Half-Life's world astonishes me. There's so much care put into interactive doodads, environmental puzzle-solving and platforming, and it helps the Black Mesa complex feels like a real, liminal place. It's overrun by alien life forms after a freak accident on the job, but that's why Gordon brought his trusty crowbar to work. No theoretical phycisist should leave home without theirs. The scientists and security guards all have their memorable banter (and iconic screams). The alien designs are rad, and the voices of the HECU soldiers ride a fine line between robotic and deathly serious. It makes it all the cooler when they raise their voices when engaging Freeman.

It's hard for me to complain about this game when there's so much cool stuff going on under the hood, but I sure can try. The long jump is a cool move Freeman can perform, but I forgot it required a separate attachment the moment I left the tutorial. Only when I got that attachment near the very end of the game did I realize; I had gaslit myself into thinking I was pulling off long jumps for the entire game. Any time I fought against HECU grunts, they fucking bodied me. It's almost definitely a skill issue (I am that bad at FPS games), but I never had similar issues when fighting the various aliens. It lead to points where I was living on 2HP and a dream, due to poor quicksaves. I'm not even sure you can complete certain sections of the game without quicksaves due to trial and error.

All that said, I can't really stay mad at Half-Life due to how ambitious it was, and how videogame-y it is. I love running through the liminal halls of Black Mesa while constantly slamming my crowbar against the walls. I love blowing up enemies and watching them scatter into cartoony little giblets. I'm gonna be reciting the monotone warnings of the HEV suit while playing other games. Half-Life is just a mood for me at this point. It's undeniably crusty, but I've always enjoyed crust.