Half-Life

Dr. Gordon Freeman doesn’t speak, but his story drives everything forward. This first-person action experience helped define a new era by blending engaging gameplay with upgraded graphics, clever level design, and a story that may not be what it seems. Instead of relying on cutscenes, Half-Life tells much of its narrative through the visual environment.

Dr. Gordon Freeman arrives late for work at 8:47 a.m. at the Black Mesa Research Facility, riding the advanced Black Mesa tram system through the complex. He reports to his workplace, the Anomalous Materials Lab, where a security officer tells him the scientists are running a special experiment today. Freeman heads to the locker room, puts on his hazard suit, and descends to the lab’s lower levels. In the Anti-Mass Chamber, he is warned that the day’s specimen is both the rarest and the most unstable. Freeman’s job is to push the specimen into the scanning beam of the Anti-Mass Spectrometer for analysis. The moment he does, it detonates, triggering a catastrophe known as a “resonance cascade” that tears open a portal between Earth and a dimension called Xen. Freeman is apparently transported to an alien world, catching brief glimpses of strange lifeforms—including a circle of Vortigaunts—before blacking out.