Half Life addiction

I've never been a big fan of first person shooter games. I've tinkered with demos of Doom and its kin but never actually bought one of the games. This remained true until I stumbled on a demo for Valve software's Half Life. Not only did I play the entire demo, I purchased a full copy and spent countless hours over the last two weeks playing the entire game. (The last game that hooked me this bad was the classic version of Prince of Persia back in the 80's.) Half Life has great graphics, a cool story and fun puzzles to solve all while blasting aliens and bad guys with a variety of weapons. The first three quarters of the game takes place in a fairly standard industrial/dungeon like environment with ladders, tunnels, jumps and water. Where the game really blew my mind as during the final quarter when suddenly you are transported to a weird alien environment reminicent of a Yes album cover. The sequel Half Life 2 is due out in early 2004 and looks incredible.

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