Half-Life
Valve/Sierra

Whoa, that was long:

Ok yes the intro was a little long, but let’s get back to the subject, Half-Life. The Graphics in this game show us really what the Quake 2 engine is capable of, I really don’t see how it can get any better, this game is definitely giving John Romero a heart attack or 2 (this is the reason for all the delay’s, why do you think 10 men left). Bar Unreal and Blood 2 and I guess Shogo, this is the nicest looking game there is, the characters are brilliant, the aliens are very different which was Valve’s smartest move.

By making the aliens not look like the normal conception of what aliens look like is a brilliant move although there should have been more types and less Head Crabs. The textures are all very detailed and they have worked hard to make them as unrepeative as possible and it shows, however thanks to the horrible way the Quake 2 engine draws the floor textures don’t fit together very well in the out door areas. The use of lighting effects is very subtle, this helps set the mood, unlike Quake 2’s ridiculous overdose of it and one effect in particular is brilliant, that of the lightning beams that some enemies fire at you. One of the best graphical feats are the movement of the characters, whether it is talking or running, all are wonderfully animated thanks to the use of ‘bones’, this technique allowed them to animate them far easier than animating a normal Quake character. Now the games biggest graphical error is the actual engine, it just can’t cope, you notice this most when helicopters are involved, or right at the end when things can really crawl along, but if you can cope with it, then you have no problems.

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