Together Retro: Half-Life

[Xeogred]

Also from what I last remember, it might be worth noting that if you're playing on a modern PC / widescreen (who wouldn't be at this point?), you might want to go with Half-Life Source instead of the original. I remember the original having a lot of screen tearing and some other issues, but Source runs a lot better on newer systems. Other than the resolution and better optimization, don't expect anything else though. I think they added dynamic water... and something else I guess?

[elmagicochrisg]

^ 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.

The VMU has 128KB of flash memory, however by default 28KB is reserved for system use. In recent years homebrew programs like Dream Explorer (aka VMU Tool) have allowed users to unlock an extra 44 blocks (22KB) of this reserved space increasing the overall VMU capacity to 244 blocks. However, a handful of games might be unable to detect the memory card if this is done, although none have been reported apart from DreamKey/DreamPassport and Metropolis Street Racer.

Dream Explorer 0.8.5

[pierrot]

Dream Explorer 0.8.5

That's probably the single most awesome program I've ever heard of.

[noiseredux]

Yup dedicated vmu.

[NebachadnezzaR]

I've already played HL and both expansions, but I never finished Black Mesa, so I think I'll go back to that.

[ExedExes]

After dealing with the issue that was causing my copy to crash on "New Game" (had to turn off DEP, thanks Vista!), I finally got into it. For those who don't know me, aside from shmups, I'm also quite a fan of FPS, I played all the big names from Wolf3D, Doom, Rise of the Triad when they came out in the 90s. I played other FPS like Blake Stone Aliens of Gold and Dark Forces. I was a year or two late for Quake, even moreso with Unreal, and I still play Unreal Tournament 2004 on a regular basis. I've been going through the Gamecube FPS choices, and checked out the earlier Call of Duty and Medal of Honor titles on the PC recently.

There was always one game I never got around to playing, and it was Half-Life. I always felt "what did it do for FPS that I wasn't aware of?" because I really didn't see or feel it did anything new in 1998.

After starting it up today, I think Warren Spector played this game to death before he and his team made the awesome Deus Ex a couple years later, and that game is still one of my favorite all time FPSes. I saw so many design and graphical cues that I was pointing out all I saw from Deus Ex. The obvious one is the crowbar and the breaking down of boxes and glass and all sorts of stuff. The research facility reminded me a bit of UNATCO. I also saw a robot that looked like the one that restores your Bioelectric energy, and of course the HUD that tells you all the environments and hazards you're currently encountering.

I liked the intro, it was almost like a movie with the opening credit roll as you were getting ready to go to work. After walking around and opening doors and speaking to people telling me how late I was to get to the lab, I noticed the colored stripes on the walls stopped showing up when you arrived to the area they were directing you to, which was a pretty neat little thing. Once I got in to where I was and seeing everything going wrong, it was quite a scare as stuff was blowing up around me. It was also pretty neat to have people follow you around and having the option to let them do that. A couple of areas were confusing but I think I figured it out.

So yeah, for 1998, this game did a lot more than most people could have imagined. There's a lot more story, a lot more interaction, and even the level design and maps have a lot more depth than your average FPS in the 1990s. I made it near the end of the 2nd area (I think), and it was getting late. For someone like me who expects a shooting gallery and just lots of gun fights and not having any of that at all yet, I had to think differently about this one.

One more thing, I could tell this was a 1990s FPS; your weapon is always in the center of the screen

[pierrot]

Hey, noise. Are you playing with a keyboard and mouse, or the DC controller?

[noiseredux]

Controller... I hate kb/m for fps games, and strangely the dc controller works really well for me. Check the Q3 post on my blog for more on the topic.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Controller... I hate kb/m for fps games, and strangely the dc controller works really well for me. Check the Q3 post on my blog for more on the topic.

GTFO.

[noiseredux]

Sigh,

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