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Gordon Freeman : Be a Foot-Soldier for Valve !!! I am a half-life lover - spent $1000 upgrading a PC in 1998 just to buy this game and it was well worth the money. This game is to PC games kinda like what STAR WARS was to space movies. It opened up a new parallel universe !! You start the game feeling like an imposter in the skin of "Gordon Freeman" arriving for a day of work at Black Mesa research facility in New Mexico. Luckily, the helpful scientists ask you questions until you stumble into the lab and start doing what you need to do until the big bad accident ... and then aliens teleport in from another dimension, eating all the scientists and the military sends in Marine Commandos to kill EVERYTHING INCLUDING THE SCIENTISTS (YOU) to cover up the disaster completely !! The game really starts with you unconscious in the deepest bowels of this huge complex and you have to fight your way out - 1/3 solving puzzles, 1/3 killing aliens, and 1/3 facing hell-bent marines in your protective suit (as long as your battery pack is still alive) to help you overcome these problems. For the first time characters talk to you, animals move realistically, and the animal AI is incredible. Your first weapon of choice ?? A simple crowbar. Later weapons ?? Experimental prototypes from secret US Military programs !!! Now I'm back 6 years later and look what's happened. It seems like Valve has the mother of all copyright protection problems. Not only were players pirating the CD's, even the distributor (Sierra) was pirating and selling Illicit copies of the CD's. Sierra was even selling duplicate retail boxes with duplicate keys to customers !! [...] and Valve hates Sierra and is in a legal fight but is contractually forced to deal with Sierra. You will have to be a foot soldier for Valve until the legal fight is won. To be a foot soldier, you must put up with Valve's copyright protection scheme which is called "Steam". Before you get this game, [...] You will need a good broadband connection to install this game, because you will need to download several hundred megabytes of data. It will be tricky to run the game in the future without a broadband connection. It will be possible but you will have to plan ahead before disconnecting from the Internet. If you can live with this hassle, you will be highly rewarded.