“Half-Life”

Valve

There are few games for the computer that get everything right.

“Half-Life,” by Valve software, is one that does.

The guys at Valve started with the “Quake II” engine and rewrote nearly 90 percent of it to fit what they wanted.

The end result is a game that combines stellar graphics, incredible sound and some of the best gameplay of any game in 1998.

In “Half-Life” you play Gordon Freeman, nuclear physicist in the anomalous metals section at a top secret research facility called Black Mesa.

An experiment goes wrong, inadvertently causes a dimensional rift and you are one of the few people left alive.

The goal of “Half-Life” is to get back to the surface to get help. The only problem is, aliens are coming through the rift in random places, making escape MUCH more difficult.

To make things even worse, you find out that the special forces team the government sent in is not a rescue team but a clean-up team.

“Half-Life” is a First Person Shooter (“Quake,” “Unreal,” “Doom,” etc.) but is much better than any other game of its kind.

The thing that stands out the most about “Half-Life” is the way the levels are designed. The design produces a picture that really makes you feel as if you’re inside a research facility with recreational rooms and cafeterias.

The graphics are also very good, unlike other games that show lots of day-glow colors such as “Unreal.” The sound is eerie and seems to come from every direction even with only two speakers.

With all this there is one thing above the others I’ll take away from “Half-Life” — it’s the first game in years to have scared me into almost jumping out of my seat.

And if you play “Half-Life” to the end, you will jump more than once.

5 stars out of five

— Craig A. Bonnes