The half life 2 beta had a cool aesthetic, like the og matrix and many other early 2000's things. A whole lot of Black, green and blues. But it's dated very severely, where as retail hl2 still looks good to this day, (as seen expanded upon on Hl: Alyx).
Man, it is surreal seeing a mod i contributed to here (dropship, cars, apc, poison zombie, sentry, and the chopper are mine), really enjoyed the video!
Not gonna lie, I love this mod. The eerie, unfinished aesthetic is my favorite part of HL2 Beta and it's captured here perfectly, intentionally or not.
@@the-lm1ir funny how Dr Breen was basically the same character with slight story changes and a different model there was even concept art of Dr Mossman’s betrayal but with The Consul and unused voicelines of Eli Maxwell saying “They call him The Consul now” meaning he was always meant to be the Black Mesa administrator
Honestly, it mostly just looks like a texture swap, it doesn't really mesh well with the existing buildings and such. Textures are often too bright, too dark or too detailed to really work well together. Some decisions are also really questionable, like why do the explosive barrels look like regular ones? That's just confusing. The crowbar animation is also entirely too slow and lacks any sort of impact. It's like adding a new resource pack to an existing Minecraft world, where the new graphics might LOOK good, but just do not work well with what's already there. Maybe this will give you a kick if you're into the HL2 Beta, but for someone who knows barely anything about it, it just looks and sounds REALLY off. Not "different", just "this does not work well". I think they should really touch up on the existing maps and add and remove things here and there.
It's a badly made and plain ugly texture swap, that also took fanmade recreations without asking permission, and recieved lots of attention for no good reason.
Beta HL2 took place in an east coast American city, retail HL2 takes place in a city within Eastern Europe. Completely different architectural styles - like you can’t just take a concrete post-war housing block and slap some brick textures sourced from a 19th century American townhouse or Chicago skyscraper and expect a good result.
For me, the bright areas are too bright and the dark areas are really dark by contrast.. What I mean by this is the fact that the outdoor daytime lighting is way to bright. I expected it to be similar to when the sun gets blocked by clouds and so it isn't really dark and not really bright.
I actually like track 62 aswell. It was the first track I ever heard from Mishaps in the Reactor Chamber on SoundCloud. And your music is also awesome!
I think you did great, it's amazing what you accomplished with this mod. But if you ever do a 4.0, will you have Hyper Era influence for some of the stuff?
I know this mod is finished but another detail I'd like to see in regards to Breen's voice would be to give it compression and static. The ConsulCast audio clips had static on them, like they were being broadcast over old speakers. They also had a detail where you could hear the broadcast being translated in the background, it would be cool if they did something similar here too. Another thing they could do is use the 2004 version of the Source engine, since its physics and lighting are pretty dissimilar to the current version. It might negate the need for ReShade.
My problem with all of these beta mods is that they're literally darker instead of figuratively. Unless the Combine really do replace the atmosphere with toxic gas, there'll still be bright & sunny days.
HL2 beta itself was really dark, with the same dark skyboxes. story-wise the combine did syphon out the ocean and change the breathable oxygen for something poisonous to encourage humans joining forces with the combine so yeah, they did everything to make things dark
@@lukabrasi001 When people talk about the beta being darker, they always make it literally darker, not figuratively. Filling the atmosphere with toxic gas isn't dark, as much as it is goofy & stupid, unless you consider it being literally darker because there's green smog everywhere. It was really just an excuse to hide the bad draw distance. And the Combine are draining the ocean in the retail game, which is why the piers are far above the actual coastline with a lot of beached boats. You did see more of a deserted wasteland area outside of the City in the beta, that you only saw during the teleport accident in the retail game. But even in the Beta there was still the Borealis at sea & Kraken Base under the sea, & a plane ride over the sea to an arctic base, all of which require a sea to exist in the first place!
I do agree on the Air Exchange being a bit... "edgy"? Its seems unnecesary even for the Combine Also regarding the water, the Combine didnt fully drain the ocean, the ocean is still there in the Retail
Cool stuff, Another Beta Aesthetics mod was released long ago but this time in an 2003 era 2 HL2 Beta mods I'm following are: Coterminus and Build: 2003
imo the skin mod fits in kinda nicely,changing texture files is usually pain,since you would need to look through tons of beta textures only to find one which looks perfect to replace an retail texture and so on,the music is retro-ish and it could be used at its full potential somewhere else,overall i have a positive opinion regarding the mod,with the lightining being one of the major downsides to me another great video posted from the gigachad hazardous 😎,cant wait to see the road so far video!
I think the Breen model could be a recreation of what the beta version of the administrator would look like, if the administrator was a model instead of a picture.
Wow, great idea. But I will make some remarks: - Too yellow-orange colors of the levels. In the beta green-gray colors were dominated, and there was no such bright sun. And if the author of the mod will add turquoise-red colors from the air exchanger, it will be incredible. - In the beta, there was Breencast's catchy sound effect: two voices layered on top of each other. The author should experiment with this.
It's also lacking the "green oppressive" skies and the beloved samuel from the beta, also, it includes the 2002 civilians but 2000-2001 skies, which in lore were filled with poisonous gasses and would cause you to foam at the mouth until death. other than that, pretty good mod
Very late reply, but in some of the 2001 maps there was pollution of a lighter, yellow-ish kind like c17_01-03. though we don't have sky_urb01 so we can't tell for sure. Mouse is also right though, there was alot of grey-ish and green-ish lights in the maps, even without the green skies. though quite alot of the maps took place in daylight. Air exchange, wasteland maps and a few others were most probably polluted, they just had sunlight to accompany it, the two aren't mutually exclusive.
If i could remake this mod I'd place some art deco gritty skyscrapers and scripted scenes (like choppers attacking them or maybe a random window blowing up with a rebel plummetting), or maybe that really old bus picking up some civs.
yes, it's a very cool mod, but I actually dropped it on Highway 17 too, but that's not the point the authors also have a second beta themed mod from 2003 and it looks like how I imagined hl2 as a kid, not being able to play it due to lack of a pc. always imagined it more cloudy and melancholic, and it was in this fashion that I felt that very atmosphere, it is very interesting for me.
The mod looks really cool, it has some dark age atmosphere to it, it feels as if like the world in the mod is getting near to extinction or something like that
Ah love this mod. although theres some things id addon to it to help the experience: Beta Consulcast: gamebanana.com/mods/183148 Eli Maxwell Skin: gamebanana.com/mods/182598 Better Helena Mossman: gamebanana.com/mods/329325 and LAST BUT NOT LEAST the beta Jetski: gamebanana.com/mods/181938
@@naosei-jv9yg Find the Beta Aesthetics folder in your custom folder in the hl2 directory, and download the consulcast addon, and drag the "models" and "materials" folders into the beta aesthetics folder and override any files it asks you.
I've always loved half life 2 but seeing what it was originally going to be always made me want that Version more. Less subtle darkness more in your face.
they should really change the maps, this is most seen in the highway 17 and sandtraps where the white fog doesnt really work with the skybox and the skybox is not even created for fog.
Instead of just only using beta textures, animations, sounds, and models, why don’t they make their own in the style of the beta or remake those assets to look better and fit with their project. To be honest the textures, animations, and some of the models, especially the weapons, look unfinished, placeholder, or are just plain ugly. The skyboxes look amazing but it wouldn’t hurt to increase the resolution.
I honestly prefer playing with this mod than the original hl2 (I think it's because I'm a big fan of the beta, and I think it's better than what was released)
One of the good mod that recreate beta version for retail, although in ny experience, the Trenchcoat Metrocop model is somewhat isn't working. It display a rebel model with no head.
Is it just me, or would it look better with some more blue tones, giving environments a colder and more hostile look, contrasting vibrantly with the deep reds of combine consoles
They could change the maps with some of the leaked Xbox vmfs although some of the maps might be outdated but it is way better than getting a buggy mess from a decompiler
As others stated here already, it looks very dated. Still interesting nonetheless. But that Consul's pitch shifted voise sounds incredibly goofy. Maybe it sounds like that because I got used to original voice, not sure
i think this is what half-life 3 should be a half-life 2 original as it should be lets be honest most of us played most or all half-life games so what players or gordon freemans and gmans messed with time and space and we cause the half-life 2 beta and our task would probably to get back into the normal reality its a cheap tactic but half-life 2 universes exists in actually 3 plane of its own reality the half-life 2 we all know and love the half-life 2 beta and the half-life 2 episode 3 if these 3 universes collide we might get half-life 3 beta
The colours are too warm. The early beta maps had a much cooler colour palette. Blue and green tints were heavily utilised. This mod uses a lot of red colours.
not a huge fan of this mod to be honest, stuff like the fog isn't the right colour to fit with the new skyboxes, and while some areas like the interior appartments do look pretty cool, the outsides are just too over the top imo, using the all yellow sky and lighting. i think the european architecture also just doesn't fit well with the new textures. it seems like the creator only changed stuff around in the files and didn't actually touch the maps at all, kind of odd they didn't just change the actual lighting instead of asking the player to use reshade. still pretty impressive they switched basically every texture and sound, but it just feels like alot of missed opportunities.
This brought me a bit of Deus Ex and The Island (2005 movie) vibes. I actually like it, the only thing should be fixed are the fog effects on distant objects.
The half life 2 beta had a cool aesthetic, like the og matrix and many other early 2000's things. A whole lot of Black, green and blues. But it's dated very severely, where as retail hl2 still looks good to this day, (as seen expanded upon on Hl: Alyx).
Man, it is surreal seeing a mod i contributed to here (dropship, cars, apc, poison zombie, sentry, and the chopper are mine), really enjoyed the video!
Chopper's simply sublime. Thank you for this!
Not gonna lie, I love this mod. The eerie, unfinished aesthetic is my favorite part of HL2 Beta and it's captured here perfectly, intentionally or not.
Okay, the “Consul” just sounds silly.
The consul is from raising the bar: Redux!
that consul is a reskin of breen, rtbr's consul is a full on remodel.
@@the-lm1ir funny how Dr Breen was basically the same character with slight story changes and a different model
there was even concept art of Dr Mossman’s betrayal but with The Consul and unused voicelines of Eli Maxwell saying “They call him The Consul now” meaning he was always meant to be the Black Mesa administrator
@@jess648 the consul is bald breen with drip or just jeff bezos with drip.
@@the-lm1ir I see that now, little differences between the models but yeah I can tell now
Honestly, it mostly just looks like a texture swap, it doesn't really mesh well with the existing buildings and such. Textures are often too bright, too dark or too detailed to really work well together. Some decisions are also really questionable, like why do the explosive barrels look like regular ones? That's just confusing. The crowbar animation is also entirely too slow and lacks any sort of impact.
It's like adding a new resource pack to an existing Minecraft world, where the new graphics might LOOK good, but just do not work well with what's already there.
Maybe this will give you a kick if you're into the HL2 Beta, but for someone who knows barely anything about it, it just looks and sounds REALLY off. Not "different", just "this does not work well". I think they should really touch up on the existing maps and add and remove things here and there.
It's a badly made and plain ugly texture swap, that also took fanmade recreations without asking permission, and recieved lots of attention for no good reason.
Beta HL2 took place in an east coast American city, retail HL2 takes place in a city within Eastern Europe. Completely different architectural styles - like you can’t just take a concrete post-war housing block and slap some brick textures sourced from a 19th century American townhouse or Chicago skyscraper and expect a good result.
For me, the bright areas are too bright and the dark areas are really dark by contrast..
What I mean by this is the fact that the outdoor daytime lighting is way to bright. I expected it to be similar to when the sun gets blocked by clouds and so it isn't really dark and not really bright.
I don't know, I quite like it. But I think I'm also a sucker for lost media content and dark, dystopian aesthetics.
I actually like track 62 aswell. It was the first track I ever heard from Mishaps in the Reactor Chamber on SoundCloud.
And your music is also awesome!
Thanks for the review, probably the most detailed one I've seen on RUclips. And the idea for a 4.0 version really sounds inspiring to me
I think you did great, it's amazing what you accomplished with this mod. But if you ever do a 4.0, will you have Hyper Era influence for some of the stuff?
I know this mod is finished but another detail I'd like to see in regards to Breen's voice would be to give it compression and static. The ConsulCast audio clips had static on them, like they were being broadcast over old speakers. They also had a detail where you could hear the broadcast being translated in the background, it would be cool if they did something similar here too. Another thing they could do is use the 2004 version of the Source engine, since its physics and lighting are pretty dissimilar to the current version. It might negate the need for ReShade.
My problem with all of these beta mods is that they're literally darker instead of figuratively. Unless the Combine really do replace the atmosphere with toxic gas, there'll still be bright & sunny days.
HL2 beta itself was really dark, with the same dark skyboxes. story-wise the combine did syphon out the ocean and change the breathable oxygen for something poisonous to encourage humans joining forces with the combine so yeah, they did everything to make things dark
@@lukabrasi001 When people talk about the beta being darker, they always make it literally darker, not figuratively. Filling the atmosphere with toxic gas isn't dark, as much as it is goofy & stupid, unless you consider it being literally darker because there's green smog everywhere. It was really just an excuse to hide the bad draw distance.
And the Combine are draining the ocean in the retail game, which is why the piers are far above the actual coastline with a lot of beached boats. You did see more of a deserted wasteland area outside of the City in the beta, that you only saw during the teleport accident in the retail game. But even in the Beta there was still the Borealis at sea & Kraken Base under the sea, & a plane ride over the sea to an arctic base, all of which require a sea to exist in the first place!
@@Blurns In the Beta, the Sea was lowering, not that it was entirely gone.
@@jakespacepiratee3740 My point was that it's the same way in the retail game!
I do agree on the Air Exchange being a bit... "edgy"? Its seems unnecesary even for the Combine
Also regarding the water, the Combine didnt fully drain the ocean, the ocean is still there in the Retail
"DARK AND GRITTY LMAO"
It's good to have you back.
Another great beta video!
I finished the whole game with this mod. It was good. The consul looks like the one from RTBR.
Cool stuff, Another Beta Aesthetics mod was released long ago but this time in an 2003 era
2 HL2 Beta mods I'm following are: Coterminus and Build: 2003
imo the skin mod fits in kinda nicely,changing texture files is usually pain,since you would need to look through tons of beta textures only to find one which looks perfect to replace an retail texture and so on,the music is retro-ish and it could be used at its full potential somewhere else,overall i have a positive opinion regarding the mod,with the lightining being one of the major downsides to me
another great video posted from the gigachad hazardous 😎,cant wait to see the road so far video!
I think the Breen model could be a recreation of what the beta version of the administrator would look like, if the administrator was a model instead of a picture.
Wow, great idea. But I will make some remarks:
- Too yellow-orange colors of the levels. In the beta green-gray colors were dominated, and there was no such bright sun. And if the author of the mod will add turquoise-red colors from the air exchanger, it will be incredible.
- In the beta, there was Breencast's catchy sound effect: two voices layered on top of each other. The author should experiment with this.
Cool idea about Breencast
this man is spitting facts
It's also lacking the "green oppressive" skies and the beloved samuel from the beta, also, it includes the 2002 civilians but 2000-2001 skies, which in lore were filled with poisonous gasses and would cause you to foam at the mouth until death. other than that, pretty good mod
Very late reply, but in some of the 2001 maps there was pollution of a lighter, yellow-ish kind like c17_01-03. though we don't have sky_urb01 so we can't tell for sure.
Mouse is also right though, there was alot of grey-ish and green-ish lights in the maps, even without the green skies. though quite alot of the maps took place in daylight.
Air exchange, wasteland maps and a few others were most probably polluted, they just had sunlight to accompany it, the two aren't mutually exclusive.
Gentleman im playing Half life 2 Beta aestetic today
Ahh dark and griddy, green clouds above me, toxic air in my lungs and dried out seabed under my feets... Ahh dark and griddy indeed.
i honestly like the unchanged baked-in lighting. its extremely uncanny, like something youd see in a dream or for whatever reason, your memories
If i could remake this mod I'd place some art deco gritty skyscrapers and scripted scenes (like choppers attacking them or maybe a random window blowing up with a rebel plummetting), or maybe that really old bus picking up some civs.
yes, it's a very cool mod, but I actually dropped it on Highway 17 too, but that's not the point
the authors also have a second beta themed mod from 2003 and it looks like how I imagined hl2 as a kid, not being able to play it due to lack of a pc. always imagined it more cloudy and melancholic, and it was in this fashion that I felt that very atmosphere, it is very interesting for me.
Ever heard of build 2001? Was just wondering
Yes. I was going to cover it but it's a little too short right now. Good mod though.
My only complaint is that they didn't bring back the Eli Maxwell model for Eli
there was a model of maxwell?
The mod looks really cool, it has some dark age atmosphere to it, it feels as if like the world in the mod is getting near to extinction or something like that
5:22 is that the happy doctor that i upscaled?
Yes
@@RadiationHazardYT lmao, nice
Hey! I love your videos, I even have a similar smiling gordon freeman as my gamebanana profile picture! but anyways this looks sick!
pretty sure the reason why consul's reskin looks familiar to you is cause iirc u used the same reskin in some beta video u made abt cut characters
As a beta fan myself i find this quite interesting and awesome
Very dark and gritty
Ah love this mod. although theres some things id addon to it to help the experience:
Beta Consulcast: gamebanana.com/mods/183148
Eli Maxwell Skin: gamebanana.com/mods/182598
Better Helena Mossman: gamebanana.com/mods/329325
and LAST BUT NOT LEAST the beta Jetski: gamebanana.com/mods/181938
oh yes sir
is it possible to swap the weapon sounds?
@@eggsykingsmans674 I mean yeah. just find the sound files in the "beta" folder and replace em with the ones you want.
I just wanted to know how to install consulcast
@@naosei-jv9yg Find the Beta Aesthetics folder in your custom folder in the hl2 directory, and download the consulcast addon, and drag the "models" and "materials" folders into the beta aesthetics folder and override any files it asks you.
Ooh i love that mod i saw its trailer a long time ago
i found a new beta mod in youtube called coterminus for half life 2 looks great
good video to
Dark and griddy
I've always loved half life 2 but seeing what it was originally going to be always made me want that Version more. Less subtle darkness more in your face.
9:38 that model is from "missing information" which is a half life 2 beta mod.
they should really change the maps, this is most seen in the highway 17 and sandtraps where the white fog doesnt really work with the skybox and the skybox is not even created for fog.
Instead of just only using beta textures, animations, sounds, and models, why don’t they make their own in the style of the beta or remake those assets to look better and fit with their project. To be honest the textures, animations, and some of the models, especially the weapons, look unfinished, placeholder, or are just plain ugly. The skyboxes look amazing but it wouldn’t hurt to increase the resolution.
The mods looks great, maybe with smog in the open environment will look better.
Ngl, that's just Detroit.
Jokes aside i LOVE this aesthetic, i really wish the main game would have a more dark and griddy look.
When will you stream I need to donate
I honestly prefer playing with this mod than the original hl2 (I think it's because I'm a big fan of the beta, and I think it's better than what was released)
If this isn't the ideal compromise for both retail adherents and beta junkies, I don't know what it is.
One of the good mod that recreate beta version for retail, although in ny experience, the Trenchcoat Metrocop model is somewhat isn't working.
It display a rebel model with no head.
HL2 Maximalist Mod
Water Hazard has floating breencast due to the european buildings being big american small
there shoukd be 2001 american skyscraper era version, should be very good looking on streetwar levels
I think using the 2003 skyboxes would work better for immersion, it would make more sense too since the citizens arent wearing gasmasks
How do you do those smooth flyovers like in 3:08? Softly tilting the left joystick forward on a gamepad?
Is it just me, or would it look better with some more blue tones, giving environments a colder and more hostile look, contrasting vibrantly with the deep reds of combine consoles
The next stream is gonna be half life 2 overcharged right? 😅
cant wait for 10.0
ngl, when i heard pitched dr. Breen voice i thought of Gaben
I think the Consul model is from Missing Information.
I personally liked the whole atmosphere but in my opinion I just didn't like the effect sounds and the soundtrack otherwise the mod is very good.
They could change the maps with some of the leaked Xbox vmfs although some of the maps might be outdated but it is way better than getting a buggy mess from a decompiler
Hl2beta aesthetics 3.0 is removed in the moddb page.. its a shame since i want to download the 3.0
(I play half life 2 on my phone LMAO)
this also happens with tf2, cuz there is alot of beta mods in the internet
Are you gonna do Left4Dead2 beta maps anlysis
Not planned any L4D videos yet, but I might later on.
Adjust the Fog properly too
Black Mesa East, more like Black Mesa West! Oh wait, east coast is still more east than New Mexico...
It's been so long since I commented
Are you more of a HL2 beta Or the retail version
Both 😎
Same here
I know this was 9 months ago but same too.
still waiting for minimalist please : )
I've been meaning to make a video about that for quite a while now. I got some videos planned right now, but I'll see if I can cover Minimalist soon.
so it basically turns C17 into C10?
tbh i think 2002 aesthetics is the best beta aesthetic mod but 2001 is also really great! and 2003 but that doesnt really change anything significant
how do i install this mod
can we get a download tutorial
FOUND IT !
There ya go :)
It kinda cool mod
Did you try half life owercharged mod yet?
Edit:69th comment,noice.
Will try it soon
Beta yes
Why didn't Valve just do this in the first place?
9:44 G string
I really like most of what they did with this, but i am not a big fan of what they did with the voices.
A True Citizen Subscribes To Radiation hazard
As others stated here already, it looks very dated. Still interesting nonetheless. But that Consul's pitch shifted voise sounds incredibly goofy. Maybe it sounds like that because I got used to original voice, not sure
i think this is what half-life 3 should be a half-life 2 original as it should be
lets be honest most of us played most or all half-life games so what players or gordon freemans and gmans messed with time and space and we cause the half-life 2 beta and our task would probably to get back into the normal reality
its a cheap tactic but half-life 2 universes exists in actually 3 plane of its own reality the half-life 2 we all know and love the half-life 2 beta and the half-life 2 episode 3 if these 3 universes collide we might get half-life 3 beta
Beta aesthetics? I prefer sigma aesthetics
that's appropriate because it's based on something that doesn't exist with unrealistically high expectations of it
Definitely ditch reshade.
Get your free TVs!!!!!
man id like to VO gman for this, i like its idea alot
nice and interesting
The colours are too warm. The early beta maps had a much cooler colour palette. Blue and green tints were heavily utilised. This mod uses a lot of red colours.
In my opinion the MP5K looks kinda ugly.
Nice profile pic
>:(
MP5K Doesnt fit in HL2 tbh
@@TheExperienceYT eh that's arguable but I get it
nice
1:09
not a huge fan of this mod to be honest, stuff like the fog isn't the right colour to fit with the new skyboxes, and while some areas like the interior appartments do look pretty cool, the outsides are just too over the top imo, using the all yellow sky and lighting. i think the european architecture also just doesn't fit well with the new textures. it seems like the creator only changed stuff around in the files and didn't actually touch the maps at all, kind of odd they didn't just change the actual lighting instead of asking the player to use reshade. still pretty impressive they switched basically every texture and sound, but it just feels like alot of missed opportunities.
Good
bro this mod is kinda broken
radi
@@Stribog1337 n
This brought me a bit of Deus Ex and The Island (2005 movie) vibes. I actually like it, the only thing should be fixed are the fog effects on distant objects.