A PSA About Half-Life 1: Source
Hi guys. Yesterday I talked about a Half-Life reference in an old Minecraft achievement, and in that post I committed something terrible that I wish to apologize for… I used a screenshot from Half-Life: Source.
Although Valve themselves have done everything in their power to hide this version of Half-Life 1, I am still legally obligated to give this public service announcement. /lh
Half-Life: Source released in November 2004, around the same time as Half-Life 2 which came with the Source engine, Valve's revolutionary new game engine which all of their later games were built upon.
As part of the release of HL2 some other games were bundled in, most notably Counter-Strike: Source, however there was a version of Half-Life 1 in the Source engine included in some of these.
Counter-Strike: Source ended up being a huge success, and actually showed off some of the new features of the engine fairly well (albeit not a lot as it was more of a sneak peek, while HL2 was more the full release).
Half-Life 1: Source, however, was not that well received. What was thought to be a remake of the original ended up being more of a standard port. The controls stayed essentially the same, and the only things that really changed were all visual, like the 3D skyboxes, some HL2 textures, improved lighting, and "improved" water.
The 3D skyboxes are nice, but the "improved" water looks completely out of place given how the rest of the game looks exactly the same. And although the lighting is indeed better, it is stained by the fact that the game is completely broken due to its lack of support.
The lighting is sometimes broken, some of the textures are shiny without reason, some of the AI and animations are completely bugged (most notably for me the floating scientists and the barely functioning Tentacles), and some sections of the games are practically completely broken, most notably Residue Processing.
I must admit, though, I have a soft spot for this version of the game. Is it buggy as hell? Yes. Is it worse than the original in almost every way? Yes. But there are some things I really love about the game.
There are mods that fix the game-breaking bugs, specifically Half-Life: Source Fixed, and the game itself actually has some nice quality-of-life features. It replicates the menu style of other Source games, which include an extremely handy chapter select screen! (Which I used in that previous post)
Most importantly though, it is extremely fun to mess around with Half-Life: Source stuff inside Gmod, and it's one of the things I routinely do whenever I open that game to mess around. And, of course, it inspired the creation of the actual proper fan-made remake of Half-Life 1, Black Mesa, which was an amazing version that really took the original game to new heights, simulating the gameplay style and techniques of HL2.
Half-Life: Source is definitely the worst way to play Half-Life 1, however it still has a lot of charm to it and — to be completely honest — whenever it's on sale (where it's just $2, if not less) I actually recommend it if you already have the original and own Gmod. It comes packaged with Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, and just having access to this silly game and all of its assets in Gmod makes it worth it for me, albeit not at its standard retail price.
