In 1998, Valve Software developed a science-fiction first-person shooter that revolutionised the gaming world and was the beginning of what would become one of the best game-series in history. Half-Life.
If the first game we looked at as part of the 'It's all a video game!' feature was an example of a bad game that has a relation to Lost, then consider this possibly the best game that has ties to the show.
Hand me that crowbar
The series follows Gordon Freeman, a top secret physisicist working at the Black Mesa Research Facility in the area of space/time and teleportation.
Gordon arrives to work like any other day, but while performing research on anomalous materials (in a chamber not unlike the frozen donkey wheel) a catastrophic failure occurs, opening up a wormhole between Earth and an alien planet.
Gordon is forced to fight his way out of the alien-invaded Black Mesa Research Facility as he encounters many obstacles, combat challanges, and puzzles along the way, while under the watching eye of the so-called "G-Man".
Years after these events, "The Free-man" finds himself in City 17 (Half-Life 2), as he fights as part of a resistence to overthrow the oppressive Combine, an alien race who has shackled the human race and created an Orwellian society.
The game series has won many awards and received overwhelming critical praise for its innovation in the field of video games.
The series itself is split into multiple parts:
- Half-Life (1998)
- Half-Life - Opposing Force (1999)
- Half-Life - Blue Shift (2001)
- Half-Life - Decay (PS2, 2001)
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Half-Life 2 (2004)
- Half-Life 2, Episode 1 (2006)
- Half-Life 2, Episode 2 (2007)
- Half-Life 2, Episode 3 (Not yet released)
- Half-Life 3 (Not yet released)
Things to look out for
At this point you might be thinking "well that's great and everything, but what does this have to do with Lost?", well we wouldn't be talking about it for this long if it didn't!
Valve Software representatives have stated their liking of the show, and likewise--producers of Lost have expressed their love of the game (and video games in general). Aside from some thematic similarities, there are some neat homages that are made between both Lost and Half-Life.
Where to play
Gordon Freeman was recently voted as the number one videogame hero of all time, gaining 55.8% of the total votes. In response to this, Steam (an online video-game and content distribution system) reduced the price of all Half-Life games by 55.8%--which means now is a great time to pick up the games, particularly if you've never played them.
You can buy the entire 'Half-Life Pack' at Steam for just $49.99.
Technical Requirements
Half-Life 2, Episode 2 minimum requirements are as follows:
1.7 GHz Processor, 512MB RAM, DirectX® 8.1 level Graphics Card (Requires support for SSE), Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet ConnectionProviding you have a computer capable of running Episode 2, then all previous games should be sufficiently supported.
Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are reported to operate well under Wine in multiple environments (Linux, Mac OSX). There is no mention of support for Episodes 1 and 2, however.
