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If I wanted to get into Half-Life... what games should I buy? Half-life, of course... but what about Half-Life: blue shift? Or Half Life: Opposing Force? What do I need to blay before buying Half-Life 2?

(Would you recommend I buy some Steam game packs?)

Are you worried about budget? You could wait until the summer sale in a few months and get them all for cheap. Oh! Almost forgot, I've got a 50%-off coupon for Valve games sitting in my Steam inventory. Someone might have a bigger discount they could give you as well. So the Half-Life Complete collection, which is $39.99 would only be $19.99, right now.

Half-life and it's spin-offs aren't terribly necessary to follow the plot of HL2. They're good games, but everything you learn in them can be summed up in a paragraph if you're not worried about spoilers (though you might miss a few in-jokes from the developers). Opposing Force especially so, since it's not treated as canon. Blue Shift is a little fuzzier on if it's canon or not, but it's story doesn't impact Gordon Freeman's and doesn't say much about the world. It's a fun play through, but it disappointed people by being too short for what it cost.

Of course, cheaper is better, as soon I won't be living off my parents and my internship pays pretty poorly, but I'd prefer not to wait until the summer sale. You made me remembrer I have a -25% discount on Valve games in my Steam inventory! And I think that, with it, the prize is good enough for me to feel confortable buying it.

Of course, if you don't need that 50% discount... (But I hear you cn exchange them for other stuff in the steam forums, or something like that?)

Silver Jelly said:

Of course, if you don't need that 50% discount... (But I hear you cn exchange them for other stuff in the steam forums, or something like that?)

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I already have all the Valve games I want, and with the amount of Valve coupons out there I doubt I could trade it for much. You're welcome to it, send me a message on Steam, or wait to see if someone has a 66%-off or 75%-off to offer you.

Thanks a lot, Pez!

I'll send you that message!
Added at: 17:21
(uhm, it doesn't let me, but I just added you as a Friend.)

When you get Half-Life, you might want to get the original rather than Half-Life: Source. The original game uses the GoldSrc engine, while the Source version uses the Half-Life 2 Source engine. However, the graphical quality in the game is still the same as the original GoldSrc version, with only the addition of ragdoll corpses, a few new skyboxes, and extra glitches.

There's meant to be a fan mod coming out, called Black Mesa, which will be Half-Life 1 completely recreated in the Half-Life 2 engine. Problem is, it's been under development for years, and was actually supposed to be released 3 years ago. Its vaporware status has gone from "slow updates" to "running joke" to "what the hell, are the developers dead or something?"

As for Blue Shift and Opposing Force, they were made by Gearbox rather than Valve, so their canonicity is a bit iffy. There's nothing in them that directly contradicts canon, but nor are there any indications in the later games that they're canon. They are, however, quite good. They definitely feel like expansions to the Half-Life 1 experience. You can decide whether you want to get them after you finish Half-Life 1. Personally I would rate Opposing Force a 9/10, and Blue Shift a 7/10. For comparison, Half-Life 1 gets a 10/10 for me.

Then comes Half-Life 2, definitely play that. And then Episodes 1 and 2. Don't miss those, especially Episode 2. And then when Episode 3 is released, play that. Of course, it's a tossup which will come first, Episode 3's release or the heat death of the universe, but we Valve fanboys like to keep our hopes up.

Finally, as Pez mentioned, playing the first Half-Life games isn't necessary for understanding the Half-Life 2 plot. In fact, a lot of people had trouble seeing the connection between Half-Life 1 and 2 when they played it the first time. Which is actually a deliberate gameplay decision on Valve's part, but... well... now I'm blabbering.

EDIT: Oh, I've also got 2 Valve coupons for 25% off, you're welcome to them if you want them.

Oh, I was just wondering what version of HL1 was better to play!

Thanks a lot, guys! this is gonna be great!

(I already got Pez's coupon, but thanks for your offer too Bhamv!)

bhamv3 said:

Personally I would rate Opposing Force a 9/10, and Blue Shift a 7/10. For comparison, Half-Life 1 gets a 10/10 for me.

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I liked Opposing Force a wee-bit better than I liked Half-Life. I think it flowed better, and I enjoyed the alien weapons a lot.

I think we already debated the canonicalilty of Blue Shift and the only thing we could all say for sure is that it's where Barney's name came from.

And I remember saying that even then, Barney might not be the same Barney.

bhamv3 said:

And I remember saying that even then, Barney might not be the same Barney.

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I missed out on this discussion, not sure where it is, but it's pretty much always been confirmed that the Barney in Half-Life 2 is the same on from Blue Shift. If you play Blue Shift, the NPCs never actually call you Barney, they call you Mr. Calhoun. In Half-Life 2, they call the Barney character, Barney Calhoun.

Not quite. The Barney in HL2 and its episodes is only ever called Barney. His last name is only mentioned in the end credits (where it does say Barney Calhoun), but in-game his last name is never once mentioned, by any character. I find that interesting, because literally every other NPC with more than two minutes of screen time has both a first and a last name, with the G-man being the only exception. Alyx is also called Ms. Vance, Eli is also called Dr. Vance, Kleiner has his first name Isaac (and his nickname Izzy), there's also Judith Mossman and Wallace Breen. Heck, even Odessa Cubbage has a full name.

Now, yes, there are NPCs with just a first or a last name. HL2 had Noriko, Winston and Leon at the rebel base where you get the buggy. Episode 2 had Sheckley and Griggs. But these are minor characters, with one appearance at most. Barney, on the other hand, is a major ally and character, but he's never given a last name.

In Blue Shift, the opening tram ride gives your character name as "B. Calhoun." Other characters only ever call you Calhoun, your first name is never once mentioned.

In materials outside the games themselves, the name Barney Calhoun is used a lot, and the developers have pretty much indicated that they consider the Blue Shift Barney Calhoun to be the canon Barney, who appears in HL2 onwards. This makes the separation in-game even more evident and jarring. It's as if Valve and Gearbox are covering their bases, just in case there's an ownership issue or something like that.

There are other elements in the HL1 expansions that show similar properties. Other characters such as Rosenberg from Blue Shift are never mentioned again. Adrian Shepard was put into stasis and then forgotten. Plot events such as Barney's escape, the nuke and Race X's invasion are never touched upon. Seriously, you'd think someone would mention the fact that Black Mesa was nuked, at the very least. But, at the same time, nothing is ever said to contradict those events. No one talks about Black Mesa still existing in an un-nuked state. No one ever says that Barney escaped alone from Black Mesa, without several scientists in tow.

The way I see it, Blue Shift and Opposing Force currently hover in some sort of quantum limbo between canon and fanfiction. Not confirmed by any of the games as canon, but not contradicted by anything either. For this reason, I also think we'll never see Adrian Shepard in any future Half-Life game, unless Gearbox makes it.

All I am saying is that, based on the evidence, it's a bit hard to argue that that the Barney in Blue Shift and the Barney in Half-Life 2 are different "Barneys". You can argue the story of Blue Shift is not considered canon, but obviously the character himself is.

Here is a little example to kind of explain what I mean... When Batman the Animated Series came out, they wanted to add a throwaway character to be Jokers lackey, and developed Harley Quinn. She was not canon to the Batman franchise, but was something the animators developed. She was very popular, and so not long after DC decided to canonize her into the comics. The animated series, when it comes to DC, is not canon to the Batman from the comics, but the character Harley transferred over from that other source, making her canon, regardless of the canonical state of the source that technically made her.

The same can be implied here, if we want to take Blue Shift as non-canon. The fact it was non-canon does not mean the two character themselves are not the same character, as he was obviously designed and named after that character. It makes sense, as that Barney was the most well-known of the security guards, and since Valve wanted to have real character versions of the old generic Black Mesa personnel (Like Isaac Kleiner and Eli Vance), Barney Calhoun was the best to use.

Anyways, I just fought the giant crab-monster in the weird dimension thing, but I keep killing myself from falling.
Very cool game, even if it's sometimes too hard for me and I have to look at a guide from time to time (I'm not a particularly good gamer). I hope I finish it up soon so I can get to the canon/non-canon interquels and half-life 2!

Yeah.. Xen kind of sucks. It's definitely the low-point of HL.

I cheated to get through Xen and finish Half-Life. I think I didn't even bother playing it at all my second time through the game.

It is the first zone I stopped playing twice from boredom, and not just for having been playing for too long...

I liked Xen.

I liked the luminous antennae coming from the ground and the design on the big crab thing, especially the sound design!

You know what I liked in Half-Life 1? Peeling back the last bosses brain like a banana, jumping into his head and giving him some Gordan Freeman brand brain surgery with my crowbar.

I'll tell you if I like it when I reach it... right now, I'm still dying in the very frustrating platforming section after the crab monster! So annoying! (well, platforming in general has been pretty frustrating for me. I seem to never completely get the hang of the phyisics of this game)

(hey, isn't the main character a physicist? That was an unconscious (semi)pun!)

ScytheRexx said:

All I am saying is that, based on the evidence, it's a bit hard to argue that that the Barney in Blue Shift and the Barney in Half-Life 2 are different "Barneys".

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Oh absolutely. Valve definitely meant for players to believe they're the same Barney. But I just find it interesting how Valve and Gearbox's games never make any explicit reference to each other, as if they're keeping their respective canons separate.

Contrast this to your example of Harley Quinn, who is fully named and integrated into every version of the Batman universe, be it the comics, the cartoon, or the games.

Oh, and in my later playthroughs of Half-Life 1, I tended to stop before I reached Xen. Fighting marines is more fun than low-gravity jumping puzzles.

I'd also like to add that parts of the DCAU are part of the DC Universe. Everything that happens in Batman Beyond is considered canon, including the Return of the Joker movie, because the current Batman Beyond series takes place after the events of that movie. This means that large swaths of the DCAU (basically a lot of Batman: The Animated Series and parts of The Adventures of Batman/Superman) are taken into account as well.

Basically, if a part of another source's story is wildly popular (in this case, Barney Calhoun) then the creators will usually consider it canon. It's just matter of them saying it is so.

I loved the hell out of the first Half-Life. But believe me when I say that all of that is blown out of the water with the sequel and its episodes.

figmentPez said:

I cheated to get through Xen and finish Half-Life. I think I didn't even bother playing it at all my second time through the game.

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Same here on both counts.

I liked the look of Xen, but the platforming just pissed me off so much and the whole thing felt out of place for the rest of the game.

I remember quitting Half-Life 2 out of annoyance over the constant see-saw puzzles, then having an argument on here with someone who felt it was so damn great, and I kept pointing to HL1 as being superior. Eventually, I started the game over and played through the whole thing, and the episodes. I was totally wrong. HL2 is scary, wild, and rewarding in every way.

I think that was me you argued with, though I also believe it was a couple of people.

Anyway, in light of your admittance to HL2's greatness:

Fuck Ravenholm... Fuck that place so much and their damn moaning headcrab zombie dog pipe climbing bastards. That's all I have to say about Half-Life 2 right now.

ThatNickGuy said:

I think that was me you argued with, though I also believe it was a couple of people.

Anyway, in light of your admittance to HL2's greatness:

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1. It wasn't you; it was someone with the more usual propensity toward being a jerk. Can't remember who it was though.

2. I admitted it two years ago when I finally did play through the games .

...And I can't believe that I'm unable to find a good "old news is old" image. Fuck.

Also, I don't know why, but for some reason I'd always associated that Scrubs clip with the "wait and see" thing. It's been five years since I watched all of Scrubs though, so I'm not surprised.

Well, I give up on finishing this game. I couldn't beat Xen, so I got to cehating. Wich got me to the final boss, but I couldn't kill him either...

...so I watched the ending(s) of the game on youtube.

Except this last part, I really loved Half-life!

Time to continue with the other games!

Really, Xen is the worst part of the franchise. I don't remember anything like it in any of the other games.

Yeah, don't let it stop you from playing the others.

AshburnerX said:

Really, Xen is the worst part of the franchise. I don't remember anything like it in any of the other games.

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There were Xen sections in Opposing Force, but they were short, even though they did have some platforming. There was also a Xen section in Blue Shift, but it contained very little platforming, and I thought it was pretty good.

Blue shift finished!

Pretty nice game! And I was so happy it didn't have a boss fight

Opposing force finished!

Very very cool (except the lousy boss)

Nice. Now is time for HL2, yes?

Actually, if you can find a copy, now would be the time to play Half-Life: Decay, the co-op campaign from the PS2 version of Half-Life. Or you could just watch the LP of it behind that link.

Yes, it's awful.

The mod Half-Life: Azure Sheep was really good.

ThatNickGuy said:

Nice. Now is time for HL2, yes?

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Yes! I've played just a little bit of it, but It's already VERY awesome!
Added at: 14:40
(thanks, I'll watch that awful stuff Ashburner... maybe )

We... don't go to Ravenholm.

Ravenholm is a bitch the first time you play through it. Having played through the game a few times now, it's not as hard. In fact, I recently managed to get the "use only the portal gun in Ravenholm" trophy.

I just got to the mines. Well, I'm about to enter them.

This game is so cool.

The first time I played through it, it was the dead of night, and I had a cat jump on the back of my chair whilst I was already amped up.

To say I screamed like a little schoolgirl would be an understatement.

Also, only gravgun? No sir! That's why we HAVE ammunition: to asplode howler zombies (oH My gOd Howler Zombies!)

I don't get the Ravenholm hatred. I didn't have a hard time with it--but maybe that's because I was very late to HL2 and had played 80+ hours of Left 4 Dead.

I don't hate it - I think it was a fantastic level, well-crafted and scripted, and very rewarding of creativity.

It just made me scream like a bitch, is all. The atmosphere was fantastic, the pacing was great... there's a reason that it stands out to so many people, and that's because it's one of the best sequences in the whole game.

Quotemander Prime said:

I don't get the Ravenholm hatred. I didn't have a hard time with it--but maybe that's because I was very late to HL2 and had played 80+ hours of Left 4 Dead.

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I also thought "wow, if I hadn't played left 4 dead, I would be having a much harder time in here!"*. Actually, playing left 4 dead has made me better at all first person shooters, when I'm in "left 4 dead season" and I get together with my friends to play COD or something like that, It's like I've had some magic potion!

Also, I think it's very interesting to see this "proto left 4 dead" style segment in this game!

Half-Life 2: done!

What a cool game!

Now, time for the sequels or prequels or whatever they are!

Heh, they're sequels/expansions. Episode 1 and Episode 2 are both somewhat shorter than HL2, but still very much worth playing.

I'm at the last tripod battle of episode 2. Almost done!

Just in time for Episode 3! Oh, wait...