Seek. Medical. Attention.
God I still love this game. The welcome speech of the Mark IV. How the scientist talk to each other, and how different the talk is when they speak with guards. How they first hope for a government rescue which decides to kill any and all in black mesa. How fearsome those black assassins are. That you can tickle that insect-bomb thing. In my opinion, HL2 felt much more scripted and less lively. No mention of a recompile for Intel 64bit Macs though.
I got my first real introduction to first person shooters with Quake II. I used keyboard only, with page up/down keys for vertical look. When Half-Life came out my friend would only let me play if I looked with the mouse instead. I thought that was so dumb. Why not just use both sides of the keyboard? Why split controls across two devices? But I relented and picked up this wonky control scheme pretty quickly. Then I bought my own copy and wore it down to the nubs over the course of years. I loved mods. My favorite was Action Half-Life. I played Counterstrike a few times when Xena Warrior Princess posters were plastered around maps and scientists acted as hostages. I thought it was too derivative of other accurate combat mods.
When Half-Life 2 came out I bought the pricier version which came with HL1 and all the expansions, mods, etc on Steam. Those are my oldest purchases on the service, naturally.
Quake 2 just had a remaster released a few months ago, and Quake 1 had one too a few years ago by the same team. The remasters were put into the existing Steam releases, work great on the Deck too, and were also released on consoles. It's really cool to see all these classic shooters get updated to work well on modern systems.
I love that they brought back the software renderer (and allowed you to disable texture filtering). There's something about that style I find charming.
I'm just waiting on my steam deck to charge so I can curl up on the couch with this for a few hours before bed.
EDIT: I tried it out on my laptop while waiting for the deck to charge, and I'm seeing some bugs in the software renderer with missing textures for semi-transparent objects like floor grilles, so I'm switching back to OpenGL for now. If anyone at Valve wants log-files or information on my setup in order to reproduce, I'm happy to provide it; my email is in my profile.
> I love that they brought back the software renderer (and allowed you to disable texture filtering). There's something about that style I find charming.
You are definitely not alone. There are quite a few released and upcoming indie retro FPS games on Steam now and some are quite popular. I think this is one reason they decided to add these settings.
This game holds such a special place for me, not only for just fun childhood memories, but also so much of what got me into the excitement of how cool it was to see the rapid progress of tech.
Certainly, it isn't atypical for software industry folks of my age to have games be a gateway into tech, but I think I was a bit different in that I rarely considered wanting to make games, rather I enjoyed the tinkering with my computer and the rapid pace at what games could do as much as the game (which continues today with my spending more money on playing with the hardware and toys rather than the actual games) and half-life just
I first played Half-Life on a family PC with no graphics accelerator and I loved it, but I remember the jank from ~15 FPS at a few hundred lines of resolution. This is what drove me to build my first computer and after debugging my way through all the issues that a 12 a year old would make when building a computer before the age of YouTube, I remember being absolutely blown away by the lighting and speed of what this little piece of hardware added to the experience.
That wasn't the first time I felt the rush of getting a computer to do something I wanted (that would probably be getting doom running in windows 3.1 after dealing figuring out the mystical "command line") but it certainly was one of the most drastic in just how fast tech changed.
A small addendum to this... I really want to figure out how to bring similiar experiences to my kids, because it was that loop of problem -> learning -> breakthrough that I think was hugely transformative to not only my career trajectory, but also just in learning to love learning.
So thanks Valve and Half-Life team for this happy memories... but maybe I won't feel the same when I try and play HL DM this weekend and inevitably realize how slow my reaction times have gotten in the last ~25 years ;)
One of my favorite documentaries was made by Noclip, which tells the story of Half-Life and Valve. It is soo good, a must watch. Interestingly, though, it features no one from Valve, as they, in typical Valve fashion, ignored their requests. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQLEW1c-69c
So I'm very excited to watch this new documentary featuring people who worked on the game, made by the same people, such a surprise haha.
I immediately got a déjà vu feeling from the intro like I had seen this already in a Noclip documentary. Nice to finally get this 'episode 3' in the documentary series.
Aside from just generating tons of goodwill, does anyone have any insight into why Valve would do this? Obviously, I think it's great regardless of the motivation, but are there rumblings of Half Life 3 that I've missed or something?
Because Valve does whatever it feels like doing and honestly, I love them for it. I wish more companies would follow in their footsteps (e.g. not going public), but few have the luxury of being founded by someone who was already set for life financially at the time.
Besides second order stuff like that it might help some Steam Deck sales (mostly by demonstrating their commitment to the platform and attract other companies to develop for it, moreso than anybody rushing out to buy a Steam Deck specifically to play Half-Life), the fact that Valve does stuff like this that's not directly "make all the money right this second"-driven is in no small part why Valve has such goodwill with the PC gaming community.
In theory, it's not that hard to compete with Steam. Valve's cut of game sales is massive, and a competitor could easily slash into that to undercut them. Which is what Epic Games is trying to do. Yet, Valve maintains an extremely dominant market condition largely predicated on that goodwill.
And, of course, exactly because of that dominant market condition, they've got all the money they could possibly want to burn on random vanity projects.
It's just a little dose of nostalgia. I think Half Life was one of the highest rated games of all time before Baldur's Gate 3 (both are 97% at PCGamer, for example). That's a pretty rare accomplishment worth celebrating, especially for those of us who grew up with the series...
I do kinda wish they incorporated the fan Black Mesa remake and improvements, though.
I guess that's it and some general marketing for their stuff. I doubt there are all that many people who would pay for HL1 remaining after 25 years unless it's a remake or something.
It still makes a few dollars. New players are born every day. The original Half Life has a lot of sentimental value for the company and they won't let it rot.
Just a few days ago I downloaded a Half-Life PS2 ROM because it looked like the only way to get decent analog stick support for the game.
After purchasing a Steam Deck earlier this year, Half-Life was one of the things I was really looking forward to. It was pretty disappointing once I realized the gamepad support wasn't quite there.
The update claims they've improved this and verified it for the Steam Deck. So excited to give this a go later this weekend.
I would really, really love to be able to play Half-Life again for the first time.
I feel the same way about the first Bioshock, and about the early years of World of Warcraft. Those two are from a bit later obviously, but the three of them really raised the bar for me personally in what was possible in a game.
With HL, it was how immersive the world was, and how very strange and complex the story turned out to be.
With Bioshock, it was the story above all, and how for the first time I was taken in by an "unreliable narrator" in a video game. The reveal around "would you kindly" was really shocking to me, like a good book can be.
With WoW, it was everything, but entering Ironforge for the first time was just a stunning moment for me in particular.
> The entire UI has been reworked to scale at larger screen sizes. We built most of this stuff for 640x480 CRTs and apparently some of you have upgraded since then.
Black Mesa is definitely a beautiful experience – especially for "younger" folks like me who missed the HL1 boat by a few years.
Mind, though, that development appears to have ceased on Black Mesa; and while it's basically 99% complete, I encountered a few show-stopping crashes and performance blackouts requiring some intense googling to bypass. I'd still recommend it, though.
It’s pretty but it’s not an exact reproduction. It’s the remake of a classic movie that keeps some scenes, changes some, and adds new ones.
It is a mistake to just play it and think you have had the HL1 experience.
For me as someone that played (and modded) the original when it first came out, it’s Jackson’s Hobbit movies vs the book when your first of many reading was years before.
worth every minute of playing. However for me gameplay of the original is still worth a try. I think it forces you to plan, explore and look for alternatives more. Black Mesa has more "modern" gameplay.
As someone who first played a CD copy of Half-Life before picking up the Steam version, it's amazing to see that they brought back features which were neglected from the Steam release – most notably the viewroll when moving left & right and a semi-recreation of the old main menu.
Many of the QOL changes are greatly appreciated (especially grenade physics), the changes to technical limitations (and addition of func_vehicle) will be a godsend for modders, and I'm surprisingly over the moon that Valve have acknowledged the psyched out Barney from the alpha.
If you still have the serial from that CD copy, you can plug it into Steam and redeem a copy (and also the expansions, depending on which version you bought).
Welcome to the H.E.V. Mark IV protective system, for use in hazardous environment conditions.
High-impact reactive armour activated.
Atmospheric contaminant sensors activated.
Vital sign monitoring activated.
Automatic medical systems engaged.
Defensive weapon selection system activated.
Munition level monitoring activated.
Communications interface online.
Have a very safe day.
Love this. I do wonder how the bug fixes will affect speedrun attempts, and if people will start using this for speedrunning or if they'll stay on the prior version.
The Steam version is basically dead; WON is what most runners play. (Though it would be interesting if this revitalized the Steam categories.)
For those curious, you can download WON from https://www.speedrun.com/hl1/resources ("GoldSrc Package" and "Half-Life 2005 Package" are the builds allowed in the WON categories). You will need Half-Life on Steam to run them (which is currently free until Nov 20 - get it while you can).
This is cool , Im just really confused, I somehow coincidentally was JUST playing Black Mesa this evening, ( Hl1 redone in Half-life Source Engine apparently by a fan base with permission) and I am ofcourse a bit surprised to hear this news ( as I rarely play games ) , but also because I don't understand how it relates to Black Mesa.
Black Mesa clearly seems to look better basically as its in the new engine ( but I note a couple of very small things are missing such as how you customise your player model in HL MP) - and it took a long time to make, so I am a bit confused why they have gone back to improve the original code but not port or not just improve Black Mesa. Sorry if I am out of the loop, I'm honestly just in the dark how the 2 product relate, reasoning wise.
[+] [-] neonate|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] haunter|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsimpson|2 years ago|reply
I'm just now getting into PC gaming via Linux. I've always had a Mac, so I missed a bunch of games like Half Life.
Now I'm wondering when I'll get to play any of them…
[+] [-] smcl|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Findecanor|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] canadianwriter|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexchantavy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simlevesque|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kemayo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hmottestad|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] miramba|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zanni|2 years ago|reply
[1] https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/5E0D-522A-4E62-B6...
[+] [-] lapetitejort|2 years ago|reply
When Half-Life 2 came out I bought the pricier version which came with HL1 and all the expansions, mods, etc on Steam. Those are my oldest purchases on the service, naturally.
[+] [-] solardev|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AgentME|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] messe|2 years ago|reply
I'm just waiting on my steam deck to charge so I can curl up on the couch with this for a few hours before bed.
EDIT: I tried it out on my laptop while waiting for the deck to charge, and I'm seeing some bugs in the software renderer with missing textures for semi-transparent objects like floor grilles, so I'm switching back to OpenGL for now. If anyone at Valve wants log-files or information on my setup in order to reproduce, I'm happy to provide it; my email is in my profile.
[+] [-] d_tr|2 years ago|reply
You are definitely not alone. There are quite a few released and upcoming indie retro FPS games on Steam now and some are quite popular. I think this is one reason they decided to add these settings.
[+] [-] solardev|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hgs3|2 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk5gaNp4x_AVIJviyHueH...
[+] [-] addisonj|2 years ago|reply
Certainly, it isn't atypical for software industry folks of my age to have games be a gateway into tech, but I think I was a bit different in that I rarely considered wanting to make games, rather I enjoyed the tinkering with my computer and the rapid pace at what games could do as much as the game (which continues today with my spending more money on playing with the hardware and toys rather than the actual games) and half-life just
I first played Half-Life on a family PC with no graphics accelerator and I loved it, but I remember the jank from ~15 FPS at a few hundred lines of resolution. This is what drove me to build my first computer and after debugging my way through all the issues that a 12 a year old would make when building a computer before the age of YouTube, I remember being absolutely blown away by the lighting and speed of what this little piece of hardware added to the experience.
That wasn't the first time I felt the rush of getting a computer to do something I wanted (that would probably be getting doom running in windows 3.1 after dealing figuring out the mystical "command line") but it certainly was one of the most drastic in just how fast tech changed.
A small addendum to this... I really want to figure out how to bring similiar experiences to my kids, because it was that loop of problem -> learning -> breakthrough that I think was hugely transformative to not only my career trajectory, but also just in learning to love learning.
So thanks Valve and Half-Life team for this happy memories... but maybe I won't feel the same when I try and play HL DM this weekend and inevitably realize how slow my reaction times have gotten in the last ~25 years ;)
[+] [-] simonlc|2 years ago|reply
So I'm very excited to watch this new documentary featuring people who worked on the game, made by the same people, such a surprise haha.
[+] [-] sebasmurphy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aequitas|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjord|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deelowe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OkayPhysicist|2 years ago|reply
In theory, it's not that hard to compete with Steam. Valve's cut of game sales is massive, and a competitor could easily slash into that to undercut them. Which is what Epic Games is trying to do. Yet, Valve maintains an extremely dominant market condition largely predicated on that goodwill.
And, of course, exactly because of that dominant market condition, they've got all the money they could possibly want to burn on random vanity projects.
[+] [-] solardev|2 years ago|reply
I do kinda wish they incorporated the fan Black Mesa remake and improvements, though.
[+] [-] dom96|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grotorea|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xcv123|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xd1936|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maccard|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evanjrowley|2 years ago|reply
After purchasing a Steam Deck earlier this year, Half-Life was one of the things I was really looking forward to. It was pretty disappointing once I realized the gamepad support wasn't quite there.
The update claims they've improved this and verified it for the Steam Deck. So excited to give this a go later this weekend.
[+] [-] simlevesque|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ubermonkey|2 years ago|reply
I feel the same way about the first Bioshock, and about the early years of World of Warcraft. Those two are from a bit later obviously, but the three of them really raised the bar for me personally in what was possible in a game.
With HL, it was how immersive the world was, and how very strange and complex the story turned out to be.
With Bioshock, it was the story above all, and how for the first time I was taken in by an "unreliable narrator" in a video game. The reveal around "would you kindly" was really shocking to me, like a good book can be.
With WoW, it was everything, but entering Ironforge for the first time was just a stunning moment for me in particular.
[+] [-] prox|2 years ago|reply
I love this quip :D
[+] [-] doublerabbit|2 years ago|reply
https://www.moddb.com/mods/black-mesa
[+] [-] they4kman|2 years ago|reply
Mind, though, that development appears to have ceased on Black Mesa; and while it's basically 99% complete, I encountered a few show-stopping crashes and performance blackouts requiring some intense googling to bypass. I'd still recommend it, though.
[+] [-] pugworthy|2 years ago|reply
It is a mistake to just play it and think you have had the HL1 experience.
For me as someone that played (and modded) the original when it first came out, it’s Jackson’s Hobbit movies vs the book when your first of many reading was years before.
[+] [-] justin_oaks|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pugworthy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mab122|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OliveMate|2 years ago|reply
Many of the QOL changes are greatly appreciated (especially grenade physics), the changes to technical limitations (and addition of func_vehicle) will be a godsend for modders, and I'm surprisingly over the moon that Valve have acknowledged the psyched out Barney from the alpha.
[+] [-] ascagnel_|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrlk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjcm|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saltminer|2 years ago|reply
For those curious, you can download WON from https://www.speedrun.com/hl1/resources ("GoldSrc Package" and "Half-Life 2005 Package" are the builds allowed in the WON categories). You will need Half-Life on Steam to run them (which is currently free until Nov 20 - get it while you can).
[+] [-] ionwake|2 years ago|reply
Black Mesa clearly seems to look better basically as its in the new engine ( but I note a couple of very small things are missing such as how you customise your player model in HL MP) - and it took a long time to make, so I am a bit confused why they have gone back to improve the original code but not port or not just improve Black Mesa. Sorry if I am out of the loop, I'm honestly just in the dark how the 2 product relate, reasoning wise.
[+] [-] bakugo|2 years ago|reply
By far the most important change in this update.
[+] [-] wmichelin|2 years ago|reply