I've never played any of the Half-Life games, but' it's time to start. Is the PS2 port of Half-Life really that bad? I do not play PC games at all, I'd rather track it down for the PS2 and go that way.

I did sign up for Steam just now, in case the answer is resoundingly "PS2 version sucks"...

Skip it and go straight to The Orange Box on 360?

I was behind myself and gave HL1 a shot on PS2 or Xbox(can't recall which) before getting TOB. Gave it a few hours and was not feeling it at all. It felt like playing Goldeneye, which isn't a bad thing, just hard to do with all the advancement in shooters. Closed the book on it and moved on to HL2 and loved it.

PS2 version was not so hot. Download HL:Source on the PC or skip it all together, I personally thought #2 was a huge improvement.

I'd start with Half-Life on the PC. Great game...

The original Half-life was a revolution in PC FPS games. I do think though that you would probably have to have played it when it first came out to truly appreciate it. Like most early 3D games, the graphics have aged very very badly. The gameplay is still gold.

As for the PS2 port, I have never really paid attention to it so I don't know how well it was ported, but I do know that the vast majority of games that are designed for PC are very stripped down when ported to consoles. I would imagine that same is probably true here.

There is a mod called Black Mesa, which has been in development for going on six years, that will convert the original Half-life game to the Half-life 2 engine. The mod looks really awesome. It is supposed to be near completion, but they have been saying that for awhile now.

http://www.blackmesasource.com/
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/G32_q_3es8E&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/G32_q_3es8E&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

Valve already did this. It's called Half-Life Source.

I don't know if this is serious Groucho or sarcastic Groucho. It is hard to tell sometimes.

Have you ever even seen or played Half-life Source? It was a half-assed job, and even that is an understatement. Half-life Source only uses a handful of Source engine improvements. The vast majority of it is still using the old HL1 engine.

The Black Mesa mod is described by the developers making it as "what Half-life Source should have been." That is to say a complete 100% conversion to the Source engine. Not just a 10% conversion.

Watch the trailer to the Black Mesa mod and try to tell me with a straight face that it looks anything at all like Half-life Source.

I've never actually played the original Half Life, I've been waiting for the Black Mesa mod which has supposedly been near completion for the past year or more. But I would play it on PC, for the mouse control. It will also give you a chance to try out Steam, and join in the world of ridiculously cheap PC games through thier weekly/weekend deals.

Skip HL1 and go right into the Orange Box. Who knows when that Black Mesa mod will be ready. Personally I would go with the 360 version. I have the PC version as well and both are good.

I think the issue is that when they ported it to Source, they just ported it and didn't enhance anything, kind of like God of War Collection on PS3. The Black Mesa thing is a full-on remake.

PC version all way.

I played it about a year ago on PS2 after playing Orange Box. If playing in your living room instead of hunched over your desk is a priority and/or you don't like keyboard/mouse controls, which is the case for me, it's perfectly playable. In fact, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Either way, keep multiple save files. I did find a place where you can get stuck.

Does Steam send out emails about these amazing sales or do you just have to be logged in and looking?

They're usually on their front page and last for a few days. I check the Slickdeals.net forums daily and they're normally on there.

Just get the PC version. I got Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and Team Fortress Classic on STEAM a year or so ago for $10 total.

this. they should run on pretty much any machine around these days. in fact, i play HL in a virtualized session using crossover games on my macbook.

How does that program work for Steam? I was using BootCamp and running XP on my Mini but needed the partition space for my mac and deleted it. I have a new MacBook and was thinking of reinstalling XP, just to play my small set of PC games.

That is such archaic thinking to assume that PC gaming means you have to hunch over a desk.

Do these things ever actually come out? I'm not big on the Mod scene, but it seems like if you do a search for mods a lot of cool looking things are there 'in development' but they never actually get released.

It depends.

Most of the smaller mods do get finished. There are tons upon tons of mods for games like the Baldur's Gate series, Elder Scrolls series, Dragon Age, Civilization, and a lot of others.

Most of the more ambitious mods never get finished because the modders either get stuck or bored or just move on to something else. A group of modders calling themselves Team Gizka were working on a project to restore the unfinished content of KOTOR2 that Obsidian never finished before releasing the game. Team Gizka worked on it for several years, but they eventually abandoned it.

The Black Mesa mod is also one of the more ambitious mods like the Team Gizka mod, and at one time I did think they were in over their heads and would never actually finish it but the Black Mesa modders have been releasing a lot of media in the last year or so, so they may actually finish it. Hopefully it isn't just an elaborate joke like DNF was...

Thanks kgrogers.

I'm really interested in the Stargate mod for Empire at War and don't want to get my hopes up for nothing. Is there a definitive site for modding news in general?

And sorry for delving off topic. OP, I'm in the same boat as you and actually bought the Half Life pack for my PC, but ended up just jumping in to Orange Box on the 360. I do still plan on playing the original, but this black mesa mod has me excited (I think I have the DC version as well, so might just do that).

Another strong vote for starting with HL1 on PC. Remember how old the game is when you play it, but it still is a great game

That mod looks great. I hope they finish it.

And a strong second motion!

HL on PC is what got me Internet gaming (thanks to Team Fortress). It's nostalgic and frankly, best experienced as it was. No, it can't compare to modern FPS gaming like MW2, but it's a great SP mod (including Blue Shift and Opposing Force which I still own) with an interesting story, dated or not.

Orange Box is also fantastic, repetitive, but very fun. And Portal is one of most interesting games I've ever played. I still wish there were expansion packs created for this.

I never played HL1 but burned through all the HL2 chapters on the Orange Box/360

crossover games can set an instance of steam up without problems. it basically is installed in a "bottle" (a reference to the WINE code base for crossover). you start the instance of steam, go to my games, and run whichever steam game you like.