How did we miss this anniversary?

[Dos_Box]

On the 19th November, Half Life was 25 years old!

You can get Half Life and the 25th year anniversary update for a mere 71p (if you don't already have it) on Steam here - https://store.steampowered.com/app/70/HalfLife/

 

What an epic game, and for those of us around at the time, it was a real game changer, and if you had a Voodoo 2 card it really was something special!

[DaveTheTech]

Everyone ready to blow out the birthday cake's candles?

On three, 1, 2......oh

 

 

Time for a bit of nostalgia and reminiscing

[andy_b]

[azc]

We didn't miss it on Discord #games_chat

 

It was 100% free from 17th-20th November, saving yourself 71p!

[synaesthesia]

And it goes without saying if you haven't got Black Mesa, get it. It improves and expands on the original.

[3s-gtech]

The Valve anniversary video posted above is fascinating and well worth a watch.

 

I celebrated the day by by rapidly smacking a crowbar on various surfaces while bunnyhopping. Then getting headshot in CS.

[Koldov]

Have to say I did eventually get around to playing Half-Life, but I think the experience was spoilt by spending many, many years playing Counter-Strike first...

 

Still, have to give it proper and due respect for being the game CS was modded from and in turn, the reason I started upgrading PCs (after I realised the computer I had wouldn't even take a Voodoo 2) and eventually led me to a career in IT!

 

I'm going to ignore the brief dalliance I had with 'BASIC' programming on a Commodore 64 in the 80s (mainly because it actually put me off coding)... and so it only ever got used for games (which only loaded from the tape 50% of the time) and after that experience I only ever had consoles for gaming until I tried CS....

[3s-gtech]

That could be me, Word for Word. CS before HL itself, led to playing all games on PCs, led to my job, all started writing BASIC on a C64 (I once wrote a BASIC game that took two sides of a tape to load )

 

I got into CS map making (poorly) and built my first gaming PC for HL2. It did not disappoint.

[jthompson]

I remember constant articles about Half-Life in PC Zone magazine. When I finally got to play it I remember the feel if it being quite visceral compared to other games at the time.

 

When HL2 was first demoed, I remember the physics engine just blowing me away.

 

Was it HL or HL2 that first had a flashlight? That seemed to me a really amazing thing to see.

[Norphy]

I loved Half Life, at least until I got to Xen. I played it first on a PC with a K6 200MHz CPU and a 6MB Voodoo 1 card. It was mostly OK, but it chugged when it got to the level with the dual rotor helicopter and the paratroopers rappelling from it. I then upgraded to K6-3 400 and a Voodoo 3 and it was buttery smooth.

 

Playing the entire game from the perspective of Freeman was unique at the time and even now I don't think it's that common to have that exposition like that from the perspective of the character, there's usually cut scenes to drive the story. What a game and Half Life 2 was even better. I'm still bitter about not having Episode 3, but Valve got more interested in Steam than making games I think.

[Koldov]

That could be me, Word for Word. CS before HL itself, led to playing all games on PCs, led to my job, all started writing BASIC on a C64 (I once wrote a BASIC game that took two sides of a tape to load )

 

I got into CS map making (poorly) and built my first gaming PC for HL2. It did not disappoint.

 

Haha!

 

I also tried to make a couple of maps, but didn't quite have the patience to work out all the bugs (mind you even 'pro' maps had those 'jump through into the sky and walk along', or 'getting a boost into an impossible to see hiding place' bugs)... One of maps was quite good though, I'm sure I still have the screenshots somewhere... A friend of mine used to map for DoD (I never got into it) and I seem to remember he did quite well.

 

I kind of went off CS when it went to V2 (and Source) for some reason, it just all 'felt' wrong... But I played it for a bit, along with HL2 (plus Deathmatch & Lost Coast), Portal, CS:GO, TF2...

 

I used to copy the BASIC code from a magazine called 'INPUT' and was fairly disappointed after a few hours and hundreds of lines of code later getting the dreaded 'Syntax Error in line 325'... Only to check in the next month's issues for the "Errata" section (as there were printing errors in almost every issue) and finding out it should have been ; instead of :

[synaesthesia]

I loved Half Life, at least until I got to Xen.

 

Xen is what Black Mesa improved the most! It's awesome now!

[azc]

I'd also like to recommend "Half Life Alyx - The Final Hours" which basically recaps everything that Valve has been doing for the last 20 years or so, including information about abandoned projects (including Half-Life 3). It's an interactive ebook. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1361700/HalfLife_Alyx__Final_Hours/ - currently £1.07