From what I can see it updates in real time as well. Which is unusual in most games today, unless you have ray tracing on but yeah, crazy impressive stuff.
@@stonedassnecoarc it used planar reflections, one of the very first real-time implementation of it on any platform, basically render the scene twice, extremely costly, even now..
@@niks660097 I was actually thinking about it the other say while playing gmod and thought it must do that, glad they chose to do it though, I love well implemented water reflections.
That Dude Name Son Goku I have played xbox version yesterday and game looks very good considering it's running on much slower hardware compared to PC / x360. XBOX had only 64MB in totall, while in order to run this game on PC you had to have 384 MB system RAM and 64 MB VRAM. Textures and image quality may look blurry here on YT but on SD CRT (or especially on small HDTV in 480p) everything looks sharp.
@@Thebossstage1 Well, yes, there're more loading screens, like right after you've spoken to G-man, there's one, but I'm not sure that each map was split in half. I noticed small changes, like there isn't a can on the ground were it supposed to be, and paintings or posters are missing, but the most interesting thing that i discovered that there's a Dr. Breen poster that can be seen underwater, but can't be seen above water. I don't know if it is intentional, or a bug, but I find it interesting and a little bit creepy.
@@PabloB888 Honestly the performance looks about as comparable to what I experienced when I first played the game on my fairly low end PC back in the mid-2000's.
digital foundry is the only channel i watch nowadays. quality is really high and there is no gimmicky shit. it treats its audience as intelligent and just focuses on making great content which is really unusual nowadays
idk, sometimes i think they dont know what theyre talking about specially about 3d stuff. They seem to confuse a lot of the terms, like in this video "self shadowing bump maps". That means absolutely nothing and it does not make sense. Sure, you can use a bump to lead the occlusion, but theres no "self shadowing bump maps".
+Sergio Lugo wiki.polycount.com/w/images/8/8b/SelfShadowedBumpMapping_example.jpg This is even a Valve produced image. That's how they refer to the technique in the Source documentation.
A simply stunning OST. I love the music from HL2 and 1. The composer is a genius. Unique atmosphere and sound. One of the best OST in the gaming industry.
I remember reading about half life 2 on magazines in 2004. Oh my god, it looked like nothing i had ever seen. I spent hours inspecting those low res screenshots on those pages. awww the memories; i still have most of the magazines from the time.
It was time when you would be very surprised with graphics leaps. Now it's so detailed in all games no-one is surprised any more. I felt the same about MGS2, the graphics improvements were unbelievable. I also saw it only in a magazine with low-res screenshots.
@@MIchaelSybi It would be amazing if they used the power of today's systems to improve gameplay instead, which is how I excitedly imagined the future of games. But nope...games today are instead worse than ever and all focus is on graphics... These are dark times.
Same! I remember keeping the TGM e3 2004 magazine - with Doom3 on the cover - like a relic. And going back visiting D3 and HL2 pages from time to times waiting for the games to be released. Glorious days
Watching this again on the eve of HL2’s 20th anniversary made me further appreciate all the aspects that made this game as special as it still is today
Did you know that Half-Life: Blue Shift had a room with a faked reflection on the floor that you could watch during the tram ride? The floor texture was actually translucent, and there was duplicate geometry to create the appearance of a reflection. I would love to see Half-Life 2 on the Nintendo Switch.
idk if I'd consider it Retro. Most classic games are around the 30/40 year age area, and Half-Life 2 is only 12 years old. No, not 13, it's not November yet, it's 12 years old.
It's a benchmark game for me. All games since HL2 look "good enough". Just look at the difference in graphics in the 6 years between HL 1 & 2, it's amazing. The difference in the next 12 years is much smaller.
the tipping point for me was unreal tournament 2003. it was the game that changed what we expect from blocky to smooth complex forms. doom3 was another tipping point, it was the first game to really make use of bump and specular maps. it had them on every surface, and it looked fucking awesome for that. also real time shadows from basically every light source. trend setter. half life 2 was kind of a mix between the two. a few bump mapped surfaces, unlike ut2003 which was dx7 and only had primitive shaders, and more polygons tossed around than doom3 (less than ut2003 though)
I'd still say there is a massive gulf in visual prowess between Half-Life 2 and something like Quantum Break, Gears 4, Uncharted 4 or Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Carrandas Honestly Half-Life 2 is so incredibly beautiful, even now. If I knew nothing about Half-Life, and someone told me that the game came out last year, I’d probably believe them. While some of the character models are starting to look aged, they still look so realistic and could easily be used for a new game.
I don't know. I find there is a tremendous visual difference between Half-Life 2 to Uncharted 2 (2009) or Crysis (2007), then another tremendous jump to Doom Enternal (2020) or Last of Us Part 2 or Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart.
The leap in visuals since 2004 is massive. It's just that it nailing the overall look has been pretty easy for a while, so we're now adding details to enhance it further. We also start to judge the imperfections more as we near photorealism. Real time AO and GI, Tessellation, real volumetric lighting, Physically Based Rendering, massive improvements to geometry and textures, various screen space effects, and now even Real time Ray Tracing. All of these are very important for the visuals of a high end modern game, but they're not required to make a game look pleasant to the eye. The Original Crysis is outdated by today's standards, it doesn't support the majority of modern tech used in games, but the overall look, the consistency of the visuals, and the interactivity keep people coming back to it as one of the best looking games of the time. And i usually don't point out the fact that older games are technologically outdated unless someone directly claims that visuals haven't evolved from that point.
You weren't kidding about this being the biggest episode yet. Fantastic job, as always. I didn't know about the arcade version. Looks pretty slick. Looks like one of the game modes was the basis for Garry's Mod, and the Deathmatch mode resembles a cross between CS and TF2 lol
Still it's a crime he didn't mention mmod but mentioned cinematic mod LOL, I know it was around back then when this came out.. cuz it was around the last time I played Half-Life 2 which is in 2007 The day The Orange box came out and auto updated my game and killed on my mods and broke my heart.. LOL so, just saying.
Actually there could be a HL3 The name Half Life can means 2 things 1.The half of a life 2.A term used in nuclear physics that describes the amount of time that a particle or an unstable atom needs to reduce their radioactivity or in other words for how long this atoms can survive the radioactive decay and this term can be used as an exponent so there can be a Half Life1,Half Life 2,Half Life 3, Half Life4,5,6,7,8,9,......... And an interesting fact about Half Life (videogame) is that the name of Half Life was chosed because the game HL1 have a lot of science related things (this is the briefly explanation) PD: Also the logo of HL is Lambda because the equation of Half Life(nuclear physics) contains a Lambda
I remember being really surprised that Half-Life 2 could even run on the Xbox. Games like Half-Life 2, Doom 3 and The Chronicles of Riddick really showed how much more powerful the original Xbox was than other consoles of the time.
Half-Life 2 has aged incredibly given it's coming up on 20 years old. Just look at something like DOOM 3 which released only months prior and you can see just how much better HL2 looks compared to other games of the time.
Yo John, it would incredible to see a DF Retro on the F-Zero series. I think all three console games have something to talk about: the original has its faked 3D with Mode 7, X made huge sacrifices to reach a locked 60 and GX is just a technical masterpiece in every shape way and form. Love the series, by the way! I always get excited when I see a new DF video in my subscriptions.
DF retro is literally one of the best things on YT today if not the very best, all the vids in DF retro so far is pure GOLD and far exceed what i want, the guy who do these vids, the guy talking at i don't know his name but man ur the best, U ROCK 10/10
It just feels right in every aspect: movement, physics, visuals, loading times, the UI, everything. Sadly, not all modern systems run it the way it's supposed to.
13:03 John Freeman said “Zombie goasts leave this place” and the zombie goasts said “but this is our house” and John Freeman felt sorry for them becaus they couldnt live there anymore because they were zombie goasts so he blew up the house and killed the zombie goasts so they were at piece.
Honestly, Half-Life 2 is a great game and I appreciate what it did for the gaming market. But I still think the original Half-Life is better *awaits incoming hate comments*.
I get where you're coming from(I mean, there wouldn't be a HL2 if HL1 wasn't such a masterpiece), but i think they don't differ that much in terms of quality.
+Immense Data I really like HL2, but it has flaws. Lots of pace-breakers (waiting for NPC's to finish their speech, while you fuck around with the environment before the game let's you advance), wimpy weapons compared to HL1, confusing story (mainly in the beginning), not to mention the fact that somehow Gordon Freeman was regarded as the second Jesus Christ, even though nobody knew about what he did in the first game. HL1 was better paced, felt better to play and was much more believable as a story than HL2, despite the aged presentation (discounting Black Mesa). Again, I like both games, but HL1 is just more fun for me to play than HL2.
I remember finishing HL2 and its episodes on the Xbox 360. I can only treasure these moments. Playing on present hardware at 1080p60+fps kind of makes the game feel simply 'old', but there's something about playing on older hardware like the Xbox 360, with the lower settings and frame rate. Made me feel like I was playing a game way ahead of its time.
@@Helperbot-2000 Not really? While I do believe DOOM 3 is inferior here, it is still a very good game and TOP TIER tech-wise. RTCW was also top tier for 2001 and it had an amazing MP too. While I would slightly lean for HL2 there still ,its close.
@@CharcharoExplorer gotta say first im impressed you replied within minutes as you commented 5 years ago. Doom 3 definitely had quite good tech, but especially as a followup to the legendary doom and doom 2 it isnt exactly the best. Rtcw is probably missing alot of the praise it deserves, but i also wouldnt call it too close to the impact, ground breaking or bar raising of half life 2
Replayed HL2 recently with the HL2: Update mod and the 4x AI upscaled textures. The game looks so god damn good, but especially since the boat section onward.
The nostalgia feels are strong with this video. I remember watching the e3 demo burned on a CD with my friends as we crowded around my big ass CRT monitor. Those were the days...
nice to see a touch on HL2: Update, I feel its the best mod if you want that '100% vanilla' look to the game. the improvements to light and shadow are really great
These retro videos are a genius idea! And endless possibilities: Tie Fighter, Evolution of GTA, MGS 1 Retro or the rise and fall of 3dfx Voodoo Extreme And no fake *Trenchcoat* ;-)
I played this on two different systems back then. My main had a P4 1.6Ghz, 768MB with a Ti4400 128mb and the other was an Athlon 1.2Ghz 512MB with a MX 440 64MB and both systems played this absolutely fine on DX8.1; which is a testament to the scalability of the engine.
So... STALKER on DF Retro? PC Gaming Classic, extreme number of mods, no ports though. So a shorter episode on technology (and A-Life) + how a port can be made and some mods and what they do. Would watch it.
Great video, I always wanted to see footages from 2004 graphics , I knew that are a lot of things different but I was only 12 years old I can remember all the details that just one video like this can provide. Thank you very much for this amazing content.
Here we are! A Half-Life 2 retro episode! Just in time for HL3 release! That's really really neat video, look into the different builds of Source, how it all changed. Dynamic shadows in 2007 were really rare, and apparently they still happen to be quite rare
Glad you realized that the current version available on steam and the original 2004 release are way different technologically. That Half-life 2 Update mod basically fixes all the stuff Valve broke when they half-ass ported HL2 to the orange box version of Source several years after the updated console versions came out.
Pentium 3 1GHz NVIDIA Geforce 2 64 MB 512 MB RAM and it run... they very well knew that a lot of people would still have outdated hardware so they optimized it for low-end PCs
Playing through half life 2 update here in 2018 and am astounded at how well it holds up even today 14 years later. Visuals, audio, enemy AI, atmosphere, story, physics... The physics! Such an incredible game.
I remember playing the game waiting for the cool blue tentacle to appear. Spoilers... It doesn't. I was such a huge fan of the original and really didn't like HL2 on release, like at all. Since then though I've really grown to love it. It's just a shame that episode 2 ends on a cliff hanger and wasn't never followed up.
9:56 One of the most impressive ports i ever saw. Along with Resident Evil 2 for n64, i think its one of the most incredible miracles on console gaming history.
The first time I played HL2 was on a friends PC. We could never afford a PC like that at my house. The game looked incredible, but I wasn't able to actually complete the game until it came to Xbox. I've still only played the Xbox and PS3 version of HL2. I still love the game though. I love the retro videos! I hope this series continues for a long time. Also, keep doing those traders at the end. I've gotten goosebumps 2 episodes in a row!
I guess Half Life 3 will feature physics that destroys PhysX, hair that rekts both TressFX and Hairworks, and graphics that are 50x better than Uncharted 4. But sadly game development isnt dedicated enough to do that, unless Lord Gabe is making this happen and thats why we're still waiting.
TheLen Well not me specifically, as i very rarely express my hype for it, need to play the first 2 games first. But yes, the hype is so much its 89% going to not live up to the hype. Im just sad valve is now too busy sinking in money made from CSGO, Dota, and TF2 items rather than develop a new half life game. Personally i just want to see a new half life game with great graphics.
ARL Well I just want to see the ending of half life story... There was podcast, dont know how it`s called, but valve said they will only work on the game if valve workers want to work on it, now all valve workers want to work on vr. And they said that they know that people really want to see new half life, portal, left for dead (of course gabe said it with hints)
TheLen I'd just want Valve to do some game developing again, instead of creating skins and updates for CSGO, dota, and TF2. I just want them to do more singleplayer games like Half Life, Portal, and Left 4 dead again. And even then their current multiplayer games all came from mods from other games lol.
I'd love to see a multiplatform title from the GC/PS2/XB days. Maybe a PoP title or BG&E. Or Resident Evil 4 since it has multiple versions. Even Portal 2 to compare the new version of the PS3 source engine. Tony Hawk on N64/PS1/DC would be cool too! Love this series!
It is funny when people buy expensive monitors with low latency and then activate motion blur in game. My shitty LCD monitor does motion blur without taxing my GPU ;)
i like how blur is handled in the frostbyte engine for the battlefield games. it is just barely there and able to be tweaked to your preference. i usually don't like how overdone the blur is on most games, but those games are where i turn that feature on.
GreyGuardian I still think it looks unrealistic since the focus is where you are aiming at but not where you are actually looking at, so if you are not directly looking at the focused point, it doesn't look realistic anymore. I just want my screen to be sharp and clean.
My heart skip a beat when I heard about Goldeneye, I dying to hear more news about canceled XBLA version.
7 лет назад
The VR version actually shows some smart decisions about seated VR shooter experience, like fine aim adjustments moving the crosshair itself vs. moving the mouse to rotate the view, HUD placement (feels like you're in a helmet with HUD, wow!), etc. Motion sickness takes about an hour to get over with if you're sitting right and keep your head steady. Looking around is still done with the mouse.
TF2 and Portal on PS3 were playable, but like with HL2, there were many frame drops (especially in Portal if I remember right). In addition, there were many audio problems in the PS3 ports (i.e. sound crackling). Portal 2 however, is a slightly different story. From my experience, it had a steady 30fps on both console ports, as both of them were done in-house this time instead of just one. Honestly I think these ports were even better than the Orange Box ports because I haven't noticed any drops or unresponsiveness in both ports at all, but I'm only working off of my memory here, don't take my word for it.
Yes, and you can play it on pretty much ANY modern PC since even integrated graphics are fast enough for it, provided you don't push 4xMSAA or other shit :D
We still haven't got a major kick in the balls graphics like we did from 2004 Doom 3 and Half Life 2 and 2007's Crysis. There have been amazing games don't misunderstand me but see the change in graphics has not been significant like you see Half Life 1 vs 2. It's getting really hard to do this because we have so many amazing game engines like cryengine 3, frostbite 3, RED engine, UE4, and so many more.
I've played them all several times over and HL2: Update is my personal favorite. It felt more like a restoration than a mod. I really liked how the commentary was done too and wish more games had that option.
People are way too mean to Fakefactory, who gives a damn if the installer has *100% optional* sexual content, just don't install it, if you don't like the graffiti you can mod that out too, if the character models look out of place, find another mod for the character models, in any other modding community FakeFactory's work would be both appreciated and worked around for the things they didn't like about it, he spent years of his life making a fantastic mod for a fantastic game, all for free, and people shat on him for the pettiest of reasons.
People are allowed to criticise the included content, even if it's optional. The graffiti especially, is the kind of thing that really should have an option to easily remove, rather than requiring the player to do it themselves. I do think that the community was too harsh, yeah, but still, the pornographic models are an entirely valid thing to complain about.
Yeah, it just goes to show how grand that mod is. There are some really shitty mods out there and no one is talking about those. Yet people are criticizing Cinematic Mod like it's some AAA game or something. It really deserves all the attention it's getting.
HL2 is the game I modded the most. So much fun and endless possibilities. I even made some mods myself using the free tools provided by Valve. Awesome video as always, DF.
the cinematic mod is the trashiest mod ive ever seen i hope its a parody, its every thing that makes me hate a mod all in one place. overblown lighting that fucks with the color composition, badly anatotmied character models with faces like a deep sea creature, horrendous blur effects stacked on top of yet more blur effects on top of yet more blur effects, questionable texture replacements that change the materials rather than making them just look nicer, amateur implementation of new graphics features done so sloppily it looks better without them. I can only hope it was made as a joke and people download it to laugh. which would make sense, for PC gamers "cinematic" is used a pejorative for games so enamored with being like a movie they forget what it means to be a good game.
MMOD is fantastic if you want a fresh feel that still stays mostly faithful. It's also highly customizable, so any changes you're not a fan of can simply be toggled off.
It was DX9, I remember buying a 9800 Pro 128MB card just for HL2 (and also Far Cry, which I bought first, and was astonished to see that it could not run on my 7500. I mean, it WOULD start up, but the water was a psychedelic mess of colours and lines.
Half Life never really worked good in DX 8.1 mode. The real problem was that nVidia GeForce FX 5xxx series were DX9 cards, but couldnt work with HL2 in DX9, but I see that you dont remember it, youre just a nVidiot.
***** I was stating a well known facts, its not a secret. forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=104265 forums.anandtech.com/threads/whats-the-issue-fix-with-geforce-fx-and-dx9.1175743/
I very much forgot how amazing the atmosphere, physics and gameplay mechanics are in this game. And the sound design is some of the best I’ve ever heard. Nothing has come close to what half life 2 is. Valve won’t release half life 3 until it’s a perfect immersive VR experience. Or DOTA 2
"Just imagine if we had early development builds of Duke Nukem Forever"
Oh John from the past, if you only knew
Haha came here to comment the same thing!
And now, we have a restoration project.
The water in HL2 is still one of the best looking to this day. Really impressive.
From what I can see it updates in real time as well. Which is unusual in most games today, unless you have ray tracing on but yeah, crazy impressive stuff.
Agreed. The water looks great!
@@stonedassnecoarc it used planar reflections, one of the very first real-time implementation of it on any platform, basically render the scene twice, extremely costly, even now..
@@niks660097 I was actually thinking about it the other say while playing gmod and thought it must do that, glad they chose to do it though, I love well implemented water reflections.
its impressive that the game even runs on the Xbox
That Dude Name Son Goku I have played xbox version yesterday and game looks very good considering it's running on much slower hardware compared to PC / x360. XBOX had only 64MB in totall, while in order to run this game on PC you had to have 384 MB system RAM and 64 MB VRAM. Textures and image quality may look blurry here on YT but on SD CRT (or especially on small HDTV in 480p) everything looks sharp.
Each map was split in Half where possible.
@@AmBush2048 Is that true?
@@Thebossstage1 Well, yes, there're more loading screens, like right after you've spoken to G-man, there's one, but I'm not sure that each map was split in half. I noticed small changes, like there isn't a can on the ground were it supposed to be, and paintings or posters are missing, but the most interesting thing that i discovered that there's a Dr. Breen poster that can be seen underwater, but can't be seen above water. I don't know if it is intentional, or a bug, but I find it interesting and a little bit creepy.
@@PabloB888 Honestly the performance looks about as comparable to what I experienced when I first played the game on my fairly low end PC back in the mid-2000's.
digital foundry is the only channel i watch nowadays. quality is really high and there is no gimmicky shit. it treats its audience as intelligent and just focuses on making great content which is really unusual nowadays
Heard of Super Bunnyhop?
Also, Ahoy, and MrBTongue
idk, sometimes i think they dont know what theyre talking about specially about 3d stuff. They seem to confuse a lot of the terms, like in this video "self shadowing bump maps". That means absolutely nothing and it does not make sense. Sure, you can use a bump to lead the occlusion, but theres no "self shadowing bump maps".
+Sergio Lugo That specific line? Those are Valve's words, not mine.
+Sergio Lugo wiki.polycount.com/w/images/8/8b/SelfShadowedBumpMapping_example.jpg
This is even a Valve produced image. That's how they refer to the technique in the Source documentation.
A simply stunning OST. I love the music from HL2 and 1. The composer is a genius. Unique atmosphere and sound. One of the best OST in the gaming industry.
I know right, Kelly Bailey had full controll over the entire sound design, and it shows how great he is
Looking forward to DF Retro's analysis on Half-Life 3.
:^)
Maybe you won't even be alive when it's coming out XD
little did you know
Not a great show...
SetnaroX lol, yeah, that game will come out when pigs fly.
They could do a DF Retro analysis of all of Gabe Newell’s comments on HL3 over the past decade and a half
I remember reading about half life 2 on magazines in 2004. Oh my god, it looked like nothing i had ever seen. I spent hours inspecting those low res screenshots on those pages. awww the memories; i still have most of the magazines from the time.
It was time when you would be very surprised with graphics leaps. Now it's so detailed in all games no-one is surprised any more.
I felt the same about MGS2, the graphics improvements were unbelievable. I also saw it only in a magazine with low-res screenshots.
jippalippa samey
I had still have that disc that came with all those video demonstrations on it.
@@MIchaelSybi
It would be amazing if they used the power of today's systems to improve gameplay instead, which is how I excitedly imagined the future of games. But nope...games today are instead worse than ever and all focus is on graphics... These are dark times.
Same! I remember keeping the TGM e3 2004 magazine - with Doom3 on the cover - like a relic. And going back visiting D3 and HL2 pages from time to times waiting for the games to be released. Glorious days
Watching this again on the eve of HL2’s 20th anniversary made me further appreciate all the aspects that made this game as special as it still is today
Did you know that Half-Life: Blue Shift had a room with a faked reflection on the floor that you could watch during the tram ride? The floor texture was actually translucent, and there was duplicate geometry to create the appearance of a reflection.
I would love to see Half-Life 2 on the Nintendo Switch.
Amaroqdricaldari
I would kill to have the full Orange Box on the Switch.
@@oscarmccormack1611 4 years later, we at least got portal collection
@@riston7264 and the portal collection can run half-life 2 maps almost perfectly
half life 2 is now retro..
damnit i feel old
Actually, "retro" is being used incorrectly.
Retro is loosely defined, but I think HL2 does count as retro now.
idk if I'd consider it Retro. Most classic games are around the 30/40 year age area, and Half-Life 2 is only 12 years old. No, not 13, it's not November yet, it's 12 years old.
@Russell White I don't remember posting the comment you're responding to.
In John's definition, Crysis 3 and the Last of Us on PS3 will be retro next year
It's a benchmark game for me. All games since HL2 look "good enough". Just look at the difference in graphics in the 6 years between HL 1 & 2, it's amazing. The difference in the next 12 years is much smaller.
the tipping point for me was unreal tournament 2003. it was the game that changed what we expect from blocky to smooth complex forms.
doom3 was another tipping point, it was the first game to really make use of bump and specular maps. it had them on every surface, and it looked fucking awesome for that. also real time shadows from basically every light source. trend setter.
half life 2 was kind of a mix between the two. a few bump mapped surfaces, unlike ut2003 which was dx7 and only had primitive shaders, and more polygons tossed around than doom3 (less than ut2003 though)
I'd still say there is a massive gulf in visual prowess between Half-Life 2 and something like Quantum Break, Gears 4, Uncharted 4 or Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Carrandas Honestly Half-Life 2 is so incredibly beautiful, even now. If I knew nothing about Half-Life, and someone told me that the game came out last year, I’d probably believe them. While some of the character models are starting to look aged, they still look so realistic and could easily be used for a new game.
I don't know. I find there is a tremendous visual difference between Half-Life 2 to Uncharted 2 (2009) or Crysis (2007), then another tremendous jump to Doom Enternal (2020) or Last of Us Part 2 or Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart.
The leap in visuals since 2004 is massive. It's just that it nailing the overall look has been pretty easy for a while, so we're now adding details to enhance it further. We also start to judge the imperfections more as we near photorealism.
Real time AO and GI, Tessellation, real volumetric lighting, Physically Based Rendering, massive improvements to geometry and textures, various screen space effects, and now even Real time Ray Tracing. All of these are very important for the visuals of a high end modern game, but they're not required to make a game look pleasant to the eye. The Original Crysis is outdated by today's standards, it doesn't support the majority of modern tech used in games, but the overall look, the consistency of the visuals, and the interactivity keep people coming back to it as one of the best looking games of the time. And i usually don't point out the fact that older games are technologically outdated unless someone directly claims that visuals haven't evolved from that point.
You weren't kidding about this being the biggest episode yet.
Fantastic job, as always.
I didn't know about the arcade version. Looks pretty slick. Looks like one of the game modes was the basis for Garry's Mod, and the Deathmatch mode resembles a cross between CS and TF2 lol
Still it's a crime he didn't mention mmod but mentioned cinematic mod LOL, I know it was around back then when this came out.. cuz it was around the last time I played Half-Life 2 which is in 2007 The day The Orange box came out and auto updated my game and killed on my mods and broke my heart.. LOL so, just saying.
To every one complaining about no HL3
A life can only have two halves (1/2 + 1/2).
I've never thought of it like that
*mind blown*
Fuck....... THAT MAKES SO MUCH DAMN SENSE.
woah you just dropped some serious knowledge!
Actually there could be a HL3
The name Half Life can means 2 things
1.The half of a life
2.A term used in nuclear physics that describes the amount of time that a particle or an unstable atom needs to reduce their radioactivity or in other words for how long this atoms can survive the radioactive decay and this term can be used as an exponent so there can be a Half Life1,Half Life 2,Half Life 3, Half Life4,5,6,7,8,9,.........
And an interesting fact about Half Life (videogame) is that the name of Half Life was chosed because the game HL1 have a lot of science related things (this is the briefly explanation)
PD: Also the logo of HL is Lambda because the equation of Half Life(nuclear physics) contains a Lambda
I remember being really surprised that Half-Life 2 could even run on the Xbox. Games like Half-Life 2, Doom 3 and The Chronicles of Riddick really showed how much more powerful the original Xbox was than other consoles of the time.
"Valve was silent on the matter"
some things never change
amazes me how this game still looks so good. it has aged very well. that physics engine is still so impressive! i still love playing it today!
And there's still nothing like it out there.
Best physics of any game till this day
Half-Life 2 has aged incredibly given it's coming up on 20 years old. Just look at something like DOOM 3 which released only months prior and you can see just how much better HL2 looks compared to other games of the time.
These DF Retro videos are awesome and probably my favorite thing to come out of this channel
Yo John, it would incredible to see a DF Retro on the F-Zero series. I think all three console games have something to talk about: the original has its faked 3D with Mode 7, X made huge sacrifices to reach a locked 60 and GX is just a technical masterpiece in every shape way and form. Love the series, by the way! I always get excited when I see a new DF video in my subscriptions.
When I played HL2 for the first time, it blew my mind. It was 2011 I think, and it looked better than any other game I've played up to that point.
I played HL2 on my grandmas PC and thought it was the future, it was amazing
10 years later, no sequel
Don't worry, it will happen :P
You have insider info? WHEN?!
_it won't happen_
Fix'd
It's not ten years, we had Episode 1 and 2
+mango40000. episode 2 was released in 2007 so soon 10 years
man, half life 2 on the original Xbox, what an achievement
DF retro is literally one of the best things on YT today if not the very best, all the vids in DF retro so far is pure GOLD and far exceed what i want, the guy who do these vids, the guy talking at i don't know his name but man ur the best, U ROCK 10/10
amazing job, special bonus points for the 9700PRO!
Anyone here just cause of the new Half life: Alyx VR announcement
3 half life videos.What could that mean?
No more half life 3.
HL3 cancelled
wait
give me link !
it means that gabe newell is eating himself to a heart attack and will die before he gets the initiative to make half life 3.
Frank ocean drops his new album?
Game still holds up so well today, went through it a couple of years ago and it's still better than most shooters now
I have a mild obsession with the original Half Life 2. It's been on and off, but I play it almost every day.
It just feels right in every aspect: movement, physics, visuals, loading times, the UI, everything. Sadly, not all modern systems run it the way it's supposed to.
4:59 just imagine... well you don't need to anymore.
could you do retro vid on original Deus Ex and the PS2 port tnx.
Bring Half-Life 3 to life please.
He did.
I appreciate the way you approach these videos man.
This series is awesome, loving it.
13:03 John Freeman said “Zombie goasts leave this place” and the zombie goasts said “but this is our house” and John Freeman felt sorry for them becaus they couldnt live there anymore because they were zombie goasts so he blew up the house and killed the zombie goasts so they were at piece.
Honestly, Half-Life 2 is a great game and I appreciate what it did for the gaming market. But I still think the original Half-Life is better *awaits incoming hate comments*.
*Anticlimactically responds "I respect your opinion"*
I get where you're coming from(I mean, there wouldn't be a HL2 if HL1 wasn't such a masterpiece), but i think they don't differ that much in terms of quality.
+Immense Data I really like HL2, but it has flaws. Lots of pace-breakers (waiting for NPC's to finish their speech, while you fuck around with the environment before the game let's you advance), wimpy weapons compared to HL1, confusing story (mainly in the beginning), not to mention the fact that somehow Gordon Freeman was regarded as the second Jesus Christ, even though nobody knew about what he did in the first game.
HL1 was better paced, felt better to play and was much more believable as a story than HL2, despite the aged presentation (discounting Black Mesa). Again, I like both games, but HL1 is just more fun for me to play than HL2.
Marius Urucu HL1 definitely had better gunplay. HL2 probably has one of the worst pistols I've ever seen in a game.
+ZG It was a metaphor. But, thanks for clearing that up for me. Wish I'd knew this earlier.
I remember finishing HL2 and its episodes on the Xbox 360. I can only treasure these moments.
Playing on present hardware at 1080p60+fps kind of makes the game feel simply 'old', but there's something about playing on older hardware like the Xbox 360, with the lower settings and frame rate. Made me feel like I was playing a game way ahead of its time.
Also do one for Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It was the HL2/DOOM 3 of its day!
That game was amazing!
@@mrpetebojangles21 It's still thoroughly enjoyable!
Comparing doom 3 and rtcw to half life 2 is an insult to half life 2
@@Helperbot-2000 Not really? While I do believe DOOM 3 is inferior here, it is still a very good game and TOP TIER tech-wise.
RTCW was also top tier for 2001 and it had an amazing MP too. While I would slightly lean for HL2 there still ,its close.
@@CharcharoExplorer gotta say first im impressed you replied within minutes as you commented 5 years ago.
Doom 3 definitely had quite good tech, but especially as a followup to the legendary doom and doom 2 it isnt exactly the best.
Rtcw is probably missing alot of the praise it deserves, but i also wouldnt call it too close to the impact, ground breaking or bar raising of half life 2
Replayed HL2 recently with the HL2: Update mod and the 4x AI upscaled textures.
The game looks so god damn good, but especially since the boat section onward.
Half Life 2 is the greatest game ever made. It achieved everything.
The nostalgia feels are strong with this video. I remember watching the e3 demo burned on a CD with my friends as we crowded around my big ass CRT monitor. Those were the days...
nice to see a touch on HL2: Update, I feel its the best mod if you want that '100% vanilla' look to the game. the improvements to light and shadow are really great
5:00 the funny part is that we finally do have early dev builds of this game
Half Life 2 Update with MMod is the best way to play it in 2019.
It's a super cool mod, though for me, it breaks the game's gentle look a little.
@@greatmeatball2978 Yeah the bloom gets obnoxious and I don't like some of the weapon animations and how they shoot
Never tried the MMod (that modifies the gameplay a bit), but I'd say HL2: Update + the A.I. upscale texture mod is the way to play HL2 today
Man this channel is criminally underrated!!!! Great videos mate!
Doooctorr Freeemaaaann... Tiiiime to get uuuup... you'll missss the schooolbusss...
"Imagine if we had early development builds of something like Duke Nukem Forever"
Flash forward to modern day.
22:51 *these games were never made with VR in mind..*
Half-Life Alyx: Hold my beer
Dude DF Retro is ABSOLUTELY AWSOME!!!!!
These retro videos are a genius idea! And endless possibilities: Tie Fighter, Evolution of GTA, MGS 1 Retro or the rise and fall of 3dfx Voodoo Extreme
And no fake *Trenchcoat* ;-)
"I mean, just imagine if we had early development builds of something like Duke Nukem Forever"
6 years later, now we do :D
Cool. Btw I'm still waiting for a Riddick (2004) video.
Same
I played this on two different systems back then. My main had a P4 1.6Ghz, 768MB with a Ti4400 128mb and the other was an Athlon 1.2Ghz 512MB with a MX 440 64MB and both systems played this absolutely fine on DX8.1; which is a testament to the scalability of the engine.
I remember playing HL2 on the original Xbox. In hindsight, it strikes me as an oddity of a port.
All that port added was echo and more loading.
Yeah, me too. I also thought it had a PS2 port.
Xbox Original (2001) half-life 2 runs at 30 frames per second. Ps2 (2000) half-life 2 runs at 0 frames per second.
+Yoidze that's kind of accurate, but still i'm sure the ps2 could at least run the game at 10 fps average
Half-Life 1 had a PS2 port, not Half-Life 2.
Great work, John. Love the in-depth analysis.
So... STALKER on DF Retro?
PC Gaming Classic, extreme number of mods, no ports though. So a shorter episode on technology (and A-Life) + how a port can be made and some mods and what they do. Would watch it.
Great video, I always wanted to see footages from 2004 graphics , I knew that are a lot of things different but I was only 12 years old I can remember all the details that just one video like this can provide.
Thank you very much for this amazing content.
Holy crap the *ORIGINAL XBOX!?*
Doom 3 aswell.
I did enjoy this episode, cheers dude :)
half-life 2 is the best example of how a game ages well
not so much for cs go
nope
bioshock is the by far the best example of how a game ages well
bioshock on PC is a horrible experience. the game is great, but controls, UI and playability are crap
Cs 1.6 aged better in terms of gameplay
agree. That and Crysis 1.
How about Pacman, pong, tetris, or super mario bros? Those games are all over 30 years old and are still great today.
Here we are! A Half-Life 2 retro episode! Just in time for HL3 release! That's really really neat video, look into the different builds of Source, how it all changed. Dynamic shadows in 2007 were really rare, and apparently they still happen to be quite rare
far cry or crysis would be awesome or maybe a GTA game
Crysis... The game that Bring PC Gaming to his Knees!!
farcry 1 is the most beautiful game ever created
Glad you realized that the current version available on steam and the original 2004 release are way different technologically.
That Half-life 2 Update mod basically fixes all the stuff Valve broke when they half-ass ported HL2 to the orange box version of Source several years after the updated console versions came out.
5:00 yes, imagine… 😎
What a time for gaming it was. In about three weeks in November 2004 we got Halo 2, Half Life 2, World of Warcraft and Metal Gear Solid 3.
I remember playing Half Life 2 on this beast:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
1GB RAM
Pentium 3 1GHz
NVIDIA Geforce 2 64 MB
512 MB RAM
and it run... they very well knew that a lot of people would still have outdated hardware so they optimized it for low-end PCs
Damn, I had the same rig hahaha
Pentium 4 2.8 GHz
ATI 9800 Pro 128MB
1 GB RAM
P4 2.8Ghz
ATI 9550 256Mb
1.5Gb RAM
I poured every last cent from the money I saved for this PC. To this day never regretted it!
Michael Bennett we're not worthy
Playing through half life 2 update here in 2018 and am astounded at how well it holds up even today 14 years later. Visuals, audio, enemy AI, atmosphere, story, physics... The physics! Such an incredible game.
Maybe Doom 3 for DFRetro?
putting together a contemporary PC build to review a game is the perfect way to give hl2 credit it deserves.
I remember playing the game waiting for the cool blue tentacle to appear. Spoilers... It doesn't. I was such a huge fan of the original and really didn't like HL2 on release, like at all. Since then though I've really grown to love it. It's just a shame that episode 2 ends on a cliff hanger and wasn't never followed up.
9:56
One of the most impressive ports i ever saw. Along with Resident Evil 2 for n64, i think its one of the most incredible miracles on console gaming history.
I remember when Valve made games. Those were good days.
Played the Orange Box collection on XB 360. One of the best game combo disks of all time.
I like Half Life 2 Deathmatch a shame that didn't get mentioned...
The first time I played HL2 was on a friends PC. We could never afford a PC like that at my house. The game looked incredible, but I wasn't able to actually complete the game until it came to Xbox. I've still only played the Xbox and PS3 version of HL2. I still love the game though.
I love the retro videos! I hope this series continues for a long time. Also, keep doing those traders at the end. I've gotten goosebumps 2 episodes in a row!
I guess Half Life 3 will feature physics that destroys PhysX, hair that rekts both TressFX and Hairworks, and graphics that are 50x better than Uncharted 4. But sadly game development isnt dedicated enough to do that, unless Lord Gabe is making this happen and thats why we're still waiting.
You are the reason why valve wouldnt want to realease hl3 because its too much hyped. Expectations for hl3 its too high.
TheLen Well not me specifically, as i very rarely express my hype for it, need to play the first 2 games first. But yes, the hype is so much its 89% going to not live up to the hype. Im just sad valve is now too busy sinking in money made from CSGO, Dota, and TF2 items rather than develop a new half life game. Personally i just want to see a new half life game with great graphics.
ARL Well I just want to see the ending of half life story... There was podcast, dont know how it`s called, but valve said they will only work on the game if valve workers want to work on it, now all valve workers want to work on vr. And they said that they know that people really want to see new half life, portal, left for dead (of course gabe said it with hints)
TheLen I'd just want Valve to do some game developing again, instead of creating skins and updates for CSGO, dota, and TF2. I just want them to do more singleplayer games like Half Life, Portal, and Left 4 dead again. And even then their current multiplayer games all came from mods from other games lol.
ARL Like 90% of valve community wants that
The music and soundscapes, so awesome.
Do one for the Painkiller Xbox port! The port was really acceptable!
I'd love to see a multiplatform title from the GC/PS2/XB days. Maybe a PoP title or BG&E. Or Resident Evil 4 since it has multiple versions. Even Portal 2 to compare the new version of the PS3 source engine. Tony Hawk on N64/PS1/DC would be cool too! Love this series!
I'll never understand why some people prefer to play with motion blur, DoF or chromatic abomination in any game.
"Chromatic Abomination" LMAO .....The only effect I like is DOF
It is funny when people buy expensive monitors with low latency and then activate motion blur in game. My shitty LCD monitor does motion blur without taxing my GPU ;)
i like how blur is handled in the frostbyte engine for the battlefield games. it is just barely there and able to be tweaked to your preference. i usually don't like how overdone the blur is on most games, but those games are where i turn that feature on.
I dont get the point of DoF at all. It looks compleetly unrealistic unless your character is supposed to be near-sighted.
GreyGuardian I still think it looks unrealistic since the focus is where you are aiming at but not where you are actually looking at, so if you are not directly looking at the focused point, it doesn't look realistic anymore.
I just want my screen to be sharp and clean.
I miss this game. I'm going to go play it now.
My heart skip a beat when I heard about Goldeneye, I dying to hear more news about canceled XBLA version.
The VR version actually shows some smart decisions about seated VR shooter experience, like fine aim adjustments moving the crosshair itself vs. moving the mouse to rotate the view, HUD placement (feels like you're in a helmet with HUD, wow!), etc.
Motion sickness takes about an hour to get over with if you're sitting right and keep your head steady. Looking around is still done with the mouse.
I want a video that shows all Valve's games' framerate. How does TF2 or Portal or Portal 2 ran on PS3?
Second this, PC often gets ports from consoles but it'd be interesting to see how consoles perform on PC ports
That would be console port then or port from PC. Why can't people use that term properly?
+Z1RO You guys knew what I meant haha, ported from pc
TF2 and Portal on PS3 were playable, but like with HL2, there were many frame drops (especially in Portal if I remember right). In addition, there were many audio problems in the PS3 ports (i.e. sound crackling).
Portal 2 however, is a slightly different story. From my experience, it had a steady 30fps on both console ports, as both of them were done in-house this time instead of just one. Honestly I think these ports were even better than the Orange Box ports because I haven't noticed any drops or unresponsiveness in both ports at all, but I'm only working off of my memory here, don't take my word for it.
expcake Yeah, Portal 2 on PS3 is pretty smooth.
Man that was a really great video. THANKS!
Damn i dont have a PC but this game looks amazing, is it worth playing on Xbox 360?
Yes, and you can play it on pretty much ANY modern PC since even integrated graphics are fast enough for it, provided you don't push 4xMSAA or other shit :D
Cossack-HD thanks but i only got an old laptop with no hdmi port, i'd only play it on a desktop if i had one.
It's decent on 360. I wouldn't suggest spending more than $10 on The Orange Box though.
I played it a few years ago on 360 but never finished it. I'm sure it was amazing for its time but i found it nothing special years later
Another Gills thanks 4 the advice
Half-Life 2 is still my favourite game of all time, the design of the game was amazing and the graphics still hold up pretty well considering its age!
Graphics still look better than my ps4!! PUNCH ME😨
What do you play for games?You have to play U4. xD
With pleasure
+Jamie Robert 😅😅
+Premio lool😁
We still haven't got a major kick in the balls graphics like we did from 2004 Doom 3 and Half Life 2 and 2007's Crysis. There have been amazing games don't misunderstand me but see the change in graphics has not been significant like you see Half Life 1 vs 2. It's getting really hard to do this because we have so many amazing game engines like cryengine 3, frostbite 3, RED engine, UE4, and so many more.
I love this kind of videos, excellent work DigitalFoundry
So HL2 is retro now?
I've played them all several times over and HL2: Update is my personal favorite. It felt more like a restoration than a mod. I really liked how the commentary was done too and wish more games had that option.
People are way too mean to Fakefactory, who gives a damn if the installer has *100% optional* sexual content, just don't install it, if you don't like the graffiti you can mod that out too, if the character models look out of place, find another mod for the character models, in any other modding community FakeFactory's work would be both appreciated and worked around for the things they didn't like about it, he spent years of his life making a fantastic mod for a fantastic game, all for free, and people shat on him for the pettiest of reasons.
People are allowed to criticise the included content, even if it's optional.
The graffiti especially, is the kind of thing that really should have an option to easily remove, rather than requiring the player to do it themselves.
I do think that the community was too harsh, yeah, but still, the pornographic models are an entirely valid thing to complain about.
Yeah, it just goes to show how grand that mod is. There are some really shitty mods out there and no one is talking about those. Yet people are criticizing Cinematic Mod like it's some AAA game or something. It really deserves all the attention it's getting.
HL2 is the game I modded the most. So much fun and endless possibilities. I even made some mods myself using the free tools provided by Valve.
Awesome video as always, DF.
4:58
:)
amazing video!!!! great job as usual!!
Amazing game, it's a shame Valve doesn't care about single player experiences anymore. Ugh.
Feel any better now?
@@fallenmango8420 *single player, not-VR experiences
@@arootube what's wrong with vr
@@fallenmango8420 nothing, he's probably one of those crybabies who complain that the game is vr only
These retro videos are TREMENDOUS!
Love Half Life 2, but Half Life 1 was a better game.
i loved half life 1, i merely liked half life 2.
GraveUypo "merely"
yes, merely in the sense it gets 75~80% score in my opinion, while the first one i loved enough for 90%+
Guilty Bystander Half life 1 was amazing, Half Life 2 bred GMod, which is fucking fantastic.
Great vids, I know its old - but I always appreciate your style!
the cinematic mod is the trashiest mod ive ever seen i hope its a parody, its every thing that makes me hate a mod all in one place. overblown lighting that fucks with the color composition, badly anatotmied character models with faces like a deep sea creature, horrendous blur effects stacked on top of yet more blur effects on top of yet more blur effects, questionable texture replacements that change the materials rather than making them just look nicer, amateur implementation of new graphics features done so sloppily it looks better without them. I can only hope it was made as a joke and people download it to laugh. which would make sense, for PC gamers "cinematic" is used a pejorative for games so enamored with being like a movie they forget what it means to be a good game.
pretty sure it's a parody thing. like what if hl2 was done by michael bay or something. no one would ever think that looks better.
@gameguy301
Well said, couldn‘t agree more 👍
gameguy301 You have never heard Hunt Down the Freeman.
@@malizbabelz2310 This comment was made 2 years ago..
FULLY MODELED
MMOD is fantastic if you want a fresh feel that still stays mostly faithful. It's also highly customizable, so any changes you're not a fan of can simply be toggled off.
Wasn't HL2 a DX8.1 game though?
Hey, I've noticed so many users have an alphabet with a different colored background as their avatar. Is it a feature RUclips offers or...?
I thought it was Direct 3D.
It was DX9, I remember buying a 9800 Pro 128MB card just for HL2 (and also Far Cry, which I bought first, and was astonished to see that it could not run on my 7500. I mean, it WOULD start up, but the water was a psychedelic mess of colours and lines.
Half Life never really worked good in DX 8.1 mode. The real problem was that nVidia GeForce FX 5xxx series were DX9 cards, but couldnt work with HL2 in DX9, but I see that you dont remember it, youre just a nVidiot.
*****
I was stating a well known facts, its not a secret.
forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=104265
forums.anandtech.com/threads/whats-the-issue-fix-with-geforce-fx-and-dx9.1175743/
I very much forgot how amazing the atmosphere, physics and gameplay mechanics are in this game. And the sound design is some of the best I’ve ever heard.
Nothing has come close to what half life 2 is.
Valve won’t release half life 3 until it’s a perfect immersive VR experience.
Or DOTA 2
It's a shame if Half-Life 3 will be a VR victim. If it ever releases.