Bonus: it also seems that the episodes have been rolled into the base game. Full details of the anniversary update.
I remember playing this on a Radeon 9550 GPU with 128 MB VRAM and being amazed at how well it was running at 1680x1050.
Thanks, I feel old now…
Just started playing it. So far I can’t remember it at all. I played HL1 so much and have recently started with Black Mesa. I remember a lot of EP1, also. Managed to clock 3 hrs on HL2 today and there’s only one bit I remember, I think. Good fun game. Only annoyance are the ladders and getting on / off them well.
I bought Trepang 2 the other day too and that has a similar era vibe, but with a modern take.
What annoys you about the ladders? To this day, I find them among the easiest video game ladders to use. No stupid button prompts; just hold W. To go down one, just face it backwards and press S. Simple, genius design.
I would always look down and press W to go down and then plummet to my death, didn’t know it just worked by walking backwards.
You’re amazing! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you! My kids Christmas account will need to save city 17 as soon as Dec 25th
Thanks good fellow. I never actually played it before.
is real good. and stands up too. still as good today as it was 20 years ago.
except the bridge level.
Fuck the bridge level.
Personally, I think 1 holds up better. 2 isn’t bad by any means, but it was one of the first games with physics and the physics puzzles get old fast. It was amazing at the time, but now it’s not as interesting because we’ve seen it a million times.
I still play Ridge Racer Type 4, so I do appreciate well designed games that hold up decades later.
yep. Good games are timeless.
Its why you can still go back and play great old games like Suikoden, or Final Fantasy, or Street Fighter, or whatever, without issue. cause they are timeless.
I am glad a Suikoden 1 & 2 collection is coming. I missed out on them back in the day and 3 which I played but never finished. I finished 4 and later, including Tactics and Tierkreis.
IF it comes out, its been years, already, and Konami isnt exactly the best company. I still hold true to the belief they only announced it to take thunder away from that game the suikoden creators made, never expecting the massive immediate interest which made them do a definitive “oh shit”, which probably accounts for the delays, since it probably didnt get started until they realized they put themselves in a corner, lol.
I dont blame you for not finishing 3, Imho 3 is the weakest of the suikoden games, the way the main story is divided between 3 prospectives that you keep bouncing between really hinders getting into it, at least in my opinion. by the time they all converge together at the end, it feels like you’ve only just started getting into the game and now its over.
4 had a good story, but I feel like they cranked the encounter rate up when they realized it didnt have enough game to last 40+ hours otherwise, because holy shit you cant seem to move more than 2 steps without a random battle.
5 is, I think, the distillation of everything good about Suikoden into 1 game. It shed all the bad mechanics, enhanced all the good mechanics, had a brilliant story, characters you fall in love with, and more. I would LOVE to see 5 come to PC. I dont even need a remaster, just a straight port.
And thats saying a lot because Suikoden 1 and 2 were goddamn brilliant, exceptional masterpieces in their own right.
Hmmm… I guess it has been over a decade. Maybe it’s time to play HL2 again.
I remember when halflife 1 became free
us Half-Life fans are eating good this month. first, we get Project Borealis Prologue, and now HL2 update and the game going free to own for a limited time. i am so going to enjoy checking the update out. and the documentary as well.
Don’t forgrt HL2 RTX coming up.
That changelog is waaaay longer than I expected it to be.
Intriguing thumbnail!
Vann here’s what it shows on sync for lemmy:
I can only agree.
Finally Alf-Life 2. I was going we’d get a sequel for our cat eating alien roommate.
Hah! You kill me.
Hey, yeah, about that cat…
Ah, this is why I come to lemmy.
Thank you kind user!
Never played any of these before. Do I start with this one or would I need 1?
If you cant play 1 or Black Mesa because of the clunkyness, just watch a story recap and play 2.
The story of HL 1 is like a paragraph long.
If you’re gonna start with 1, I recommend playing Black Mesa as the updated graphics and qol stuff make it easier to tolerate in modern times.
But that’s just me. There is probably some crucial reason why Black Mesa is not the definitive version, and I’m about to hear why
Start with 1, So you can understand what is happening.
I played Half Life first time few years ago, and it has aged really well in my opinnion. I enjoyed it more than Black Mesa. Also I don’t think of Black Mesa as a substitute for hl1, but as a good game you can play after beating og.
Start with 1
If you start with the second one you won’t know what’s going on and feel like you’ve missed a bunch of important story.
This is how it felt after playing the first one as well. Half Life 2 is almost an unrelated game. The plots of the two barely line up.
Imo the best enjoyment to time ratio is:
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Black Mesa (the Xen level at the end was redone and extended compared to in HL1 and it’s cool but if it starts to drag just move on)
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HL2 (main game)
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HL2: EP1 start it but maybe skip and watch a playthrough if you get bored
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HL2: EP2
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HL Alyx, if you can play it on a decent headset. DO NOT MOD IT TO PLAY IT WITH MOUSE/KB it will be extremely boring since it’s designed for VR
Have fun, there’s simply nothing else like Half-Life games
Also, to add to this: if you haven’t played Portal and Portal 2, then you need to do that now. Like possibly even before HL
Was thinking of adding those but wanted to keep it HL specific. But yes the Portals are must plays. Pretty much perfect games. I remember watching the ending of 2 over and over because it was so dope.
Both end songs are on my playlist, I love it when the randomize function picks them up. You could say it is a triumph.
If you can play Alyx on a decent headset, you’ll probably want to play Half Life 2 in VR too. The port is amazing.
I remember liking Opposing Force and Blue Shift too.
I disagree. Black Mesa is Black Mesa. It is no Half Life 1. The atmosphere in one is completely lost with Black Mesa. Start with Half Life and play to Alyx. Go back to Mesa for a second way to view 1.
This might only be true for people who played the original when it first came out (or at least, were playing video games at that time, and are used to the dated graphics).
Interesting, I haven’t actually played HL1 but I enjoyed BM a lot, and figured it’d be the better reccomendation for someone just getting into HL.
What parts of the atmosphere do you think BM missed? When I watched videos of HL1 gameplay it seemed that BM did a great job having a graphically updated but similar vibe
This is the way.
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In terms of storyline, it doesn’t really matter too much.
I still think you should play through the first one. If you need something that feels less 1998, Black Mesa is a remake of the original Half Life and it is very fun.
Maybe it’s because I played them too late, but while I mostly had a blast playing HL2, the first one never clicked for me.
I know, it’s been very influential and new when it released, but it was still quite straight a FPS game. Whereas HL2 is like a crazy theme park of different ambiences and mechanics.
Playing the original Half-Life is like a formative gaming memory for me… It had been such a massive leap from your DOOM 2s and Dukes Nukem. I was super young though, so I don’t know how much I cared about the narrative.
HL2, on the other hand…Now that I remember vividly. I remember having to use five CDs to install it because Steam had literally just been invented (for HL2). Having to create a Steam account and log into a service to play a game was so foreign at the time lol…
Might be time to re-play.
FYI, Black Mesa is currently on sale for $4.99, absolute steal at that price.
Start with HL2 on normal difficulty. Then do 2E1 and 2E2 on normal difficulty.
Then repeat all of that on hard.
Then you’ll be where I am. Never bothered with 1.
Hl1 and hl2 are not really connected plotwise and can be enjoyed separately. There’s some small references and a couple characters you wouldn’t necessarily know even if you played HL1, because HL1 didn’t have much of a focus on that kind of story-telling.
The series is certainly a must play because of how much it influenced the industry. Going back to it now may not seem like it’s all that great; but you gotta keep in mind, it was one of the very first FPS games designed this way. Before Half-Life, FPS games were all just basically Doom clones.
They each stand completely on their own. Start with 1 if you want the whole lore and like 90s PC games. Start with 2 if you want a slightly more modern experience.
The first is a bit rough. It got a remake with Black Mesa which used to be free, but I don’t think it is any more.
I’d honestly just start with 2. It’s a better game all round. You can always go back and play Black Mesa later if you like it.
If you have a VR headset and a decent rig, Half Life Alyx is well worth it. I’d definitely play HL2 plus Episodes 1 and 2 before heading into that one.
Yes, Black Mesa costs money but it’s absolutely worth it, they put a LOT of effort into restoring the original as faithful as possible but with more modern graphics (Source engine based). I played the original Half-Life when it came out and Black Mesa definitely gave me the same amount of awe and wonder. One of the best fan remakes of any game I’ve ever seen.
Also, I see that it’s currently on sale for only $5 (75% off), at that price it’s a steal and absolutely worth it.
Sheeiit I absolutely loved the first one, even only having played it for the first time last year. I was blown away at how well it holds up. I do recommend trying it if you have even a morsel of interest. Just my personal 2 cents tho.
Sweeeeeeet! I had HL2 on my ancient Steam account that I lost ages ago, it feels right to have it back in my library all these years later.
The anniversary update sounds tempting, but I think I’ll wait for HL2 RTX before replaying it.
Yo after all this time I never bought episode 1 or 2. I’m playing the fuck outta it
Weren’t the two episodes free?
Not unless they had some special bundle for HL2 I can’t remember.
Ep1 had to be purchased. Ep2 came with The Orange Box (which also contained TF2 and Portal 1 as well as Richochet, though it wasn’t advertised).
Pretty sure when Orange Box was released, it included HL2 and HL2 Episode 1 in addition to HL2 Episode 2. Hard to remember because there were so many good games that came from that one purchase.
Maybe there was some special or package deal, but no.
