Together Retro: Half-Life

[dsheinem]

I will be playing this as soon as I finish up Bioshock Infinite and after I get midterm grading done. I haven't played it since before HL2 came out, so I am looking forward to going through it again and also playing the expansions for a second time. I am debating if I want to use any of the graphic mods that have been released. Any recommendations for cool ways to patch the game?

[pierrot]

Alternatives would be on a modern PC via Wine, which has worked perfectly for years. Or the Dreamcast version, which would be nice to check out.

I didn't think one could run Wine in Windows, or do you just mean in Wine on Linux?

[Hatta]

I didn't think one could run Wine in Windows, or do you just mean in Wine on Linux?

Yeah, just Linux. I do 90% of my PC gaming on vintage DOS/Windows boxes, 9% on Linux via Wine, and maybe 1% of the time I'll dual boot into Windows.

To stay on topic, I'll mention the first PC I played Half Life on was a 100MHz Pentium, with no 3d acceleration or even MMX. The "system reuirements" were quoted as 133MHz. I played through the whole game on that thing, at times dealing with frame rates in the single digits. It was still awesome.

[Hatta]

I am debating if I want to use any of the graphic mods that have been released. Any recommendations for cool ways to patch the game?

That's a great question. It might be more fun to play with some updated content. I know there was an official HD pack, with updated models. Has the community done anything really good with the original assets?

[prunkhaft]

I'm in. Probably start tonight. This game will be completely new to me, so I'm looking forward to it.

[noiseredux]

Still early in since starting fresh this month... last night I made it through that flooded tunnel part. I'm probably less than an hour in.

[Krysno]

I'm in too. I played through this game last year, and the year before that as well; i get recurring urges to delete my save file and start from a clean slate again. Playing it on PS2 this time around. Stoked.

[noiseredux]

put in another hour tonight. I'm at the part called "We've Got Hostiles" now. Just finished climbing the elevator shaft, which was a little tricky but I nailed it on my third try. Honestly, so far most of the platforming in Dark Forces was a lot tougher for me. I know I'm still really early on, but I feel like this is the best FPS I've ever played. I haven't played many, so take that for what it is. But still, this game is just so awesome to me. I love the atmosphere, love the music, love the adventure elements, love the story (and love that you can save anywhere, haha).

[elmagicochrisg]

put in another hour tonight. I'm at the part called "We've Got Hostiles" now. Just finished climbing the elevator shaft, which was a little tricky but I nailed it on my third try. Honestly, so far most of the platforming in Dark Forces was a lot tougher for me. I know I'm still really early on, but I feel like this is the best FPS I've ever played. I haven't played many, so take that for what it is. But still, this game is just so awesome to me. I love the atmosphere, love the music, love the adventure elements, love the story (and love that you can save anywhere, haha).

Be careful with that. Those saves files can get awfully big.

Best use a dedicated VMU.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

^ Agreed. When I went through on Dreamcast, I had a dedicated VMU and tried to not save too much and still hit the cap like 3/4 of the way through.