I started a new game of Half Life a week or so ago and have been playing my way through it. I’d totally forgotten how long it takes to get to the damn surface that it is the most fantastic game on the planet.

10 reasons why this game is awesome:

10. It’s Black Mesa! I’d totally want to work there if it actually existed. I have a mug (available from the Valve store).

9. “Start the rotors” is a running joke with me (mostly just in my head). Anytime I do something that I know is going to cause catastrophe later, I say to myself “I just started the rotors, didn’t I?”

8. Watching Stephen King’s “The Mist” with my dad like a decade ago (old Claudia is old) I thought, “holy crap, this is a total rip-off of Half Life!” Turns out Half-Life itself is based partially on “The Mist.” Oops.

7. Gordon’s 27 years old and all the other scientists are geezermobiles. I just find that hilarious.

6. This game is my late childhood-early adolescence. I think my mom’s old friend got some sort of bootleg copy for me to play (‘cause that’s what he did with everything) and then we went out and got a legit copy ‘cause we thought it was so awesome.

5. I really like the fact that two expansion games to the original, Opposing Force and Blue Shift, allowed you to play the game from two perspectives other than Gordon’s—as a soldier (Opposing Force) and as one of the security guards (Blue Shift).

4. I know it’s not directly related to Half Life gameplay itself, but when I found the Half Life references while playing Portal, I had a little squee. Okay, a major squee. Good video of the “Competing with Black Mesa” slideshow.

3. Cheating. Is. Hilarious. Activate god mode, noclip, and impulse 101 when you’re going through the tram system during the opening credits and you can go screw with all the scientists in the scenes you pass. I like to throw snarks at the security guards then sprint in the opposite direction.

2. Speaking of snarks…

1. CROWBAR!!

You can have your overly-fancy graphics, intelligent enemies, experience points, and dynamic environments. Just give me Gordon Freeman.