What’s your favorite?
Intrigued byHalf-Life: Alyxbut you’re without a single Half-Lifegame under your belt? Or, seasoned Freeman looking to brush up before Alyxlaunches in two months? Valve has your back either way.
For the next couple of months, every Half-Lifegame is free to play on Steam. (You have to click through on each individual game to see the “Play for free!” prompt.) That’s Half-Life, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life: Source(a remaster of the original),Half-Life 2,Half-Life 2: Lost Coast(a small tech showcase from 2005 that sampled HDR lighting on the Source engine),Half-Life Deathmatch: Source,Half-Life 2: Episode One, andHalf-Life 2: Episode Two. All that’s missing is the co-op focused Half-Life: Decaywhich is only on PlayStation 2.
For my money (which happens to be zero dollars and zero cents in this case), the Gearbox-developed Half-Life: Opposing Forceis my favorite game on this list. It’s an expansion to the original where you don’t play as Freeman, but rather as a Marine who’s infiltrating Black Mesa. I have no idea if that opinion holds up; it’s just what I recall from more than a decade ago. It seems like a good time to revisit Opposing Forceto see if nostalgia and quality align like I remember.
Half-Life Franchise [Steam]