Half Life Playthrough Video Description

The date is: 2019.02.14
I'm having my usual chat with my friend console (https://www.youtube.com/user/Consolethinks).
At the time we usually played with Worms Armageddon, or discussed about cartoons, and general stuff what happened with us while we were growing up.
Primarly we are gamers (I think) and console was constantly talking about Half Life, to the point of annoyance.
FPS games weren't my thing with the exeption of UT2004 what I used to play when it was new, but nothing really else when it stictly came to FPS games.
I mean, I used to play a few MOHA games on my PS2 and it was allright, nothing groundbreaking.
Console was keep talking about Half Life... Half Life Half Life Half Life...
On this day, this was the point when I was kinda mentally broke down and said:

STOP THIS WILL YA!? I'M GOING TO PLAY THAT GODDAMNM GAME NOW, CONSIDER THIS AS A VALENTINE'S DAY GIFT FROM ME, BUT JUST STOP IT ALREADY!!!

A few moments later he gaved me a torrentfile for the game, and this is where shit were about to get real.
For more history lesson please watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlcA192rvzE

It's a pretty shitty quality video, and I decided to play the game on the ASS mode (no hit run for a game that I NEVER PLAYED before abusing quicksaves like an idiot), just
to annoy console that "FINE I'M PLAYING THIS SHIT".
He gave me the original 1998 release of the game which suffers from what I like to call: superglue syndrome. Basically it's a programming error when a new map is about to load, and if you are
on a moving surface or walls, you are going to get stuck forever and you have to reload your previous save / quicksave.

I started playing, the dialogue for my first impression was like: why everybody acts like an idiot / mean mother-fucker...

Console was literally instructing every single movement of mine, where to go what to do, what is what, what related to something etc.
I was like ok, but still what's the deal?
It just looks like a generic FPS from 1998 with some questionable graphics, a very irritating control system (seriously the FPS platforming for my first try was just UNBEARABLE), and the strange
thing that our main character doesn't speak a word, nor he makes any vocal effects like when he is getting hurt, smushed into pieces, blown up etc.
Just because Half Life is one of those games where literally EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING CAN KILL YOU FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON! EVEN DOORS! I MEAN WTF!?

Console had a pretty fun time looking my ass-sucking at the game, and quite literally dying in every single move I took (because just for the kick I pumped up the difficulty to the hardest one)
from a soldier, from a vortigaunt or from a goddamn headcrab. Seriously, the headcrabs are one of the most annyoing types of enemies I have EVER encountered in any game (and I'm playing games
for more than 20 years know) ever. They are fast, and virtually impossible to dodge without getting hit.


Anyways...


The months have passed and since that video I haven't played the game for almost 3-4 months because I was just fucking tormented by that game that everybody seems to like...
Around this time after getting nagged by a lot of people, even though when I made my opinion about the platform or Steam (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALzY8IqJ3KA).
The whole idea of buying games on your PC with this app was kinda far fetched from me, since I was more about to collect psychical media (discs, cartridges etc.) when it came
to video games in general.

So around April - May I made my steam account, and one of my friends gifted me a game called Platypus, which was a shmup that I really enjoyed back in the day.
Around May - June, console advised me to download Sven-Coop, a modification of the Half Life game which is multiplayer only: you can play the original game,
the expansion packs, and a ton and I mean TON of other Half Life mods with your friends.

I think this is where the shit really started to get insane.

I got a bit more interested in the game, I started looking reviews, documentaries why people like this game so much, and why is it so imporant in general.
Honestly I was still considering the fact that HL3 are never going to happen, because the first game is just a trainwreck of bullshit decisions with decent gameplay.
I started beating the game normally, several times the 1998 version.

After what felt like 1-2 months I finally figured out how everything works, how to play like a normal person,  I decided to make my first ever purchase on Steam:
I bought the Half Life saga around a sale date. It was a decent buy, with basically getting HL1, Opposing Force, Blue Shift (these are officially licensed mods / expansions to the
original Half Life game, yet these were developed by Gearbox Software) HL2, HL2 EP1, HL2 EP2 and Portal 1 and 2 as a separate bundle, hence Portal was the game that introduced me to
the world of Valve games.

Back in the day I heard a lot about Half Life, but as I said I wasn't interested in FPS games. Portal was the game that caught my attention: an FPS game that's more like a puzzlegame than
mindless bloodbath? Huh... this should be nice.
And how about it: even my mom played it a little when it was new, even though my mom has literally NO interested in video games and gaming in general anymore.

So around August of 2019 I was literally a fresh new soldier from a Half Life bootcamp, so I could understand the memes, the jokes, the HL SFX videos, and many more.
Around this time I purchased the official Source version of the game too, which has a very negative reputation of how choppy and buggy it is.
I ignored those warnings and I purchased it anyway: the reviews turned out to be were true: there were so many unintentionally funny bugs in this version (like howering scinetists), but alas
the gameplay was basically the same, with some touched visuals and stuff.

Around autumn we played Sven Coop with console and some other friends I met on Discord on a sort of daily or at least weekly basis.

I started to follow Valve's Twitter account of what they are doing, how they are successful with Steam bla bla bla bla bla....

I even got to the point of: ok, this company knows how to makes games, so let's purchase the rest of their games: Day Of Defeat, Dota 2, CS:GO, TF2.

To this day I haven't played that much of those games, CS:GO is the one that I played the most out of all the rest.
Around this time I was also on finishing Half Life 2 on my PC and on my XBOX360 (on The Orange Box package). Around the end of September / October I finally managed to beat HL2, so I was about to start
playing the Episodes and boy...
The Episode expansion aren't TOO great for my tastes at least. Sure, it's an expansion of the story, and the events, but the gameplay wasn't too improved, and honestly some of the fights were just
borderling annoying (especially the end of Episode 1).
I started playing Episode 2 too, but when I realized that you have to spend the 25% of the game underground fighting those Antlions bugs and their larvas... that's where I gave a halt, and to this
day I still haven't finished HL2 EP2, even though I know exactly what happens.

Around this time I started to play the official expansion packs too, and I had a fun time with them (I even enjoyed Blue Shift too which is really short, really easy and a kind of a black sheep in the original ones).
Then October came and November. And at one day... I saw something, that hardcode fans was waiting for almost 12 years (HL2 EP2 came out in 2007): a NEW HL game is being made, and scheluded for a March 2020 release.
Half Life: Alyx, which will be VR only - and it kinda sucks for me since I don't have VR set, and nor I think I'm ever going to since it costs like a 20 year old Opel Astra, I mean come on. :P

So I was thinking:

MAYBE I AM THE SOLE REASON WHY HL: ALYX got announced? NOTE: I never played any of the Half Life games till that day I mentioned in the opening of this bigass description what I'm pretty sure nobody is going to read it.
MAYBE JUST MAYBE... GABEN WAS WATCHING ME?

The answer is 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% is no, I mean why would a corporate president watch a guy on YT with broken english rambling about his game he made 20 years ago...
Whatever the case is, one thing for sure: I'm pretty glad that I console advised me to play this game, since I haven't had this much fun with an FPS game in a very long time.

And the big question: HALF LIFE 3 (and basically a third game for all of Valve's games)? Will it ever happen?
I have to say no, and for a very good reason: if you are a corporate president, and you make literally billions and billions of money with just selling other dev's games on your platform... why would you risk
your own company's good state to make another game ever again...
With the upcoming release of Half Life: Alyx I turned out to be wrong, so maybe this decade might be a goldmine again for PC gaming in general.

Anyways, a big shoutout to consolethinks, and just enjoy the damn video. :)