Half-Life is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game developed by Valve Software. Gearbox Software was slated to release a port to the Sega Dreamcast under contract by Valve and their then publisher Sierra On-Line near the end of 2000. It was cancelled just two weeks before release.
In Half-Life, players assume the role of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a recently MIT graduated theoretical physicist who must fight his way out of a secret underground research facility whose research and experiments into teleportation technology have gone wrong.
What Happened?[]
At the ECTS 2000, a build of the game was playable on the publisher's stand, and developers Randy Pitchford and Brian Martel were in attendance to show it off and give interviews to the press. However, despite only being weeks from going gold, it was never commercially released; Sierra announced that Half-Life on Dreamcast was cancelled "due to changing market conditions" onset by third-party abandonment of the Dreamcast. That year Sierra On-Line showed a PlayStation 2 port at E3 2001, which was later released.
Beta leaked[]
Although it has never officially been released, it was leaked onto the Internet, and was proven to be fully playable; it contains the full versions of Half-Life and Blue Shift, both with an early version of the High Definition Pack (A pack with improved graphics), but has a somewhat inconsistent framerate and lengthier load times when the player moves from area to area, though neither are exacerbated to the point of being unplayable. Also, there are some saving problems; the number of blocks required to save on a VMU increases rapidly as the player reaches the end of a level, then drops at the start of the next. While the game allows the user to remove files to increase space, sometimes it still isn't enough.
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