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I had never played half life until is became free recently for the 25th anniversary. I instantly noticed how Halo has been influenced by Half life. The focus on a good story. The alien against humans with a zombie twist. The environmental story telling. The combat and map design. The amazing sound design. The silent protagonist. I could go on and on. They are still different in many ways but I can totally see the influence Valve had on Bungie.
Pretty much, 1990 to 2010 was the golden age of gaming. Every year in that timespan had an amazing lineup of games that still hold up fantastic today. I think 2005 was the year 3D gaming peaked and set the rules for how good games should be made. Resident Evil 4, FEAR, Star Wars Battlefront 2, GTA San Andreas, Pokémon Emerald and Nintendogs, and Lego Star Wars all came out to critical acclaim in 2005 and it’s hard to even find modern games that can top them in quality.
@@c3d_ultra499 Games like _Portal 2_ and _Dark Souls_ did came out in 2011 and they had the same principles as the games in the timeframe you lay down, so I guess you can say that they were one of the games that marked the end of that era.
10:28 that locker is a reference to Mark Laidlaw, a science fiction writer who worked for Valve and wrote the story for HL and HL2. Some of Laidlaw's books can be found scattered around in game, including inside Gordon's locker. Most of the names on the lockers are references to Valve staff at the time too.
@@zaneheaston8254 He would go on to reverse Valve's "no pornographic games on steam" policy a few years ago after more than a decade of internal campaigning (single handedly... literally and figuratively).
@@zaneheaston8254 Reference to Greg Coomer, who works at Valve in Product Design and Communications, and helped name the company. I first saw his name in the ending credits of _Portal_ and I had to pause for a bit when I did (lol).
@kel_ski VALVE is so based when making tf2 they made taunts specifically to make people angry, and an achievement for making someone rage quit with a paper tissue as the image on the achievement.
8:54 in all Bungie Halo games, if you kill 2 Marines, then all friendly A.I will turn Olin you for the rest of the level. The only way you can reset them is either by restarting or hiding for a little while and wait for a marine to say something like “Ok, I’ll give you one more chance man”
17:26 There is actually a story reason for this! When the Black Mesa incident opens the portal to Xen, the Nihilanth (final boss) keeps it open and has some control where enemies spawn. As the game progresses and Gordon becomes more of a threat, the Nihilanth begins screwing specifically with you.
The atmosphere of this game is something you won't experience that often in newer games. It's really something spectacular. Also I noticed you used my meme there at 2:47 lol. Nice video
The beauty of half-life is that it feels like the game is happening AROUND your character instead of just in front of your character. It does make it easy to miss certain details but in that regard gives it more replayability because there is always something new to see that you didn't notice before.
@mysnakeissolid687 Yea and quake wouldnt be a thing without doom engine, does that mean doom is better than quake? dont make no sense. Unreal and Quake both dead and Half-life still lives so i guess half-life is the real "killer". Keep living in nostalgia boomer.
@mysnakeissolid687 actually I'm playing half-life alyx, and it has awesome mods but you probably never heard of it because you are boomer still living in the past xD take off nostalgia glasses bro, you are being cringe now by pretending to be stupid.
Thank you soo much for this Kelski! Was wondering if you've ever got into bhops or surf, hec, even other mini games made on goldsrc and whatnot that you may have found interesting.... Bhops has always been a major part of hl and cs as a whole for me, I'd argue that of my 4k playtime, almost half of that would be pure bhop maps; also surf maps, and other wonders of the workshop, such as party maps as an exemple... these really are "games inside of games" with different niche communities... Just felt like sharing that; I appreciate your content Kel!
17:19 This section is made 3x funnier if you watched the Dario Casali dev playthrough of Half Life, because he put most of those jumpscares in and then died to plenty of his own surprises during every chapter
17:30 Back in the day it was known as Casali Special (Not really). Basically Dario Casali was a notable Doom map maker who created the original Hard as Nails Doom Level Pack known as The Plutonia Experiment. That caught Valve's attention and they hired him to be one of the level designers for Half Life. Dario loves to make his maps to have some kind of "gotcha" in it, be it a valuable pickup that spawns 20 Revenants as you pick it up or a switch you needs to flip to progress that opens up monster closets that have 30 Revenants in them. The hard to get on and anxiety inducing cliffside ladders and that one headcrab in there are all thanks to him.
@@vibaj16 I do. Half-Life 1 with a VR mod is honestly better. Really. Alyx is painfully slow and lame. Movement is like 20% of a normal FPS, and combat is ridiculously easy, with only a handful of enemies in combat at any time. Alyx was aimed at VR noobs, and its gameplay suffers from it very badly.
@@ips2124 Yeah, glad Half-Life is finally back, and I can't wait for the next one we know they're working on right now. Hey, this is the day and age where Metroid finally got their long awaited sequel for a continuation of the series after 19 years of waiting.
I grew up on every single valve title EXCEPT for Half Life 1 and 2. They sat in my steam library quietly waiting for me to become an adult. After growing up im happy to be playing these games now as a young adult because I have the patience to stop, think, and appreciate how fucking realistic these games were for the time and how fun both of them are. I’m 21 and have played video games my whole life but these feel like a breath of fresh air. It’s bonkers to me that half life 2 is 20 YEARS OLD.
I think before you try out half life 2, you should check out the expansions, Opposing Force and Blue Shift, they're really good and it's basically an extension of Half life
It's so wild to me seeing live reactions from someone who is completely unfamiliar with A) Moments from the game that are so infamous they are memes between Valve fans and even the general public and B) Game mechanics and events that seem like basic logic to me because I've played these games for a decade, it's like seeing something familiar through a different lens, also I like that you used Azubanga music in the video great work
The fact he said there might be peope who still havent played means theres a new generation of people who have never heard of Half Life. That makes me feel old and uncomfortable. When the game came out there wasn't a person who never heard of it and who has never played it. We have come full circle where my childhood is already coming back in nostalgia videos. Im only 36.....
A lot of the life in half life comes from the immersive sim elements, like Thief and system shock. You can interact with everything and expect a reaction. Really cool to see this blend, though it was toned way down in half life 2.
I dunno how you would say that, considering that HL2 introduced so much in the way of physics puzzles. The Gravity Gun alone opened up all new ways of interaction that they could only dream of in HL1. One of the best HL2 mods is Research and Development, which takes those gameplay elements and focuses exclusively on them.
For some inexplicable reason, I consistently find myself eagerly anticipating the release of any new video pertaining to the Half-Life series on RUclips, even though I possess an encyclopedic knowledge of every intricate facet of the game's lore. I'm undeniably captivated by this gaming masterpiece. It wouldn't be an overstatement to assert that I've likely viewed every single video dedicated to Half-Life. Gosh, I wanna be Gorden Freeman and kill a giant floating baby and single-handedly beat a whole galactic army!
I'm the opposite though.. Since I can read the Wikis (Combine Overwiki and fandom *combined*) i really not interested in watching videos about them...except for a few.
@@kel_ski Well it's never been confirmed or denied so I like to think that it's actual lore. There is one different security guard in the expansion packs, a fat bald guy named Otis who oddly enough is also voiced by the same VA who plays Barney. Coincidence? I think not!
@@AquaAyaya Actually, it's teleportation in the same dimension the one humans achieved. The combine are the ones which were able to move between dimensions. I think this was part of HL2, it's been a while... How I miss those times :(
1995 to 2005 were best years for FPS. Also Half Life 2 with both episodes adds emotional note to the whole thing. I think it cannot get any better then this.
I played Half-Life for the first time when it released back in 1998, and it blew my little 13 year old mind how amazingly interactive it was. It was just so perfect in so many ways. And this was on a Pentium 166 with 32MB RAM and no 3D acceleration. It was... 'playable'. I didn't care, it was amazing. Fast forward to the announcement of HL2 a few years later. I must have watched the E3 video a hundred times. Valve took HL and just made everything soooo much better! I ended up saving up and building a Pentium 4 system, with fancy a NVIDIA card and half a gig of RAM, just so I could play it. It. Was. Stunning. HL, HL2 and the episodes are seriously some of the best games I have ever played. However... I finished HL2 Episode 2, and waited... and waited... and I'm still waiting. Sure, HL:A came out... 3 years ago, but I'm older now and priorities change. I can't afford a shiny new gaming PC and a VR headset to play it. Heck, I'm still rocking a gaming laptop from 2013! So, I just play HL and HL2 and its episodes repeatedly. Seriously! I don't want to play other games, for the exact points you made in this video. I want to be the protagonist, not play in some shallow, slightly interactive movie.
I'm not as old as you but I agree and I really wish more games were made in the Valve style where your location and the events around you speak for themselves to what's going on in the story. Never really enjoyed the movie style story games much but the Half Life games strikes a weird balance between linearity and open world freedom with how you interact with the environment.
Same. Word for word. Except I got a 12 year old who grew up on Halo and had him sit down to play Half Life. He was sooooo confused by the tram ride like what the fuck is this? 30 mins later... why don't they make this, it's the greatest game in my LIFE.... lol
Surprisingly, (almost?) all of Kelski's questions have lore explanations, like the H.E.V. suit training and functions nodding to the fact that it was developed for Xen exploration; and aliens teleporting behind you being them flaunting their weaponized advanced teleportation tech.
Ill be honest i never ever had this much fun ever before, i had the most fun i could ever experience by watching his whole halflife play through and this video, i really hope he streams half life 2, and the episoides, he is already my fav youtuber
I'm in a deep Half-Life rabbithole right now (last time that happened was 7 years ago) and this is by far the most entertaining video I stumbled upon, thanks a lot and nice to see that this game still rocks without nostalgia.
Fun detail on the game. Before ypu luanch the anti portal rocket, the aliens teleport in random places like ocean waves of spam. After the rocket, the teleports become far more strategic, more flank like and are designed to trap you, showing off the final bosses controll over his armies' teleportation.
Another absolute banger, I played Black Mesa years back before they finished working on Zen and I really liked the updated stuff to some of the levels and the closer HL2 combat. Keep up the great work Kelski Freeman.
Each to their own, but I think the faster paced combat suits HL1 better than the one in Black Mesa. I appreciate BM team for their efforts and they made a good remake, I remember what a let down HL:Source was and BM team set out to rectify that.
What I _really_ like about Half-Life (hey, check my handle XD) is that you start out as this nobody from the science team - and as you progress through the story, the narrative _starts to notice you more and more_ until, at the late stage, you've _earned your Protagonist badge_ and _now_ the world, the NPCs, the enemies, _wait on you._ You start out by being thrown into the thick of it, disorientated and confused... and by the end, you're the one _leading the charge._ In fact, this is played off of in Half-Life 2, where your arrival is all hush-hush, and the enemies start hauling ass _the moment they know you're involved._ :D
I remember being terrified of the water sections as a kid. Would always chuck EVERY FUCKING explosive i had into the water hoping to kill whatever was in there. Good times
seeing people play HL for the first time is always so much fun, it puts into perspective just how good valve has always been, also you didn't even mention the bhoping that is so widely known, once you start zooming it's hard to stop in HL/2
I always wondered whether my high regard for Half-Life is purely based on nostalgia and nothing else (since I basically grew up with it) but I'm glad to find out that newcomers still enjoy it a lot :)
I studied software design in college, and everything about the Half-Life games, both in the game itself and in the dev commentary, is a master class in level design. I've taken to watching streamers do blind runs just to see Valve's genius unfold upon them. It is very much not nostalgia: outside of a couple small missteps, the series is just GOOD.
Funny thing is, back in the dev videos available (on CD xD) back in 1999, the devs mentioned how it's like "an interactive movie". In fact, it was one of the selling points back then. You have to remember that the era was dominated with games where the enemies reacted _to you_ - you came, they started shooting, stuff like that. Half-Life puts you _in the middle of things_ - you come in, and crap is either going down _right now_ or you _just missed the party._ :D That bit alone makes it feel like the world is alive around you, and _does not wait for you_ to happen.
Half Life is like playing through the best hollywood blockbuster movie you could ever imagine. Get a good set of 5.1 speakers, an EAX or A3D sound card, and play the original pre-steam versions of Half Life, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift. I was there and it still blows my mind that we had this level of immersion available to us 25 years ago. Imagine what we would have today if game companies would have iterated and improved instead of churning out the same Call of Duty game every year or going to straight up gambling / pay to win schemes.
The Half-Life license will always be my favorite. I still remember watching my father play it when I was young, and the amount of nightmares I got because of the Nihilanth (otherwise known as the trauma inducing fœtus).
I love when people truly appreciate how good half lifes gameplay is, most people tend to brush it off and say its just fine when really its by far one of the best gameplay loops ever, learning the combat and how things act just to get better at it makes you feel like your really trying to survive and come out on top.
ok so about dr coomer here's what he studies A chair is a piece of furniture with a raised surface used to sit on, commonly for use by one person. Chairs are most often supported by four legs and have a back;[1][2] however, a chair can have three legs or could have a different shape.[3] A chair without a back or arm rests is a stool,[4] or when raised up, a bar stool.[5] A chair with arms is an armchair[6] and with folding action and inclining footrest, a recliner.[7] A permanently fixed chair in a train or theater is a seat[8] or, in an airplane, airline seat;[9] when riding, it is a saddle[10] and bicycle saddle,[11] and for an automobile, a car seat[12] or infant car seat.[13] With wheels it is a wheelchair[14] and when hung from above, a swing.[15] A chair for more than one person is a couch, sofa, settee, or "loveseat";[16] or a bench.[17] A separate footrest for a chair is known as an ottoman,[18] hassock[19] or pouffe.[20] The chair is known for its antiquity and simplicity, although for many centuries it was an article of state and dignity rather than an article of ordinary use. "The chair" is still extensively used as the emblem of authority in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom[21] and Canada,[22] and in many other settings.
I played it again for the 25 year anniversary to see how it holds up. I originally played it as a teenager in 1998 when it released and naturally it blew me away. Playing it again in 2023 i was basically shocked at how corny and old it feels now. Really makes me feel my age.
great video! just a suggestion, i heavily recommend playing both the opposing force and blue shift expansions first before half-life 2. theyre about $5 each on steam and are well worth playing as much as the original.
The monster spawning behind you or in convenient places actually have a lore explanation LORE: after you fire the rocket that goes to space the big baby boss knows your up to something and ramps up his efforts to stop you by strategically placing aliens to kill you
It's great to see people rediscover the classics I grew up with and seeing how great those times were and not just taking them for granted anymore I therefore recommend you to review maybe battlefront 2 from 2005 or also the kotor games as some of my absolute favorites from then
i think the hardest thing with modernising a game like this, is the cognitive distance of a game changes with the graphics, its one thing for a low-poly barney to walk straight into a tripwire, you dont really break to much immersian from that, but when the game is updated to be polished to a sheen, seeing high-poly barney do the same thing is distinctively more noticable when you have more refined modern graphics, and so you either leave that type of amusing behavoir in the barneys or try also changing that to behavoir to be more realistic aswell, sacraficing your sound game mechanics for graphics
In a way it's like reading a book or watching a movie. Old games get the idea across to you and the brain does the rest. Modern games try to do it all for you, from gameplay to thinking about the world.
12:31 had me wheezing for countless minutes. I also laughed seeing his name while playing it and I’m glad it wasn’t just me who found the name “Coomer” hilarious 😭
just because you're now a half life fan and planning to stream HL2 , you've earned yourself a new subscriber and im looking forward on watching more of your content
When I was a kid I went to a game shop and selected half life and splinter cell off the shelf and went to the guy at the register and asked him. "Which game should I buy?" and he pointed to half life. Thanks random game shop worker.
Your playthrough is genuinely one of the most entertaining I've seen! It's so great to see how well HL holds up over the years and how people are still enjoying it. Funny how in some ways games have regressed, are not nearly as interactive, ripping control away from the player for cutscenes, and my most hated is annoyingly obvious direction markers. Devs being too scared to let the player figure things out for themselves, so use giant "GO HERE NEXT" indicators that make games feel like a chores list instead of something you're learning for yourself
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Day 4 of asking kelski to play pavlov
Try half life black mesa the remake.
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference
dont play this game its one of the least begginer friendly games ever
@@Fracix_ War Thunder
Now imagine what full life would be like when it comes out!
i can’t wait for the prequel, quarter life
Full life:forseen consequences
john freeman saver of humens
@@kel_ski ah yes and the sequel, 3/4ths life
Could literally be one of the games of all time
I had never played half life until is became free recently for the 25th anniversary.
I instantly noticed how Halo has been influenced by Half life. The focus on a good story. The alien against humans with a zombie twist. The environmental story telling. The combat and map design. The amazing sound design. The silent protagonist. I could go on and on. They are still different in many ways but I can totally see the influence Valve had on Bungie.
i got into valve the same way
Well Bungie did a lot of that with their Marathon trilogy which were released 1994-96 but half life did influence Halo somewhat
same
thats how i played it too, still havent finished. but im playing half life 2 now since it was free too
That how I got it to it too but would recommend buying all the half life's since there on sale
That moment when the game from 1998 is a breath of fresh air.
Pretty much, 1990 to 2010 was the golden age of gaming. Every year in that timespan had an amazing lineup of games that still hold up fantastic today. I think 2005 was the year 3D gaming peaked and set the rules for how good games should be made. Resident Evil 4, FEAR, Star Wars Battlefront 2, GTA San Andreas, Pokémon Emerald and Nintendogs, and Lego Star Wars all came out to critical acclaim in 2005 and it’s hard to even find modern games that can top them in quality.
resi 4 sucks @@c3d_ultra499
Make that 1995-2005.
The 7th console gen brought us all the modern AAA cancers + mobile shit.
They don't say old is gold for nothing.
@@c3d_ultra499 Games like _Portal 2_ and _Dark Souls_ did came out in 2011 and they had the same principles as the games in the timeframe you lay down, so I guess you can say that they were one of the games that marked the end of that era.
10:28 that locker is a reference to Mark Laidlaw, a science fiction writer who worked for Valve and wrote the story for HL and HL2. Some of Laidlaw's books can be found scattered around in game, including inside Gordon's locker. Most of the names on the lockers are references to Valve staff at the time too.
So who’s Dr. Coomer? ;)
@@zaneheaston8254 He would go on to reverse Valve's "no pornographic games on steam" policy a few years ago after more than a decade of internal campaigning (single handedly... literally and figuratively).
@@zaneheaston8254 Reference to Greg Coomer, who works at Valve in Product Design and Communications, and helped name the company. I first saw his name in the ending credits of _Portal_ and I had to pause for a bit when I did (lol).
It's all Valve devs
reference to the fanbase
I can’t believe real life based crowbars off of half-life
valve is just built different
half life invented crowbars
@kel_ski VALVE is so based when making tf2 they made taunts specifically to make people angry, and an achievement for making someone rage quit with a paper tissue as the image on the achievement.
Guys I just figured out half life didn’t actually invent the crowbar, it was some French dude in 1748. Everything is a lie
@@Abomb-Murph that is fake. Valve invented the crowbar to sell more copies of half life. Do not let the Matrix trick you
8:54 in all Bungie Halo games, if you kill 2 Marines, then all friendly A.I will turn Olin you for the rest of the level. The only way you can reset them is either by restarting or hiding for a little while and wait for a marine to say something like “Ok, I’ll give you one more chance man”
Been there done that.
Not much of a punishment. Speedrunners intentionally shoot marines to skip dialogue and shorten combat setpieces.
17:26 There is actually a story reason for this! When the Black Mesa incident opens the portal to Xen, the Nihilanth (final boss) keeps it open and has some control where enemies spawn. As the game progresses and Gordon becomes more of a threat, the Nihilanth begins screwing specifically with you.
"F### this man in particular" - random eldritch horror
oh god the nhilanth is in cahoots with the millitary
6:41
And happens in particular after you launch that Rocket in On a Rail to try and close the portal.
The atmosphere of this game is something you won't experience that often in newer games. It's really something spectacular.
Also I noticed you used my meme there at 2:47 lol. Nice video
The beauty of half-life is that it feels like the game is happening AROUND your character instead of just in front of your character. It does make it easy to miss certain details but in that regard gives it more replayability because there is always something new to see that you didn't notice before.
@mysnakeissolid687 dude, unreal doesn't even beat quake, and half life is better than quake -_-
@mysnakeissolid687 Yea and quake wouldnt be a thing without doom engine, does that mean doom is better than quake? dont make no sense. Unreal and Quake both dead and Half-life still lives so i guess half-life is the real "killer". Keep living in nostalgia boomer.
@mysnakeissolid687 actually I'm playing half-life alyx, and it has awesome mods but you probably never heard of it because you are boomer still living in the past xD take off nostalgia glasses bro, you are being cringe now by pretending to be stupid.
@mysnakeissolid687 and probably too poor too afford it living in mommies basement.
@mysnakeissolid687 pretending not to know half-life alyx. So cringe bro xDD
Thank you soo much for this Kelski!
Was wondering if you've ever got into bhops or surf, hec, even other mini games made on goldsrc and whatnot that you may have found interesting....
Bhops has always been a major part of hl and cs as a whole for me, I'd argue that of my 4k playtime, almost half of that would be pure bhop maps; also surf maps, and other wonders of the workshop, such as party maps as an exemple... these really are "games inside of games" with different niche communities...
Just felt like sharing that; I appreciate your content Kel!
Me when my life is halved
When the my shift is blued
@@mr.banana2370 when the opposing is forced
@@anomalo.When my life is halved a second time.
@@StrokeSkull when the half is halved twice and 1 again
@@anomalo. when my life that was halved gets halved a second time and then got halved two more times
17:19 This section is made 3x funnier if you watched the Dario Casali dev playthrough of Half Life, because he put most of those jumpscares in and then died to plenty of his own surprises during every chapter
the solider knocking you out actually said “nice hit”
ooohhhhh… huh. the more you know
So, I guess it's not so big then :)))
bro did not just flash me with act man freeman at 5:07
Gordon ActMan
The act chad
Man what a video, 20 mins went by and it felt like a sweet evening seaside breeze
glad you enjoyed it takt 😁
Fr, dude just earned a sub
@@kel_ski I keep having the same question...
Who was the first person EVER to experience the retail version of half life?
17:30 Back in the day it was known as Casali Special (Not really).
Basically Dario Casali was a notable Doom map maker who created the original Hard as Nails Doom Level Pack known as The Plutonia Experiment. That caught Valve's attention and they hired him to be one of the level designers for Half Life.
Dario loves to make his maps to have some kind of "gotcha" in it, be it a valuable pickup that spawns 20 Revenants as you pick it up or a switch you needs to flip to progress that opens up monster closets that have 30 Revenants in them. The hard to get on and anxiety inducing cliffside ladders and that one headcrab in there are all thanks to him.
Half Life’s so amazing it almost makes you forget that the series has been waiting on a part 3 for 16 years… :(
at least we got half life alyx
i’m afraid of finishing and being left with a void 😭
@@kel_ski Do you have a VR headset? (so you can play Half-Life Alyx)
@@vibaj16 I do. Half-Life 1 with a VR mod is honestly better. Really. Alyx is painfully slow and lame. Movement is like 20% of a normal FPS, and combat is ridiculously easy, with only a handful of enemies in combat at any time. Alyx was aimed at VR noobs, and its gameplay suffers from it very badly.
@@ips2124 Yeah, glad Half-Life is finally back, and I can't wait for the next one we know they're working on right now.
Hey, this is the day and age where Metroid finally got their long awaited sequel for a continuation of the series after 19 years of waiting.
and people will still say stuff like "you only like it cuz of nostalgia" i swear it's the worst argument ever
I grew up on every single valve title EXCEPT for Half Life 1 and 2. They sat in my steam library quietly waiting for me to become an adult. After growing up im happy to be playing these games now as a young adult because I have the patience to stop, think, and appreciate how fucking realistic these games were for the time and how fun both of them are. I’m 21 and have played video games my whole life but these feel like a breath of fresh air. It’s bonkers to me that half life 2 is 20 YEARS OLD.
I think before you try out half life 2, you should check out the expansions, Opposing Force and Blue Shift, they're really good and it's basically an extension of Half life
And Decay if he has someone to play it with.
Totally agree. Great games.
if you get sven coop you can play decay on there with people :) @@pixelvahl
Not the Steam version tho.
yeah you should play all of them for sure
It's so wild to me seeing live reactions from someone who is completely unfamiliar with A) Moments from the game that are so infamous they are memes between Valve fans and even the general public and B) Game mechanics and events that seem like basic logic to me because I've played these games for a decade, it's like seeing something familiar through a different lens, also I like that you used Azubanga music in the video great work
sorry for the wait guys :') i had my first falling out with Premiere Pro, but we made up. hope you guys enjoy!!!
We will
No need to be sorry, the cook was fast and high quality :D
You should try opposing force
Fallout?
REMEMBER BEEREE? He is french..
The fact he said there might be peope who still havent played means theres a new generation of people who have never heard of Half Life. That makes me feel old and uncomfortable. When the game came out there wasn't a person who never heard of it and who has never played it. We have come full circle where my childhood is already coming back in nostalgia videos. Im only 36.....
Wait till you get to be 54 like me lol. Time speeds up from 35. Don't blink or you might miss your 40s 😂
@quantum6509 I'm already 37 now lol.
steam november sell made some of us to play this absolute masterpiece
A lot of the life in half life comes from the immersive sim elements, like Thief and system shock. You can interact with everything and expect a reaction. Really cool to see this blend, though it was toned way down in half life 2.
interactive elements are more important than graphics for me, it’s just so nice
I dunno how you would say that, considering that HL2 introduced so much in the way of physics puzzles. The Gravity Gun alone opened up all new ways of interaction that they could only dream of in HL1.
One of the best HL2 mods is Research and Development, which takes those gameplay elements and focuses exclusively on them.
Wrong. A lot of the life in Half-Life comes from the half.
@mysnakeissolid687who's gonna tell him
@@randybutternubs4647 But the question is which half? The first or the second half?
15:05 bro that thing waited till you saw him before he aggroed
For some inexplicable reason, I consistently find myself eagerly anticipating the release of any new video pertaining to the Half-Life series on RUclips, even though I possess an encyclopedic knowledge of every intricate facet of the game's lore. I'm undeniably captivated by this gaming masterpiece. It wouldn't be an overstatement to assert that I've likely viewed every single video dedicated to Half-Life. Gosh, I wanna be Gorden Freeman and kill a giant floating baby and single-handedly beat a whole galactic army!
least passionate science team member
Literally me when a new Freeman's Mind episode drops
this guy writes too many highschool essays
I'm the opposite though.. Since I can read the Wikis (Combine Overwiki and fandom *combined*) i really not interested in watching videos about them...except for a few.
GordEn?
10:42
Doctor Coomer? He specializes in making you question your perception of reality, odd dreams, and metaphysics.
Hello Gord- HELP ME GORDON
he also spent 20 years in waste disposal!!
No, all of the Barneys are clones made at Black Mesa. He was like the Jango Fett of security guards so they used him as a gene template.
if this is actual lore that’s hilarious. i love it
@@kel_ski Well it's never been confirmed or denied so I like to think that it's actual lore. There is one different security guard in the expansion packs, a fat bald guy named Otis who oddly enough is also voiced by the same VA who plays Barney. Coincidence? I think not!
Tbh it would make sense if Black Mesa did experiences about cloning. I mean, we're talking about teleportation between dimensions :D
They also fucked up a couple of clones so they named those ones Otis.
@@AquaAyaya Actually, it's teleportation in the same dimension the one humans achieved. The combine are the ones which were able to move between dimensions. I think this was part of HL2, it's been a while... How I miss those times :(
1995 to 2005 were best years for FPS.
Also Half Life 2 with both episodes adds emotional note to the whole thing. I think it cannot get any better then this.
I played Half-Life for the first time when it released back in 1998, and it blew my little 13 year old mind how amazingly interactive it was. It was just so perfect in so many ways. And this was on a Pentium 166 with 32MB RAM and no 3D acceleration. It was... 'playable'. I didn't care, it was amazing.
Fast forward to the announcement of HL2 a few years later. I must have watched the E3 video a hundred times. Valve took HL and just made everything soooo much better!
I ended up saving up and building a Pentium 4 system, with fancy a NVIDIA card and half a gig of RAM, just so I could play it.
It. Was. Stunning.
HL, HL2 and the episodes are seriously some of the best games I have ever played.
However... I finished HL2 Episode 2, and waited... and waited... and I'm still waiting.
Sure, HL:A came out... 3 years ago, but I'm older now and priorities change. I can't afford a shiny new gaming PC and a VR headset to play it. Heck, I'm still rocking a gaming laptop from 2013!
So, I just play HL and HL2 and its episodes repeatedly. Seriously! I don't want to play other games, for the exact points you made in this video. I want to be the protagonist, not play in some shallow, slightly interactive movie.
I'm still waiting for a decent enough OLED headset to make it worth it.
I planned my computer purchases and upgrades around hl2, ep1 and ep2. Eventually had to get a new computer in 2014 when ep3 never showed up...
I have to admit, HL2 was not as good as the OG .. especially the ending and that you were forced to use that stupid grav gun alone.
I'm not as old as you but I agree and I really wish more games were made in the Valve style where your location and the events around you speak for themselves to what's going on in the story. Never really enjoyed the movie style story games much but the Half Life games strikes a weird balance between linearity and open world freedom with how you interact with the environment.
Same. Word for word. Except I got a 12 year old who grew up on Halo and had him sit down to play Half Life. He was sooooo confused by the tram ride like what the fuck is this? 30 mins later... why don't they make this, it's the greatest game in my LIFE.... lol
Surprisingly, (almost?) all of Kelski's questions have lore explanations, like the H.E.V. suit training and functions nodding to the fact that it was developed for Xen exploration; and aliens teleporting behind you being them flaunting their weaponized advanced teleportation tech.
Ill be honest i never ever had this much fun ever before, i had the most fun i could ever experience by watching his whole halflife play through and this video, i really hope he streams half life 2, and the episoides, he is already my fav youtuber
i’m glad you enjoyed watching my journey man 😁 i will definitely stream half life 2!
@@kel_skiyou should play the HL1 expansion first, Blue Shift and Opposing Force
@@kel_ski You are going to LOVE Half Life 2.
I'm in a deep Half-Life rabbithole right now (last time that happened was 7 years ago) and this is by far the most entertaining video I stumbled upon, thanks a lot and nice to see that this game still rocks without nostalgia.
12:03 he said "nice hit >:)"
3:17 Fun fact:
These are in reverse cries for help.
Example
"God help me, help me!"
They are suffering.
End their suffering.
How is that fun
It's not, it's just a fact
'fun'
I do ask sometimes if Half-Life was really that special, then I came across videos of newcomers praising it. Glad to hear them every time
It was special, unfortunately hacks like Medal of Honor buried it.
@@linkfreeman1998I never thought I'd witness freeman himself sayin this about half life
7:22 that poor Vorty LOL, I can't stop laughing
Excellent video btw, 20 minutes felt like 5, fully entertained all the way!
Fun detail on the game. Before ypu luanch the anti portal rocket, the aliens teleport in random places like ocean waves of spam. After the rocket, the teleports become far more strategic, more flank like and are designed to trap you, showing off the final bosses controll over his armies' teleportation.
Dr coomer: "Ah hello gordon"
And then G-man came out and said "Full life consequences!" and everyone clapped.
And then you ramped off the building and did a backflip and landed
Nah thats John Freeman
8:18 meanwhile Metal gear: "when you want to contact us, push the select button"
As a half-life enthusiast, i can agree
10:31 HELLO GORDON
Glad to see you finally play the grand-daddy of FPS story games
the great grandfather is wolfenstein Doom is the grand-father aka grand daddy and half life is the dad
@@Xay-q9g damn wolfenstein had a story????
@@dumbguyontheinternet1711 Yes
i’m so happy to have this game completed. i can now call myself a real gamer
@@Xay-q9g It does but its role is too minor to be called a FPS story games. Same with old Doom
The speed run Gordon is the most bad ass version.
Another absolute banger, I played Black Mesa years back before they finished working on Zen and I really liked the updated stuff to some of the levels and the closer HL2 combat. Keep up the great work Kelski Freeman.
i’ll have to try black mesa once i finish the series!
Each to their own, but I think the faster paced combat suits HL1 better than the one in Black Mesa. I appreciate BM team for their efforts and they made a good remake, I remember what a let down HL:Source was and BM team set out to rectify that.
@@kel_skiyou should try it out after Half Life 2 imo
@@kala1780not to mention, the low ammo count.
Never will I be more ashamed of missing a Kelski stream ;-;
I genuinely enjoyed this, you're truly underrated. You're getting that 100k and 1M very very soon
this makes me incredibly happy to read 😁 thanks for watching dude
@@kel_ski ur welcome my guy, can't wait on that HL2 content haha
Fun fact, when gordon uses the crowbar it is in fact a reference to a tool in real that also goes by the same name, bravo gay-beh
What I _really_ like about Half-Life (hey, check my handle XD) is that you start out as this nobody from the science team - and as you progress through the story, the narrative _starts to notice you more and more_ until, at the late stage, you've _earned your Protagonist badge_ and _now_ the world, the NPCs, the enemies, _wait on you._ You start out by being thrown into the thick of it, disorientated and confused... and by the end, you're the one _leading the charge._ In fact, this is played off of in Half-Life 2, where your arrival is all hush-hush, and the enemies start hauling ass _the moment they know you're involved._ :D
I remember being terrified of the water sections as a kid. Would always chuck EVERY FUCKING explosive i had into the water hoping to kill whatever was in there. Good times
seeing people play HL for the first time is always so much fun, it puts into perspective just how good valve has always been, also you didn't even mention the bhoping that is so widely known, once you start zooming it's hard to stop in HL/2
Man nothing will ever come close to the feeling that i had when i played half life 2 for the first time
I always wondered whether my high regard for Half-Life is purely based on nostalgia and nothing else (since I basically grew up with it) but I'm glad to find out that newcomers still enjoy it a lot :)
I studied software design in college, and everything about the Half-Life games, both in the game itself and in the dev commentary, is a master class in level design. I've taken to watching streamers do blind runs just to see Valve's genius unfold upon them. It is very much not nostalgia: outside of a couple small missteps, the series is just GOOD.
i enjoyed every minute of it!
@@TheRoboKitty its a pretty damn good science fiction story too, the worldbuilding is incredible
Funny thing is, back in the dev videos available (on CD xD) back in 1999, the devs mentioned how it's like "an interactive movie". In fact, it was one of the selling points back then. You have to remember that the era was dominated with games where the enemies reacted _to you_ - you came, they started shooting, stuff like that. Half-Life puts you _in the middle of things_ - you come in, and crap is either going down _right now_ or you _just missed the party._ :D That bit alone makes it feel like the world is alive around you, and _does not wait for you_ to happen.
Half Life is like playing through the best hollywood blockbuster movie you could ever imagine. Get a good set of 5.1 speakers, an EAX or A3D sound card, and play the original pre-steam versions of Half Life, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift. I was there and it still blows my mind that we had this level of immersion available to us 25 years ago.
Imagine what we would have today if game companies would have iterated and improved instead of churning out the same Call of Duty game every year or going to straight up gambling / pay to win schemes.
"Every Gordon Freeman is personalised"
9:10 the black mesa hazard course mod of this is so good, where the lights are shut off and you just get swarmed by barneys with shotguns.
"And it's hardest form"
*Me instantly thinking of the black-ops assassin introduction:* "Oh you poor soul."
12:33 His names are actually Slick and Einstein, not Rosenberg and Coomer
if you didn't know, the names on those lockers are the last names of actual staff members that worked on the game.
pretty cool.
12:21 that's wild 💀💀💀
Now I want a 1 hour video of Barry just having Vietnam flashbacks
The Half-Life license will always be my favorite. I still remember watching my father play it when I was young, and the amount of nightmares I got because of the Nihilanth (otherwise known as the trauma inducing fœtus).
I noticed that Gordon looks like gigachad like a year ago. And i thought "i hope no one notice, this is terrible". And here we are, thanks...
I love when people truly appreciate how good half lifes gameplay is, most people tend to brush it off and say its just fine when really its by far one of the best gameplay loops ever, learning the combat and how things act just to get better at it makes you feel like your really trying to survive and come out on top.
5:09 THE ACT MAN!
“MY GOD, GORDON.”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING”
ok so about dr coomer here's what he studies
A chair is a piece of furniture with a raised surface used to sit on, commonly for use by one person. Chairs are most often supported by four legs and have a back;[1][2] however, a chair can have three legs or could have a different shape.[3] A chair without a back or arm rests is a stool,[4] or when raised up, a bar stool.[5] A chair with arms is an armchair[6] and with folding action and inclining footrest, a recliner.[7] A permanently fixed chair in a train or theater is a seat[8] or, in an airplane, airline seat;[9] when riding, it is a saddle[10] and bicycle saddle,[11] and for an automobile, a car seat[12] or infant car seat.[13] With wheels it is a wheelchair[14] and when hung from above, a swing.[15] A chair for more than one person is a couch, sofa, settee, or "loveseat";[16] or a bench.[17] A separate footrest for a chair is known as an ottoman,[18] hassock[19] or pouffe.[20]
The chair is known for its antiquity and simplicity, although for many centuries it was an article of state and dignity rather than an article of ordinary use. "The chair" is still extensively used as the emblem of authority in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom[21] and Canada,[22] and in many other settings.
I played it again for the 25 year anniversary to see how it holds up. I originally played it as a teenager in 1998 when it released and naturally it blew me away. Playing it again in 2023 i was basically shocked at how corny and old it feels now. Really makes me feel my age.
Love the Gordon ActMan jumpscare
10:23 this and tutorial drip really funny. I'm sold
🤝
God I love seeing people experience Half-Life for the first time. Warms my heart
great video! just a suggestion, i heavily recommend playing both the opposing force and blue shift expansions first before half-life 2. theyre about $5 each on steam and are well worth playing as much as the original.
I love the "live reaction to the trailer." That was basically me with Doom.
The monster spawning behind you or in convenient places actually have a lore explanation LORE: after you fire the rocket that goes to space the big baby boss knows your up to something and ramps up his efforts to stop you by strategically placing aliens to kill you
I completed my 3-day first-time half life 1 playthrough yesterday.
It's great to see people rediscover the classics I grew up with and seeing how great those times were and not just taking them for granted anymore
I therefore recommend you to review maybe battlefront 2 from 2005 or also the kotor games as some of my absolute favorites from then
did you know that if you reverse some of those zombies screams you might get some nightmares
i think the hardest thing with modernising a game like this, is the cognitive distance of a game changes with the graphics, its one thing for a low-poly barney to walk straight into a tripwire, you dont really break to much immersian from that, but when the game is updated to be polished to a sheen, seeing high-poly barney do the same thing is distinctively more noticable when you have more refined modern graphics, and so you either leave that type of amusing behavoir in the barneys or try also changing that to behavoir to be more realistic aswell, sacraficing your sound game mechanics for graphics
you should try Black Mesa. It's amazing.
In a way it's like reading a book or watching a movie. Old games get the idea across to you and the brain does the rest. Modern games try to do it all for you, from gameplay to thinking about the world.
Getting an ad break in the middle of a sponsor segment. Nice.
12:31 had me wheezing for countless minutes. I also laughed seeing his name while playing it and I’m glad it wasn’t just me who found the name “Coomer” hilarious 😭
If you want more fun with Dr Coomer watch the youtube series 'Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware'
12:03 He actually says, "Nice hit." Complimenting the guy who just knocked you out.
I can confirm Black Mesa's xen is one of my favorite video game environments ever. It's so fucking beautiful
I think Dr. Coomer got his PhD in Goonologistics
6:27 now I'll never think of Gordon the same way
5:09 Act-Man Jumpscare
just because you're now a half life fan and planning to stream HL2 , you've earned yourself a new subscriber and im looking forward on watching more of your content
The way you cut the valve theme to start when the guy hits his head is perfection
2:34, pick up that can
No
When I was a kid I went to a game shop and selected half life and splinter cell off the shelf and went to the guy at the register and asked him. "Which game should I buy?" and he pointed to half life. Thanks random game shop worker.
I’m legitimately jealous of anyone getting to experience HL for the first time. It’s SO good. My #1 game
Your playthrough is genuinely one of the most entertaining I've seen! It's so great to see how well HL holds up over the years and how people are still enjoying it. Funny how in some ways games have regressed, are not nearly as interactive, ripping control away from the player for cutscenes, and my most hated is annoyingly obvious direction markers. Devs being too scared to let the player figure things out for themselves, so use giant "GO HERE NEXT" indicators that make games feel like a chores list instead of something you're learning for yourself
love 17:42 when you get hit w the escape from tarkov ai
"Gordon Freeman is a theoritical physicist"
*showing Mr Bean video and stock photo of applied chemist*
It's great to see these games still shine to this day
As someone who was an adult when these games came out, I love seeing kids review the games after the fact. Very interesting
Not even a minute in and I know it’s gonna be some good shit
based wheezy comment
You can also use the Tau Cannon's charged shot to violently fling yourself across the map.
It is probably the coolest thing about the game.
Half Life is such an amazing series . Too bad Valve will never count to 3 .
Someday....