Last week, I bought the Half-Life Anthology, which included Half-Life (DUH!), Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and Team Fortress Classic.

Anyway, I've played through the first three, and that was VERY entertaining, even if parts of it contained Mario-esque jumping. It's easy to see why HL was game of the year in ('98... '99?). Brilliant scripting!

Though I'm not exactly sure what the deal is with Steam. I've gathered that it's some sort of Launcher/Updater, but beyond that, I'm not really sure why it's there and why the stupid thing is required to run any of the games.

I made it to Xen and then quit playing HL, same for Blue Shift.

Can't remember when I quit playing OF, but they were all good games.

Holy Crap, what are the odds. Yesterday i purchased the Anthology as well. I had never played it back when I first got into games, and then when I made the switch over to Mac I couldn't play it. However, with my new Mactel laptop, I decided to go Boot Camp on its *** and install HL. It's a great deal of fun so far, I can see where all the praise came from.

Half Life is an awesome game. I am in the middle of replaying it. At that annoying tram part I think?

Ok, I have a continuity question. Nubs, you'll wanna skip this post! Major spoilers for you!

At the end of Blue Shift, you get to see Freeman being dragged off by the Marines and the two guys are deciding whether to kill him then or take him to their superiors. But at the end of HL, Freeman is given 2 choices, work for G-Man's mysterious employer or be zapped back to Xen for what we assume is his doom.

How do you see Freeman in Blue Shift?

Ah yes, "On a rail". That's not really all that annoying; you can move around and get on and off whenever you want, not like some other games where once you get on the tram/cablecar/maglev train/whatever you're stuck in place and can't control the vehicle.

I just dislike the controls for the tram, and for some reason I ended up at that point with about 10 health, so I get one-shotted by everything, even the tracks

Chew: Something goes wrong with the teleporter at the end of Blue Shift, and you're flung around for a little while. You end up hiding in a broom closet or something while the soldiers drag Freeman off outside. Blue Shift ends about halfway through Half-Life.

Oh yeah!! In HL, Freeman gets nabbed by the Marines, doesn't he! I forgot about that... dur...

Chew: Remember the part where Freeman is dumped into the garbage compactor, and they have that little cutscene beforehand? That's what you see in Blue Shift.

Does anyone know if there is a Half-Life equivalent to Massassi out there somewhere? Or should I bother even looking (ie. the fan missions suck).

You mean an 8-year-old fan website which has degenerated into a discussion forum for a few hardcore veterans and other random people?

I've always hated that part of Half-life.

Plus, has anyone else noticed that there's only one bathroom in the Black Mesa facility? (in the locker room in Anomalous Materials) The lines must be terrible.

That or a requirement to work at black mesa is an incredibly strong bladder. I dunno, Gordon never takes a break in the game, I am guessing its the latter.

Nah, they have a special compartment in the HEV suit for that.

icky

What's with the picture of the little boy in Gordon's locker?

Its his son, ya weiner.

It says in the book that comes with the game he has no kids.

Steam is supposed to be a sort of anti-piracy type deal I think. Its really lame, slow, annoying, and pointless.

I try and play my single-player half life 2 and it takes 47 minutes to "update" the game. I didnt want to update **** you ****ing idiots, i just wanted to play my ****ing garry's mod.

Well the major complaints about it is that you need to use it to play the newer games, and sometimes it can be a bit quirky (like it has the ability to play games while not connected to the internet, but sometimes it won't let you). Also by default it updates games automatically, meaning if you wanna play a game you'll have to wait for the updates to finish if it started downloading 'em. (Of course, if it's an MP game you'd have to patch anyways.)

Also, the anti-cheat system rules with an iron fist. If someone is caught cheating they lose the ability to play in anti-cheat enabled games (VAC servers) FOREVER. Even if it was your little brother or your best friend, tough luck. You either live with it or create a new steam account and buy the game you were banned from again (though Valve frowns on this).

The simple solution to this possibility is to keep your account to yourself, which means no sharing games. I don't have a problem with this, since I wouldn't share my debit card and pin number with anyone.

But I find it quite nice. It keeps my games up to date automatically, as I said, so I don't have to go patch hunting when I install a game and I'm guaranteed not to miss a patch and then get stuck wondering why multiplayer isn't working.

Also, if I purchase a game from the Steam Store, I don't have to even wait for my credit card to clear. The game is available for download immediately (assuming it's released of course). Beats having to drive to the store for a game.

Also the integration of third party mods is ok. Although I'm wishing it was a bit more (a larger DB of third-party mods listed in the store would be welcome), having all the games in one spot is pretty slick.

It's also got a built-in backup tool that'll split the files into the correct sizes for burning to CD/DVD, and generates a small EXE file you can run to restore your backup for you. Of course, backing up is only needed if you don't have a fast internet connection, because you can always redownload the game files from Steam at any time.

You can also run Steam on as many computers as you want at once with your account and download and run the games on as many computers as you want. However, of course, an account can only be in ONE multiplayer game at a time (LAN games don't count so you can still throw a lan party of any size with only one account), which is a pretty light restriction all things considered.

You may have uncovered something here. Or it's a nephew or something. (They stuck a ton of pictures of developer's kids/cats, etc. around levels).

It's Alyx Vance from Half Life 2. Eli's his friend and gave him a picture.

-At least that's the consensus. Retconning's fun.

Except people are still pumping out mods for HL.

Half Life 4 Life

REEEEEEAAAAEWAW

that would make alyx like 20 in HL2.. and gordon in his mid 40's. why was she hitting on him in the game? eww... no way.

Gordon's been in stasis for 20 years (not spoiler tagging it because it's not a spoiler). So, he's still, what, 29?

-The funny part is that because he went from the Nihilianth to Point Insertion automatically, the entire Half Life series as it pertains to Gordon is only, like, a week long. So this has been a seriously messed up few days for Freeman.

God they need to figure out how to make a move of it. I love the storyline.

Yeah, but nobody wants to see a movie about a nerd who never talks (he never even says "ow").

-Make it about, like, Shephard, or Barney, or the Seven Hour War, and have a Freeman Cameo, and that would be awesome.

Barney I'd say, he's so much more loveable than a faceless drone <Shephard>.

You can tell Steam not to auto-update.

If they made a HL movie, we'd all sit in the theater waiting for Steam to update.

I actually installed HL: Source for the first time yesterday since despite playing through HL, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift many times, I felt like going through it again after finishing up HL2: Episode 1. Wow, now I see why HL: Source was such a letdown. It's HL with shiny water and floppy bodies, hehe.

If they did a Half Life movie, I would hope they use this guy for Freeman: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0058581/

This says about 10.

http://members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/timeline.htm

And that picture is of a little baby, so that should make Alyx about 10 or 11 in HL2

I loved HL 1.

I got about halfway through HL2 and forgot to keep playing it. I loved the hovercraft levels and the creepy demon village.

That's bad.
Raising the Bar says 20. There's an exact number somewhere, let me find it...
"Gordon emerges from the darkness, nearly two decades removed from his last conscious thought."

-Sorry, not an exact number, but a fairly canon statement.

I don't know why people keep complaining. Earlier releases have been quite buggy, but the latest versions have been stable and smooth. I use Steam to play CS:S almost everyday, and it has never been slow. Also, it is not pointless if you think about it; it is a technological investment that has significantly increased the profits of Valve. Besides being convenient in automatically updating specific products and technologies, providing anti-piracy protection (although not perfect but effective to an extent), serving as a next-generation sales platform, they can also survey their users for trends to improve their work and aims; the sample size can be huge enough to statistically represent the entire population.

It's also sometimes interesting to read the messages from Valve on occasion where they reveal more information about future updates (new features, maps, or products) and promote mods.

Going back to HL, the entire series has been very entertaining. I have HL1, OpFor, Blue Shift, and HL2. I will eventually get HL2:Ep1. Definitely a great gaming experience, second though to the amazing Deus Ex.

Not to mention, Steam completely cuts out the middle man, meaning 100% of the revenue goes to Valve. A lot of distribution companies want upwards of 60% of profit.

For some reason I keep reading the title as "I'm not a Half-virgin anymore." And keep thinking, "What the hell does that mean?"