PC Half Life 2 20th anniversary

[dimmerwit]

So Half Life 2 turned 20 which makes me feel very old! I bought the game a couple of weeks after it came out which is when I first made my Steam account.

Anyway, much like with the 25th anniversary for the original game last year, they've updated the game. They integrated Episode 1 and 2 into the base game, fixed glitches, added new graphics options and proper HDR support, added support for Steam's Game Recording feature and added developer commentary for the base game amongst other things.

Also it's free for the next few days so you really have no excuse.

The updates also apply to Half Life 2 Deathmatch which needs to be a thing again. I always had fun with that.

 

[dimmerwit]

Oh, and Steam Workshop support, which is pretty wild for such an old game.

 

[Quagmire]

Wish we'd get HL3

 

[Smacktard]

HL2 was revolutionary. Ravenholm was incredible, and the Gravity Gun still hasn't been topped.

It's a toss-up which game I prefer between HL1 and HL2, but HL2 is definitely more consistent throughout (looking at you, Xen).

 

[Ben]

I spent so so much time playing Half-Life 2, and then afterwards a bunch of Garry's Mod with Goons from SA. It was truly an incredible game for the time and had so much replay value. Also hard agree that Ravenholm was fucking wild.

I wish I had a VR setup to have tried the Alyx thing they released a little while back, I'm sure that was fun.

I also only just heard about the Vivendi lawsuit stuff with South Korean cybercafes and Counter-Strike, and how they tried to bankrupt Valve shortly before they released HL2, including how the whole thing (and Valve) was saved by a Korean intern at the lawfirm they hired finding a document from a Vivendi executive talking about destroying evidence. That's pretty wild.

 

[Fool's Requiem]

added developer commentary for the base game amongst other things.

dude, what?! That's awesome. I had always thought it off they never did it for the base game. There was a really good mod released for the game that added their own commentary and it was really nice to hear about things they did to improve the game.

With Valve doing their official commentary, it might be worth a replay.

 

[dimmerwit]

dude, what?! That's awesome. I had always thought it off they never did it for the base game. There was a really good mod released for the game that added their own commentary and it was really nice to hear about things they did to improve the game.

With Valve doing their official commentary, it might be worth a replay.

Yes, there's about 3 and a half hours of it. They never did it because the dev commentary idea didn't originate until the Lost Coast HDR tech demo which was the year following the main game's release.

I finished my HL2 playthrough. I think the last time I sat down and played from start to finish was 2007? I remember I played the 360 version then. Currently halfway through Episode 1 and it's pretty good, although I still think it's the weakest of the "trilogy".

 

[Spectro]

I need to play Half Life: Alyx at some point. It looks really great.

 

[Fool's Requiem]

I need to play Half Life: Alyx at some point. It looks really great.

I'm just waiting on the mod that allows it to be played without an expensive VR set to be functional. I refuse to by a VR headset for one game, regardless of whether or not it has "Half Life" in the title.

 

[dimmerwit]

I'm just waiting on the mod that allows it to be played without an expensive VR set to be functional. I refuse to by a VR headset for one game, regardless of whether or not it has "Half Life" in the title.

The mod is very functional, but the game is designed around VR in such a way that it doesn't work well without it. It's just extremely easy.

Luckily I got my brother's old Oculus CV1 which is still good enough to play.

Shame given the ending to Alyx which is hugely impactful.