Half-Life

Around twenty years ago, people would have laughed if you told them that videogames would end up at the Smithsonian, but the Half-Life team really did want to make games that were more than just throwaway toys. The rule against cinematics — which made our jobs much harder and also ended up leaving a lot of my favorite work out of the game — was a kind of ideological stake in the ground: we really did want the game and the story to be the same thing. It was far from flawless, but it was really trying to push the boundaries of a young medium. — Valve artist Steve Theodore By 1998, the first-person shooter was nearing its pinnacle of popularity. In June of that year, Computer Gaming World magazine could list fourteen reasonably big-budget, high-profile FPS’s earmarked for release in the next six months alone. And yet the FPS seemed rather to be running to stand still. Almost all of the innovation taking place in the space was in the realm of technology rather than design. To be sure, pr ... Read full article.