Together Retro: Half-Life

[noiseredux]

I cant tell if I should be crawling, walking, looking into the hole?

[dsheinem]

I cant tell if I should be crawling, walking, looking into the hole?

if it makes you feel better, this usually takes a few tries for me, too. I find that crawling and then lightly jumping at the last moment before the ground makes you start to slide/fall works best.

[noiseredux]

Ah, I wasn't jumping... Just falling. Thanks! I'll give it a go tonight.

[Luke]

Went to re-install Half Life, and I can't find the pass key. Crap.

[Menegrothx]

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.

System Shock and Thief had a much larger impact on Deus Ex and Warren Spector worked on both of those. Well, much of the RPG elements came from System Shock 2 which he didn't work on, which came out a year before Deus Ex. That's what Deus Ex really is, a combination of SS and Thief in the near future with a larger emphasis on interacting with people/roleplaying. Many people who worked at Ion Storm creating Deus Ex came from Looking Glass.

Which reminds me: yall need to add System Shock 2 on next year's together retro. System Shock 2>Half Life (and Half Life 2>Half Life). Thief 2 is another good choiche if there's no other stealth games on the list.

[dsheinem]

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.

System Shock and Thief had a much larger impact on Deus Ex and Warren Spector worked on both of those. Well, much of the RPG elements came from System Shock 2 which he didn't work on, which came out a year before Deus Ex.

Which reminds me: yall need to add System Shock 2 on next year's together retro. System Shock 2>Half Life (and Half Life 2>Half Life). Thief 2 is another good choiche if there's no other stealth games on the list.

Without checking, I think System Shock 2 would be the newest TR we've ever had if we did it. It's also only on PC, iirc. I thought we were pushing the "retro" tag a bit with Half-Life, tbh.

[Menegrothx]

Without checking, I think System Shock 2 would be the newest TR we've ever had if we did it. It's also only on PC, iirc. I thought we were pushing the "retro" tag a bit with Half-Life, tbh.

That's true. But if you're going to include games from 1998, I don't see how a game from 1999 or 2000 would be the end of the world. Half Life and Baldur's Gate are from 1998 (PS2 port of the game was released in 2001), System Shock 2 is from 1999 and Baldur's Gate 2, Thief 2 (and Deus Ex) are from 2000.

As an added bonus, System Shock is now relevant: it was released in GOG and a new Bioshock game is out.

The first System Shock (released in 1994) would make an excellent TR game because it was so extraordinarily innovative and influental, but I think it's a bit too retro (and hard) for most people in the gameplay department. System Shock 2 on the other hand plays exactly like all other other FPS games of it's era like Half Life, Quake and Unreal, with the exception of it's RPG elements which work very intuitively.

[dsheinem]

Without checking, I think System Shock 2 would be the newest TR we've ever had if we did it. It's also only on PC, iirc. I thought we were pushing the "retro" tag a bit with Half-Life, tbh.

That's true. But if you're going to include games from 1998, I don't see how a game from 1999 or 2000 would be the end of the world. Half Life and Baldur's Gate are from 1998 (PS2 port of the game was released in 2001), System Shock 2 is from 1999 and Baldur's Gate 2, Thief 2 (and Deus Ex) are from 2000.

As an added bonus, System Shock is now relevant: it was released in GOG and a new Bioshock game is out.

keep it in mind around Oct/Nov when we start kicking around titles for the next year

[Ack]

Admittedly 15 years ago is pretty ancient in the games industry. Half-Life wasn't even released in this millennium! And it also saw console ports, even if the DC one wasn't released officially. The general rule for TR is to pick a title that has seen release on multiple machines, and with Half-Life, there are versions for PC, Mac, Linux, PS2, and Dreamcast.

We probably ought to start looking at the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube for future TR though. They're from the same generation as Dreamcast, which is now two generations ago, what with the WiiU's release and the upcoming PS4 and Xbox.

[noiseredux]

What would you suggest we consider from that era Ack? Maybe something like Silent Hill 2?