Half-Life made waves in the industry that are still breaking, despite that fact that it's two years old. Half-Life multiplayer, courtesy of Team Fortress Classic and the excellent Counterstrike mod, still looms large over the online landscape. It's been a year since the Opposing Force add-on rocked the scene and what most people want, aside from Team Fortress 2 (which is still being worked on) is more Half-Life. I can't tell you how many times I've wished Gearbox, Valve or somebody would create a new HL add-on for us to chew on while we wait. Well, that's what Gunman Chronicles is, a full-blown Half-Life add-on, only without the Half-Life.
Gunman Chronicles is a total conversion of the Half-Life engine from enterprising mod-makers Rewolf Studios. Total conversions are labors of love requiring lots of work, sweat and tears often with no compensation. That's why it's special that Sierra and Valve have picked these guys up and are giving them a full-blown release. You will hear from Rewolf again, I guarantee that. Gunman is at least that good.
Sometime in the future, a group of space cowboys, literally, police the space ways for humanity. The opening cutscene shows their encounter with a powerful life form and the loss of their most beloved General. Years later your character, Major Archer, is about to join the front lines in a war versus humanity's greatest threat:a new breed of killer aliens threatening the colonies. Your first mission: investigate a distress call from a previously unexplored planet.
From there, in typical Half-Life fashion, everything goes straight to hell. Trapped on a planet with dinosaurs on it and evil humans bent on your destruction evokes familiar Half-Life feelings of surprise, dread and joy. In many ways it might be the Half-Life engine that's responsible for that.
Gunman Chronicles takes full advantage of HLs “still ahead of the competition” scripting features. You'll come across pitched battles between monsters and men, thrilling ambushes, explosions, falling rocks and thundering spacecraft. Gigantic boss monsters like a memorable carnivorous Brachiosaur and a giant spaceship. None of them are quite as chilling as the famous Tentacle from HL, but they're better than most shooters since then. The monsters also feature that infamous artificial intelligence that makes firefights so memorable.