Half Life: 14 Years Later

Half Life 14 years later

I recently dusted off (er downloaded) Half Life: Source in an attempt to procrastinate from my work and to see how an old favorite has held up over the years to my jaded, hyper-realism drugged gamer mind. Here are my findings.

Modern Hardware vs. Half Life

Original recommenced specs for Half Life when it came out

Hardware Requirements

System: Pentium-133 or equivalent 
RAM:24 MB RAM 
CD-ROM: 2X CD-ROM 
Video Memory: 2 MB VRAM 
Hard Drive Space: 400 MB 
Mouse: Yes 
Sound Board: Yes 
DirectX: DirectX v6.0 

Recommended System Requirements: 
System: Pentium-166 or equivalent 
RAM: 32 MB RAM 
3D Sound Card: Yes

Back when Half Life came out, my timid Windows 3.1 Pentium powered desktop could not run it, the only computer in the house that could run it was my parents ultra-powerful Pentium II powered, Voodoo 2 having beast, but I was strictly forbidden from installing anything on it without my parent's watchful eye seeing exactly what it was. I was especially forbidden from playing “M” rated games as I was only 12 at the time. My friend down the street, however was not. I went over to his house one day and he was playing the most amazing game I'd ever seen. The textures were so vivid, the gameplay so varried and he was using the mouse to aim and look around. This was mind blowing to me, having only really played Doom and the first Quake with the keyboard it was amazing to me. I knew I had to get this game at some point. About 2 years later, my parents upgraded to a Pentium III machine and I got the old Pentium II work horse, it was my time now. I borrowed the game from my friend (remember when you could still do that?) installed the game on the very small remaining chunk of hard drive space and went at it. When I first played it, the max resolution I could get the game to run in was 800x600, but I didn't care it was Half-Life. This one of my first solo all-nighter gaming sessions, I was hooked. I forget how many times I died, got stuck, or had the piss scared out of me by Maw-Men. I played through it at least 8 times that year.

Tech Write-Up

I didn't bother attempting to run the original Half Life on my system. I've had enough nightmare times getting older game to run without crashing (Looking at you System Shock 2, I have to set affinity to one core? How the fuck was I supposed to figure that out?) So Half Life: Source was my first and only option.

My current specs

Intel i7 – 2600k @ 3.6GHz per core

16GB of DDR3 RAM

nVidia GTX 560

Bit of overkill for a source game, I realize but here's how it runs.

At 1920x1080, which appears to be the highest 16:9 resolution native supported, it runs at 300fps with all the settings turned up. Not too much of a surprise, but what is a bit of a surprise is how often in the graphics knock. If you're unsure what that means, it means that while the game runs at 300fps, every once in a while, the fps drops to about 10 for 4 frames and then comes back. It's almost like the game is lagging but it's very much not. This is a common problem with older games for some reason and it doesn't really detract too much, just something that's noticeable. Other than that, it runs very well on a modern machine, despite it's age.

The Good

The game is incredibly varied, the environments change constantly and very well. It makes your progress through the game feel like you're actually getting something done.

Big "Whoa" Moment

The pacing is top notch, there's nothing that comes absolutely out of no where. There's always slight hints to what's happening but it never feels like it's out running you or you're out running it. Things are introduced in a very nice way as to make things interesting without being overwhelming.

Gameplay and controls are just as good as you remember. Although my skill with the mouse seems to have gotten considerably better. The guns are difficult to control but I feel it actually adds to the game. It kind of makes you feel like you're just some scientists that has no control over the situation. The AI is incredibly difficult to handle since their tactics tend to take advantage of your inexperience.

Lack of hand holding is nice. The game teaches you things as you need them without explicitly saying, “We're teaching you this now!” It makes you feel like you're the one in control and you're the one getting better.

The Bad

The game is just unlinear enough to piss you off. It's very frustrating how often you can get stuck because you missed something subtle. There's little consistency as to what's a valid door or switch and whats part of the wall texture. Kind of makes you appreciate easily identifiable doors and switches in modern games.

Combat can range from fairly easy to down right impossible. The AI is very accurate with the guns, you are very much not. Add in a non-regenerating health and no auto save and you might be doing the same section more than once. In this last play through, I had to try the same fight no less than 15 times before I actually managed to get through it.

Ladders. Those mother fucking ladders.

You have to do an awful lot of platforming and the game doesn't help you out at all. The area required to stand on is sometimes difficult to work out and you can't see your legs or any sort of reference point as to whether or not your texture is going to trip the collision or not.

NPCs are poor at advancing the plot. I know in Half Life, you're supposed to figure out the storyline yourself, but you may not recall that you run into quite a few NPCs in the first Half Life and they just make vague passing statements without real concern or grip on the situation.

The Ugly

The graphics show their age in a big way. Big blocky Quake textures, out of proportion set objects, incredibly poor NPC graphics (Spoiler: there's only two kind of scientists that work at Black Mesa Albert Einstein and young Morgan Freeman), everything seems kind of too big, the hallways, the elevators, the soldiers (Maw-Men are still absolutely terrifying though) Most of the guns look cell shaded and the bigger NPCs have jerky animations and look very very odd.

Turns out toy guns actually are dangerous

Dat shotgun texture

The loading. Good god the loading. I realize that back when the game came out, incremented loading was the only way to go. No one had the hardware to do an all-at-once loading like we have now, but it's incredibly noticeable. You will run into invisible loading walls all the time, mostly in really similar looking hallways. If you're not ready for them and have your mouse sensitivity turned up fairly high, prepared to get turned around and walk right back into the same loading wall you just went through.

4th time through the same loading wall

The scripting engine is absolutely awful. On many occasions, things just didn't work and I had to reload the game. A number of times enemies would just freeze in the middle of combat, or run away from me. One time, an encounter started too early, it was supposed to happen on my way back through a room and started the first time I stepped in the room. Buttons sometimes fail to work completely, doors would make the sound that they opened, were supposed to open, and just didn't open.

These guys walk like they just shit their pants

Conclusion

The game is still great. The levels are well thought out, exploration is encouraged and rewarded without being annoying, the story is still laid out in a nice way and never in your face with long (read: any) cut scenes and manages to still tell the story in an incredibly immersive way without breaking the flow. The puzzles (kinda puzzles) are challenging without being overly so. Combat is fast, very skill based, fun and challenging and there's actually a sense of urgency, confusion and actual fear that keeps you going through the game. The adventure game elements, like most of the “boss fights” make you feel clever and satisfied when you pull them off successfully and it's still very enjoyable.

TL;DR Graphics kinda terrible, ladders suck, game is still awesome.