# Talk:Half-Life (video game)

"Requirements" section is one of the most important sections of a videogame article in wikipedia. where the is it???!!! --190.231.47.181 (talk) 18:07, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Keep in mind that basic Wikipedia policy entails that articles are informative and encyclopedic in nature, and are not meant to be video game manuals for would-be players. Articles present information for a general, concise, terse taste of the subject. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines for more info. GabeIglesia (talk) 21:56, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I noticed that there is no reference to another little known expansion to the Half-Life game.  The smaller expansion is located with another game (Gunman Chronicles maybe), but I am not sure which for it has been years since I played it.
The expansion basically consists of three missions.  It starts off with Freeman talking to the G-Man in an office and the missions take place in a carnival setting, caves, and then some sort of shipping factory.  If memory serves me correct, the purpose of those three missions was to either capture or set free three different crystals of some sort.  Is there anyone that can verify this?  I believe it came out around 2001-2002.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jayveran (talk • contribs) 23:29, 28 February 2013 (UTC) 

I had Gunman Chronicles (GC) back when I don't remember this. I recall once plasying something similar to what you describe but I believe it was just a fan mod. Even so, if there was a mod within GC I doubt it would be considered an official mod. Яehevkor ✉ 11:17, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
That expansion is called Absolute Redemption. It was developed by Maverick software. It was included as a bonus game with "Half-Life: Counter-Strike" (The retain version of Counter-Strike).  I personally think it would be OK to mention it somewhere on this page, whereas Gunman Chronicles would not belong here. However, Uplink should most definitely be mentioned, since it was developed by Valve. It is equivalent to Lost Coast. Peacebears (talk) 18:52, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
It is an unofficial mod, and seemingly not a notable one. Mentioning it seems unnecessary. IceWelder [✉] 19:05, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Anyone know the game's budget? --82.170.113.123 (talk) 13:59, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
No  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plumjet09 (talk • contribs) 21:26, 22 March 2021 (UTC) 

Seeing some conflicting information on the release date for Half-Life, based on the most recent edit by User:Merrick Simms. Steam has changed their listed release date listed from Nov 19th to Nov 8th. Some reviews list Nov 19th, however, some use Oct 31st (Including Metacritic and IGN, but I believe they may be calling it "published date"). Think we need to get this cleared up and stick a source specifically to the release date. -- ferret (talk) 12:09, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

It's going to be difficult to cleared up this problem. I have an article about the 15 years of Half-Life on Lambda generation and two wikis. The Combine Overwiki and the Valve Developer Community's wiki. The release date is november 19 on this website and the two wiki :
http://lambdageneration.com/community/half-life/15-years-of-half-life/
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time
http://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Half-Life
The archives about Steam are clear about thi but why they change in this case ? I guess the only way is to ask Valve about that.
Merrick Simms (talk) 14:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

There are some important firsts in HL that aren't really mentioned. It was the first game to default to WASD + mouse (Quake and Quake II both defaulted to keyboard only control and arrow keys).
There are rumors that they used WASD because those were the keys used by famous Quake gamer, Thresh.72.166.65.132 (talk) 02:05, 10 April 2014 (UTC)IB

Thanks! I can add that, but I'll need a source stating that before I do. That's a pretty big claim to make, and I don't want to do it if it's inaccurate. --Nicereddy (talk) 02:40, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Sorry but it wasn't the first to use WASD + mouse, Delta Force released a few months earlier used WASD + mouse by default.109.156.82.172 (talk) 14:43, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Shouldn't "it was too ambitious a project" be "it was too ambitious project"? Second row in second paragraph.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.253.141.38 (talk) 20:47, 7 June 2014 (UTC) 

The Half-Life: Source was recreated last year.  With the new additions, I still don't think there is enough distinct information to warrant its own article.  It's lacking detail and content in all areas.  Anything currently written there can be summarised in several sentences within this article.  I am proposing content be merged again and Half Life: Source be redirected back to Half Life.  The1337gamer (talk) 21:48, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

merge it's not even a remake, it's a port to a new engine. There's not enough difference for a separate article. Deunanknute (talk) 23:07, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
Merge The game is nearly identical to the original release. The article has barely any content, and users are forced to read the Half-Life article if they want to know more about the game. Might as well merge the articles and keep all the information in the same place. Reach Out to the Truth 00:18, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Merge. Unless print sources pop up, the game's online sources predominantly discuss it in the context of the main game. The Black Mesa remake has much more coverage. I think there's consensus to go ahead with this. czar ⨹ 18:40, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

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Yo. I get where everyone's coming from. The company was called Valve LLC at the time. Sure.
Except... actually it kind of wasn't. Nobody called it Valve LLC - not even the company itself, in its logo, branding etc - even though it was its legal name. Wikipedia uses the widely accepted names for things; for example, Microsoft's legal name is Microsoft Corporation but every article calls it Microsoft. The same goes for Nintendo Co., Ltd., Sega Games Co., Ltd., Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd., Capcom Co., Ltd...
It would be wrong to say that Jetpac was developed by Rare (the company was named Ultimate Play the Game at the time); its renaming was part of a drastic brand revamp for the company and the name used at the time was Ultimate Play the Game, not Rare. Whereas the difference in name between Valve LLC and Valve Corporation is purely legal and, for the purposes of normal use, irrelevant - everyone has always called the company Valve. Popcornduff (talk) 12:22, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I have to say that your example actually muddies the waters even more - Rare weren't called "Ultimate Play the Game" at the time, they were called Ashby Computers and Graphics - they only traded as Ultimate.  So in your example it's reasonable to not use the actual trading name of a company when deciding who the developer is.  Chaheel Riens (talk) 12:48, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
I didn't know that, bad example, thanks. But it doesn't change the point: we use the common name. Popcornduff (talk) 13:01, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
It is far to says that the common name should be used, but due to the disambiguation of the device, a valve, the Valve Corporation article talk page dicded to use "Valve Corporation" instead of "Valve (company)", wherefore every article concerning it links to an unpipied "Valve Corporation", such as infoboxes and leads of their games, other articles mentioning it, or citations' "publisher" field, which, fairly, makes sense. The "Valve L.L.C." ("L.L.C." is a common form of writing ", LLC" from limited liability company, sometimes used in Washington State) title was then inserted to Valve's pre-2003 games to differentiate it from the disambiguated "Valve Corporation", as it was not the case back then.
I agree that we could pipe it every time to Valve, but "Valve Corporation" was commonly adopted on this encyclopedia for the first mention, to know which "Valve" is meant in the first place, and Valve may be used further on, such as it is seen on their games' articles as well as their own article. Saying, as long as the disambiguation and common usage of "Valve Corporation" presists as-is currently, we should keep Valve L.L.C. for infobox and lead, to introduce the "Valve" in question, then follow up with Valve through the article. If you would tend to change the disambiguation as a whole, please confront the according talk page. Lordtobi (✉) 13:31, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
It seems to me that the name of the Valve Corporation article - with regards to concerns like disambiguation - is a separate issue from how we refer to the company in prose. Popcornduff (talk) 13:48, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
I posted on the Valve talk page. Thanks for the heads-up. I guess the conversation should be happening there, not here. Popcornduff (talk) 14:03, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
I'm still proposing to use "Valve" in this article and others. I invite others to contribute their thoughts on the Valve Corporation talk page. Popcornduff (talk) 10:23, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

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https://archive.org/details/edgeuk105/page/n79
https://web.archive.org/web/20011224063247/http://www.gamespot.fr/stories/news/0,1610,2008894,00.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20181229215317/https://www.hl-inside.ru/magazines/edge/Edge_2003-06_124/
https://web.archive.org/web/20000229191037/http://www.pcgamer.com:80/news/1999-07-19.html
[1]
https://web.archive.org/web/19970605102822/http://www.cdmag.com:80/news/0530971.html
https://archive.org/stream/Maximum_PC_December_1998#page/n51/mode/2up
https://web.archive.org/web/19971012045034/http://www.pcgamer.com:80/news/news0526.html#4
https://web.archive.org/web/20010107075200/http://www.gamecenter.com:80/News/Item/0,3,0-3143,00.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20001109224300/http://www.gamecenter.com:80/Features/Exclusives/Deserved/ss01.html
https://web.archive.org/web/19970605150522/http://www.next-generation.com:80/news/052897d.chtml
https://web.archive.org/web/20000527031043/http://www.gamecenter.com:80/Features/Shoot/Halfsin/
https://web.archive.org/web/20000301181025/http://pc.ign.com:80/news/5755.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20010127211700/http://sierrastudios.com:80/games/half-life/official-releases.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20010127195900/http://sierrastudios.com:80/games/half-life/archives.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20001214093300/http://headline.gamespot.com:80/news/98_09/03_gabe/index.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20010124085300/http://sierrastudios.com:80/games/half-life/news.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20000818034438/http://www.sierrastudios.com:80/company/main-company.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20010107075200/http://www.gamecenter.com:80/News/Item/0,3,0-3143,00.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20160322185323/http://scans.roushimsx.com/PCGamer_1997_10_pg044.jpg - https://web.archive.org/web/20160322193420/http://scans.roushimsx.com/PCGamer_1997_10_pg045.jpg - https://web.archive.org/web/20160322190552/http://scans.roushimsx.com/PCGamer_1997_10_pg046.jpg
https://web.archive.org/web/20160322185445/http://scans.roushimsx.com/PCGames_1999_02_pg074.jpg
[2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]
https://web.archive.org/web/20160322223141/http://scans.roushimsx.com/PCGamer_1999_01_pg166.jpg, https://web.archive.org/web/20160322191442/http://scans.roushimsx.com/PCGamer_1999_01_pg167.jpg

Teaser vid but the full will be out Dec. 10. [10]. --Masem (t) 19:52, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

With immortal scientists, robot Marines, and shit (mostly shit). SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 20:55, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Clarify "shit (mostly shit)". please. Also requires sources. Lordtobi (✉) 20:56, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
I got a Polygon one, and know why we know about it. [11] --Masem (t) 21:08, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
Polygon does qualify as shit indeed. Surprised anyone wouldn't know because it's one of the most infamous cases of FPS censorship, similar to the denazified Wolfenstein by Nintendo. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 23:14, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Notably CS. Also the expansions, too. --SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 08:53, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
Also implement that list of sources above and delete the used ones. Especially if they can replace my Amazon links - and i couldn't even find anything regarding Half-Life: Platinum Pack anymore. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 09:28, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

With sources as normal credits (https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/half-life/credits) aren't helpful. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 17:12, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Ive noticed, after reading the entire Legacy section, that there appears to be no sign of Scientist screaming memes cited here. Should I edit the article to document that part of the HL1 legacy?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by SliceOfBread69 (talk • contribs) 17:17, 29 October 2020 (UTC) 

Backstab #14
207.229.139.154 (talk) 00:28, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

I can personally attest to this (I know no original research), and there are social media posts about it, but I feel like it isn't important enough to be mentioned, and there arent really any super credible sources for this claim. Emulsification92 (talk) 01:34, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

If, despite an abundance of coverage, no source cared to include this particular detail, it is likely not worth mentioning. IceWelder [✉] 07:55, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

It's stated in the first game that Gordon Freeman graduated MIT with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. I believe this means that he should be referred to as "Dr. Gordon Freeman" rather than simply Gordon Freeman, if not in every instance, then at least in the first instance of his name. However, I am unsure if this both makes total sense grammatically and fits the Wikipedia rules for edits.  Unsightly Scientist (talk) 01:41, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Even if that's the developer publishing their own stuff, it is fully appropriate as a source, as long as we know that the person is the one that developed the game. We're not looking to boost notability here, that line is already drawn, so its not required to be secondary. And the additions were attributed to this person so that we're not making any assumptions. First party and SPS sources are absolutely allowed. — Masem (t) 00:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

It's a self-published WP:PRIMARY source and therefore of dubious use to Wikipedia. As a general rule I don't think we should add material that would make an article less likely to pass a FA review.
Additionally, as someone who watched this entire multi-hour series of videos a while ago, we could probably add hundreds or thousands of words to this article based on the fascinating stuff this guy says, and that makes me really uncomfortable — where do we draw the line?
Having said that, looking at previous discussions on game talks, there has been agreement to use similar primary sources in the past, so if there is a consensus to let this one pass then I'll respect that. Popcornfud (talk) 01:10, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Primary sources are not bad.  They don't support notability, and pretty much cannot be used for BLP related issues as well as contentious statements. But in terms of stating influences that were incorporated into a game, assuming we can vouch for the identity, its 100% legit. As long as we don't overload the article with that (which , with only two sentences, that's not an issue) Masem (t) 01:12, 31 October 2024 (UTC)
Multiple videogame articles here use YT videos by original developers as sources, for example Conker's Bad Fur Day, so these videos should definitely be acceptable enough to add back into this page. Condontdoit296 (talk) 01:17, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

When describing HL1's plot, let's stay true to the original stand-alone game, as it appeared to its 1999 audience. Please put lore from sequels, expansions, etc in Half-Life (series).
Character names and events that do not appear in the original game should be left out. For example:

"G-Man" (from internal file names - in-game dialogue calls him "the administrator")
"Barney" (from internal file names - in-game security guards don't have names)
"HECU" (from Gearbox expansions, in-game they are simply US Marines or Army)
Kleiner, Eli, etc from HL2 & the Black Mesa remaster (in-game scientists don't have names)
Internal plot writings from Valve
...etc
Oh and let's keep it brief. People can play the game if they want details. Thank you! - Tronno ( t | c ) 05:50, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

WP does not hide spoilers included lore or the like that may be revealed in latter games. — Masem (t) 13:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Hmm, I don't think this a no-spoiler thing. Many of the details presented in later games were not defined yet when this game came out, so I'd have to agree that it would be inaccurate to include these here. Meta information in the same vein, except perhaps if contemporary sources already talked about G-Man as "G-Man" because there was no better name to use. IceWelder [✉] 13:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
That's right, this isn't a spoiler issue. It seems like G-Man is the only term used in the plot summary that wasn't necessarily canonical at the time. I think we could easily find reliable sources describing him (in his HL1 appearance) as the G-Man, but I wouldn't object to writing around it and just writing "He is detained by the G-Man, a mysterious interdimensional agent" instead. Popcornfud (talk) 13:51, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
Contrary to what Masem wrote in an edit summary, it's not standard on Wikipedia to reference the summaries of other installments in plot summaries, and in fact this is discouraged on film articles, for example. The general approach is to treat each plot as its own thing, or else you get into all sorts of retcon weirdness. Popcornfud (talk) 13:54, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
IceWelder & Popcornfud are correct: it's not about spoilers. The whole Plot section is a spoiler and that's fine. I'm talking about retcons that fundamentally alter the tone of the original work. For more details, please read this wiki style guide.
Your revert violates the guidelines in multiple ways, including (quote):
Placing spiritual successors in the same continuity as the works that inspired them.
Making connections to real-world people, places, or events that are not clearly established by the work.
Includes information that is either redundant or unnecessary to understanding that topic.
The plot summary should be from the perspective of a first-time player, in isolation from external meta & sequels, and brief. With this in mind, I will undo your revert and return to a more encyclopedic style. I hope the reasons are clear. - Tronno ( t | c ) 16:55, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I added a small change and then a minute later someone removed it. I added a SINGULAR WORD, and someone immediately removed it. When I added the weapons article, it was also removed even after changing it to adhere to MOS! There wasn’t even another page regarding that topic, and I haven’t vandalized anything at all, I genuinely don’t understand why people are doing this and I’d really like to know! 96.230.108.30 (talk) 16:38, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

It looks like the reasons were explained in the edit summaries, with links to the relevant Wikipedia policies. Popcornfud (talk) 16:43, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
Alot of people don’t cite their reasons in the edit summaries, and I don’t know why people are telling me about WP:OR. If someone explained where I went wrong, that would be very helpful. 96.230.108.30 (talk) 16:49, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
The main problems with your changes are 1) you're not providing citations to reliable secondary sources, per WP:V and 2) you're adding poor prose that isn't written in an encylopedic style. Popcornfud (talk) 16:59, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
In the case of adding "like", that completely changed the context. HL was inspired specifically by those games, not by FPS in general ( the implication of that change) Masem (t) 17:32, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
It was also grammatically incorrect. Half-Life was inspired by the FPS games. What are "the FPS games"? Popcornfud (talk) 18:08, 20 March 2025 (UTC)