HL2 20th Anniversary Update + Documentary

[Ennui]

Half-Life 2 Anniversary Update

Experience Half-Life 2 all over again, with a brand-new commentary mode, improved graphics and gameplay options, Steam Workshop support, and more. We're also bringing back the art book, and have a new documentary featuring the original development team.

www.half-life.com

HL2 anniversary update merges the episodes into HL2, adds Steam Workshop support (finally!) and added a new developer commentary track.

They also released another 2 hour Secret Tape documentary about HL2's development with a bunch of footage we've never seen and interviews with everyone you'd expect:

And they released some deep cuts from old tech demos etc on their youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Valve/videos

Notably the E3 2002 and 2003 demos and the long lost / fabled SIGGRAPH 2000 demo:

On top of that they're reprinting Raising the Bar next year including new content about the development of the episodes.

Already half an hour into the documentary, it's great so far!

Hard to believe its been 20 years since release. One of the most exciting nights of my life (after the 5 hour wait for Steam to decrypt my preload...), I miss you all and the fun we had in those times! I still remember playing HL2 at about 2am on release night, my mom came downstairs and tapped me on the shoulder in the dark while I was halfway through Ravenholm and scared the absolute shit out of me

How is everyone getting on, 20 years on?

 

[Xtremecherry95YT]

20 Years ago.
Damn..

 

[Mr Stabby]

I bought the physical copy on the Saturday after, the 16th. As a 14-year-old, I had no credit card and couldn't borrow one. The family computer graphics card was barely able to run it, I remember spending most of the weekend looking up config settings I could disable to get it to run. I managed to get it to run at 640x480 with most of the lighting disabled and the windows all missing. It was another 3 or 4 months before I was able to get a Radeon 9800 pro

 

[Ennui]

I had a geforce FX5200 at the time which handled it pretty well. The stutter issues at launch were pretty obnoxious tho. That 9800PRO was a legendary card tho

 

[Sulkdodds]

whoah

 

[dfc05]

Watched it last week. 20 years later, YouTube somehow knew to pop up the Half-Life 2 documentary on my recommended feed.
I definitely remember the leak in 2003. Had no idea about Vivendi trying to bankrupt them!
Today I started looking at buying Half-Life Alyx even though I haven't played a game on Steam since 2022, am nowhere near equipped to run it, and I am not sure how to justify spending >$1000 just to be able to play this one 4-year-old game (if anyone has more game recommendations from the last 5 years, that might help lol).

 

[Xtremecherry95YT]

Do you know your PC specs?

 

[dfc05]

Do you know your PC specs?

Truly embarrassing -- the only non-work computer I have is a 10-yr old laptop running Windows 7.
But I'm looking at getting a pre-built gaming PC in the < $1000 range. Seems they're all generally OK to meet recommended specs for HL:Alyx. https://www.microcenter.com/search/...4294967292+4294807523&NTK=all&sortby=pricelow
I've never used a VR headset, so I'll have to find a demo at a physical store to see what I think of it.

Most of what I play now (if anything) is short indie puzzle or adventure games. Never been a big fan of RPGs/open-world games, but otherwise am not too picky. Any games lists past 2018 are practically unrecognizable, so there's potentially a large backlog of games that would be "new" to me!

 

[Xtremecherry95YT]

Truly embarrassing -- the only non-work computer I have is a 10-yr old laptop running Windows 7.
But I'm looking at getting a pre-built gaming PC in the < $1000 range. Seems they're all generally OK to meet recommended specs for HL:Alyx. https://www.microcenter.com/search/...4294967292+4294807523&NTK=all&sortby=pricelow
I've never used a VR headset, so I'll have to find a demo at a physical store to see what I think of it.

Most of what I play now (if anything) is short indie puzzle or adventure games. Never been a big fan of RPGs/open-world games, but otherwise am not too picky. Any games lists past 2018 are practically unrecognizable, so there's potentially a large backlog of games that would be "new" to me!

Hey it's better then nothing.
Hope you get your gaming PC someday.