Half Life thread - Discussions about Valve's FPS magnum opus(es) and any related content (spin offs, expansions and etc)

[Taki Supremacy]

Spoiler: Playthrough 3

I was drunk as fuck so I didn't take notes while playing, this is just a recap. I didn't really like the driving sections, to me the buggy was pretty hard to control. My favorite parts were when you have to stop to do stuff, like turn off the force fields or raise that wooden gate using the car batteries. My favorite section was having to go underneath the bridge and climb all over the girders and scaffolding and stuff. The couple of gunships I fought were pretty easy, I really like the design, they look like whales to me. So much so I was expecting gore when they break apart, but they sort of just fall in pieces.

My favorite part of the game so far has been "Sand Traps" I think it was called, the ant lion level where you play the sand is lava for 30 minutes or so. The developers were like "ok the gravity gun is going to be the star of the show for this entire section". It was pretty chill just being able to take my time and figure out my movements to avoid alerting the ant lions. The boss ant lion was easy.

I really didn't expect to be able to control the ant lions. I mean this whole next section was fucking kino. I was drunk as fuck and me and my bug bros were re-enacting D-Day, taking out strong points, fighting bunker to bunker, these combine assholes never knew what hit them.

Then I got to outside the prison and died about ten times fighting the two gunships. It took me a long time to release they prioritize the ant lions so your supposed to throw your little pod thing out in the open and shoot the ships. Then it took me a while to learn that yeah, you actually do have to use the laser system to move the rocket erratically to make it past their defenses. Anyways I got through that and pretty far into the prison I think.

I can't remember why we are breaking into a prison honestly. Did Vance and Alyx get captured? Or is this just the only way into Nova Prospekt? I was super drunk idk. I'll figure it out when I play again lol.

 

[TheJelqster]

I can't remember why we are breaking into a prison honestly. Did Vance and Alyx get captured? Or is this just the only way into Nova Prospekt? I was super drunk idk. I'll figure it out when I play again lol.

Eli was captured by the Combine, due to his snow bunny conspiring with Dr. Breen to hand over Gordon on a silver platter for Tea Time

 

[thhrang]

 

[Rust Troony]

Real time raytracing, ray reconstruction, and DLSS strings. It may be over bros

Deadlock already has TAA and FSR, so i wouldnt put it past Valve also adding DLSS to Source 2.

iirc Source 2 still relies on baked lighting,

Doesn't mean they can't also add raytracing. Almost all modern game engines has static and dynamic lighting. Source 2 is still being worked on and developed.

 

[thhrang]

High effort plausible schizopost.

 

[Jotch]

In Half Life 3 there will be some unique new features:

+G-Man's brother, D-Man, will be revealed.

*Alyx Vance has been clarified to be Gordon Freeman's biological sister.

+The game will start with a Build-Your-Gordon creator where you can customize your Gordon.

+The entire steam library of games has been added to Half Life 3.

-Dr. Kleiner will not be in Half Life 3, don't ask why. All will be revealed in Half Life 8: The Other Half, in theaters in 2018.

+Half Life 3 will be an open world experience with entire country of Russia fully modeled to explore. We expect it will take 20 years of gameplay to fully complete this game.

+In Half Life 3, Adolf Hitler II is revealed as the new leader of the Combine.

+In Half Life 3, Morgan Freeman will be the star voice actor of Gordon Freeman, Alyx Vance, and Combine Soldier #38.

*In Half Life 3, if you die in the game, you die in real life.

-Removed Herobrine

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

In Half Life3

Gordond will be able to weild a new technology called a gun. We here at valve software dot com are all very proud of our very specil boy Gabe Newel for innovating a new experience for players.

 

[big pauper]

iirc Source 2 still relies on baked lighting,

source 2 has a hybrid renderer with baked lightmaps, dynamic light volumes, and point light sources with shadow mapping. it would work just fine if they just added ray tracing as the final pass

 

[Soggy Floppa]

Deadlock already has TAA and FSR, so i wouldnt put it past Valve also adding DLSS to Source 2.

Deadlock is by the Dota 2 team, Dota 2 and Deadlock are the only Valve games to use Deferred rendering instead of Forward (or Forward+ with the Source 2 titles)

source 2 has a hybrid renderer with baked lightmaps, dynamic light volumes, and point light sources with shadow mapping. it would work just fine if they just added ray tracing as the final pass

Source 2 uses an updated version of Valve's baked radiance from source 1. Baked directional lighting is stored separate from baked radiance, in the radiance all light directions are stored separate from intensity and color, so they can have dynamic lighting apply to baked sources, and animate and update baked sources' color and brightness. Indirect lighting for dynamic objects is stored as a spherical harmonic grid of points, with the harmonics interpolated between for objects as they move.

Storing light directionality means they can drive the direction of capsule shadow ambient occlusion, which is analytical soft shadows without any of the raytracing cost (HLA and CS2 use this for ambient occlusion), Deadlock updated it to signed distance field AO instead, which takes an entire distance field representation of the scene and does raymarching across the distances to do full scene ambient occlusion that has ray tracing quality but not the cost, this is one of the pieces of what UE5 Lumen does, but the difference with Deadlock is that they don't use baked shadows, all shadows are dynamic and only the indirect spherical harmonic probes are baked, so they cant get away with capsule shadows and need something to add in full scene soft shadowing.

I don't really see how valve could put ray tracing cyberpunk style in to hlx if they are still going to use the baked radiance and baked shadows. RT hardware is still a meme and couldn't match the baked radiance which is an offline path traced render that under valve's admission took days to bake for each HLA level. The only places I could see it have a use is if instead of overwriting the lighting entirely they use it for specular occlusion, ambient occlusion (though versus well done capsule/DFAO this is just expensive for little gain, but Elden Ring shows how much better it is vs old screen space ones), dynamic shadows only (these are pretty low res in HLA, but that could be a VR thing, there are lots of ways to do variable soft shadows without RT), and reflections if they are going to keep using screen space reflections for water like in CS2 instead of render target water like source 1.

I was just hoping that HLX would follow HLA and be near photorealistic at times, but still have MSAA and a very clean image. Every other Source 2 title except Deadlock and Dota 2 has had MSAA, but if HLX is adding raytracing then deferred buffers are needed and MSAA leaves the picture. Valve pls

 

[Star Classic]

I have questions for all the oldfags in the thread: as someone who wasn’t around for Half-Life 2, I‘ve been wanting to know what it was like before/during/after the release of Half-Life 2, since you always hear about how groundbreaking it was and how monumental it was (and I’m not doubting that, having playing many titles from that era) but I like to hear about these kinds of things from the lads who were actually there on the ground level when it happened. I might do another one of these for Half-Life 1 and the Orange Box later, but I figured I’d start with the one I think will get the most responses. I’ll compile these all together at a later date.

• What was the 6 year long wait before Half-Life 2 released like?
• What was the period of the 2003 Leak like?
• If you were present for it, what was Counter-Strike: Source’s release like?
• Did you enjoy Half-Life 2 when it came out? What was that day like?
• How did the game compare to Half-Life 1? Did you feel it was a worthwhile sequel, or an even better game?
• What did you think of the story when Half-Life 2 came out?
• Did you feel the story was a good continuation from Half-Life 1’s?
• What were your biggest questions regarding it?
• What was your reaction to the graphical and technical leap of Half-Life 2?
• How did Half-Life 2 compare to the games of the time?
• What was the period after release/between the 2006 release of Episode One like?
• What do you think of Half-Life 2 now?
• Do you think Half-Life 2 still has a lasting legacy today? If so, does it deserve that legacy?

 

[Forklift Certified]

I don't think you going got the answers you desire, because from personal experience i was fucking 12 when HL2 came out. And my previous generation pretty much were preoccupied to dealing with the fall of the soviet union.

What you looking for is an western man who were at the age of an adolescence when HL1 came out, so around the ballpark who born around 1983-85. Those peoples are +40 now, i don't think those age bracket are hanging around in a "shitpopster" forum niche sub thread en mass.

How did Half-Life 2 compare to the games of the time?

Because in the eastern bloc everything arrived delayed HL2 at the time compared to Crysis instead of COD2 or Republic commando. COD2 were on the "league" with HL1. Plebs at that time got their hands of the game years after release, often as pirated version. So it was a very mixed and a chaotic bag what was compared with what exactly.

 

[Star Classic]

What you looking for is an western man who were at the age of an adolescence when HL1 came out, so around the ballpark who born around 1983-85. Those peoples are +40 now, i don't think those age bracket are hanging around in a "shitpopster" forum niche sub thread en mass.

You'd be surprised. There's at least a certain population that age here, I imagine most people are lying about their ages on their profiles, But I have seen some talk about the 80's and 90's.

Because in the eastern bloc everything arrived delayed HL2 at the time compared to Crysis instead of COD2 or Republic commando. COD2 were on the "league" with HL1. Plebs at that time got their hands of the game years after release, often as pirated version. So it was a very mixed and a chaotic bag what was compared with what exactly.

That's interesting, kinda fits with how the eastern countries have held onto older series longer than the west.

 

[RSU 1741]

Let's begin. I have still my original copy of HL2 somewhere, even if my first Steam Account was stolen. We didn't have the Internet here back then, I had to download Steam and finish the installation at a friend's house and then played offline. So you have to consider that my replies are from a Euro guy that got his info from gaming mags (a thing in 2003) and friends.

Spoiler

[*]What was the 6 year long wait before Half-Life 2 released like?

Not particularly bad. We had two expansions that were nonetheless kinda liked, even if both were considered a bit subpar, particularly Blue Shift that was essentially more of the same without even the attempts at doing something original like Opposing Force. We weren't dying for it.

[*]What was the period of the 2003 Leak like?

Mostly puzzling. We had a guy that "was in the know" about it, and tried to sell it as a disaster for Valve and that the game was a mess.

[*]Did you enjoy Half-Life 2 when it came out? What was that day like?

I marathon-ed the fucking game like a machine and did like two replays one after the other. For young me, it was amazing, a leap from the other shooters of the era. Doom 3 was pretty, but its gameplay fairly inferior to the OG Dooms, HL2 felt better, expansive and creative.

[*]How did the game compare to Half-Life 1? Did you feel it was a worthwhile sequel, or an even better game?

Comparing the two wasn't in my mind back then. In the end, I ended up playing more HL2 (plus mods in the years after) than baseline HL1, so it's mostly personal preference, I guess.

[*]What did you think of the story when Half-Life 2 came out?

Insanely puzzled at first, the change was huge. Going from Black Mesa to City 17 was kind of off-putting, but HL2 had excellent environmental storytelling that after a while simply worked. It didn't felt so weird seeing what happened after the disaster. I remember being kind of weirded out about Freeman's messianic role.

[*]Did you feel the story was a good continuation from Half-Life 1’s?

See above.

[*]What were your biggest questions regarding it?

"Uh, interesting. Wonder if they'll do another timeskip for HL3."

[*]What was your reaction to the graphical and technical leap of Half-Life 2?

Physics were amazing. Nowadays it's easy to see it as dangling the keys before the audience, but it was incredibly novel at the time and the Gravity Gun an awesome toy. You felt more in control of your environment, and playing again and again encounters with Combine soldiers toying with them was amusing. I remember building "forts" where the Combine would not find me simply to observe how they would react at not finding the player.

[*]How did Half-Life 2 compare to the games of the time?

If we're talking shooters, it blew the competition away. Doom 3 was a ... difficult sell, because bar the graphics a lot of people complained about its subpar design and changed sensibilities from Doom 1/2. Far Cry was amazing in the first levels but nosedived hard in the ending, and felt evolutionary instead of revolutionary. We didn't get Halo 2 on PC. UT2004 was MP-focused.... I remember liking Painkiller but no one compared to HL2 directly. Valve was just on another level.

[*]What was the period after release/between the 2006 release of Episode One like?

"This episodes thing will be a failure and I don't understand why they're following a fad and not doing a traditional exp pack or sequel."

[*]What do you think of Half-Life 2 now?

After two decades, I can see the holes in the canvas. Less creative weapon selection, worse level design, a bit too much space given to physic gimmicks and "next setpiece", but I still think it's an incredibly well made shooter. Valve had a focus on tight design few studios ever managed to achieve.

[*]Do you think Half-Life 2 still has a lasting legacy today? If so, does it deserve that legacy?

As a shooter? No. The HL2 "type" of FPS (kind of arcadey, non-regenerating health) was destroyed by the CoD-style of military shooters that started releasing the following year. A lot of eurojank tried to ape HL2 and its mechanics, but they never managed to reach the same quality.

As an engine, a mod platform and in many little things all over gaming? Yes.

 

[Star Classic]

Physics were amazing. Nowadays it's easy to see it as dangling the keys before the audience, but it was incredibly novel at the time and the Gravity Gun an awesome toy. You felt more in control of your environment, and playing again and again encounters with Combine soldiers toying with them was amusing. I remember building "forts" where the Combine would not find me simply to observe how they would react at not finding the player.

I'll say that I don't really recall ever doing much with the physics engine in many of my HL2 runs, but that has less to do with me playing it later where I would take it for granted because of future games integrating that tech (HL2 might've been the first game I played that even used physics for anything more than decorations)

If we're talking shooters, it blew the competition away. Doom 3 was a ... difficult sell, because bar the graphics a lot of people complained about its subpar design and changed sensibilities from Doom 1/2. Far Cry was amazing in the first levels but nosedived hard in the ending, and felt evolutionary instead of revolutionary. We didn't get Halo 2 on PC. UT2004 was MP-focused.... I remember liking Painkiller but no one compared to HL2 directly. Valve was just on another level.

I've played all of them and I think out of the 3 big PC games of 2004, funnily enough I'd say it was Doom 3 that was my favorite. The comment you made about FC feeling evolutionary instead of revolutionary honestly feels like a good way to explain my overall thoughts on the game, it's more closer to the games before it than after (in good and bad ways)

"This episodes thing will be a failure and I don't understand why they're following a fad and not doing a traditional exp pack or sequel."

It's funny seeing that someone had this opinion then, wonder if this was common consensus among the community. Kinda sad in a way that everyone but the devs saw the writing on the wall for this kind of content before it even really got off the ground. I suppose it worked out in the end with TF2.

After two decades, I can see the holes in the canvas. Less creative weapon selection, worse level design, a bit too much space given to physic gimmicks and "next setpiece", but I still think it's an incredibly well made shooter. Valve had a focus on tight design few studios ever managed to achieve.

I remember as a kid HL2 was my favorite, but if going by the the purely 1 v. 2 debate I'm now 1 all the way. I think 2 shows it's major flaw of a pretty disorganized 6-year development span in retrospect. Ironically the physics were never really what I would say was the cause of some of it's issues, I never really got the "tech demo" complaint.

 

[Jotch]

back in my day steam was the gas phase of water

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

back in my day everyone used x-fire

 

[Battlefield42]

rip msn

 

[Forklift Certified]

back in my day everyone used x-fire

die hard All Seeing Eye enjoyer, but eventually switched to xfire because it had more social feature

 

[The handsome tard]

Alyx Vance has been clarified to be Gordon Freeman's biological sister.

Kleiner: That man is our only hope
Eli force ghost: No. There is another

 

[TheHarbinger]

What was the 6 year long wait before Half-Life 2 released like?

Half Life came out in 1999 and within a year Half Life 2 was in development and everyone knew it. But also Opposing Force and Blue Shift were being made. So while people were waiting for HL2 there were the expansion packs plus stuff like Team Fortress Classic and Counterstrike to play. And there were massive FPS games like Unreal Tournament or Quake III that were considered as good or even better than Half Life 1 to occupy everyone's time. People weren't losing their minds over HL2 until it started getting closer to the release date (maybe one year out). The wait period of 1999-2004 was filled with incredible games so most people spent their time playing other games or just replaying HL1 and the expansion packs.

When Half Life 2 was officially announced there were tons of previews including video previews (this was before video hosting services like YouTube so the videos were on places like IGN or Gamespot or on PC gaming demo discs). And even some mainstream news coverage. But also a massive amount of leaks because Valve employees couldn't keep their excitement from fans or the press. At one point a hacker got into Valve's servers and was able to grab a beta build of Half Life 2 a full year before the game came out. This resulted in mass speculation and endless guessing online and people being paranoid over spoilers. And also low morale at Valve because that beta was never meant to be public.

What was the period of the 2003 Leak like?

The leaked beta was of an obsolete version of Half Life 2 essentially. Valve had already shelved that version and rewritten a good chunk of the game. But that didn't really stop people from obsessing over the game by then. Valve announced the game too early (Elder Scrolls VI anyone?) and people were impatient. But it wasn't like the entire game leaked. It did show that the original Half Life 2 story was far darker (Earth has no water, oceans are dry, and all life is near extinction) and had some files about Shepherd from Opposing Force returning.

The leak had the Combine wiping out Earth's governments, taking all natural resources, and choking the atmosphere with some type of toxic gas. The beta also had Gordon traveling across the world and seeing the results of the invasion. Gordon would also wear an armored gas mask for the entire game. The original Half Life 2 beta game, had they finished it, would be bigger than Half Life 2 and all of its expansions combined. That was probably why Valve was so horrified that it leaked. Because it showed that their original vision was of this huge sprawling game. But they ended up reducing it down to a short on rails shooter with significantly less enemy and weapon variety.

Did you enjoy Half-Life 2 when it came out? What was that day like?

I played it and felt underwhelmed. The enemy A.I. was atrocious. And you face Combine Soldiers far too frequently. It felt more like a series of tech demos and not like an actual game or Half Life story. As if the focus of Valve was making the physics engine the centerpiece and actual Half Life content was just a coat of paint and marketing tool. It was also an incomplete story and just a hook for an expansion pack as well which was becoming far too common for games. Now the 'expansion' packs were actually completing the untold story not expanding it. Within a decade you would have games like Mass Effect 3 withholding major story components for day one DLC purchases.

I found that too often I would enter a new room or area and then the tech demo would start and the player just waits for Valve's teams to show off their engine and not let the player actually play the game. First game you feel like you are trapped in a maze with aliens and soldiers trying to kill you. You as Gordon are trying to survive. Second game is like you are trapped in a product demo at an investors' meeting and showing off a new game engine that just happens to have Half Life characters in it. And Gordon just goes from one theme park ride to the next and it feels disconnected.

How did the game compare to Half-Life 1? Did you feel it was a worthwhile sequel, or an even better game?

It's not as good as Half Life 1 other than graphics and physics. Gordon goes from being a scientist on his first day of work just trying to escape, all the sudden to a Christlike savior, where everyone knows who he is. It's really written like a reboot of the franchise. And far more people have played HL2 than HL1 so for them the series begins with this game and the original story is barely relevant. It was clear that HL2 was a soft reboot that allowed players to ignore the first games. And since then the first three games might as well not exist. I believe that the original HL1 writer doesn't even work on the franchise anymore either.

What did you think of the story when Half-Life 2 came out?

It's incomplete and a retcon of their original idea for Half Life 2. I preferred the brutal alien invasion of the leaked story. Where the aliens have drained Earth of most of its natural resources through portal technology. And are on the verge of abandoning the planet after harvesting everything. Gordon saves the world as the ultimate messiah (now with time travel even) was too much of a tonal shift. Half Life was based on Stephen King's Mist story which had a negative ending so lots of us assumed that Half Life would be somewhat similar and not Gordon being like Mega Man or Master Chief and mowing down hordes of basic enemies.

What was your reaction to the graphical and technical leap of Half-Life 2?

I don't remember the graphics being mind blowing. It looked as polished as Unreal Tournament 2004 or Metal Gear Solid 3. I remember being more blown away by God of War a year later. That the Playstation 2 was capable of that scale.

How did Half-Life 2 compare to the games of the time?

It was overshadowed by another game that came out the same week called World of Warcraft. Also 2004-2005 had some all time classic titles as well. San Andreas, Rome Total War, Dawn of War, Halo 2, X-Men Legends, Doom 3, Resident Evil 4, God of War, and lots of others. It's probably not even in the top ten games released at least for me in those times. It's not as fun to play for me as something like X-Men Legends II or Ratchet and Clank. I don't find myself ever wanting to revisit Half Life 2 like the original God of War titles or Unreal Tournament or its other contemporary titles.