Doug Laurent – Half-Life

This is a fairly decent trance maxi-single, although I think "Domination Mix" and "Domination Mix Edit" are a bit too similar to each other.

Guys, this release was neither unofficial nor unauthorised. It was some promotional thingy that was directly sold by Cendant Software's German subsidiary as early as May of 1998. Cendant owned Sierra at the time and they released a bi-monthly magazine called Best Of Sierra in Germany from 1997 to 2000. Each issue included a two-page catalogue where you could order old issues and various Sierra merch, such as novelisations of Phantasmagoria and Leisure Suit Larry (!) - and also this CD. You should be able to find scans of these Best Of Sierra magazines on the web, the Half-Life CD started regularly appearing in their catalogue from the #6 issue (the one with Hunter Hunted on it), page 37.

Of course, that doesn't change the fact that the music on this CD has nothing whatsoever to do with the music that was included in the game that was released several months later - and that's probably for the best, as it's pretty ghastly. Ghastly as it may have been, it *was* an official merch product at the time.

Having done a little digging on this album(? The length makes it feel like an EP, but I don't see what it's officially classified as here), I do want to clarify a few things before getting into the music itself. From what I can see, this is not at all officially licensed in any way, which does seem a bit obvious but I have seen theories that this was licensed by Sierra as some promotional tracks or what have you. That doesn't seem at all right, given that the half-life.de link on the cover art was never registered (at least, wasn't recorded on the Internet Archive, and I have my doubts that it would be let expire just two years after Half-Life's release), and that synSONIQ Records seemed to have done this a bit, publishing and selling music as the "soundtrack" to games, with music not by the game's original composers (for reference, Half-Life's original composer was Kelly Bailey, who's name doesn't appear anywhere here).

It is worth noting however, that unlike what is claimed by some in this review section, this album was released all the way back in 1998, at least according to what I could find on the Internet Archive. Waltergaming's claims about the author uploading false claims are likely just good hearted, but confused, fans uploading this information about the album without doing their research into this album, as the composer Doug Laurent doesn't seem to have been active since 2011. I doubt he's trying to ride high off this claim to fame.

tl;dr for the background: This is not the official Half-Life Soundtrack, synSONIQ likely tried to make a quick buck off confusing people, though this was released in 1998, and any misinformation found about this album recently is likely just from confused fans of Half-Life thinking this is official.

But as for the music, it's honestly just kinda alright? It's just fine. It's just one track remixed four times. I do like the first mix better than the other ones though, but given the option I'd probably just listen to the actual Half-Life soundtrack. It's not gonna rock your world, but it's good listening at least once. No actual relation to Half-Life though, if I had to guess, synSONIQ published a song Laurent had already made under the title Half-Life rather than having him make a specific track for this release. Can't really say I'd recommend buying this, as it's really just one song remixed four times, but I'd say stream the whole thing once as it's only about 22 minutes. As a Half-Life fan, I enjoyed being able to experience this little unofficial oddity, even if the music wasn't my cup of tea.

Bar the unauthorized usage of the Half-Life IP, The music featured isn't very good either. The information is even false and made up by the author pretending he made this music in 1998, while he's added this to other sites pretending its from 1997 before the game in question even released.

I agree with xtraterrestial's review. People are needlessly bitching about this release not having actual music from the video game. That being said, I don't personally think this release is great. My favorite mix is the Hypnotic Mix with it's Goa-esque melodies and nice chorus to go along with it. The other mixes are not my cup of tea but far from the worst music I've personally heard.

Music from the game was released in CD but not officially on vinyl. maybe that's why people are whining?

I agree with the comment from "evenflouw" from June 28 , 2008 .

I'm still wondering on a more severe side why the copyrights laws hasn't made their job right on this poor 12" Record . If it isn't for 1 taking the name from a game franchise by the name "Half-Life" not for a 2nd even daring to steal the Logo from the game and for a 3rd why hasn't Valve done nothing about it ??

Anyway this poor plastic record/cd is be far what should be offered as a true game soundtrack . Doug Laurent as the label synSONIQ should be ashamed .

Sadly enough those tricks and methods existed alot in the electronic music from 1985-1999 era . Many artists stealing samplers, labels, logos and what not for their own behaviour and self egoïstical esteem . Whereas other artists did it with a subtle touch not needing to be questionned about it .

And last not sure why people dare to sell it so expensive since it doesn't belong to the game at all ?!

Nevermind the (undeserved) 1 star ratings on this one. They aren't judging the music, but rather the usage of the Half-Life game name / logo. The Domination mix is a very nice piece of upbeat melodic trance similar to what guys like DJ Session One & Peter Ries were making at the time and is my highlight of the release. The Hypnotic mix takes the track in a darker direction with a goa-esque lead melody, while the Mindbomb mix is a dreamier piece in the style of Torsten Stenzel or Ayla, so you've got a nice mix of styles to choose from with this release. Overall very good.

Warning! This release has nothing to do with Half-Life or original soundtrack of Half-Life (which btw. was composed by Valve's Kelly Bailey). Doug Laurent's version is just a cheap knockoff which tries to use the name of Half-Life and even logo to sell poorly produced trance. I even wonder and seriously question why synSONIQ bothered to release this garbage and trying to sell it like it's a legit thing.

So yeah, you all have been warned. Don't even bother to track this down because quality of this release is just mindnumbing awful. You'll thank me later.