Half-Life: Blue Shift (who reappears in the Half-Life 2 games). Half-Life 2 and the games following it introduce a new, more focused cast of characters fighting the oppressive Combine Empire. This includes Alyx Vance, a prominent member of the Resistance and the daughter of former Black Mesa scientist Eli Vance. Alyx is the protagonist of Half-Life: Alyx.

The games have depicted numerous alien races and creatures, many from the Xen border world. Some of the most notable include the Vortigaunts, a highly intelligent alien race that often assists Freeman after he saves them from oppression, and headcrabs, parasitic aliens who latch on to heads and convert humans into mindless zombies, sometimes used as biological weapons. Other alien species depicted include antlions, human-sized burrowing insectoids; bullsquids, acid-shooting tentacled predators; and barnacles, ceiling-dwelling amorphous creatures who capture others with their sticky tongue.