For most people, Christmas involves family, food, presents and a possible irrational infatuation with a baby deity. For me, food is of course a necessity, cuz fat, but the rest rolls off me like water on a Jared Leto haircut. I decided to spend my Christmas in a very specific way. First, I renewed my yearly tradition of seeing how secretly bombed I could get without any of my family members knowing. Second, football, because I currently have a very unhealthy addiction to the sport and I’ll watch any and every game they will throw into my trough. In this scenario I’m a pig and football is my slop, you get it. In addition to these aforementioned vices, I also decided to introduce watching multiple documentaries on the video game Half-Life. This last inclusion sparked some unintended neurons to fire in my brain. Lets talk about them.

My relationship with Half-Life might not be unique but it was impactful. When I was young, I had a strange obsession with looking through the plethora of shovelware garbage you would find at the various retailers. I was fascinated by the often bullshit story and claims I could read on the back of a box. I had countless times where I would purchase a game because of this that would never properly run on my computer when I got it home. I KNEW that I shouldn’t spend my hard earned allowance on anything that wasn’t lauded in a PC Gamer mag or some equivalent but my sense of whimsy and wide eyed optimism was enough to get me to repeat my folly over and over. During one of these instances of sitting crosslegged on the floor of a Sam’s Club, sifting through the games on display while my parents stocked up on inappropriate amounts of mayo and toilet paper, I came across Half-Life. The back of the box sold me from the get. It SOUNDED like the exact type of game I would love but I had been burned so often by empty promises from the back of a box so I put it down and moved on. Maybe a day later, the world had apparently discovered the game and it’s brilliance. After reading a glowing review in one of those trusted publications (the internet wasn’t what it is then) I went back and purchased the game.

Upon bringing it home, and much to my delight, it actually booted up as promised (if you aren’t of a certain age you don’t understand the anxiety and 50/50 type of dice you rolled when buying a computer game at this time, you never truly knew if it would actually work when you got it home, let alone if it would be what the box promised or be any good if it actually did work).

Half-Life broke my brain. Plain and simple. I’d never seen anything like it. The opening scripted introduction cracked my adolescent psyche in a way that has never been repaired. This game had an enormous impact on me. It showed me things were possible I never would have fathomed. The toll it took on me is even more incredible considering I never even played more than about 20 min into the game. I was and still am a giant baby who is scared of everything. The game terrified me on every level. The moment I saw a head crab I was essentially done.

So why is a game I played for minutes such an impactful event? It’s the idea that something I never heard of and had zero fanfare upon release could end up being one of the greatest games of all time. A game that changed the way every other game in the future was made. Maybe part of it was a sort of reinforcement of my quest to find something worthwhile in the overwhelming avalanche of shit that was the bottom rack of games at the time. Maybe it was that it showed me what games could actually be capable of in terms of interaction, storytelling and gameplay. Or maybe it was just the fact that I spent my limited money on a game that actually worked. Who’s to say.

These days, you have the option of purchasing so many games that provide immersive storytelling, incredible gameplay, or both. The internet also exists so you never need to park yourself on the floor of a K-Mart sifting through the nonsense on the rack, inevitably taking the gamble on something that may never work or is just plain shit if it does.

I guess that’s the point. That and the G-Man is a dick. Fuck him.