Half-Life | Cheerful Ghost

Half-Life Celebrates 25 Years of Crowbars & Headcrabs

"To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the release of Half-Life we reunited the original development team to share their memories of creating Valve's first game."

Oh and not only did Valve decide to celebrate Half-life's 25th anniversary with an awesome documentary, they also released an incredible quality of life update to the game updating it for 4K as well as running on the Steam Deck!

https://www.half-life.com/en/halflife25

Unforeseen Consequences: A Half-Life Documentary

The latest documentary from Noclip is out and it's all about the history of Half-Life. Noclip wasn't able to talk to anyone from Valve about the game but managed to create an incredible documentary from interviews with Geoff Keighley, Scott Smith, Randy Pitchford and a lot more. One thing I learned while watching this is that Gearbox got It's feet wet as a game developer making a ton of Half-Life expansions and then jumped into their own IP to create the Borderlands franchise. The doc covers Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike and other Half-Life mods and maps as well as Episode 3 and Mac Laidlaw's Epistle 3 as well as fans trying to finish up the Half-Life story... Read All

Half-Life 20 Years Later: A Retrospective

Half-life is a classic PC game that I bought to play Counter-Strike. I knew it was a fun game, but discovered that later after playing a ton of Counter-Strike. Truth be told I was never really good at LAN Counter-Strike but I was pretty good at Half-life as it was one of the first first person shooter games to blend puzzle solving with a first class sci-fi story.

"Few games have made an immediate impact quite like Half-Life. From the narrative, to the level design, to the numerous spin-offs and mods! The original 1998 PC gaming classic is well worth revisiting."

It's Been 20 Years Since Valve Was Founded

I remember there was a time when the thought of buying a game on Steam seemed crazy. Why wouldn't you want the actual game install disc? What if the servers went down or if you weren't online? Buying a game on Steam seemed crazy and I stuck to purchasing games in a box. The thing that finally got me to actually use Steam was the second Humble Bundle. I much preferred the DRM free downloads for the games but since I had those Steam keys lying around I decided to redeem them. It was really nice just downloading the games and playing them from Steam and I ended up buying the Binding of Issac on Steam, then another game then another and now nearly all my modern game... Read All

Travis Admin wrote on 08/26/2016 at 01:59pm

Next year will be 10 years since any Half-Life, and 2018 will be 20 years since the first. 10+20=30. These numbers are in base 10. 30/10=3. HALF LIFE 3 CONFIRMED.

But seriously, either 10 years after Episode Two or 20 years after the first game was released would be a great time to reintroduce it. I've often wondered if a new game in the series would just be a disappointment, but we've had a major time gap now and I think the time might be right if they plan on doing it. It's still something people know about but it won't carry much baggage from the previous entries.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/27/2016 at 11:13pm

Honestly... I am over Half-Life 3. Like, yeah, i'm not really interested in it anymore. If it came out i'd certainly play it but I am not longer emotionally on the hook for this game at all. I think I just need to let it go. It helps.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 08/31/2016 at 10:31pm

They have The Lab on SteamVR...

Travis Admin wrote on 09/01/2016 at 02:26am

The Lab looks fun, but I don't follow.

Will_Ball Game Mod Super Member wrote on 09/01/2016 at 04:15am

"Valve has had a pretty regular drumbeat of releasing one game per year since 2007 but skipped 2014, 2015 and so far nothing has been announced for 2016." They released The Lab this year.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/01/2016 at 03:28pm

Ah ah, I see.

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Incredible Speed Run of Half-Life Beats Game in 20:41

This speed run is pretty incredible and even if you haven't played Half-Life before this is a pretty fast walkthrough.

"Starting back in the summer of 2010, the estimated time for this run was thought to be roughly 27 minutes. However, after almost four years of painstaking planning, theorycrafting and execution, we have arrived at our final time, smashing all of our wildest expectations."

Black Mesa releasing a paid version and a new free update

Black Mesa, the remake of Half-Life in the Source engine with all new textures, has been out on Steam for a while for free. Currently it's only about the first half of the game, but there's more coming! They'll be sprucing up the whole game and selling it via Steam, and updating the free version as well.

There's no specific info about the differences between the two, but I'm just glad to see this getting off the ground. What's available right now is quite good, and I can't wait to see more.

http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?t=17088

Video Game History: Half Life

Interesting video covering the history of Half-life and Valve. Much has been said about both topics but this video covers them well including who was the inspiration for Gordon Freeman.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/17/2013 at 03:24am

Half-Life amazes me that it still holds up after all this time. I played a bit of it last year and still had a blast with it.

It was interesting to know that "Valve time" started with their very first game. I'm certainly glad they didn't rush to release though, and pushed it back when they knew they needed to.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/17/2013 at 03:32am

Yeah, me too. Strange fact, I originally bought Half-life to play Counter Strike. Many moons later, I played it, but yeah it was for Counter Strike.

Travis Admin wrote on 09/17/2013 at 04:36pm

I bought Counter Strike just for the models for Garry's Mod. I still have yet to play a CS game.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 09/17/2013 at 04:44pm

Hahaha, yeah, I haven't played a game in ages myself. It's so much fun, but I suck so bad. I sucked then too, it's just that I was playing with friends and a bot mod, which made it really fun because I would win sometimes.

Speaking of, I think I still have CS 1.5 and that bot mod still..... Hmmmm.

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Black Mesa: Starting The Journey

I was exposed to the Black Mesa project a few months ago in frenzy of its initial release. Black Mesa is a fan recreation of the original Half-Life built on top of the amazing Half-Life 2 Source Engine. Since I never quite finished the original Half-Life I decided to give this version a shot and potentially complete the original Half-Life as it stands atop a list of games I need to complete. I loved Half-Life 2 and both episodes so coming back to the franchise is a pretty cool notion.

After booting up the game the visuals look really fresh compared to the original. The original looks good, don't get me wrong but atop the Source engine it looks fantastic. I played about... Read All

Black Mesa: Soundtrack

I just recently downloaded and listened to the Black Mesa score from the fan re-visioning of the original Half-Life game using the Half-Life 2 source engine. I really like the takes on the original score and new directions they decided to go. The score is free so no reason not to pick it up.

One song, "Apprehension" is featured above. The score seems to paint pretty awesomely broad strokes for what game scores can be and it inspired me to give Black Mesa a shot.

http://www.blackmesasource.com/soundtrack.html

A piece of history resurfaces. Half-Life ALPHA!

Reddit user jackaljayzer recently posted a pic of his alpha disc from 97, which of course led to many requests for info, and eventually a request for a disc image. Since then he's ponied up the goods, and has put the disc on eBay. Currently the auction is up to $610!

Please note that the legality of this is a bit gray, and the morality is entirely up to you to decide.

Original post: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/15qgwr/national_treasures_hipster_grandpa_you_probably/
Follow-up: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1665n3/update_finally_got_a_copy_of_that_half_life_alpha
eBay auction: ... Read All

Will_Owens wrote on 01/12/2013 at 02:07am

I forgot that this is pretty much what the game looked like when I first played it. I got a Voodoo2 graphics card just for Half Life!

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/12/2013 at 02:42am

Its a piece of gaming history and unless he signed something giving away ownership rights to the disc or something, its his property. Unless I don't understand something about ownership in this particular case.

As I watch this video I realize how artifacty games were then and how much it doesn't bother me at all in this case. The game is immersive at this point and you can even see some Portalish level designs or flavor in places.

Glad the game evolved to what it is, but this is awesome and seeing this kind of history is really quite interesting.

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 01/12/2013 at 03:51am

Jon, in terms of ownership, the disc itself I'd totally agree with you, but the download link is different. A 1997 press-eyes-only disc for an alpha of a game that's long been released that almost everyone owns is still intellectual property, but I doubt there's much of an impetus from Valve to want this stopped. It's not like trade secrets are going to escape or anything.

jdodson Admin wrote on 01/12/2013 at 05:16pm

Good point. I still think this should be out there for people to experience. Sold? Less interested that, more interested in people getting the history of it :D

Travis Admin Post Author wrote on 01/13/2013 at 05:05am

My thoughts as well! I haven't fired it up yet, but I hope to soon.

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