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• Gordon Freeman's Prank Call

  As gamers, we possess a relentless amount of trivia and information about the hobby we've invested so, so many hours into; and to those uninitiated with the world of video games, said knowledge is baffling and mysterious at best. So what, exactly, are we supposed to do with these brainfulls of data--aside from alienate our poor family members who wonder just what the hell we do with our free time? Strangely enough, it turns out our vast wisdom on the topic of video games can be best put to use through the lost art of the prank phone call. And if you're still skeptical, all you need to do is listen to one of the greatest video game-related prank calls in recent history.  Allow me to set the stage: the following events take place on the syndicated radio show Coast to Coast, where host George Norry entertains the delusions of his clearly insane callers--and they range from stories of bottomless pits to tales of secret garden gnome societies.  But what happens when a savvy gamer calls in and recounts the story of Half-Life as the game's protagonist, Gordon Freeman? The answer, of course, is hilarity. Comedy gold after the cut. Read More... Posted Jan 29 2009, 04:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: valve, half-life, comedy, humor, bob mackey, gordon freeman

• Black Mesa: Source: Oh Right, That Still Exists

  In honor of the first Half-Life's 10th anniversary, I've been thinking of replaying the original over my long-awaited Christmas break.  But now, I may hold off a bit longer after seeing the trailer for the Black Mesa: Source mod and nearly pooping myself.  I just gave you fair warning. If you've been anticipating this mod as much as I have, then you'll know that seeing this much content is pretty big news. I'm no programming genius, but I imagine it takes quite a bit of work to remake an entire game--and a pretty big one, at that--in an entirely new and more powerful engine.  The Source engine may be beginning to show its age a bit, but there's no denying this is a major step up from Valve's previous attempt to give Half-Life a minor graphical upgrade with their own Half-Life: Source.  For now, this entire production is fan-made and free, but it wouldn't be too strange for Valve to pull another Willy Wonka (as they did with the Portal team) and invite the Black Mesa: Source folks onto their team.  As of now, this thing legitimately looks like it's worth money. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go chug a bottle of NyQuil. When I wake up months from now, I should be greeted by both Black Mesa: Source and the Policenauts fan translation. Cheers!  (Tell my friends and family it was an accident.) Related Links: Now At Your Local Dollar Store: Half-Life Entitled PC Gamers Whine about Rights GOG is Great Read More... Posted Dec 01 2008, 08:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: valve, half-life, fps, bob mackey, pc games, mods, black mesa: source

• A Decade of Gaming Excellence

  Just like Mackey, seeing that Half-Life is only a dollar on account of it’s ten years of being awesome brought back plenty of wonderful memories of late 90’s gaming. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that 1998 was not a great year, but the best year for the medium in its history. I think this is easy to prove. Below I’ve listed just a handful of 1998’s most well remembered games, and many of them continue to represent the best-in-class of their respective genres. Think about all the changes that have happened in gaming since these came out: high definition came to fruition, the Wii changed the rules, all those idiots you muted on Xbox Live last night were born. And yet, these titles endure: Read More... Posted Nov 20 2008, 01:00 PM by Joe Keiser with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: metal gear solid, half-life, starcraft, joe keiser, 1998

• Now At Your Local Dollar Store: Half-Life

  It may be hard to believe, but Half-Life, the FPS that redefined its "shoot your way out of hell while grabbing card keys" genre, is already ten years old.  Actually, since 1998 was such a monumental year of our little hobby, a hell of a lot of games turned 10 this year: Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft, Ocarina of Time, Gran Turismo, and quite a few I'm probably forgetting.  But out of all of these titles, only Half-Life can be had in these frightening modern times for the low, low price of 98 cents.  That's right; if you have a dollar in the bank and a Steam account, you can experience one of the best games ever made for less than the cost of most McDonald's menu items. There's one catch, though; this deal is only good until this Friday at noon PST--after that, Half-Life reverts to its original Steam price of $9.99 (still a good price). I'm not the biggest PC gamer of all time, but I have a gigantic man-crush on Steam.  I didn't think much of the service until it allowed me to get the entire Orange Box plus a Half-Life version of Peggle for only 40 bucks last Fall.  It also warmed my heart when I typed in the registration code on my 10 year-old Half-Life CD and found that Steam let me download it, and also every single product tangentially related to the first Half-Life for free.  Now, if only there was a way to pry those old Bullfrog titles from the sticky hands of EA... Read More... Posted Nov 20 2008, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: half-life, fps, bob mackey, pc games, steam, 1990s, 1998, deals

• F.E.A.R. 2 and Crafting the Bigger Sequel That’s Actually Better

  It was F.E.A.R. that pulled me, for the first time in twenty years of gaming, into first-person shooters. Like everyone else, I played my fair share of id’s shooters throughout the ‘90s. But being a console gamer, my time with turn-of-the-century FPSs, games that saw the genre evolve into a serious creative force and not just “Doom clones”, was always second-hand. I downloaded the demo for F.E.A.R. off of Xbox Live just looking for something to play and was entranced. The scares weren’t exactly gripping. Spooky little girl walks down the hall and *GASP* disappears! Walk into a room that’s covered in bloooOOOoood and then *WHOA* it’s not! The action, though, was unlike anything else I’d played up until 2006 thanks to the game’s still-impressive enemy AI. Walking down a hallway with the barrel of a shotgun jutting from the base of the screen was something I was used to. Bad guys jumping through windows to avoid exploding grenades and cursing at me wasn’t. Every single encounter was dangerous and forced you to consider how you moved through the mundane office cubicles and hallways that made up the bulk of the game’s setting. Unfortunately, F.E.A.R. was a classic example of how a game needs to have more than just an excellent set of fundamental rules to be great. Despite the incredible programming that made the baddies so interesting, there wasn’t much else to F.E.A.R. Every environment was the same, the story too vague to ever really hook you. After nine hours of wandering through identical hallways and realizing I was only three-quarters of the way through the game, I shelved it, opting to watch the ending on YouTube rather than finish it myself. If the demo of F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin I played today is indicative of the entire game, I think I’ll be finishing the whole thing this time out. Read More... Posted Nov 10 2008, 08:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, half-life, fps, fear, monolith, project origin, fear 2, warner bros

• The Videogame Ages, part 2

  In part one of The Videogame Ages, I discussed the inadequacy of “generation” language in gaming, and laid out The Golden Age of gaming. In part two, I look at the Silver and Bronze ages before taking a look at the modern era and the future. The Silver Age – 1983 to 1996 8-Bit, 16-Bit, Early Handheld, Early 3D, Advanced PC and Arcade The silver age of games is defined by expansion, in not just playability but breadth of experience. When home computers became affordable and home consoles began diversifying, games started transforming from immediate, single-mechanic experiences into more lasting forms. Silver age games were still about escalating challenge, but high scores ceased being the goal, replaced by definitive endings. Games started becoming more explicitly narrative-driven, as aesthetic justification on consoles and as the focus of many PC games (see the entire adventure game genre.) Portable gaming also started to rise to prominence during this period, early single-screen LCD games replaced by multi-game consoles like the Game Boy and Atari Lynx. Arcade and PC game technology pulled far away from home consoles, but all games were shifted from the rough visual abstraction of golden age games, into more aesthetically recognizable presentations – albeit still cartoonish impressionistic rather than realistic. The rise of polygonal 3D graphics, both real-time full 3D (Yu Suzuki’s Virtua series) and pre-rendered (Myst, etc.), at the end of the silver age marks the transition to bronze. In 1996, with the release of Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Quake, the silver age comes to a close. Read More... Posted Oct 27 2008, 06:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, boom blox, little big planet, game boy, halo 3, nes, PC, half-life, mac, mario 64, atari, Playstation, super mario bros, nolan bushnell, spore, tomb raider, 8-bit, 16-bit, quake, mmo, arcade, famicom, littlebigplanet, spacewar!, bob dvorak, golden age, 128-bit, Magnavox odyssey, myst, bronze age, silver age, pong, 32-bit, tennis for two

• The Videogame Ages, part 1

  This past Friday, I tried to slip a little piece of language into a discussion about game emulation that I was wary about using at all. At this point, the go-to boundaries for discussing videogames’ admittedly small history is console-technology generations. We say 8-Bit or 16-Bit because these are easy identifiers based on competing, contemporary technologies. But the language “The 8-Bit Generation” doesn’t account for arcade technology, PC games, or portable gaming. Now that Bob Dvorak’s Tennis for Two is officially fifty years-old, I think we can finally start applying broader terms to gaming’s evolutionary eras. Obviously history is fluid, and chances are these classifications won’t hold true in 2050, but for now they work. The Hesiodic ages, as laid out here, consider games on every platform; the rigid parameters of home consoles, the advanced nature of PC and Mac gaming throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, the fast strides made by arcade technology throughout that same period, and the predominantly inferior technology available in handheld gaming. Unlike Hesiod’s Ages of Man, however, the videogame ages are (mostly) a positive progression. Please note: these are not strict definitions. This is a discussion, and I want everyone to make their opinions heard in the comments section. Now then, onward to the Golden Age. Read More... Posted Oct 27 2008, 05:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, boom blox, little big planet, game boy, halo 3, nes, PC, half-life, mac, mario 64, atari, Playstation, super mario bros, nolan bushnell, spore, tomb raider, 8-bit, 16-bit, quake, mmo, arcade, famicom, littlebigplanet, spacewar!, bob dvorak, golden age, 128-bit, Magnavox odyssey, myst, bronze age, silver age, pong, 32-bit, tennis for two

• Left4Dead: The Most Important Training Simulation You Will Ever Play

  I am not embarrassed by many things. For example, when I invite a delightful young woman over to my apartment for a romantic liaison, I know full well that one of the first things she is going to see is a gigantic vinyl Godzilla. It sits on a mantle over a television surrounded by seven videogame consoles. The fridge is empty save for countless individual packets of soy sauce, a pitcher of water, and a lonesome bottle of Miracle Whip that may or may not have been there when I moved in. There is a framed map of Zebes from Super Metroid hanging in my bedroom. These are not things that label me “a catch.” I am also not embarrassed to admit what a terrible cliché I am. Like countless other men of my generation, raised with a nigh on religious devotion to media, I too have a Zombie Plan. The plan details what I will do during the initial weeks of the zombie apocalypse, that is to say, when my urban home is overrun with the brain-hungry undead. The plan is multi-tiered and incredibly thorough. I have this plan because it is important to be prepared for zombies. I also have it because I enjoy daydreaming about the zombie apocalypse. I am not embarrassed by this, and apparently neither is Valve, makers of Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and this fall’s Left4Dead. Read More... Posted Oct 15 2008, 09:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, ea, valve, portal, half-life, team fortress, zombies need to be planned for, left4dead, john romero, 28 days later

• Google to Buy Valve?

  Still a rumor, but what does this mean? Mashable's Stan Schroeder thinks its an odd choice, but the value of Steam would make it a worthwhile purchase. With Steam, Valve has managed to do what no one else has: they’ve made it so easy and simple to download games that users are actually willing to pay for it even when they have a choice of pirating the same content for free. Read More... Posted Sep 17 2008, 11:00 AM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments Filed under: valve, half-life, cole stryker, google lively, google, steam, game developer's conference

• Love-Hate: In Defense of the Cutscene

  As a follow-up to yesterday's post about the intersection of passive and active media in games, I'd like to defend the humble cutscene, for when used in moderation, cutscenes can enhance the experience of play. The way I see it, Blizzard has mastered the cutscene. They are brief, infrequent, and they pack a wallop. For example, the epic scale of the battles truly comes alive here:  Wow! Look how huge that battle cruiser is! Did you see that zergling rush at the end? Here we are given a dramatic representation of what presumably goes on behind the familiar sprites during the game's core play experience. We see the panic in our soldiers' eyes and the callousness of our generals. The film does more than just further the story, it enhances the game. It grants players a sense of empathy by creating an emotional connection. It's much easier to relate to a marine than before, when all we've seen of him is this:   Read More... Posted Jun 19 2008, 05:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: bioshock, half-life, cole stryker, cutscenes, starcraft

• The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History, Part 3

  Sonic the Hedgehog - Green Hill Zone By the time the original Sonic the Hedgehog came out, Super Mario World had been out for six months in Japan. In almost every way, Mario had the edge on Sonic — more levels, more power-ups, more variety, more gaming. But there was one thing you couldn't take away from Sonic, and that was the sheer dazzle of starting up the game and entering Green Hill Zone. To this day, Green Hill Zone looks spectacular, with its sparkling ocean, lush vegetation and abstract geometry — not to mention Masato Nakamura's unforgettable music. Mario had a lot to offer, but in terms of pure physicality, most of Dinosaur Land seems awfully drab next to Green Hill Zone. (Plus, it was 1991 — "zones" were just cooler than "lands", for Chrissakes.) — PS Read More... Posted Jun 12 2008, 09:45 PM by John Constantine with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid, nintendo, capcom, final fantasy, top ten, prince of persia, konami, valve, half-life, shadow of the colossus, sega, zelda, sonic the hedgehog, square-enix, god of war, einhander, final fantast vii, metal gear, the ten greatest opening levels in gaming history, mega man x, strider

• The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History, Part 2

  Metal Gear Solid 2 – The U.S.S. Discovery The opening level of Metal Gear Solid 2 is the finest Metal Gear game ever made in-and-of itself. Forget Hideo Kojima’s cinematic pretensions for just a moment and think about the raw play available in this self-contained prologue scenario. The tools of MGS’ trade may not be available to Snake in their totality here, but every inch of the tanker acts as a playground for the series' most fundamental mechanics. You can sneak through without ever being seen or you can kill every Russian soldier you come across. There is an expertly paced boss fight. There is skin-mag related humor. It’s all here. Now layer Kojima’s cinematic pretensions back on top of all that considering they are at their best (read: most restrained) here and you have a beginning that is, arguably, superior to anything the follows or precedes it in the entire series. — JC Read More... Posted Jun 12 2008, 09:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid, nintendo, capcom, final fantasy, top ten, prince of persia, konami, valve, half-life, shadow of the colossus, sega, zelda, sonic the hedgehog, square-enix, god of war, einhander, final fantast vii, metal gear, the ten greatest opening levels in gaming history, mega man x, strider

• The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History, Part 1

  First impressions are important, in videogames as they are in life. The first moments you spend with any art can define your experience of it. They compel you to dig deeper, to more carefully consider the work or the hand that crafted it. Other times, they can be so startling that everything that follows is diminished. This week, 61 Frames Per Second looks at the ten greatest opening levels in gaming history. Stick with us past the first one though. They’re all great. — John Constantine Prince of Persia 2 - Rooftop Chase The original Prince of Persia was a unique and wonderful game, but it wasn't much for setting. Half the game takes place in a monochromatic dungeon, and the other in a monochromatic palace. 2 quickly makes up for it; about to be executed by the Vizier's goons, the Prince leaps through a window, and from there it's up to you to guide him across the palace rooftops, into the marketplace below, down a long pier, finally leaping into the hold of a departing merchant ship — all with those guards on your tail. The stage is a real nail-biter, and all the more memorable because the rest of the game is comparatively subdued. — Peter Smith Read More... Posted Jun 12 2008, 09:15 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, metroid, nintendo, capcom, final fantasy, top ten, prince of persia, konami, valve, half-life, shadow of the colossus, sega, zelda, sonic the hedgehog, square-enix, god of war, einhander, final fantast vii, metal gear, the ten greatest opening levels in gaming history, mega man x, strider

• Whatcha Playing: Another Slice of Cake

  Having never been much of a PC or Mac gamer, I’ve come into Valve’s games far later than most. I experienced the original Half-Life second hand through my college roommate and only played through it myself last summer, on the PS2 of all things, in anticipation of the Orange Box’s fall release on consoles. When I finally did play through Half-Life 2 and its subsequent episodes, I was more than impressed. Valve’s reputation as peerless storytellers is more than deserved and despite being four years-old at this point, Half-Life 2 remains a high-water mark for game making free of the language and tools of film narrative. Writer Eric Wolpaw’s most impressive work in the Orange Box, however, is the widely lauded Portal, a perfect mix of Half-Life’s menace with the humor of his work on Psychonauts. Up until last Sunday, I’d been waiting for a chance to race through Portal a second time for months. This wasn’t possible since my copy of the Orange Box had ended up in Korea. Damn roommates. Portal is a strange experience when you return to it. Read More... Posted May 16 2008, 10:00 AM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: john constantine, whatcha playing, valve, portal, PC, fallout 3, orange box, half-life, mac, still alive