In a Time, when 3D First-Person-Shooters didn’t need a proper background to be successful, the first Half-Life really stood out with a relatively well refined setting and storyline. A milestone is the famous “train-ride” that introduces the player to the facility and the underlying universe. It had a major cultural impact on the genre and it’s customers. Looser narrated titles would soon perish or later come back with refined and overhauled content, like Wolfenstein or Doom Games.

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Portal

Portal is first and foremost a first-person-shooter puzzle hybrid with a little bit of story background, seemingly genericly placed in the same universe in which half-life and black mesa take place. But don’t be fooled with it’s minimalistic approach to level architecture and gameplay mechanics, this game has much more to offer than any cover or description could ever provide.

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Portal 2

The official Sequel to the surprise success of Portal allows us a better insight of what Aperture Laboratories actually is. To be even considered an adversary of Black-Mesa with it’s massive military-industrial funding, facilities and secret projects is, in itself a revelation, but the founder Cave Johnson wasn’t even remotely satisfied with that. Canonically this is definitly a massive upgrade and with it’s enhanced level design and gameplay mechanics absolutely worth a visit.

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Half–Life²

The Sequel to the first Half-Life brings Us as Gordon Freeman to City 17, a Sanctuary City erected after the Incident of Black Mesa, which is only vaguely mentioned and explained, however the effects seem to speak for themselves. When the game released technicalities like the advanced (realistic) graphics but especially the highly sophisticated motion animation really stood out against other genre representatives from that era. To this day a major milestone in fps gaming and one of my most played games of all times.

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