Originally Posted by rickholio

Cuz half life is awesome.

The original halflife pioneered the concept of developing a story around the FPS, instead of the "Here's the story, now go kill shit" play of wolf3d/quake/doom. The unfolding mystery meant progressing in halflife actually felt meaningful, as opposed to getting to the next level of uninspired evil monsters to massacre.

Half-life 2 managed to re-capture that sense of 'what the fuck'itude, where you're trying to figure out what the hell is going on while running for your life and surviving in an increasingly hostile atmosphere. Doom3 TRIED to pull that off, but really it just got repetitive. HL2 mixes it up with dozens of different environments, vehicles, non-players that you interact with in a meaningful way... and it has a solid story that unfolds as you go along.

Oh yeah, and Heady Lamar.