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Notes -
Half-life 2 (as well as episodes one and two) are free to keep on Steam as a celebration of its 20-year anniversary. There's also a big update with bug fixes, slight graphics updates and 3.5 hours of new dev commentary.
Fuck me HL2 is so good. I literally replay it once every 2 years or so.
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The art style of Half-Life (and CS:S) is so much more interesting than the more photorealistic styles in today’s games.
Just play DayZ SA. Same thing essentially.
It's a quite chill game mostly, except when you're getting ambushed and killed.
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The art style of half life 2 is just a normal eastern european "bedroom community" full of brezhnevkas and other types of panel buildings.
It’s more than just the architectural style, it’s the lighting and shadows and saturation. I don’t know how to articulate it but it’s kind of like this. I was watching the HL2 documentary and the artists talked about spending years finding real life material for the game models, visiting abandoned areas etc, and that definitely rubs off in the aesthetic dimension that is different from other shooters that try to be “gritty”. There’s something dreamy and interesting about source engine aesthetic
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Essential:
https://www.nexusmods.com/halflife2/mods/60?tab=description
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Half life 2 is my favorite game. I feel old, even though I was 4 when it came out and played it at 19.
Games used to be good :')
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There is also a very good VR mod for all 3 episodes.
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