Half-Life is back and better than ever. Alongside interviews with the original developers, the game is now available with the Uplink mini-campaign, Steam Deck support, updated graphics settings, new multiplayer maps, and bonus restored goodies.
Was anyone else floored that Half-Life came out 25 years ago? I mean, of course I can do the math, but it hit me hard how long ago that was.
I remember reading a preview article in PC Gamer about the revolutionary AI in the game, how enemies would follow you if they could hear you and set up ambushes.
Then the first time I played it, having the story told right in the game with characters doing actions that you can look around and see and interact with … It was clear to everyone at the time that this was the future of storytelling in first-person games.
I’m definitely going to need to try this on my Deck when it arrives and see if the gameplay holds up.
Last I checked no, the game engine was 32 bit but the Mac won’t run 32 bit apps anymore. Or something like that. My hope with this refresh was 64 bit support.
Have you actually installed and run it? I know there were quite a few games that steam claimed couldn’t be run because of that and still did. I don’t remember if portal is one of them though.
Battleblock theater for instance says it can’t but still does.
Edit: Idk if it’s just me on linux, but it seems like CS1.6 no longer launches on the new update. A bummer, but I had a lot of fun play HLDM just now so I think they’ll fix it eventually.
Spoilers: >!Most of the game is a prequel to HL2, but in the final few minutes, you get sent into the future, right to the time and place where Episode 2 ended. So it does advance the Half-Life plot forward, but only by a few minutes.!<
I got ya. That makes sense. It is not a story sequel. I haven’t finished it yet, but it felt very much like the direction Valve is pushing and a story sequel to HL2 probably won’t happen.
Which reminds me, what did we get for the 25th anniversary of Unreal, another super important game from 1998 whose engine nowadays even powers movie production?
I’m also still incredibly salty about this. The Quake 1 and 2 remasters also are a huge contrast to how the Unreal franchise has been handled.
I recently got my gog copy of UT2004 running on my Steam Deck. It was a huge pain in the ass that I could have circumvented by buying a Steam copy… but of course that’s no longer an option. I guess Epic doesn’t want easy money from their old games.
Significant — you’d need to either get the old Linux build working (not an easy task today) or you can install it on Windows, copy the files over, and run it via Proton (but you’d need to manually add the registry key with your CD key to the Proton prefix’s registry).
I think my favorite part is how they’ve brought back software rendering, both by allowing it on linux and by giving the option to turn off texture filtering on opengl. That plus making the main menu look like the original release brings me right back to how I first played Half-Life!
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Direct link to the documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZ3HzvFEto
Documentary by the For-profit side of Noclip!
They’ve been hush-hush about this for months on their Patreon, it’s delightful to see what all the secrecy was about.
Half Life 25th confirmed
Was anyone else floored that Half-Life came out 25 years ago? I mean, of course I can do the math, but it hit me hard how long ago that was.
I remember reading a preview article in PC Gamer about the revolutionary AI in the game, how enemies would follow you if they could hear you and set up ambushes.
Then the first time I played it, having the story told right in the game with characters doing actions that you can look around and see and interact with … It was clear to everyone at the time that this was the future of storytelling in first-person games.
I’m definitely going to need to try this on my Deck when it arrives and see if the gameplay holds up.
Does this mean I can play Portal on my Mac?
Doesn’t portal already run on the Mac since forever?
Last I checked no, the game engine was 32 bit but the Mac won’t run 32 bit apps anymore. Or something like that. My hope with this refresh was 64 bit support.
Have you actually installed and run it? I know there were quite a few games that steam claimed couldn’t be run because of that and still did. I don’t remember if portal is one of them though.
Battleblock theater for instance says it can’t but still does.
This is a new version of Half Life 1
Does anyone know if this affects mods like CS?
Edit: Idk if it’s just me on linux, but it seems like CS1.6 no longer launches on the new update. A bummer, but I had a lot of fun play HLDM just now so I think they’ll fix it eventually.
It says if something relies on the source version you can still use that.
There is a beta branch you can roll back to if mods break because of the changes.
Cue misplaced hope about Half Life 3.
I’d argue that Alyx was HL3.
Alyx was 2.75 because we know from Valve math that the limit of half life only approaches 3 as t goes to infinity.
At least about 2 minutes of it were Half-Life 3.
Why only 2 minutes?
Spoilers: >!Most of the game is a prequel to HL2, but in the final few minutes, you get sent into the future, right to the time and place where Episode 2 ended. So it does advance the Half-Life plot forward, but only by a few minutes.!<
I got ya. That makes sense. It is not a story sequel. I haven’t finished it yet, but it felt very much like the direction Valve is pushing and a story sequel to HL2 probably won’t happen.
Look it’s two minutes more than we had for 13 years.
Maybe it’s time to see other games…
Which reminds me, what did we get for the 25th anniversary of Unreal, another super important game from 1998 whose engine nowadays even powers movie production?
Right, Epic pulled it from all stores…
I’m also still incredibly salty about this. The Quake 1 and 2 remasters also are a huge contrast to how the Unreal franchise has been handled.
I recently got my gog copy of UT2004 running on my Steam Deck. It was a huge pain in the ass that I could have circumvented by buying a Steam copy… but of course that’s no longer an option. I guess Epic doesn’t want easy money from their old games.
I’ve still got the original UT2004 DVD ROM physical release. How big of a pain would this be to get running on my Deck?
Significant — you’d need to either get the old Linux build working (not an easy task today) or you can install it on Windows, copy the files over, and run it via Proton (but you’d need to manually add the registry key with your CD key to the Proton prefix’s registry).
cant you just run the installer with wine which is like 2000% easier?
I think my favorite part is how they’ve brought back software rendering, both by allowing it on linux and by giving the option to turn off texture filtering on opengl. That plus making the main menu look like the original release brings me right back to how I first played Half-Life!