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Half Life 2 - Free to Own on Steam w/ Anniversary Update (Offer Expires 18th Nov)

hinch7

hinch7

Member
One of the finest singleplayer FPS experiences anywhere, for free. Can't get any fairer than that.

Hopefully a teaser for the next game in the pipeline.
 
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ArtHands

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
proandrad said:
What did they update, or is this an update that its the anniversary?
Click to expand...
the change log is extremely long
store.steampowered.com

Half-Life 2 - Half-Life 2 20th Anniversary Update - Steam News

Celebrating 20 years with an upgraded gaming experience, new features, archival footage, and a documentary
store.steampowered.com store.steampowered.com

Our Half-Life 25th anniversary documentary went so well that we invited Secret Tape back to make another one—this time focusing on Half-Life 2. And it's about a lot more than just the making of a game. Running out of money. Getting hacked, and an early version being leaked online. Being sued by our publisher. Trying to build Steam. It's all in there!

As supplementary material to go along with the documentary, we've unearthed a handful of old presentations from across Half-Life 2's development. Find videos from E3 2003, E3 2002, and Siggraph 2000 on the 20th Anniversary Update website.

We're also (Re) Raising the Bar:
Nearly two decades since it first went out of print, Raising the Bar is set to return in 2025 with an expanded second edition—offering a comprehensive look into the creation of the Half-Life 2, along with never-before-seen concept art from Episode One and Episode Two, and ideas and experiments for the third episode that never came to be.

To everyone who has played Half-Life 2 over the last twenty years, thank you.

From now through the weekend (until November 18th at 10am Pacific) Half-Life 2 is free to own
, so if you've never played before, grab it now and keep it forever.
Click to expand...

The change log for the game itself
Bug Fixes and Change Notes

New Content
  • Added 3.5 hours of Developer Commentary by members of the Half-Life 2 team.
  • Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two are now playable from the Half-Life 2 main menu.
  • Half-Life 2: Lost Coast has been added to the Extras menu.
  • Added Steam Workshop support. Play entire campaigns or replace weapons, enemies, UI, and more with content created by the community.
  • Added custom Steam Game Recording gameplay events and phases throughout the game.

Rendering and Graphics
  • Fixed issues causing props or entire maps to be fully bright or fully dark depending on settings.
  • Added bicubic filtering for lightmaps to produce smoother shadows. It can be enabled by setting Shader Detail to Very High.
  • Fixed missing grass detail sprites in many maps.
  • Added settings to enable Classic Effects that were originally in Half-Life 2. These effects can also be enabled using r_classic_blood or r_classic_fire.
  • Added support for radial fog.
  • Specular reflectivity has been adjusted throughout Half-Life 2 to better match the original release.
  • Updated models for the Crossbow and RPG weapons to support ultrawide displays.
  • Fixed camera clipping into vehicles at high FOV settings.
  • Fixed lambda cache indicators and other decals vanishing when backtracking through map transitions.
  • Setting Model Detail to High will now always display the highest detail version of a model and never swap for a lower level-of-detail.
  • Set Antialiasing to 4x MSAA by default.
  • Fixed teeth shader rendering fully white on some GPUs.

UI and Options
  • The UI now scales to support higher resolutions.
  • Launching the game in Steam Big Picture mode will now use the gamepad-friendly UI previously available on Steam Deck. You can also launch this mode with the "-gamepadui" launch option.
  • The High Dynamic Range setting has been moved to the main Video settings page.
  • Commentary mode can now be enabled on the New Game screen.
  • Fixed display of greyscale art for locked achievement icons to match their behavior in steam.
  • Improved legibility of gamepad button icons.
  • Button hints will now prefer to display standard face buttons and trigger icons only. This behavior can be disabled with the "sc_prefer_basic_origin_hints" convar.
  • Replaced instances of system fonts like Verdana throughout the UI with a new font, GorDIN.
  • Added a new font renderer that provides more consistent rendering between platforms.
  • Fixed edges of certain font characters being cut off with antialiasing enabled.
  • Fixed scrollbars and button animations using inverted colors.
  • Removed the non-functional "Use 'bloom' effect when available" setting.
  • Added Rich Presence info while playing Half-Life 2.

Input
  • Updated the default Steam Input configuration.
  • Added a Gamepad settings menu.
  • Added the ability to select a weapon selection UI style while using a gamepad.
  • Added settings for separate Aim-Assist modes for mouse/keyboard and gamepad. The new Aim-Assist "Enhanced" mode now attempts to track enemies and snap-to-target while driving vehicles.
  • If using toggle crouch, pressing sprint will now make the player stand.
  • Legacy joystick settings have been removed from the Mouse settings menu.

Gameplay
  • Reduced chances of birds getting stuck in the world.
  • Fixed Combine crouching behavior during door assault scene.
  • Fixed Combine not firing in some cases during the finale.
  • Game sounds and music now pause while the game is paused.
  • Fix crash that can occur if the player gets too far ahead of the helicopter in canals.
  • Fixed Dr. Breen not looking at the camera in certain broadcasts.
  • Fixed smooth friction sounds not playing.

General Map Updates
  • Full HDR lighting and tonemapping pass across every map in Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.
  • Increased lightmap resolution in most maps.
  • Adjusted rendering distances across the game so details and objects remain visible much further away.
  • Removed Far-Z clip plane from most maps.
  • Increased window and door fade distances.
  • Improved lighting and world detail inconsistencies during many map transitions.
  • Tuned fog and skyboxes for every map with water on the horizon for better horizon blending.
  • Replaced instances of simple reflective water with fully reflective water in nearly every map.
  • Fixed many instances of floating props across the game.
  • Sewed up holes, aligned textures, and fixed seams on many displacements throughout the game.
  • Swapped some distant trees out for higher detail models.
  • Enabled shadows on many static props that were missing them.
  • Added glow sprites to all lights that were missing them.
  • Fixed lightmapping for many large static prop structures.
  • Added simple rooftop geometry to background buildings that were missing them.
  • Added background displacement geometry to areas which are now exposed by removed the clipping plane.

Specific Map Updates
  • The introduction sequence has been adjusted to closely match the original sequence, including fixing specular highlights on the G-Man's eyes.
  • Fixed various texture seams on train station wall
  • All fences now properly cast shadows.
  • Fixed issues with level transitions setting fog values improperly.
  • Removed emissive value from base of lighting prop which was glowing in strange places.
  • Fixed a bug with Eli's idle animations during the teleport sequence.
  • Fixed lightmapping of train cars in Red Letter Day and Route Kanal.
  • Fixed a rendering bug in Route Kanal where world geometry would pop in and out of view when looking down the tracks.
  • Aligned pipe and canal wall textures in a few areas to reduce seams and misalignment in Route Kanal.
  • Added and adjusted canal wall brushes where level geometry was conspicuously missing.
  • Adjusted brightness and falloff of ambient lights in darker sections of the canals.
  • Added small grates as dim light sources of ambient light in a few places in the canals.
  • Fixed an issue where the splash for Manhack Matt's jump into the water would be out of sync.
  • Fixed a bug where the large brick smokestacks were popping in and out depending on the player's position in Water Hazard.
  • Added missing cables to utility poles in various canal maps.
  • Fixed lighting and shadows on the dock and electric tower outside of Black Mesa East.
  • Added displacements and water plane to 3D skybox near the dam entrance to replace simple brush cliff face.
  • Fixed the lighting on the rocks and props in and around the Ravenholm graveyard.
  • Fixed players being able to trap themselves in the graveyard by closing the gate after Gregori would open it.
  • Added radial fog to all coast maps in the Highway 17 chapter.
  • Removed area portals from many of the smaller structures along Highway 17.
  • Fixed a crash that would occur if you parked the buggy in certain areas before entering the bridge level.
  • Fixed a bug where Vortigaunts could fall through the world.
  • Added simple 3D skybox representation of the next map visible from the top of the lighthouse in Sandtraps.
  • Fixed lighting issues during the basement flare sequence in Nova Prospekt.
  • Added additional geometry to various windows throughout the levels to cast more detailed shadows in Nova Prospekt.
  • Fixed a bug in teleport sequence in Entanglement ending too early leaving Gordon and Alyx standing around while the teleporter reached its destination.
  • Fixed the catwalk explosion detonating at the wrong time in Anticitizen One.
  • Fixed the building dome having no polygons on the outstide in Follow Freeman.
  • Fixed the ship visibly flying through the building dome in Follow Freeman.
  • Fixed Barney being left behind during a level transition or nagging the player too early to "roll a grenade" in Follow Freeman.
  • Improved resolution of portal render texture during finale.
  • Added soundscape to all menu background maps
  • Darkened parts of the skyboxes that fall behind Half-Life 2 logo to help with text legibility.
  • Added geometry to menu background maps for Ultrawide support.
  • Added smoke to the Ravenholm and Follow Freeman background maps.
  • Fixed a bug where you could hear the player's bones break in the Citadel menu background map.

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Fixes
  • Fixed player model selection in the options menu.
  • Fixed slam not being able to be detonated if you were too close to a wall
  • Fixed view bob with the SMG equipped.
  • Fixed using the Gravity Gun to yo-yo grenades, sometimes causing the server to disconnect or crash.
  • Fixed missing sound effects for the Gravity Gun.
  • Fixed characters playing a missing animation when switching weapons while jumping and moving.
  • Fix weapons being invisible when being given another weapon of the same class.

Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Maps
  • Increased player spawn point count in many maps.
  • Fixed prop placement in maps that would allow players to escape the world.
  • Fixed floating props in dm_runoff.
  • Fixed the area portal on the blast door in dm_runoff causing the world to no longer render when the door was shut.
  • Added geometry to many maps where the player could see outside of bounds.
  • Fixed several areas where the player could see out of the world.
  • Moved the blue barrels in dm_resistance that you could pick up with the Gravity Gun through the chainlink doors.

Other
  • Improved quality of the Valve intro movie when launching the game.
  • Fixed playback of the the post-credits movie at the end of Episode One and the intro movie at the start of Episode Two.
  • The achievements for Episode One and Two have been added to Half-Life 2. When launching the game it will attempt to read data from installed standalone Episodes to re-grant those duplicated achievements.
  • Hammer: Show detail sprite preview on non-displacement surfaces.
  • Hammer: Fixed bug where orphaned entities added additional data on each map load.
  • Hammer: Fixed the ability to render cubemaps.
  • Hammer: Increased many limits for BSP data. Models 1024 -> 2048, Brushes 8192 -> 16384, TexInfo 12288 -> 16384, TexData 2048 -> 8096, DispInfo 2048 -> 8096.
  • Added save_transition_music convar that allows streaming music to continue to play in between level transitions.
  • Localization files updated.
  • Miscellaneous security fixes.
Click to expand...
 
StereoVsn

StereoVsn

Gold Member
President of PC Gaming keeps winning!🥇 🏆

l4CZt0s.jpeg
 
ArtHands

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Kokoloko85 said:
Wonder why Valve doesnt release a Remaster, of HL1 and Orange Box to modern consoles.
Surely it would sell a good few million between PS5, Xbox, Switch. Been since 360/PS3 days for most these games
Click to expand...

It's 2024 now man. You all should understand that Valve doesn't give a shit about consoles anymore. The only way it is happening is if Nvidia handle the port to Nintendo platform, because Nvidia is a close partner for both Valve and Nintendo.

It's literally free now and can run on any extremely low end PC or laptop. If they want the game they would have buy and play it on PC by now.
 
RavageX

RavageX

Member
Hrk69 said:
Never played it in 13+ years of PC gaming

Never thought it was that interesting
Click to expand...
I'm actually in this camp. I have a good friend that just went on and on about this game, and every time I saw it I wasn't impressed. I have never been bothered to investigate the hype behind it. I'm in no rush to play now either really.

What's supposed to be so good about it?
 
sharp weiner

sharp weiner

Member
My brother in law talked me into getting this a few years ago.

He said it still holds up.
I’m mid 40s so I knew what to expect visually.

I wasn’t impressed.
It was fine.
7/10.
 
F

FireFly

Member
RavageX said:
I'm actually in this camp. I have a good friend that just went on and on about this game, and every time I saw it I wasn't impressed. I have never been bothered to investigate the hype behind it. I'm in no rush to play now either really.

What's supposed to be so good about it?
Click to expand...
It's one of the most varied first person shooters ever released, with for the time cutting edge character rendering and physics. If you like single player first person shooters, you should give it a try. Or maybe watch the original E3 2003 demo and see how you feel about it.
 
kevboard

kevboard

Member
Hrk69 said:
Never played it in 13+ years of PC gaming

Never thought it was that interesting
Click to expand...

well, back in the day you had to basically own it simply due to the plethora of Source Mods that existed.

Zombie Master, Insurgency (which of course now is its own standalone game series), GoldenEye Source, The Hidden, Black Mesa...
owning a Source engine game, usually HL2, opened up a whole world of free indy games for you basically.

Dear Esther was originally also a free source mod for example.
 
Last edited:
Kokoloko85

Kokoloko85

Member
ArtHands said:
It's 2024 now man. You all should understand that Valve doesn't give a shit about consoles anymore. The only way it is happening is if Nvidia handle the port to Nintendo platform, because Nvidia is a close partner for both Valve and Nintendo.
Click to expand...

Theres been so many studios and publishers releasing/porting older games to PC and moderns Consoles in recent years.
2024 and Valve is not a good reason. RDR1 just got ported to PC.

ArtHands said:
It's literally free now and can run on any extremely low end PC or laptop. If they want the game they would have buy and play it on PC by now.
Click to expand...
Thats not a good alternative to Valve selling a few million on modern consoles
Im sure the same could be said for some many classic games and there original platform but thats the whole point of modern ports and remasters to play them everywhere on new hardware
 
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rofif

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
sharp weiner said:
My brother in law talked me into getting this a few years ago.

He said it still holds up.
I’m mid 40s so I knew what to expect visually.

I wasn’t impressed.
It was fine.
7/10.
Click to expand...
I've been replaying this game my whole life. Every few years. I probably played it 10 times or more.
But something happened. Last time I replayed it in december 2023 (I always replay this game in december), it was the first time the game felt aged and I was rushing to finish it.
At some point your old favs are better left undisturbed
 
Gonzito

Gonzito

Gold Member
I read the patch notes, graphics are improved but they havent even upscale textures or anything. What a shame
 
S

Sophist

Member
Ceadeus said:
That's kinda insane if, by now, you're a PC gamer that's been using steam for years but don't own Half Life. It's been talked about for years and been on sales hundreds time, it's just like owning Nintendo and never played Mario. That's impossible lol.
Click to expand...
The only metric i have is the amount of reviews. HL2 has 203 759 reviews. Terraria has ... 1 345 682 reviews! (most reviewed game on Steam).

oti6su4.jpeg
 
Ceadeus

Ceadeus

Member
Sophist said:
The only metric i have is the amount of reviews. HL2 has 203 759 reviews. Terraria has ... 1 345 682 reviews! (most reviewed game on Steam).

oti6su4.jpeg
Click to expand...
I believe it's because HL2 came out before this feature

I'm telling you this because I have same account since steam launch
 
Sybrix

Sybrix

Gold Member
The last part of the HL2 Annivesary Documentary is absolutly fascinating.

Shocked on how much Episode 3 info is in there to be honest and what could have been but at the same time understanding why it never came out.
 
rofif

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Sybrix said:
The last part of the HL2 Annivesary Documentary is absolutly fascinating.

Shocked on how much Episode 3 info is in there to be honest and what could have been but at the same time understanding why it never came out.
Click to expand...
The only reasonable argument I get from that part is that they were fatigued with half life. But imo they should've finished what they started.
And they had a chance to fix stuff with Alyx only to end up in exact same place
 
S

Sophist

Member
Ceadeus said:
I believe it's because HL2 came out before this feature

I'm telling you this because I have same account since steam launch
Click to expand...
You are right. Another metric would have been the achievements but only a percentage is provided instead of an absolute number.
 
Sybrix

Sybrix

Gold Member
rofif said:
The only reasonable argument I get from that part is that they were fatigued with half life. But imo they should've finished what they started.
And they had a chance to fix stuff with Alyx only to end up in exact same place
Click to expand...

Even the devs in the doc have said with hindsight they should have finished EP3 and released it.

I get that they want to continually push innovation with each HL itteration but i know at the time i would have eaten Ep3 up and still would, Gabe said the sole reason to release Ep3 just to finish the story isnt a good enough reason which i kinda get but still want to complete the story!

I guess this is the reason why Valve are seen as masters at their craft.

As opposed to somewhere like Ubisoft that are happy to push out the same bland shit year on year.
 
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simpatico

simpatico

Member
Guys, my install is fucked up. I verified files. I had a bunch of mods installed on my old PC. Not sure how many of those are in a Docs folder or appdata that carried over to my new install, but my game is fucked. Any ideas
 
F

FireFly

Member
rofif said:
The only reasonable argument I get from that part is that they were fatigued with half life. But imo they should've finished what they started.
And they had a chance to fix stuff with Alyx only to end up in exact same place
Click to expand...
The ending of HL:A puts them in a similar but different place.
 
Hrk69

Hrk69

Member
Senua said:
You disgust me
Click to expand...
I take back what I said. It clicked when I was navigating the sewers, and the Civil Protection guys dropped in as the music started. It was beautiful

I also played through the airboat section. Forced vehicle sections in games rarely work. They just kill the flow. But I thought it was fine in this

The world interaction is really well done; it's something you rarely see in modern games, and I really appreciate it.

Shooting feels great, although I was a bit let down that headshots don’t result in an instant kill. Obviously this changes when you get different weapons.

I think I'll be picking it up again soon.
 
Duchess

Duchess

Member
Only ever played this on my PS3, back in the day.

Runs good on my AMD Ryzen 7 4700U laptop (under Linux).
 
simpatico

simpatico

Member
Has anyone made it through Ravenholm since the updates? It seems I’m not alone and it’s not a side effect of a half installed mod. Found more people missing geometry and finding big yellow TRIGGER walls there. Went ahead and skipped to Episode 1, and realized I’ve actually never replayed the Episodes. Typically HL2 replays stop after Ravenholm because the ants are annoying. This is almost like a new game for me
 
C

Cattlyst

Member
Im one of those old bastards who played HL2 back in 2004, and so it has been part of my steam library for…well, 20 years. But it hasn’t been installed for all that time for obvious reasons and I finished the main campaign on an Xbox if I recall. When I reinstalled it on my PC today, I noticed some really funky physics, like doors pinging back on me and dealing damage, or really exaggerated explosion blast waves, water effects flinging me meters under water just for touching a floating object. I don’t recall HL2’s physics being this exaggerated…has anyone else encountered this with the updated version?
 
ArtHands

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Every studios should honor their legacy like Valve do. But I guess on the other hand no other studio has such great and memorable classics like Valve, except Nintendo.
 
El Muerto

El Muerto

Member
Idk how i didnt have this in my library but still have the disc after all these years. The VR mod looks legit. HL2 deathmatch also popped up in my library after claiming HL2.
 
LavitzSlambert

LavitzSlambert

Member
I still can't believe it's been 20 years, and yet it seemed like forever between HL1 and HL2 despite it only being 6 years. I remember the GameInformer HL2 cover issue with the feature going over all of the new shit Valve was going to put into the game. The graphics alone blew me away, I didn't think anything could possibly look that good. Plus the gravity gun, the intro and Ravenholm demos, physX in general (the soda can), so damn good.

HL1 is endlessly replayable, more so than HL2 I think. But there is still something really special about HL2 despite it rarely being mentioned on top games lists. It's certainly one of the most important games from a technological and historical context, and it just so happens to be excellent too. Well worth playing in 2024.
 
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