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Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update

half-life.com

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Re: Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update

#31

Post by messe »

I love that they brought back the software renderer (and allowed you to disable texture filtering). There's something about that style I find charming.

I'm just waiting on my steam deck to charge so I can curl up on the couch with this for a few hours before bed.

EDIT: I tried it out on my laptop while waiting for the deck to charge, and I'm seeing some bugs in the software renderer with missing textures for semi-transparent objects like floor grilles, so I'm switching back to OpenGL for now. If anyone at Valve wants log-files or information on my setup in order to reproduce, I'm happy to provide it; my email is in my profile.

Re: Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update

#33

Post by solardev »

messe wrote: post #31

I love that they brought back the software renderer (and allowed you to disable texture filtering). There's something about that style I find charming. I'm just waiting on my steam deck to charge so I can curl up on the couch with this for a few hours before bed. EDIT: I tried it out on my laptop while waiting for the deck to charge, and I'm seeing some bugs in the software renderer with missing textures for semi-tra…

How are first person shooters on the Deck? Do you just use the analog stick to aim, or is the gyro actually helpful?

Re: Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update

#34

Post by debugnik »

ender341341 wrote: post #14
dom96 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half Life 3 already happened and it was called Half Life: Alyx.

Alyx was really good (though I'm a wuss and couldn't finish it) but not a continuation of the cliffhanger that we've been sitting on for 16 years since episode 2.

No spoilers then, but the ending of Alyx does retcon the old cliffhanger.

Re: Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update

#35

Post by entropicdrifter »

solardev wrote: post #33
messe wrote: post #31

I love that they brought back the software renderer (and allowed you to disable texture filtering). There's something about that style I find charming. I'm just waiting on my steam deck to charge so I can curl up on the couch with this for a few hours before bed. EDIT: I tried it out on my laptop while waiting for the deck to charge, and I'm seeing some bugs in the software renderer with missing textures for semi-tra…

How are first person shooters on the Deck? Do you just use the analog stick to aim, or is the gyro actually helpful?

Either work just fine, IMO. The gyro is just as good as on the Switch

Re: Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update

#36

Post by lapetitejort »

I got my first real introduction to first person shooters with Quake II. I used keyboard only, with page up/down keys for vertical look. When Half-Life came out my friend would only let me play if I looked with the mouse instead. I thought that was so dumb. Why not just use both sides of the keyboard? Why split controls across two devices? But I relented and picked up this wonky control scheme pretty quickly. Then I bought my own copy and wore it down to the nubs over the course of years. I loved mods. My favorite was Action Half-Life. I played Counterstrike a few times when Xena Warrior Princess posters were plastered around maps and scientists acted as hostages. I thought it was too derivative of other accurate combat mods.

When Half-Life 2 came out I bought the pricier version which came with HL1 and all the expansions, mods, etc on Steam. Those are my oldest purchases on the service, naturally.

Re: Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update

#38

Post by xcv123 »

fullshark wrote: post #23
ender341341 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

def no insider info on my side but from what I've heard/read they pretty regularly have a team spun up to explore a half life 3 but at this point they're afraid of a duke nukem forever (not that they'd make a shitty game like that) and that even if it's a great game it'd be seen as underwhelming because the community has hyped itself up so much on it over the nearly 20 years.

I think part of the issue is Half-life 1 & 2 were groundbreaking in terms of level design and storytelling in a FPS. It wasn't just about completing a maze, that was why Half-Life was so beloved there was nothing like it really before. Half-life 3 would just be like every other FPS game now, the trail has been blazed.

> Half-life 3 would just be like every other FPS game now

Artistically, aesthetically, nothing quite compares to the Half Life universe in other FPS games. A lot of people would be happy with just another chapter to explore.

There are too many open world boring grinding simulations nowadays.

Black Mesa was just a remake of Half Life 1 and it was so much more fun and immersive than any recent FPS game that I have played.

Re: Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update

#39

Post by fooqux »

solardev wrote: post #33
messe wrote: post #31

I love that they brought back the software renderer (and allowed you to disable texture filtering). There's something about that style I find charming. I'm just waiting on my steam deck to charge so I can curl up on the couch with this for a few hours before bed. EDIT: I tried it out on my laptop while waiting for the deck to charge, and I'm seeing some bugs in the software renderer with missing textures for semi-tra…

How are first person shooters on the Deck? Do you just use the analog stick to aim, or is the gyro actually helpful?

I've seen people use a combination of both. The analog stick / trackpad for macro movements, and the gyro for fine tuning. I tried it once, and I think it could be fine if I practiced a tiny bit.

But I've also got a normal PC with keyboard and mouse, so I don't need to.

Re: Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update

#40

Post by solardev »

bjord wrote: post #5

Aside from just generating tons of goodwill, does anyone have any insight into why Valve would do this? Obviously, I think it's great regardless of the motivation, but are there rumblings of Half Life 3 that I've missed or something?

It's just a little dose of nostalgia. I think Half Life was one of the highest rated games of all time before Baldur's Gate 3 (both are 97% at PCGamer, for example). That's a pretty rare accomplishment worth celebrating, especially for those of us who grew up with the series...

I do kinda wish they incorporated the fan Black Mesa remake and improvements, though.

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