Half-Life

Half Life is a FPS (First Person Shooter) released in 1997 by Valve Software. Since then it has had a sequal and 2 follow up episodes with a third in development.

Half Life has the Shaft of nerds
Half Life has the Shaft of nerds
A lot fo shit happened in the first 2 games.
A lot fo shit happened in the first 2 games.

Just The Facts

  1. The hero of Half Life is named Gordon Freeman, and is the biggest fuck-up to ever earn the title
  2. The first game takes place in the Black Mesa Research Facility, the second in a burned out Eastern Block city called City 17. Gordon Blows them both up.
  3. Half life was given a 11 out of 10 by Maximum_PC and the title "best game ever made"adequately

Half-Life's influence on other games

Before Half Life, FPS game plots involved running around in mazes, finding keys, opening doors, and blowing the shit out of things. Half Life raised the bar; there was an actual storyline, character interaction and plot-driving game mechanics. And running around mazes, finding keys, opening doors, and you get the idea.

Monsters

Like any good video game, half Life has monsters. Among them, it has zombies, which according to an ammendment to the constitution, all video games are required to have.

Zombies

Half Life is fucking crazy with the zombies. By Episode 1, there are Regular Zombies, Fast Zombies, Poison Zombies, Soldier Zombies, Barney Zombies, and Zombines. 6 Different types of zombies. Valve has a near-necrophilic love of zombies, which we can understand. Zombies rule.

Barney ZombieFast ZombieZombinePoison Zombie

Soldiers
The Half Life world is filled with experienced military people who want to kill you. Fortunately, all of the games feature NPCs that help out, often by absorbing bullets and grenades from the soldiers while you shoot them in the face.
In the first game(s), the US Military wanted you dead. In a total dick move, they weren't even trying to kill you for fucking up the world, they just wanted you and your co-workers dead so that you couldn't talk to CNN. There were the regular soldiers, then there were the assassins, played by Angelina Jolie, or someone with very similar curves. The add-on Opposing Force introduced Male assassins, which were less cool by virtue of not having boobs.
By Half Life 2, we assume the US soldiers are all dead, or got jobs as one of the pathetic drones left to wander the planet, which is what they get for trying to kill Freeman. They are replaced by the Combine soldiers, who have cooler uniforms and bigger guns. The Combine has Combine soldiers, Elite Combine, and Civil Protection, which is about the most bad-ass cop in all of video gamedom.
Head Crabs
Despite what the name implies, head crabs have nothing to do with hookers with bad oral hygiene. They are crustaceans that grab onto people's heads and make them into zombies. Regular head crabs are in all of the games and make all of the zombies, except for the fast zombies and poison zombies. They come from fast head crabs and poison head crabs. If you didn't already make that connection, you may very well be retarded.
Synths
The Combine make some pretty kick-ass synthetic life forms for the sole purpose of trying to kill you. Outside of the game, they are called Synths. In the game, they just call them by their names; Gunships, Striders and Hunters. Gunships look like angry flying manatees with helicopters in their butts and guns on their faces. Striders Look like a turtle with 3 long legs and a machine gun for a face. And a space-warping cannon for their junk. Hunters are like small striders, only with no cannon-cocks. They shoot "Flechettes", which look like explosive green heroin needles.
GunshipHunterStrider
Other Monsters
In the first game, monsters from a world called Xen invaded Black Mesa. They came in a wide variety and all wanted to kill you.
Houndeye(Half Life 1)
Kind of like cute little alien puppies, with a giant eyeball. They try to kill you with sound waves. They are kind of the alien version of a dog mixed with Banshee from the X-men, only way less lame. They still however are very very lame.
Bullsquid(Half Life 1)
Obviously named by someone at Valve who wanted a monster that sounded like "bullshit". They are big and ugly, burp when they attack and hock acidic loogies. When not attacking helpless scientists or the slightly (but only slightly) less helpless security guards they can be found greedily sucking on the floor for reasons not adequately explained in game.
Ichthyosaur (Half Life 1)
Ichthyosaur
If you fall in the water, they try to eat you. You can only use crossbows and you pistol under water, so they are a bitch to kill. If you are still scared by the movie jaws, you might poop some.
Grunt (Half Life 1)
They shoot bees out of their fucking hands!
Controller (Half Life 1)
These are much smaller versions of Nyalanth. They suck.
Barnacle (Half Life 1, Half Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2)
Big red sucks that dangle a tongue down from the cieling, when they catch something in their tounge (and by some thing I mean anything) they pull it up to their mouths to stuff their fat faces with it, this can be unfortunate when they pick up barrels of the explosive variety, in a related note they puke dead body parts when they die.
Tentacle (Half Life 1)
Blind monsters that hide in the ground if you try to blow them up. They can, however, feel you so you have to be careful. They sing like whales and look like giant green flamingos.
Gargantua (Half Life 1)
Great big mean motherfuckers that shoot fire from their hands. And something red that will kill you from their feet.
Gonarch (Half Life 1)
A big mama head crab with a single testicle she uses to poop baby head crabs.
Nihilanth (Half Life 1)
The giant retarded baby that heads the attack on Black Mesa
Leeches (Half life 1, Half Life 2)
leech
They were in most of the water in Half Life 1, and the oceans are populated by them in Half Life 2. While you could shoot the little fuckers in the first one, they kill you in about 2 seconds in 2, so just stay the fuck out of the ocean.
Slave (Vortigaunt) (Half Life 1, Half Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2)
You shoot a lot of them in Black Mesa. Forgetting this, they are your friends in Half Life 2. Their main attack in the first game is simply screaming while they shot lighting from their hands. They put themselves to shame in the second instalation when they became Kun-Fu masters able to shoot lighting from there hands while preforming bycicle kicks and weilding heavy weaponry, They sound like the alien from Enemy Mine. In Episode 2 they sound like Candyman.
Antlion (Half Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2)
Giant alien bugs that dig underground and will kill you if you walk on sand.
Antlion Guardian (Half Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2)
They are huge and smash things. If you see one of these death has found you my friend and he is not a happy camper. In episode two you get to take on two at once!

Antlion Soldier (Episode 2)

They fly, they hock acidic loogies, and explode in a shower of acid when they die.

Antlion Grub (Episode 2)

They don't do much of anything except make weird noises and die. When you kill them, they poop health.