Since Half Life 2 is almost out, maybe it's time I tried Half Life

[Dinner]

Half Life was ok but I never really got into it. I'm more of a strategy game guy myself.

[DrSpike]

Try and place yourself back years in time FB to see just how AMAZING Half life was on release.

[Father Beast]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Try and place yourself back years in time FB to see just how AMAZING Half life was on release.

I am almost that far back just because I'm behind the times. I mean, the newest game I have is Dungeon Siege: Legends Of Aranna. And if I play that for more than an hour, my system gets too hot and freezes up.

To tell the truth, I didn't have high anticipation for Half Life. I was the one who posted the "What's the big deal about Half Life" thread a couple of years ago after playing with the demo. I said it was just a prettier version of Duke3D.

I basically started playing to see what the full game was like. I didn't know how caught up I would get in the story.

See, now that I've gotten into it, I DO find it amazing. I never cared about graphics, so those don't wow me. But the Gameplay is awesome!

[Father Beast]

I think playing Half Life with my kids watching is definitely the way to go. It keeps me from being a great sadist to all the scientists, as the walkthrough slyly suggests.

Take last night. My daughter was not going to miss the next installment. The walkthrough said to take the tunnel on the left, but I decided to live dangerously and run down one of the other tunnels and see where they went. Down one promising tunnel, I turned a corner and hit a dead end. I turned around and there that thing was, pounding after me, making the whole place shake like Fat Albert. After I got killed, my daughter said she almost bit through the paint on her recorder.

So I go on, and up to where that guard is dying. The walkthrough says I can torture this guy and he'll curse me and refuse to die. I just couldn't bring myself to do that with the kids watching. So I walked over to the bay window and hit the switch the moves the rails. I thought I saw something out the window.

I moved to the end of the window and looked. Sure enough, there was that monster stnding over that tunnel I went down. I said to my daughter,"he doesn't know I'm up here". then I gave her a sly look, took out my pistol and shot at it. It came over to the window and fried my a**.

My daughter nearly hit me with her recorder.

[Alex]

Hehe, this thread has stimulated me to finally install the Half-Life Generation pack I bought some months ago.

I still haven't started a game, only played through the training course to get a feel for the graphics and the gameplay.

But two things puzzle me right now:

1) I don't own the most powerful comp in the world (mine is a humble Athlon 1.6 GHz w/ 512 MB RAM and a Geforce 2 MX), but with my system I should be able to play this game in the highest resolution without problems. But I can't. Even in a modest 800x600 res, I can't have a smooth gameplay at all. In the shooting part of the training course, for instance, I press the shoot button and it takes some time for the gun to actually fire a burst. Some sections seem to lag for no reason, like when I learn how to push backwards some box. I can only imagine how the game would be slow with some enemies on the screen.

The end result? I found out that using the resolution immediately below 640x480 (512 something, I can't remember now) I can get a smooth gameplay, everything reacts and feels ok. But the graphics are ****, of course. I wonder if I play using OpenGL instead of Direct3D would make any difference (I'm going to test this tonight).

Weird, isn't it?

And 2) the other thing that makes me scratch my head: is it me or the HEV suit pulls you slightly to the right side when you're running?

[Kassiopeia]

Alex, I think that you're actually waaaay overestimating the Geforce 2 MX. Usually "MX" in the card's name means "SUCKS!", but if you've played newer games (like Deus Ex) with top-notch graphics, then maybe there is a problem.

[Alex]

There was indeed a problem, and it was related to Direct3D. I changed the video mode to OpenGL and now the game runs like a charm in 800x600. I probably would be able to play it as smoothly in 1024, but I'm satisfied with 800.

Now let's go for the carnage.

[Solver]

Yeah, Kassi, it couldn't be due to his GF 2 MX. The card was released in 2001, while Half-Life is a winter 1998 game. In other words, GF 2 MX is a next-generation card by standards of Half-Life.

Which nicely shows that a computer that is below average in 2010 will be next-generation compared to the standards of HL2, too.

[Kassiopeia]

Indeed. That Direct3D thing would have been my next guess.