Half life + Team Fortress (Half Life (PC))

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Product:	Half Life (PC)
Date:	25/05/01 (1 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: half life rules

Disadvantages: none

My bloke bought Half Life about 2 years ago. He played the single player mode for a while, as did I. We got a *bit* involved in it - it's fun, not too fast, decent storyline, good graphics, makes you use your brain. It's set in a nuclear facility, most of which is underground. You work there. There is an accident - you have to get out past the mutated monsters, the dead people and the crazy people, not to mention fires, damage, etc etc. He completed it, as did many of his friends, and all enthused about it for ages. The whole game took a good couple of weeks from start to finish.

Then we forgot about it.

Then he remembered it, after chatting to a mate who had just decided to play it again. They then mentioned it to work mates ... and the Wolverine server was born.

My hubby now spends his lunch hour running around playing either LAN or WAN games of Half Life (multiplayer mode obviously) with his mates. Wolverine is very popular now, so as he's sys ops and has the server under his desk, he regularly reboots the server if it's full and he can't get on (hehe). He then comes home and starts playing again, sometimes before he's even changed out of his work clothes. I'm not allowed to surf when he's playing as I pull loads of bandwidth away from him and he gets killed (and you know I NEVER do it on purpose, I NEVER secretly run Napster and download entire scores, and I certainly NEVER run the Big Brother cameras while he's playing). All I hear is BANG, CRASH, MEDIC!, shots firing, grenades going off, swearing every 2 seconds, evil cackles ...

Drives me mad! Or it did ...

I watched my brother play Half Life a while ago. There are a few different games that the multiplayer mode offers, which I didn't realise. It's not all just running around shooting people and blowing things up. You join teams and steal each other's flags. You try and raid the other team's bunker. The one t
hat caught my eye, however, is FOOTIE! Yes, you can play football on this blasted game and now I'm hooked. You get the ball (without getting shot), you then run around a lot (without getting shot), you try to find the enemy's goal (without getting shot) and then you score (and I always get shot about a foot away from the goal). It's very fast, no time for fancy stuff, just a lot of running and shooting, and, for me, lots of hiding and sniping.

You can be several different characters, all have various guns, skills (heavy weaponry and sniper seem to be most popular) and speeds. The skill levels of the players vary greatly, so you won't go into a game and be blasted to high heaven from the get go. I tend to run around a lot firing wildly and that seems to bag me as many points as the guys who hide and line shots up properly. There are a LOT of instructions and commands for HAlf Life, but I wouldn't worry about a lot of them until you have the basics down. Find out how to run, jump, duck, shoot, change weapons and throw grenades first - worry about the rest later. You won't have time in a multiplayer for more than the basics. You can also be a Medic, which of course involves running around healing people. It's a lot easier than a shooter and has the added bonus of being able to give the enemy an virus if you can get near them.

I couldn't beat 'em, so I joined 'em, and now he's stealing my bandwidth!


Addition on 5th September: I thought my running around wildly was a clever ploy that stopped me getting shot. Apparently it's not, and I quote: "<HW guy> You just run round like an arse". HW GUY means Hardware Guy - one of the characters, I'm not hard and I'm not a guy.

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