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I remember watching this as a kid and being absolutely astonished. This game was so far ahead of everything else out at that time and it took years for other companies catch up. You can hear the awe from the journalists present.
Maybe it’s just nostalgia but I am still awed by this Tech Demo.
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View Reddit by Genghis-Gas – View Source
Yeah and CSS was one of the best CS ever made. Change my mind
I remember everyone arguing on whether Doom 3 or HL2 would have the better engine/graphics. I miss the old flame wars between fanboys.
My HS/College years were the 90s. My first FPS on my P100 was Doom.
I remember being blown away that we could “jump” and “duck” in Dark Forces.
I remember one game (maybe it was Descent or Descent II) advertising “volumentric fog” as part of their marketing on the box.
Nothing was as cool, though, as picking up that can and throwing it at the Combine Fascist at the start of HL2. I’m not joking . . . My buddies and I replayed that one scene *just because* the interaction was amazing.
And the rest of the game was like that, too. I wonder if HL2 is the first, true “fart around game” where, you know like you do in GTA or Just Cause, you just fuck around with stuff, go off mission and mess with the physics because it exists and it’s fun. I remember getting the rebar cross bow (I mean, read that shit a second time), and just shooting random shit to see what would happen.
The Source Engine and HL2 were a game changer and is up there with on my my favorite gaming memories of all time.
Ah memories. Built my first ever PC shortly before release just to play this game.
Source engine so good i released my game using it in 2022 (Military Conflict: Vietnam) and i dont regret it even with it being ancient. Source forever
There was a solid decade where “innovation” meant “catching up to Valve”.
A few decades in people will start to argue that HL2 was built by aliens, because it was such a leap in all regards which wasn’t repeated ever since – not even by Valve themselves.
Man it’s sad that even today that looks impressive…
I feel like the only games that pushed physics and interaction with environment even more then HL2 are Crysis (the first one), both Zelda: BoTW and ToTK and maybe HL: Alyx.
I remember this so well, it blew me away and made me sad knowing I wouldn’t be able to afford a PC that could run something this good, I was a kid to be fair.
HL1 > HL2
The crazy thing is that HL to HL2 jump in G-man’s graphic quality and animations is greater than the HL2->Alyx jump.
It still holds up.
It was only made for effect.
Oh man, what memories. I was at this E3 and Valve had a small enclosed booth that year, that was just running this same presentation again and again all show. The line would fill up right away each day.
A co-worker and I tried to get on the line, but they weren’t allowing anymore people to queue since the show was an hour or so away form closing. But a Valve staffer handed us tickets and told us to head over to a certain hotel a few blocks away. We took a cab and the front desk took our tickets and told us to wait outside a certain room. We get up there and a few other folks are just sitting in a hotel hallway outside he room. A few mins later, the door opens up and a handful of people walk out.
We go inside and the small hotel room has had the bed and most other furniture removed, except for chairs for us, a large screen, and PC desk. And who is sitting at the desk but fucking Gaben himself. We couldn’t believe it. A few other co-workers had been able to see the show at the Valve booth the day before, so we knew generally what to expect, but to have it delivered by the man himself was pretty fucking cool.
No time for questions or anything afterwards, as they had another group waiting outside, but it’s one of my favorite gaming memories.
I waited literally 5+ hours to see that HL2 demo. After watching it, I left the convention ctr knowing that nothing else would come anywhere close for the remaining 1-2 days of the show. That was the longest line I ever waited in, in the 3 years I attended that show. Worth it.
I love seeing things like this and how far it’s progressed.
“He has 40 separate muscles in his face!” “Wow!”
Fast forward to today…
This and the Halo 2 E3 trailers were all I watched for about a year….
I remember seeing this for the first time and watching those barrels drop down. I was floored.
I still can’t believe how good HL2 looks, even after all this time.
Yes, the lighting effects and shadows are ancient, and the game is very … hmmm… 2d? But it just *looks so good* and it is so fun, its just amazing
Are you implying there hasn’t been innovation since?
This was released on PC in mind. The OG Xbox version has the frame rates of the average Nintendo 64 game
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However OG Xbox runs Doom 3 well, which is comparable to Half Life 2 in terms of tech.
Nice quake engine you got there, would be a shame if someone modified it and called it true innovation.
Unreal engine 5 is also true innovation and one of the biggest breakthroughs.
And it only happens recently
Source was just the Quake engine with some modifications. This demo was 100% scripted as well. But the game turned out OK.
This showcase was pure hype, a true quantum leap in gaming. I must have watched it a dozen times back in the day, and still revisit it once in a while for the nostalgia.
Gamespy logo. I miss Gamespy.
I remember this, a lot of the NPC interactions turned out to be scripted, but the rest of the was great. HL2 was such a huge jump up from HL1.
I remember when HL2 was released I was playing it on a Ti4600 supporting DX8. Half way through playing the game I upgraded to a 6600GT supporting DX9 – The difference was astounding, I was just running around admiring the graphics.
To this day, Black Mesa looks gorgeous, especially on the Zen levels.