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All Articles: Half-Life
12 finalists announced for World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2019
The World Video Game Hall of Fame, which is overseen by The Strong Museum of Play, has announced the finalists for this year’s crop of inductees. We’ll have to wait until May to find out which games make the final cut, but we now know that a dozen classic titles will be in the running for the Class of 2019.
This year’s finalists include several games that are taking one more shot at immortality, including Midway’s Mortal Kombat, Cyan Worlds’s Myst, Microsoft’s Windows Solitaire, and Valve’s Half-Life. All four have a strong claim to “Hall of Fame” status, as Myst helped popularize CD-ROMs, Half-Life pushed narrative games to new heights, Mortal Kombat’s controversial violence is still discussed today, and Windows Solitaire may just be the most-played game ever.
But they’ll have to compete against a slate of other titles that includes King’s Candy Crush, Atari’s Centipede, William Crowther’s Colossal Cave Adventure, Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution, Sega’s NBA 2K, Sid Meier’s Civilization, and Nintendo’s Super Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Gaming fans from around the globe will be able to influence which games will be eligible for induction this year through the Player’s Choice Ballot, which will be open from March 21st through the 28th. The remaining ballots will come from the Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee, which is comprised of journalists and scholars who are “familiar with the history of video games.”
The World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2019 will announced on May 2, but you can learn more about this year’s finalists after the break. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS2, Retro
Tagged Centipede, Half-Life, Super Mario Kart, World Video Game Hall of Fame
The Video Game Canon: Half-Life
Dig deeper into the Video Game Canon with a look at how Half-Life’s opening tram ride changed first person shooters (and may even have created an entirely new genre). Here’s a teaser…
“Good morning and welcome to the Black Mesa Transit System. This automated train is provided for the security and convenience of the Black Mesa Research Facility personnel.”
It’s just another day at work for Gordon Freeman. The well-groomed scientist is running late for an important meeting and he’s forced to board the tram alone as he travels to the secure wing of the Black Mesa Research Facility.
It’s a rather lowkey introduction to one of the most ambitious games ever created, but easing the player into the game’s world was a big part of what made Valve’s Half-Life so ambitious. You’re free to move about the train car as you’re ferried from the facility’s living quarters to the research levels belowground, but for those five minutes, you’re also at the mercy of the developers and how they want you to interact with their game.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com to continue reading this article and to explore the complete Top 1000.
J.J. Abrams confirms Portal and Half-Life films are still in development
Way back in 2013, film director J.J. Abrams and Valve CEO Gabe Newell told the world that movies based on Half-Life and Portal were in the works at Abrams’s Bat Robot Productions. Last night, during HBO’s gala premiere for the premiere episode of Westworld, Abrams reconfirmed that both adaptations are still on track.
Speaking to IGN, Abrams revealed that he actually has a meeting with Valve next week, and that he’s hoping to make an announcement concerning Portal “fairly soon.” While the cagey director wouldn’t elaborate further on the agenda for that meeting, he did say that they’re very close to finding a screenwriter:
“We are having some really interesting discussions with writers, many of whom…once you said you’re doing a movie or show about a specific thing that is a known quantity you start to find people who are rabid about these things. As someone who loves playing Half Life and Portal, what’s the movie of this, it’s incredible when you talk to someone who just ‘gets’ it, it’s like, oh my god, it’s really the seed for this incredible tree you’re growing.”
And in case you were wondering, Abrams had a hearty laugh at the mere mention of Half-Life 3. So… Half-Life 3 is probably going launch on May 7, 2017… because as we all know, that’s World Laughter Day.
J.J. Abrams and Gabe Newell tease possible game/movie collaboration
Star Wars Episode VII director J.J. Abrams and Valve CEO Gabe Newell spent the morning addressing the crowd at the 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit. Their talk, “Storytelling Across Platforms,” kicked off the conference and was heavily promoted before the four-day gathering of developers began.
Apparently, there was a good reason for that.
Abrams and Newell’s panel concluded a few minutes ago and they dropped a massive bombshell before they left. Are you ready? Abrams announced that he wants to partner with Valve on a video game and Newell announced that he wants work with Abrams (and his Bad Robot production company) on movies based on Half-Life and Portal:
Abrams: There’s an idea we [at Bad Robot] have for a game that we’d like to work with Valve on.
Newell: We’re going to find out if there’s a way we can work with you on a Portal and Half-Life movie.
Oh. My. God.
[Source: Kotaku]