[HN Gopher] Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update
___________________________________________________________________
Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update
Author : Philpax
Score : 377 points
Date : 2023-11-17 18:35 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.half-life.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.half-life.com)
| reallymental wrote:
| Besides the low brow "wen half-lyf-3?" comment, is valve planning
| on releasing any other games like hf? Anyone in the industry have
| anything to spill regarding this?
| ender341341 wrote:
| def no insider info on my side but from what I've heard/read
| they pretty regularly have a team spun up to explore a half
| life 3 but at this point they're afraid of a duke nukem forever
| (not that they'd make a shitty game like that) and that even if
| it's a great game it'd be seen as underwhelming because the
| community has hyped itself up so much on it over the nearly 20
| years.
| fullshark wrote:
| I think part of the issue is Half-life 1 & 2 were
| groundbreaking in terms of level design and storytelling in a
| FPS. It wasn't just about completing a maze, that was why
| Half-Life was so beloved there was nothing like it really
| before. Half-life 3 would just be like every other FPS game
| now, the trail has been blazed.
| xcv123 wrote:
| > Half-life 3 would just be like every other FPS game now
|
| Artistically, aesthetically, nothing quite compares to the
| Half Life universe in other FPS games. A lot of people
| would be happy with just another chapter to explore.
|
| There are too many open world boring grinding simulations
| nowadays.
|
| Black Mesa was just a remake of Half Life 1 and it was so
| much more fun and immersive than any recent FPS game that I
| have played.
| kibibu wrote:
| If you can get your hands on a VR headset, I cannot
| recommend Alyx highly enough. An incredible experience
| inside a very high fidelity City 17.
|
| Headcrabs are about a million times more terrifying in VR
| zavertnik wrote:
| I think a lot of the special sauce with the Half Life
| games is their "Show don't tell" approach to game design.
|
| You load up the game, watch an intro (for games after
| HL1) and boom you're in the game. Nothing is going to
| appear on your screen beyond your HUD except for one time
| tips when acquiring a new weapon and chapter titles when
| progressing to a new level. Everything happens in real
| time and everything always happens from the POV of the
| player. There are no cut scenes, there are no cinematic
| transitions, and the player's POV is never intercut with
| cameras/external perspectives.
|
| It makes the games feel grounded and more cinematic, IMO.
| Its a game design language that really puts the onus on
| the player to witness the story and game for themselves.
| When I play a Half-Life or Portal game, I feel like I'm
| discovering the story as I play, while other games often
| feel like I'm being presented or shown a story as I play.
| The execution is more nuanced than that, but the game's
| simplicity makes it difficult to focus on anything other
| than the story and world within the game.
|
| When you look at the stories of each Half-Life game, each
| game tends to follow the same structure with the same
| kind of plot points. But for me, it never feels
| repetitive because the experience of witnessing the story
| is different for each game. Of course Half-Life isn't the
| only game that does this and this of course isn't the
| only reason why Half-Life has been enshrined as one of
| the GOATs.
|
| The underlying content of the game, its aesthetic, the
| textures and models, sound design and score, voice
| acting, ect. all are great in Half-Life, but I wouldn't
| say that Half-Life is the best at any of these things. I
| also wouldn't say the game's narrative is the best of the
| best either. Despite this it remains my all time favorite
| game franchise, possibly/probably because I grew up with
| it but also because the game does a fantastic job of
| using that underlying content to give little clues.
| Everything feels like it has a purpose, whether it is
| apparent in the moment or not.
|
| But I am just a storyteller that happens to be a barely
| competent programmer with absolutely no experience in
| game development, so all of this is just my opinion based
| on my own experience!
| cogman10 wrote:
| Honestly, I think they could do HL3 at this point as the hype
| around 3 is basically dead.
|
| This, though, is why you don't end things with cliff hangers.
| fullshark wrote:
| They just happened to have the foresight to develop the
| most lucrative business model in gaming (owning the
| distribution platform) and Half Life 3 was the opportunity
| cost. They could have made a ton of money with that cliff
| hanger if they remained like every other game developer on
| the planet, instead of a metric buttload of money.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Opportunity cost? Steam was created shortly after half-
| life 1 and existed prior to half life 2's release. It was
| already a huge cash cow when they released games like CS
| go and TF2.
|
| But further, the skills to write a game are different
| from the skills to manage a game distribution system.
| It's not like by having the HL2 devs valve was squeezed
| for cash or resources to expand steam.
| zavertnik wrote:
| (no spoiler) From a storytelling perspective, Half Life 2
| Episode 2 (the last mainline Half-Life game which Half-Life 3
| was expected to be the sequel for) sets up Half-Life 3 as a
| proper ending to the game's story and confirmed by Mark
| Laidlaw's release of Epistle 3. I can see why they wouldn't
| want to rush quickly to the exit but at the same time, HL2E2
| left them without much wiggle room. This issue alone is
| addressed in Half-Life Alyx.
|
| From Valve's perspective, the Half-Life property is pretty
| valuable and its served them well as a means of demonstrating
| the newest source engine updates with a ton of hype
| bootstrapped because it is Half-Life.
|
| Despite it's popularity, Half-Life is a delicate property in
| the sense that the story hinges on a lot of unknowns that are
| not revealed straight forwardly, similarly to LOST, the lack
| of detail stokes that mystery to the audience's delight,
| because they know there will be a big payoff that explains
| these mysteries at the end of the tunnel. That's a lot of
| pressure for the writers room @ Valve, especially so
| considering the development process of the game engine/assets
| itself.
|
| It works for Valve. It sucks for fans, but the alternative is
| ending the property early or extending the property far
| beyond its intended shelf life. As long as I live to see the
| end of the narrative, I'll be happy. If not, then valve pls
| fix.
| wmichelin wrote:
| Love to see Valve revisiting old games and giving them modern
| quality of life improvements.
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| Ah, it now works on the Steam Deck. Wondered why it would happen.
| bjord wrote:
| 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?
| dom96 wrote:
| Half Life 3 already happened and it was called Half Life: Alyx.
| tshaddox wrote:
| And was played (and playable) by almost no one, sadly.
| kulahan wrote:
| a really incredible VR game though
| hotnfresh wrote:
| I'm waiting for an update that lets me play it without VR.
| I'm probably never going to have a VR rig that'll play it.
| My wife has a couple for work (not capable of playing that
| game, though) and we're both free to use them for whatever
| we like, but never bother. Certainly not gonna pay for a
| headset just for one game. I have enough barely-used
| electronic crap around as it is.
| solardev wrote:
| I tried it in VR for half an hour or so. It was really
| nice compared to most VR shovelware. High production
| values, fun interactivity, etc.
|
| But remove the VR and you're left with an above-average
| short FPS that would've been entirely unremarkable if not
| for the Half-Life tie-in. If they released it for non VR,
| it would probably get trashed just for not being HL3.
|
| Honestly I don't think you're missing much. It's a good
| VR game only because the bar for VR gaming in general is
| so much lower.
| Bluecobra wrote:
| AFAIK there is a mouse/keyboard mod but it makes the game
| way too easy.
| ender341341 wrote:
| Alyx was really good (though I'm a wuss and couldn't finish
| it) but not a continuation of the cliffhanger that we've been
| sitting on for 16 years since episode 2.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| When/if HL3 is announced, I actually believe it might break
| parts of the internet.
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| Mild HL:ALyx spoiler: If you'd actually finished the game,
| you'd know that it _does_ continue that cliffhanger
| (briefly)
| TheFreim wrote:
| Cliffhanger A swapped with Cliffhanger B
| debugnik wrote:
| No spoilers then, but the ending of Alyx does retcon the
| old cliffhanger.
| ender341341 wrote:
| I need to just watch a lets play at some point
|
| > the ending of Alyx does retcon the old cliffhanger.
|
| that's semi-disappointing, if for no other reason than
| that they'd do it in a game so few have the ability to
| actually play.
| deelowe wrote:
| 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.
| the_snooze wrote:
| Valve isn't beholden to any external shareholders, and Steam
| is as close to a money-printing machine a private company can
| have. Combine that with the fact that Gabe and company seem
| to have pretty decent values in line with their customers'
| interests, and you get nice outcomes like this.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I think it speak mlre aboub Gabe's ethics than whatever
| model of technical causality we want to impose on this.
| behringer wrote:
| And let's be realistic, this is going to sell an absolute
| crapload of HL2 to a whole new generation of gamers.
| jorvi wrote:
| I like Valve / Gabe / Steam, but let's not be false and
| pretend that they weren't coasting before the build-up to
| the Deck release. Steam had gone without significant
| updates for almost half a decade.
| mattmanser wrote:
| They released a massive overhaul a few months ago.
| xd1936 wrote:
| More content for their Steam Deck handheld?
| xcv123 wrote:
| 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.
| bjord wrote:
| fwiw, to your first point, they're also giving HL1 away for
| free (to keep) right now.
| grotorea wrote:
| Don't these new players mostly buy newer games? I know GOG
| exists but I guess there are few people who buy games older
| than themselves.
| solardev wrote:
| 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.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| 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.
| majora2007 wrote:
| Well it's not exactly trivial to build a software as
| extensive without just being a rip-off and having the share
| of games at launch. Gamers are extremely picky and it costs
| tons to build out a scalable system. This is where Epic
| failed. Sure they gave me a ton of free games, but their UX
| was horrible that I just never went to it and stayed within
| Steam.
| omgmajk wrote:
| Epic launcher actually randomly crashes my display window
| manager from time to time, I just can't have it running in
| the background as I do with Steam.
| maccard wrote:
| Entirely marketing for steam. It coincides with the Oled Steam
| Decks, for example.
| grotorea wrote:
| 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.
| moralestapia wrote:
| HALF-LIFE 3 CONFIRMED
| shmde wrote:
| There is an easter egg in the website.
| sparrish wrote:
| Do tell...
| shmde wrote:
| Click crowbar and start hitting ...stuff.
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| What is it? I clicked the crowbar which changed my cursor and
| that was it.
| justin_oaks wrote:
| Try clicking on the various enemies or people.
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| I tried clicking on everything, I just gave up lol
| shmde wrote:
| Click on Gordon and the Xen Alien after you have gotten
| the crowbar.
| jrwr wrote:
| Start clicking on stuff, You'll find it :)
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| I was clicking around like mad, nothing happened and I gave
| up
| qiine wrote:
| haha thanks I would have missed it ! so fun to hear those
| sounds !
| haunter wrote:
| It's also free until Monday (as in free to get, not just limited
| free play) https://store.steampowered.com/app/70/HalfLife/
| ta1243 wrote:
| Interesting. I do have a steam account, haven't used it for a
| long time, it doesn't seem to be in my password manager
|
| So I went to reset my password, but got thwarted by the
| captcha. To email me a password reset link.
|
| I think Ill just torrent it.
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| Why not make a new account? Valve is giving this out for
| free, partially to get people to use their program more. Why
| not support them in that small way at least?
| k12sosse wrote:
| You're trying to reason with a person who can't even
| complete a captcha.
| jorvi wrote:
| In his defense, the best way to solve a captcha is by
| pretending you are partially blind. If you actually
| select all the relevant squares, Google just says "nope
| lol go again!".
| OnionBlender wrote:
| My theory is that, if the real goal of the captcha is for
| AI training then you would want to get rid of the people
| that were close but not quite right (let them proceed) .
| If the user was 100% correct on the first test, you'd
| probably want to give them more tests.
| timhwang21 wrote:
| They may be on VPN. Google recaptcha has dynamic risk-
| based friction and is prone to serving effectively
| impossible challenges to users on VPN.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Captchas can be an endless hellhole if you are on a
| network that the captcha provider happens to dislike. No
| fault of your own.
|
| I've had situations in the past where I tried 10-20 times
| to complete captcha and it just kept throwing one after
| the other at me. Whereas when I am at home and not using
| VPN I always complete every captcha in like one or two
| attempts.
| miramba wrote:
| It appears that the containment system has completely
| failed.
| swasheck wrote:
| the captcha on https://archive.ph is an endless loop of
| clicking the "I'm not a robot" reCAPTCHA checkbox for me.
| sometimes i'm lucky enough to get to the "click all boxes
| that have a bus" and i never know if the one tile that
| has a fraction of the side mirror counts as being a bus
| or not. sometimes i guess correctly, and sometimes i find
| myself in another endless loop of identifying objects. i
| suspect it's a nanny service on my work machine because
| if i fire up a windows sandbox instance and archive the
| site there, i can sometimes get some luck.
|
| it's a stiff price to pay for getting around the data
| science medium articles that require a sign up, and then
| an app, and then a subscription.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Presumably the same captcha nonsense.
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| Is it ok to steal from a liquor store because they
| require a license shown to buy it and for some reason you
| can't get yours?
| messe wrote:
| I'd download a car, if that's what you're asking.
| andygeorge wrote:
| did an ai write this
| illumanaughty wrote:
| I'd assume AI would come across as more intelligent.
| bdlowery wrote:
| I don't think you're gonna make it my guy
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Out of curiosity, why wait until just now to torrent it?
| ta1243 wrote:
| I'm not really a game person. The point is that getting
| things the right way should be a better experience then
| going to piratebay.
|
| Nonsense like captchas only hurt legitimate users, and when
| those captchas are asking you time and time again it's
| simply not worthwhile. Had I wanted to actually spend good
| money on a game they would have lost a sale, and for what
| -- to stop a robot asking for a password reset email to an
| existing account?
| illumanaughty wrote:
| Steam is a perfectly fine experience and captchas are the
| universal standard these days. They lost someone who's
| 'not really a game person' and wasn't willing to fill in
| a captcha for a free game, I don't think they're too
| worried about lost revenue. I highly doubt tracking down
| and downloading a legit version of the updated Half-Life
| from a torrent site is an easier option, but you do you.
| px1999 wrote:
| But it's free and you didn't really answer the question.
|
| Were you looking for a soapbox to stand on?
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > but got thwarted by the captcha
|
| ...how?
| Findecanor wrote:
| Is it possible to play it off-line though? I remember that was
| an issue when I got The Orange Box with Half-Life 2.
| cwkoss wrote:
| IIRC you should be able to download it and then put Steam
| into offline mode and it won't call home until you flip that
| toggle again... unless they changed how that works since I
| last fiddled with it. Might need to play once before flipping
| toggle off.
| nolist_policy wrote:
| Its worth it for the assets alone, you can play hl with the
| open source xash3d engine.
| pacifika wrote:
| What's the benefit of doing that please?
| fancy_pantser wrote:
| It's a whole different engine that may have some
| advantages that make it worth checking out over or in
| addition to the updates Valve has made for this special
| release: improved performance (through a more efficient
| culling system, etc), support for modern features like
| dynamic lighting, use of HL mods on newer systems by
| providing compatibility fixes. The engine can also run
| other games and works on mobile devices with less common
| screen resolutions, but YMMV. For a while, it was a good
| fallback to the official game if you were having a
| problem with it on new or less-supported hardware, but
| with this anniversary release, maybe it is less
| "necessary" and more "cool" to use an OSS alternative
| engine.
| bombcar wrote:
| Most engine reworks like that (Doom, Age of Empires,
| Heroes III, etc) offer significantly improved performance
| and scaling for modern computers.
|
| There are often other enhancements, too, including
| _native_ support for Mac, Linux, etc.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I grabbed the free copy...and then fell down the rabbit hole
| and bought a bunch of other HL games for $6.
|
| 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...
| evanjrowley wrote:
| 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.
| simlevesque wrote:
| Yeah, FPSs on the couch is fun. I love playing HL2 on my Xbox
| Series S.
| canadianwriter wrote:
| At the bottom of the page is a crowbar... maybe you should see if
| it's useful!
| simlevesque wrote:
| Thank you, that was fun.
| kemayo wrote:
| The achievement-popup was a cute addition. :D
| doublerabbit wrote:
| To those who are unhappy with the graphics of HL1, you can
| download Black Mesa which is an remake of the original.
|
| https://www.moddb.com/mods/black-mesa
| justin_oaks wrote:
| Black Mesa has an extended Xen portion of the game. Otherwise
| it's a faithful reproduction of the original with better
| graphics.
| corysama wrote:
| For anyone who wondered "WTF was supposed to be the story
| behind Xen?" this guys spent way to much time piecing it
| together and came up with a pretty solid proposal:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpp0Jh5514g
| XorNot wrote:
| The Black Mesa Xen levels are one of the best things I've
| played recently, and sucha monumental improvement. I loved
| the whole sequence to bits and got stuck thinking about it
| for days after I finished it: it just feels so right now.
| they4kman wrote:
| 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.
| mab122 wrote:
| 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.
| pugworthy wrote:
| 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.
| pugworthy wrote:
| Graphics do not make a game better. A good story is a good
| story whatever the graphics, and for me HL1 passes that test.
| messe wrote:
| 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.
| solardev wrote:
| How are first person shooters on the Deck? Do you just use the
| analog stick to aim, or is the gyro actually helpful?
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Either work just fine, IMO. The gyro is just as good as on
| the Switch
| solardev wrote:
| The Switch has gyro aiming?
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Sure does! Best use of it is on the Zelda games, IMO.
| Aiming the bow with the stick works fine when out of
| combat, but if you want to manually aim e.g. while riding
| a horse, doing the broad strokes with the stick and the
| fine tuning with the gyro works great.
| solardev wrote:
| Neat! I've never played a Zelda but that makes me want to
| try one the next time I'm at my friend's house
| bluesquared wrote:
| Splatoon series showcases this pretty well
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| I've seen people use a combination of both. The analog stick
| / trackpad for macro movements, and the gyro for fine tuning.
| I tried it once, and I think it could be fine if I practiced
| a tiny bit.
|
| But I've also got a normal PC with keyboard and mouse, so I
| don't need to.
| messe wrote:
| I was never any good at aiming with the analogue stick in FPS
| games. On the deck I'll usually use the trackpads (configured
| as a trackball with haptic feedback) to aim approximately and
| then gyro for fine tuning, and I've found my aim is
| significantly improved. It's no keyboard+mouse, but it's
| close enough for me, that unlike with the analogue sticks, I
| don't find myself needing to reduce difficulty levels or
| enable any kind of aim-assist.
|
| I sometimes find myself wishing I had a controller with the
| same layout as the deck that I could use when I have it
| docked to my TV.
| anotherhue wrote:
| :) https://www.amazon.com/USB-C-HDMI-
| Cable-10-feet/dp/B088T8D5C...
| simsla wrote:
| You can also use the touch pad for aiming. Or turn on gyro
| only when touch pad is being touched, which is useful for
| micro adjustments. Pretty customizable, although I mostly
| just use the sticks.
|
| I played Prey and Tiny Tina's on the Deck, both of which
| worked pretty well
| d_tr wrote:
| > 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.
| goles wrote:
| Got recommended a game called ADACA on steam. Early access
| but very much a Half-Like. Somehow missed it in the sea of
| games but after I found the first secret it took me right
| back. Got a demo too.
| akshayrajp wrote:
| Time to terrorize crossfire with the glu-on gun again!
| lapetitejort wrote:
| 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.
| solardev wrote:
| It's funny that two decades later, basically the only games
| Valve still actively develops are Half Life mods (Counterstrike
| and Team Fortress).
| reubenmorais wrote:
| Is Dota 2 not actively developed?
| solardev wrote:
| Oh, I didn't realize Valve did that! I remember it as a
| Warcraft mod, and didn't realize Valve acquihired them.
|
| Edit: maybe just acquired
| komadori wrote:
| Is it an aquihire if the original product line isn't
| killed off?
| solardev wrote:
| That's a good point, lol. Just an old-fashioned
| acquisition, I guess.
| bakugo wrote:
| > Incorporated func_vehicle entity support from Counter-Strike
|
| By far the most important change in this update.
| simonlc wrote:
| 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.
| sebasmurphy wrote:
| Yeah, they definitely keep that vid under wraps. There's has
| been zero mention of it on their patron and weekly podcasts.
| aequitas wrote:
| I immediately got a deja 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.
| halflife wrote:
| Is it finally available at 64bit so I can play on my Mac?
| babypuncher wrote:
| It appears not. It seems they didn't do anything for the Mac
| version with this release.
| carabiner wrote:
| Nope :(
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| This is awesome... but why not just help out Black Mesa?
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/
| xcv123 wrote:
| Valve already did help that project. But they can't neglect and
| abandon the original Half Life.
| behringer wrote:
| No raytracing / RTX support? :(
| capableweb wrote:
| There is a mod for that, unsure if it works with this new
| release though, but try it out and report back :)
|
| https://github.com/sultim-t/xash-rt
| knodi wrote:
| I'm still waiting on half-life 2: ep3....
| madspindel wrote:
| This. Valve was my favorite game developer but now I don't
| really care about them anymore.
| knodi wrote:
| I think steam is been such a cash cow for them that they gave
| up on game development.
| opyate wrote:
| I doubt it. HL:Alyx was quite recent, wasn't it?
|
| They have a bunch of cancelled/unreleased games [0] because
| their standards are so high.
|
| I don't think they want to be known as the company who made
| the best PC gaming platform in the world, but who also
| released some really crappy games on there.
|
| Games are in their DNA, so I expect we'll see something
| absolutely amazing from them in the future.
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreleased_Half-Life_games
| neonate wrote:
| The linked documentary:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZ3HzvFEto
| hgs3 wrote:
| One of the level designers, Dario Casali, marked the 25th
| anniversary with a complete playthrough and commentary. [1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk5gaNp4x_AVIJviyHueH...
| miramba wrote:
| 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.
| Zanni wrote:
| Looks like no recompile, sadly: "Notice: This product is not
| compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina or above. Click here [1]
| for more information."
|
| [1]
| https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/5E0D-522A-4E62-B6...
| miramba wrote:
| Hmm it won't start on a High Sierra iMac after the update. It
| did before, happened to play it just 3 hours ago :) Guess
| they didn't do a lot of testing on 10+ year old hardware, CRT
| or not.
| xcv123 wrote:
| You can run Half Life on 64-bit MacOS (including ARM64) using
| Crossover. It uses Rosetta and Wine.
|
| https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/half-
| lif...
| skrrtww wrote:
| It's unplayable in Rosetta because of the x87 everywhere.
| Like sub-20 fps unplayable.
| xcv123 wrote:
| Are you sure? Portal 2 had no issues on my M1.
|
| Half Life 2 also runs well
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4NESG_fXgo
| skrrtww wrote:
| Yes, Portal 2 and Half-Life 2 are both more playable
| because they don't use x87 to the same extent. It's only
| HL that uses it heavily enough that it becomes
| unplayable.
|
| Side note, I _think_ HL2 does for physics, or something;
| fast moving objects and explosions cause drastic frame
| drops via Rosetta. I haven 't been able to look into it
| in detail to confirm the cause.
|
| Edit: The best "official" way to play Half-Life on an
| Apple Silicon machine is through Parallels, which uses
| WoW64's x87 translation instead of Rosetta. I've also
| heard you can compile Half-Life yourself using the leaked
| Source Engine code, but I haven't tried it myself.
| xcv123 wrote:
| The 25th anniversary release is a major update to the
| engine and may be compiled for newer CPUs. Worth a try.
| mepian wrote:
| Why use the leaked code, when there is an open source
| reimplementation: https://github.com/FWGS/xash3d-fwgs
| issafram wrote:
| Disappointing they never made HL3
| pugworthy wrote:
| Maybe you mean haven't yet released?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| One of my favourite memories of early teens was playing HL1
| Deathmatch with my brother. We didn't have a situation that
| enabled actual Internet play, and we were not "in the know" about
| metastrategy or anything. Learning to endlessly use the longjump
| module with the OP4 covert ops character that did flips when
| jumping, to fly across boot_camp in seconds, was just
| exhilarating and eventually led to my brother never playing
| against me again. I'd just fly around the map picking up
| health/energy/grenades and then just blast him with the grenade
| launcher and disappear again.
|
| Such good times.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| That's a very neat surprise! Many active multiplayer servers too,
| today!
|
| Now release HL3 ;)
| jjcm wrote:
| 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.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| Remember when video games were cool?
| keybpo wrote:
| I love the fact that on the games requirements on the Steam page
| it still says it runs on Windows XP when in fact all support has
| been cut for long now, leaving out many of us who got into Steam
| on the first place because we either wanted a legal digital copy
| of our physical collection or because many physical game keys
| WOULD also activate a digital license. I still keep Windows 8
| because it's still supported on Steam but that too will change in
| january 1st next year. The irony is even sweeter, given that this
| update should very well work on period correct machines (which
| again, many of us still keep running) but alas, you'll still
| locked out.
|
| We'd gladly trade all the distractions the client forces down our
| throat (stickers, trading cards, avatars and all of that stuff)
| for the ability to single play the games we legitimately bought.
| But that's not an option we have, unlike say GOG, who also
| doesn't support old OS but at least gives us the possibility to
| download the games. I'd even concede some form of DRM that
| doesn't involve the Steam client but naaa, "the h4x0rs will get
| into your XP box that you keep solely for retro gaming and shut
| off the world. you must upgrade, re-buy, expend!"
|
| Anyway, happy birthday Mr. Freeman.
| scrlk wrote:
| 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.
| RulerOf wrote:
| That was pretty wild. I created a multi-player game and within a
| few minutes 31 other people showed up.
|
| Then I used alt+tab and the game crashed.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Obligatory mention: the Black Mesa HL remake using the HL2
| engine.
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/
|
| Full walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHKUVdb5YTM
| ubermonkey wrote:
| 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.
| addisonj wrote:
| 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 ;)
| ionwake wrote:
| 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.
| xcv123 wrote:
| This is Half-Life, the original, from 1998. This is Valve's
| original game and they won't abandon it.
|
| Black Mesa is a fan-made remake. That's a separate game not
| made by Valve, and they co-exist. It does not replace Half-
| Life.
| seritools wrote:
| It's just the original game touched up to work on modern
| systems. It's still the original experience.
|
| Black Mesa is a full reimplementation (and partly
| reimagination) by a fan team, with large changes, while keeping
| the feel mostly intact.
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