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 In case you aren't familiar with Half Life but are reading this SSLP anyway: What's this "Half" "Life" thing, and why is it spelled with a lambda? Half-Life is the series that jumpstarted Valve Software. If you're not very familiar with PC gaming at all, they did Left 4 Dead one and two, and Portal 2. Did you have The Orange Box on console? This is the first Half-Life game, you know, the predecessor to Half Life 2, HL2: Ep 1, and HL2: Ep 2. It was also very influential for it's time, and if you didn't play it at the time but are playing it now, it's easy/cool to identify it as a hook between something like Quake or Duke Nukem 3D and modern FPSes in general. Lots of stuff started here, such as dialogue and important story exposition happening right there without taking you from the perspective of the protagonist and in to cutscenes or the like. It's also aged just as badly in some certain areas, such as the base breaking chapter known as On A Rail. It's spelled with a Lambda because the Lambda complex/science team play a pretty big role in the game. I'd like to revisit Half Life or play it for the first time. How should I play it? Buy the original version on Steam. It's 10$. It comes with an "HD" model pack included from the early 2000s. Disable it to get the authentic experience. Half Life: Source was a phoned in port to Valve's new engine as a pre-order bonus for Half Life 2. It was originally a total remake, but they decided to shelve it. It's buggy, bad, and adds nothing new other than new water textures and a "shiny" crowbar texture that looks worse. Black Mesa, the fan made remake of Half Life 1, isn't completely finished yet and redesigns a lot of Half Life 1. It's not supposed to make Half Life 1 look good, it's supposed to adapt it in to a modern FPS. Like I said, just buy the original version on Steam. Can we talk spoilers? Yes, in fact I'm going to end up spoiling stuff in untagged spoilers in the game posts themselves. Have a warning.  This SSLP assumes you've either played through Half Life 1 before, or don't care about spoilers. If you care about spoilers, at all, slightly, exit the thread now. You've been warned.Table of Contents Chapter I: Welcome to Black Mesa - http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3741759&pagenumber=1#post450193073
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Sep 14, 2015 14:53
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  I love the beginning of this game. The idea is that the long train ride slowly immerses the player before the game even really begins, and it serves that purpose beautifully. It works because it uses NPCs to bring areas to life -- you aren't just looking at huge empty rooms.  Barney having trouble with a door   Decent lighting effects for a game from 1998.  G-Man sighting #1  and we're here! Unfortunately, Barney likes to take his sweet loving time      Why does Black Mesa need an airlock? They have a bunch, but it's not as if they're in space. I think it's just for convenient loading screens
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Sep 14, 2015 14:54
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It's been a while since I've revisited the original Half-Life - it's a great game, but everything feels so clunky after you've played Half-Life 2. I think that's possibly made it age more than if it'd only had successors rather than direct sequels. Do you have any plans to show some comparisons between this and Black Mesa? Also, could you try not using timg? It's a bit of a pain to have to enlarge every screenshot!
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Sep 14, 2015 23:51
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soooooo how kosher is it to post speedruns  You know, seeing as you spoke of "breaking" the game
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Sep 15, 2015 04:48
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Yay! Half-life! Boo! timg!
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Sep 18, 2015 18:41
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