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Now At Your Local Dollar Store: Half-Life

It may be hard to believe, but Half-Life, the FPS that redefined its "shoot your way out of hell while grabbing card keys" genre, is already ten years old. Actually, since 1998 was such a monumental year of our little hobby, a hell of a lot of games turned 10 this year: Metal Gear Solid, Starcraft, Ocarina of Time, Gran Turismo, and quite a few I'm probably forgetting. But out of all of these titles, only Half-Life can be had in these frightening modern times for the low, low price of 98 cents. That's right; if you have a dollar in the bank and a Steam account, you can experience one of the best games ever made for less than the cost of most McDonald's menu items.

There's one catch, though; this deal is only good until this Friday at noon PST--after that, Half-Life reverts to its original Steam price of $9.99 (still a good price).

I'm not the biggest PC gamer of all time, but I have a gigantic man-crush on Steam. I didn't think much of the service until it allowed me to get the entire Orange Box plus a Half-Life version of Peggle for only 40 bucks last Fall. It also warmed my heart when I typed in the registration code on my 10 year-old Half-Life CD and found that Steam let me download it, and also every single product tangentially related to the first Half-Life for free. Now, if only there was a way to pry those old Bullfrog titles from the sticky hands of EA...

WTFriday: Play it Loud

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

Once upon a time, video games weren't cool; sure, everybody played them, but from the Nintendo era until the mid-90s, they were regarded as toys for children, manchildren, and the unemployable. But with the debut of the Playstation, Sony changed all that; suddenly, video games were remade as this hip, new product that fit in well with all of the flannel and alterna-rock that dotted the landscape of our country like so many Taco Bell wrappers. It was around this time that Nintendo began to look significantly less cool--and some would say they never regained their cred until the recent wave of Wii-mania. So how would Nintendo try to shape its own image to fit in with whatever those damn kids were into? Why, the "Play It Loud" campaign, of course.

I'm not sure how much good this campaign did for Nintendo, because it certainly ruined the credibility of at least a few games; magazine readers of 1995 may remember the scratch and sniff Earthbound advertisements that did nothing but piss people off--and let's not forget the slogan "this game stinks," built completely around one of Earthbound's minor bosses. Ideas like these had to be fueled by cocaine or at least some mild hallucinogens.

Thankfully, everything that was ever aired on TV is now on YouTube, so I can show you Nintendo's tragic mistakes through the power of streaming video. Ain't life grand?

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.