happy birthday mr freeman

November 18, 2023 4:24 AM

25 years ago, on November 19th 1998, a small game studio called Valve Corporation launched their debut game: a zombie shooter and puzzle platformer called Half-Life. Yesterday, Valve published their 25 year anniversary update to the game (complete with restored multiplayer maps, bug fixes, patch notes and a usable crowbar), leading to a new all time high of 14 thousand concurrent players (xitter link).

Half-Life nerds can also enjoy a complete playthrough of the game by Dario Casali, one of the level designers on the original game, and an hour long behind the scenes documentary charting its creation.

Half-Life previously on the Blue.

posted by fight or flight (43 comments total)

Rise and shine, Mister Freeman. Rise and... shine. Not that I... wish to imply you have been sleeping on the job. No one is more deserving of a rest... and all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until... well, let's just say your hour has... come again.
posted by Foosnark at 5:01 AM on November 18, 2023 [13 favorites]

This is awesome. But… In all of the things they thought to fix, did they consider maybe releasing a 64 bit build so macOS users who own the game can actually play it again?
posted by caution live frogs at 5:05 AM on November 18, 2023 [13 favorites]

"Wake up and smell the ashes" is HL2, if I recall correctly, but still one of the strongest cold openers in gaming.

If you haven't seen the modern remake of the single player campaign, Black Mesa is worth your time.
posted by mhoye at 5:09 AM on November 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

But… In all of the things they thought to fix, did they consider maybe releasing a 64 bit build so macOS users who own the game can actually play it again?

That sentence contains its own answer, an in a nutshell is sort of the reason MacOS gaming hasn't and can't take off. Who would start a 2-4 year project for a target platform that might well be obsoleted out from under you in a surprise announcement in the fall of year 3?
posted by mhoye at 5:14 AM on November 18, 2023 [6 favorites]

I remember when Valve used to make games. Them were the days.

It's far more profitable to shovel money out of the pockets of other people that make games. The Steam tax.
posted by adept256 at 5:30 AM on November 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

I never played the original but when I bought an AMD CPU a looooong time ago, I got a coupon code for HL2 in the box and god damn was that a hell of a game.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:36 AM on November 18, 2023

i played this start to finish one night keeping a girlfriend company during an all nighter in a basement fish lab. it was nothing but concrete, pipes, dripping water, and humming refrigeration units. probably the finest gaming experience i'll ever have, no notes.
posted by LegallyBread at 5:37 AM on November 18, 2023 [22 favorites]

Who would start a 2-4 year project for a target platform that might well be obsoleted out from under you in a surprise announcement in the fall of year 3?

if they had released a 64 bit build for intel macs 10 years ago it would be playable today on apple silicon.
posted by dis_integration at 6:02 AM on November 18, 2023 [12 favorites]

I played the hell out of Half Life (And Team Fortress and Counterstrike 25-20 Years ago, when I got a Pentium2 computer.

I too am on a M1 Mac and would love to take this for a spin. Surely it has enough brute power compared to my Pentium /Voodoo2 graphics.

All my other gaming is on a Ninetedo these days, although the hype around Cities Skylines is making me want to find a SimCity that will work on the M1
posted by CostcoCultist at 6:25 AM on November 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

(It looks like it's being given away for free on Steam for just the next couple days -- or at least "while supplies last.")
posted by nobody at 7:26 AM on November 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

The stalwart devs (dev? I think it's just one talented person) over at Mac Source Ports have a port of Half Life for Apple Silicon and 64-bit Intel Macs. Not sure how it works with this latest update from Valve, but it's your best bet!
posted by Enkidude at 8:26 AM on November 18, 2023 [5 favorites]

Also on an M1 Mac, I gave up gaming on my computer years ago, though I watch my student employees play games on the mac game app and I just can't bring myself to use it.Now I play on my steam deck, and (semi obsolete) xbox one. I mostly play horror games and shooters (somehow enjoy the horror, but hate horror films and books) This is one of my longtime loves. I've always enjoyed arf life and arf life too. So as suggested up stream, I'm loading Black Mesa on my steen duck. We'll see. Also will see about the 64 bit port for my little mac. Thanks mhoye, and enkidude.
posted by evilDoug at 8:37 AM on November 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

25 years!
posted by doctornemo at 8:44 AM on November 18, 2023

Apple is running the same racket Valve is. Apple earns the same money from games as Nintendo and Microsoft combined. They make more than the xbox people! And friends, if you bought a Mac, you made a decision to not play games on your computer. No, all this gaming revenue is coming from the iPhone.

Like Valve, they take a big cut from every game. They can charge developers what they want. If you make mobile games you have no choice but pay. Or make your game unavailable on hundreds of millions phones.

Like Valve, Apple doesn't need to make games. Other people do that, and they take their slice. Yum yum yum money money money.

I think this fucking sucks. I think they're parasites. I think it's incredibly unfair to developers who do all the actual fucking work. If Valve actually had to work for their money, we'd be playing Half Life 6 and Portal 4, and I would be super happy about it. If anything, this anniversary is a time for regret. That company that made one the best games of all time turned their back on that for the sake of greed. What a shame.
posted by adept256 at 8:50 AM on November 18, 2023 [10 favorites]

That company that made one the best games of all time turned their back on that for the sake of greed.

I'd argue that providing bug fixes and updates to a 25 year old game when they would have probably sold (or given away for free) the same number of copies either way doesn't really qualify as anyone turning their back on it..
posted by fight or flight at 9:01 AM on November 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

A fellow scientist!
posted by dr_dank at 9:28 AM on November 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

providing bug fixes and updates to a 25 year old game

This is the most cynical of PR pushes. "People are starting to not associate us with our fun roots anymore since we've turned evil, let's throw a huge party downtown to remind them!"
posted by tigrrrlily at 9:31 AM on November 18, 2023

I fail to see what makes the hard working and dedicated developers at Valve "evil". From what I've heard from friends in the industry, there are plenty of people there who are still invested in these games and love them just as much as the fans do. Maybe you should be careful who you're tarring with that brush.

(Also, as an aside, "evil"? For a games company in 2023, just because they haven't given you the games you want? Some actual real world perspective would also be helpful.)
posted by fight or flight at 9:36 AM on November 18, 2023 [12 favorites]

I'm not really interested in their hobbies, I'm more interested in how they make their money and what impact that has on the world at large.
posted by tigrrrlily at 9:43 AM on November 18, 2023

I think it’s more the Rentier behaviour that makes them evil, not the release schedule
posted by The River Ivel at 9:50 AM on November 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

That sentence contains its own answer

It might contain your incorrect answer.

The interval between the announcement of forthcoming 64-bit applications and the macOS version that no longer ran 32-bit applications was 11 years. Bill Clinton was president when 64-bit apps first were supported in 10.4/Tiger. Full support came in 10.6/Snow Leopard in 2009, during Obama’s first year. Half-Life itself didn’t get to macOS (which was called OSX back then) until 2013, 4 years later. 64-bits apps were not required until 10.15/Catalina in 2019, 3 years into the Trump Administration

Not sure about you but I got a lot done from the Clinton Impeachment hearings up until the 5 months COVID really got started.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 10:24 AM on November 18, 2023 [5 favorites]

25 years!

About 2.7 years longer than the half life of lead-210; or about 3.79 years shy of the half life of strontium-90.
posted by eviemath at 10:39 AM on November 18, 2023 [7 favorites]

an interesting point, eviemath.

i have only ever played, at most, a few hours of HL or HL2. what does the title have to do with the story or content itself? what does "half-life" refer to in the context of this video game?

does it mean anything at all or is it just something that sounded sufficiently sci-fi at the time?
posted by glonous keming at 11:02 AM on November 18, 2023

For those on Macs, I will say that the latest version of Crossover runs the Windows version at a nice locked 100fps, despite it being a 32-bit app for another OS. The source port didn't work for me; maybe it's not compatible with this new anniversary update.

To comment on the game itself, at the time it didn't blow my mind, but mostly because us Mac folk had Marathon. That said, Half-Life really pushed immersion and storytelling in games forward in a way that the Marathon series couldn't dream of just yet. I'm happy to be able to play it again!
posted by destructive cactus at 11:31 AM on November 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

> Bill Clinton was president when 64-bit apps first were supported in 10.4/Tiger.

OS X came out in 2001, and Tiger was released in 2005.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:54 AM on November 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

what does the title have to do with the story or content itself? what does "half-life" refer to in the context of this video game?

As far as I can tell it's just a physics term. The chapters and DLCs are also named after physics terms. The protagonist is a physicist, so I guess Valve used physics terms to reinforce that. It's a notable distinction in a genre where the protagonist is almost always some kind of soldier.

Here's a quote from Dr. Breen in HL2:

How could one man have slipped through your force's fingers time and time again? How is it possible? This is not some agent provocateur or highly trained assassin we are discussing. Gordon Freeman is a theoretical physicist who had hardly earned the distinction of his Ph.D. at the time of the Black Mesa Incident. I have good reason to believe that in the intervening years, he was in a state that precluded further development of covert skills. The man you have consistently failed to slow, let alone capture, is by all standards simply that—an ordinary man. How can you have failed to apprehend him?

posted by swr at 12:17 PM on November 18, 2023 [4 favorites]

It's also a game about fighting zombies. The "half-alive".
posted by fight or flight at 12:21 PM on November 18, 2023 [3 favorites]

I just want to say.

BWWWWWRRRR MMMM MMMM MMM… *GLUCK*
posted by Artw at 12:27 PM on November 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Dr Breen is basically a prototype TESCREAL shithead.
posted by Artw at 12:29 PM on November 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have fond memories of my first play through back when this game came out.

I was blown away when I realized there was never going to be an "end of level/loading next map" screen like all the FPS games before it. The story just kept going from the moment you set out on the tram into black mesa until you fight the giant extra dimensional baby. Going hand in hand with that I loved that the story and objectives were told by NPCs in the game and not on some loading screen or manual. To me it was the first game that bridged the gap between the early FPS and other PC game genres (RPGs, puzzle games like Myst) that were telling stories. It was head and shoulders above everything the other studios were doing then.
posted by cmfletcher at 1:32 PM on November 18, 2023 [5 favorites]

One entertaining way to experience Half Life if you can't/won't play it:
Freeman's Mind
An early-ish machinima from Accursed Farms, giving a voice to Gordon in the form of his internal monologue while he has a remarkably bad day at work.
Fair warning, I haven't listened since debut, so not sure if this is milkshake ducked.
posted by shenkerism at 2:38 PM on November 18, 2023 [5 favorites]

Other brainstormed potential titles for Half-Life, pulled from linked video.
posted by dumbland at 3:28 PM on November 18, 2023

I go through that list and I just imagine the box art reading: GORDON FREEMAN IS.... [title].
posted by dumbland at 3:29 PM on November 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

GORDON FREEMAN IS... not carrying his passport.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 3:55 PM on November 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Proton is worth quite a few not-entirely-evil points in my book. And software devs are expensive, even compared to physical space and acne-ridden register jockeys.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:15 PM on November 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

GORDON FREEMAN IS... not even supposed to be here today.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:17 PM on November 18, 2023 [5 favorites]

"Half-Life" is a double meaning referring to the half-life of radioactive substances, of which there are plenty in the game, and to the bizarre half-alive state of the zombie enemies in the game. This double meaning extends to the expansions Opposing Force - a physics term coming from Newton's laws, but also referring to the opposing forces of the grunts who are sent to pacify Black Mesa - and Blue Shift - wavelength shift observed in light emitted by something which is moving towards you, but also, like, if you have several shifts of security guards, and you give those shifts colours to distinguish them, one of them is going to be Blue Shift. Too bad they gave up on this theme for the sequels.

This is partially why I have a book called "Fine Structure", by the way.
posted by qntm at 4:21 PM on November 18, 2023 [10 favorites]

never played, but did download it this morning, and started playing. Can't figure out how to do stuff. Think I found my hazard suit, but can't be sure and can't figure out how to put it on. lol
posted by Windopaene at 4:22 PM on November 18, 2023

Valve still makes games though. They just came out with Counter-Strike 2, which literally replaced CS:GO.

Literally, as in you go into your Steam library, CS:GO is gone and CS2 has all it's stuff.
posted by WhackyparseThis at 4:49 PM on November 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Even when they stopped making Half Life they were still making games, it was just that DOTA 2 sucked up all available resources and was kind of a rolling monster.

Then Marc Laidlaw left and without Marc Laidlaw there isn’t much Half Life to any Half Life game.

Will they ever come back from that to make standalone narrative driven games that are not all about online play again? No idea.

Am I proven wrong about Laidlaw leaving being the end of Half Lide by the existence of the new VR game? Also no idea. I have to admit I’m not into VR so it’s existence is not something I pay much attention to.
posted by Artw at 9:37 PM on November 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

My days, 'A.X.' is the most 90s thing they could have come up with.
posted by Hermione Dies at 2:24 AM on November 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Halflife Alyx is amazing, and worth a look.
posted by Sebmojo at 10:04 AM on November 19, 2023

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/04/half-life-alyx-is-now-fully-playable-without-vr-hardware/
posted by Sebmojo at 10:05 AM on November 19, 2023