Planet Half-Life staff has just informed us that they've turned out not just one, but two articles to celebrate the grand history of Half-Life. First up, the team pieced together their fondest memories of Half-Life.
They also tossed up a look back at the history of Valve.
Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen, Founder of Planet Half-LifeRead more personal experiences with Half-Life from Planet Half-Life.
Like most 1997-era FPS nerds, I first became aware of Half-Life when that Gameslice(?) article announced it. It sounded mildly interesting and I loosely followed development of the game, but I think at the time I was a lot more excited about SiN. I don't believe very many people expected Half-Life to be anything special, but once Half-Life: Day One (the first 1/5th of the game, included as a sort of demo with video cards) leaked everyone basically completely freaked out. Personally, it blew my mind. It was soooo good. I'm sure the original Half-Life seems quaint now, but at the time it was way, way more advanced than the competition in almost every respect. And it almost seemed like it came out of nowhere; Half-Life just wasn't hyped the way SiN or Daikatana was.
They also tossed up a look back at the history of Valve.
April 12, 2000 - Valve announces it has “teamed up with†(read: hired) the Counter-Strike development team.Their timeline covers the birth of Valve, Half-Life, Counter-Strike, TFC, and everything up to yesterday's release of Left 4 Dead. Go read it, you won't regret it.
November 8, 2000 - Counter-Strike 1.0 is released through Valve, launching one of the largest multiplayer trends of all time. To this day CS 1.6 (the last version update prior to its move to the Source engine) is the most played online PC game excluding MMORPGs. As a side effect, Valve also unintentionally creates one of the most annoying Internet subcultures ever.