Half-Life 1997 Alpha Preview Disc Leaked

[ríomhaire]

An intrepid Redditor going by jackaljayzer was lucky enough to get a Half-Life preview disc, intended for journalists at the time, by a friend in Bellevue, Washington (where Valve is based). The disc contains screenshots, trailers and a demo build of the Half-Life 1997 alpha.

​

Jackaljayzer has put the contents of the disc up on the web and is auctioning the disc on eBay. You can download the alpha right now from this link. To play the alpha delete or renamed the "...\Half-Life 0.52\Half-Life\Opengl32.dll" file and then run "...\Half-Life 0.52\Half-Life\enginegl.exe".

Credit goes to Marphy Black for the screenshots.

Enjoy!

Mirrors:
Mediafire
GZWN.net
Google Drive 1
Google Drive 2
Dropbox

 

[Vegeta897]

Gave it a quick try, very interesting and eerie.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

This is so awesome, I bet Barnz is salivating!

 

[morgs]

Man, that marine has a real hunch back thing going on.

 

[ríomhaire]

ESDF, we meet again.

 

[CrowbarSka]

Looks like Dropbox doesn't like that much traffic... Does anyone know of any mirrors?

 

[ríomhaire]

Looks like Dropbox doesn't like that much traffic... Does anyone know of any mirrors?

Changed to a MediaFire link.

 

[Ser Freeman]

Here is another mirror: http://yadi.sk/d/ijDRHhuZ1hgCg (Russia, Moscow. Yandex.Disk)

 

[CrowbarSka]

Changed to a MediaFire link.

Thanks, this worked!

 

[KKiONI]

This is amazing. Pre-release content is always so fascinating.

 

[kanaka]

I just woke up to this news and I am still shaking, this is so amazing!

 

[AymericTheNightmare]

OMG thanks for this news !

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

Hahaha! Excellent. I don't suppose this has the Ivan the Space Biker model in it?

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

In a way this is kind of creepy.

 

[Shem]

If they had actually made the security guards look that comical, I would've laughed milk out my nose.

 

[DoctorWeeTodd]

I can't seem to get it to run, at the moment, will go through the cfgs more to see if I can spot the problem.

 

[ríomhaire]

Hahaha! Excellent. I don't suppose this has the Ivan the Space Biker model in it?

I believe it does if you play a MP game.

I can't seem to get it to run, at the moment, will go through the cfgs more to see if I can spot the problem.

Did you delete Opengl32.dll and are you trying to run enginegl.exe?

 

[spetsky]

This game has the best rapping minigame I've ever played.

Other than that I'm stuck in the box room

 

[ríomhaire]

This game has the best rapping minigame I've ever played.

Other than that I'm stuck in the box room

Open up the console (it's the screen that's automatically there when you run the game or hit the button bellow Esc) and type in "map [mapname]". You can find the map filenames if you look around the right folders. The first one is c1a1.

 

[Vegeta897]

Or type maps in the console.

 

[klow]

It's fun to finally walk into these maps we've known as tiny screenshots and videos for about 15 years, but IMO the myth was better... While some parts look pretty good (the lightning or the awesome way of climbing ladders), it's as horrid as an incomplete game can be. And it's amazing how easy it was to make it work in Win7! (after some tweaks of course, but I've had an harder time on more recent games) Overall this Alpha is relevant for documentation purposes and to understand how HL1 evolved only, and not at all for "fun". Congrats and thanks to jackaljayzer!

 

[Xenian Phenocryst]

I've followed ValveTime's advice on how to play the game. It's started, but it has this fragmented fuzzy yellow line effect which prevents me from playing the game clearly. I can briefly trick the game into looking almost clear with ctrl+alt+del, but it always goes back to that annoying yellow fuzzy haze. Isn't there another way to play the game? I'm playing it on a Lenovo Windows XP, so is there some other compatability trick I need to work on in order to play it? I can't be the only person with this problem, am I?

 

[flip17]

i clicked on the new game tab and it took me to warez_dm i didnt realize at first, i was walking around in circles and being confused for a good amount of time before i realized it wasnt the actually game

**i figured out you have to type 'map c1a1' in the console to start the game

 

[DEATHMASTER]

ESDF, we meet again.

I'm confused, did you only use that for HL1? Why would you have changed it? Why go back? WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

 

[ríomhaire]

I'm confused, did you only use that for HL1? Why would you have changed it? Why go back? WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

Did you play the alpha? ESDF is the default movement binding in it.

 

[TheWiktor2]

"Couldn't set fullscreen DIB mode".
...
Help :S

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Did you play the alpha? ESDF is the default movement binding in it.

So once upon a time default bindings actually made sense? I am surprised.

 

[Xenian Phenocryst]

Guys, you're confusing me now. What are you talking about? No matter...

Just to remind you guys, a tech support page for the alpha would be useful. Keep in mind that HL 0.52 does not work functionally on all computers after deleting that OpenGl32.dll, and the only other way to play it is to set the Desktop to 16-bit color and play the other exe file. The result is a very small screen, by the way, which is why I think you need to find other ways to get the fullscreen gl exe to work on other computers besides your own. There are still people who use XPs, and not Windows 7s or 8s. Even if it is supposed to work on XP as well, you need to find more alternatives to get it to work for more people.

Also, my game tends to not spawn that super grunt that's supposed to appear. What's the deal with that?

 

[Falco]

I wish Geoff Keighley would share his version, this version is from September, Geoff's version is from December, there's gotta be a lot more maps and different stuff and such.

 

[ríomhaire]

Xenian Phenocryst we're just fans here too. I can't provide a tech support for because I have no idea what is causing your problems. I'd help if I could.

 

[Henry :D]

Hey everyone I need some big help. I just downloaded the alpha and it told me when I tried to lauch it "glidex2.dll" is missing from your computer. and it doesn't launch so I went in the guide document and it said glide is a commonly a required program people don't have. so I thought look in tools folder and I open the setup and it fails. what should I do? please help me.

 

[ríomhaire]

Hey everyone I need some big help. I just downloaded the alpha and it told me when I tried to lauch it "glidex2.dll" is missing from your computer. and it doesn't launch so I went in the guide document and it said glide is a commonly a required program people don't have. so I thought look in tools folder and I open the setup and it fails. what should I do? please help me.

Delete Opengl32.dll like the news post says.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

I just realised the install instructions are a bit engrish.

 

[Henry :D]

Delete Opengl32.dll like the news post says.

Thanks! sorry I was so excited I forgot to read the post xD
Thanks! :bounce:

 

[Tom Pokénutter]

I keep running into an issue where it seems to spawn me on a multiplayer map, regardless of which mode I'm in. Can anyone help me with this? I'm running the game on a Mac via Wine, if that affects anything.

 

[Vegeta897]

I just realised the install instructions are a bit engrish.

And that's a bit racist!

 

[Mogi67]

Looks like a shit game imo

 

[Architector #4]

Yey, an old half-life!
Had a good time, thanks.
Btw i decided to test various GoldSource console commands and wrote "thirdperson", then "cam_idealdist 100", and look who's there:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=675724767
Then i wrote "cam_idealyaw 180" and hid the weapon viewmodel, and here we go! Ivan The Space Biker!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=675725167

Btw i got that health bar by tapping - and = keys: "-" puts up different HUD elements with same style as this health bar, including health bar itself, which is only working HUD element, and "=" hides them back. Useful is useful

 

[Architector #4]

I keep running into an issue where it seems to spawn me on a multiplayer map, regardless of which mode I'm in. Can anyone help me with this? I'm running the game on a Mac via Wine, if that affects anything.

Nope - it starts in there as it should. Open console by ~ key(or ESC in main menu) and write "map c0a0" (without brackets), this will boot you up in the first map.