Welcome to another episode of Retrotopia: Another Video Game Podcast. This is a show where we, Alan, Brian, and Sam, get together to discuss video games from years gone by. We like to look at video games from the perspective of lifelong gamers and how they hold up in the retro sphere.

This week we are discussing Half-Life, a PC game released in 1998 that redefined the first-person shooter genre by seamlessly blending fast-paced action, environmental storytelling, and scripted narrative moments into a single, uninterrupted experience. Players step into the role of theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman, whose routine experiment at the Black Mesa Research Facility goes catastrophically wrong, triggering an alien invasion and a desperate fight for survival. Instead of relying on traditional cutscenes, Half-Life tells its story entirely through gameplay, immersing players in a tense, atmospheric world filled with hostile creatures, secretive government forces, and one of the most influential sci-fi narratives in gaming history.

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