Half-Life is back and better than ever. Alongside interviews with the original developers, the game is now available with the Uplink mini-campaign, Steam Deck support, updated graphics settings, new multiplayer maps, and bonus restored goodies.
Which reminds me, what did we get for the 25th anniversary of Unreal, another super important game from 1998 whose engine nowadays even powers movie production?
I'm also still incredibly salty about this. The Quake 1 and 2 remasters also are a huge contrast to how the Unreal franchise has been handled.
I recently got my gog copy of UT2004 running on my Steam Deck. It was a huge pain in the ass that I could have circumvented by buying a Steam copy... but of course that's no longer an option. I guess Epic doesn't want easy money from their old games.
Was anyone else floored that Half-Life came out 25 years ago? I mean, of course I can do the math, but it hit me hard how long ago that was.
I remember reading a preview article in PC Gamer about the revolutionary AI in the game, how enemies would follow you if they could hear you and set up ambushes.
Then the first time I played it, having the story told right in the game with characters doing actions that you can look around and see and interact with ... It was clear to everyone at the time that this was the future of storytelling in first-person games.
I'm definitely going to need to try this on my Deck when it arrives and see if the gameplay holds up.
I think my favorite part is how they've brought back software rendering, both by allowing it on linux and by giving the option to turn off texture filtering on opengl. That plus making the main menu look like the original release brings me right back to how I first played Half-Life!
Edit: Idk if it's just me on linux, but it seems like CS1.6 no longer launches on the new update. A bummer, but I had a lot of fun play HLDM just now so I think they'll fix it eventually.
Last I checked no, the game engine was 32 bit but the Mac won't run 32 bit apps anymore. Or something like that. My hope with this refresh was 64 bit support.