Indeed, good article. I myself first played Half-Life on the PlayStation 2 version which also featured an extra episode, Half-Life: Decay. I of course heard of it before, I even still own to this day a PC Gamer issue of October 1998, in good condition might I add, with a preview of the game I believe. I bought that magazine simply because even back then when I didn't own a PC I was still reading about the games on that platform, but back then PC's were too expensive for me and I didn't have a job, I was still in high-school.
But anyway, I bought it for the PS2 and I was absolutely floored by it, I couldn't believe what I had missed during all those years, and then I understood just where the genre would be most comfortable on, PC's, from which it originated (by the way the PS2 port was amazingly well done now that I can see how it is today on PC, there's absolutely no difference outside of the high-definition models). And to this day, in terms of story-driven FPS only Half-Life Episodes can compete with the original Half-Life, not even Half-Life 2 can do it (I mean the main Half-Life 2, not the Episodes), in my opinion at least.
And for me 1998 was truly a great gaming year, I think I bought around a dozen games for all my Consoles (N64/PS/Saturn), including Xenogears, Metal Gear Solid, Grand Turismo, C&C Red Alert: Retaliation, Diablo, Turok 2, Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter... and a few others.
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