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Love your work! Im really excited for campaign 9-13! Keep going, you are the best!

1:00: Alien Ambassadors. Time to welcome them. 1:48: Hey, come down here and fight like a man! 2:30: Environmental kill. Works like a charm here, unlike in Fallout 3 where you don't even get XP for it. Dang, that scientist nearly did an unmodded Fallout 1 on you. Recommend the Fixt mod for that game nowadays. Hmm, perhaps the Anniversary Update should have improved the A.I. even as twofolds. Then again, said Update is still ongoing with some patches. 5:21: Gah! GAH!!! Ah, you don't like game sewers. Civvie 11 is gonna sympathize. Good thing this game lets Gordon Freeman have secret Phil Connors/Homura Akemi/Hououin Kyouma/William Cage/Siffrin powers. Am really into timelooping fiction, so feel free to look up those names. 8:28: Even I forget that's lethal too. Yes, break all the crates for secret goodies! Should have let the Bullsquid finish the Headcrabs first. Also like to eliminate all Barnacles, in the hopes that other Black Mesa Research Facility survivors (and later Lambda Resistance members) won't need to be bothered by them. Loading screens and weak ally A.I. are flaws, sure, but they're trivial when compared to how the rest of the game flows very well. For that, I'm at least grateful that I'm a Half-Life fan through and through. 15:24: Probably bad, since one singular game map may somehow prevent more nuanced details into being implemented when compared to, hmm, several hub and stage levels. If one really shoots inside vents, it'll be painful to the ears. Back then, pushing crates was quite an unexpected thing. Nowadays, our video gaming brains are attuned to that like normal. 20:16: I think Freeman's Mind also lampshaded that. 21:58: Turret syndrome. Not good. I shudder to think on what you'll do to your HECU comrades in Opposing Force, Angel. 24:11: That... was no Barnacle. 25:21: Can't be helped. Beats Disney's Gravity Falls, Amphibia, and The Owl House not doing plot-changing "Broken Masquerades". Also, love the STAHP screams. Gotta love how one forms a squad in Office Complex in Black Mesa the remake. Nets an achievement if everyone lives to the end too. 36:42: Now he's just flexing. 36:56: Awesome. 37:35: Oh, yeah, Freeman's Mind "died" here. Ingeniously made that a dream though. Since I see an MP5 SMG, you sure aren't using the HD models with that inaccurate M16 model. Oh, and the gun has a grenade secondary. Very useful. 44:02: Again, flexing, now with bullet immunity. 48:48: And considering how basic training works in Opposing Force's beginning... 50:23: The surface!!! 53:32: Don't think you went to that part of the vents. Hmm, that specific room was never explored.

Ah, this game. Now this is still a classic masterpiece alongside, let's see, Halo: Combat Evolved, Deus Ex 1, Homeworld, and Chrono Trigger. Sure, there's the usual jank, but even so, it's easily eclipsed by so much great stuff in said games. For once, I understand the inverted controls. Guess I'll watch this per week, so to not fritz my personal schedule. Will wait for Uplink. Hope Blue Shift and Opposing Force (the latter shouldn't be played with HD models, though, and same with vanilla HL1) will get your dues. Not sure on Decay though. Hmm, should have done the Training Room first. Oh, well, better late than never, Angel. 4:18: "SUCKERRRRRR!!!!" 4:40 and 20:17: Cue the name of one of Doom: The Plutonia Experiment's creators. Real hard Doom II expansion pack, but quite good in my opinion, and fits in better with that series' lore unlike TNT: Evilution; bonus if paired up with SIGIL (The Ultimate Doom epilogue) and No Rest for the Living (interquel for Doom II and Plutonia, I expect). 5:50: Right, the place was a nuclear missile facility back in the Cold War. Pity it wasn't ready for teleporting aliens. 6:20: A New Mexico desert, almost just like Area 51. 6:36: Woo-hoo, Apache gunship!!! 7:33: Oh, yes, the player character Gordon Freeman. One may suspect that he's a former merc, hence his leet skills. 8:13: Don't get to see these robots much later in the game and in the expansions. 9:02: ...Someday, the crowbar shall claim his life. Well, hope you don't miss any sightings. 10:00: You had me at not using the HD models. However, you should use it for Blue Shift, since it really depends on it to run properly. 10:41: Speaking of Unreal, good thing the first game and Tournament 1999 got the surprise freeware treatment recently. Hope Tournament 2004 follows suit, and kriff Fortnite. Shapiro also plays Barney Calhoun, who I just "suckered" earlier. See Blue Shift and Half-Life 2 and Episode One for more of the character, and maybe the Entropy Zero 1 mod. At least the limit on scientist and guard models here is endearing, especially in HLVRAI. Experimenting. Lots of video game protagonists do that, to the point that some people suspect they may be diagnosed with endearingly special needs. 13:19 and 14:06: Could have sworn this place has One Must Fall 2097 music... oh, wait, that's from good old Freeman's Mind. 14:48: Oh, yeah, this only closes down in the Black Mesa remake. Wonder if that scientist survived what comes next? 17:15: Yay, you can jump, unlike in Doom and Marathon! 18:23: Actually, neither one is Dr. Magnusson. The Black Mesa remake supports the assumption that he's quite an offscreen fella. Either way, microwave sabotage is always canon. Now, where was the "'Sup, fool" moment again? 19:55: One must wonder who the baby really is in-universe, and whether or not they survived the First Days and the Seven Hour War. Good thing Casali's locker doesn't have Revenants suddenly come out, as expected of him and his brother back in Plutonia. 20:52: If this were Black Mesa the remake, it never hurts to give toilet paper. 21:23: Fast suit-up there, but oh well. 22:34: Beats unmodded Marathon. That game surprisingly is sparse in music despite it being a predecessor/possible secret prequel to Halo. 22:59: Ready the Crossbow and Pistol then. 24:03: Chemicals. Can understand why some people want the loading screens be removed already for immersion and progress' sake. 24:49: Breen's always concerned. 25:30: These guys are supposed to be Eli Vance and Isaac Kleiner in Black Mesa the remake. 26:05: Ah, the Freeman's Mind lift where the guy got dizzy. 26:32: In Black Mesa the remake, the Einstein scientist is voiced by The Stanley Parable narrator. 30:21: ...That's actually Gordon Frohman's cheese, at least according to the Concerned webcomics; highly recommend reading those. On, and this was canonically dragged by Gina Cross from Decay; she's also known as the hologram instructor in the Training Room, and she seems to be found dead in Opposing Force. 31:27: I wonder, how many lives would be saved if Gordon instead offs himself by going to the beams instead? Thinking The Butterfly Effect: Director's Cut and Deja Vu here, you know. 32:18: Must be stasis space. 32:37: Cthulhu Dogs! 32:47: A shame you can only save some of them later in Black Mesa the remake. Still, better dead than Nihilanth-enslaved. 32:54: Prepare for [Title Drop]. 34:17: He doesn't get up in Black Mesa, so kudos for waiting to see how it goes here. 36:16: Hello, Lamarr. 37:10: No time for limbo! 37:34: Should have used a strong attack. 37:59: Ah, brings into mind how one can't switch weapons with allies in Halo: Combat Evolved. Thankfully, the sequels remembered otherwise. Strange Pistol, only fitting 17 rounds per mag. 38:42: It's either that or the game gets janked. 39:03: No, you didn't help him! 40:29: One Crowbar Man... as an aside, Studio Madhouse did better with Cardcaptor Sakura and Monster. 41:15: And then there's how one heals in the Alyx VR game. Now you're just Boundary Breaking.

Enjoying this so far, and loving the charmingly bad old-skool AI pathing! :D

That scientist would escape Black Mesa, invent a cure for many terminal diseases, and get the Nobel Prize, but unfortunately he fell foul of Gordon "Angel" Freeman, the sadist.

Damn, this level took me so long to figure out as a kid!

Confession, I've never played any of the Half-Lifes, bar some original Counter-Strike, which doesn't really count in this context! So looking forward to seeing how & where this goes. Even this early on, I can see why it went to become a classic, in addition to where the likes of the original Deus Ex, and System Shock 2 got some inspiration from.

The graphics are dated obviously; a quarter century is a long time indeed. However I found the effects in the chamber still looked amazingly good. I never finished Xen, as I could not defeat the Gonarch boss.

lol cheating in an lp man after my own heart

This is a really great lp you had a lot of interesting stuff to say and i like how to go out of your way for every little detail

lol i've always found it funny that a bunch of MIT physicist have to write E=MC squared on a white board like they don't already all know it something

imo half life is tied with MGS 1 for there being any sort of "Citizen Kane of video games" if there is such a thing

this is comfy

The new one is better. Besides, in space no one can hear you flak.

5:30 Some Klingons do care about seeking for glory. :)

personally i always thought the cardies planned to use the star manipulators to blow up the homeworld stars of the federation and their allies, earth, Qonos, romulas, causing chaos in the galaxy and allowing the cardassians to retake their space,

Oddly I moved from remastered to legacy today because I like the slower paced slug fest style of vanilla more

I agree historical important game and special time first time playing like you, however after playing Black Mesa that is the pinnacle of half-life, waiting for them to do the DLC packs.

It was a nice Let's Play of the game and seeing someone playing it different than me all those years ago (I let the AI do all the fighting, probaly because I hated the figthing in this game and the AI did a much better job than me). I agree with with a lot of your points of view. But instead of having more elemts from Klingon Academy it should be more like STAR TREK Resurgence (in which you ask your crew for opinions and than decide which of your optionsis the way to go) to generate the feeling of being a captain. I can't rember of any Starfleet captain doing the energy management in a fight during the movies or the tv shows. This is the duty of the chief mechanic in my opinion.

They're waiting for you Angel, in the test chamber!

The opening sequence is very iconic. Back in the days this was it was very innovative and truely amazing. And the graphics of this game were a true milestone. in my eyes the opening until the experiment is pure satire, but if I remember correctly the rest of the game isn't as funny as the opening. But I was never the biggest fan of FPS games and being from Germany I had to live with a heavily cut version of the game (you can't kill humans, bodies don't explode, the soldiers later on in the game are exchanged with strange looking robots,...), so I never finished Half-Life.

Just here after seeing the first part. So, basically, the first version of so called flak is 100% sound, while the second is, what, 20% sound? If so, good enough. However, I might prefer if it becomes, for lack of a better term, 40% sound. Not too loud, but not too subtle, that.

32:05 man when I first played Half Life, that scene was so incredibly impressive that I stared at the screen with my mouth open. When I look at it now, it just looks hilarious. Man that graphics have not aged well. Still a pretty awesome scene. With the particles, the teleporting, the black screen and heavy breathing... impressive

I think after you finish HL2 you should go back and play Black Mesa (a fan remaster of HL1) it will be interesting to go back to the beginning so to speak, but technologically and visually the most advanced game. The Xen levels in that are genuine art

Only one wee comment - please slow down the mouse movement a bit, or just walk/stand as much as possible ... it was a bit like watching a gnome jumping randomly about Ironforge, only so m much you can take.

You're right, it really was defining moment in FPS. As for the intro, even back in the day, I replayed it a loot looking for those moment where my and its path may cross again. It was just so well done. Here's me gushing over a game too.... I was 28 when it came out too....!

This mod is amazing wish I could get it to work again but only seem to get remastered to work well these days. You clearly didn't play the crap out of this in the early days.

Vanilla bc does rather suck very slow gameplay, basic graphics blahhh Modded it's amazing fun much faster paced and a ton of new ships and options, km has the most amount of options but it's difficult to install these days it doesn't work right and super janky, I recommend the remaster mod that has a lot of ships added for it and much easier to get working. I beat the game once and never played that mode again I just play quick battle.

As a signoff, maybe 'Crowbar safe'?

No matter how much time passes you are always seemingly half an hour late. Limited dialogue or some kind of philosophical meta commentary?

Good idea. Looking forward to following along.

Edit: Couple of people now have said to me my twitchy movements make them a bit motion sick, I shall try to adapt this next time and be slower. Here we go, something a bit different than either Trek or Wars. Hope it all works out, feedback and comments welcome 🙂

Wow this game aged poorly. That tiled repeating starfield is unacceptable. Young me loved modding this game. My first mod was to install the Defiant. Then to replace my first officer skin with Jadzia Dax. Some more game changing mods were the multi-vector assault mode ships like the Prometheus. I spent a lot of time in Quick Battle - cooking up crazy scenarios until my computer crashed.

Thank you for this review. I really enjoyed watching it :) Even though I don't have problem with the general gameplay and story I totally can understand your points. The biggest problem for me was always the crashing. During our Lan parties we often called it Crash Commander. Especially during the late XP and early Vista era it was really hard to play. We could at least improve stability by closing MSN Messenger, because every pop up from it crashed the game for us. Like you said mods, didn't help the situation, but of course they were the real reason why we played the game and why I still have it installed after 22 years. I really love what VonFrank has achieved, but KobMaru will always be my favourite mod. It offers so many features like the ability to transport to other ships, in system Warp, ejecting plasma or the warp core, more detailed scans of other ships (weapon status), customizable AI in multiplayer and they also included the submod NanoFX. That one let you explore the galaxy and offered simple missions. For example you could fly to DS9 get some missions in the Gamma Quadrant. They even had some divx mission videos for that! Of course I also think Klingon Academy is the better combat simulation and has a far better story, but from time to time a good casual game is also nice. Especially if it's improved by mods :)

Especially for a game as a Federation captain I would expect much more plot and negotiations. You know, like Elvis, only the other way around "A little less action a little more conversation".

The base game was okay back in the day, but definitely agree mods are a must to make it worthwhile playing today. Ron Jones was indeed fired for making his TNG music: "too foreground", so Berman got rid once he took full control. Glad he came back to score a couple of games like Starfleet Academy, as that music track feel both distinct and authentic Star Trek. While I'm obviously a massive Trek fan, I look forward to the change of pace/franchise with your next play-through of Half-Life!

This is probably my favorite after bridge commander The tng mod makes this godly tier in fun factor

Never played this but the klingon academy game was amazing I'd play it today if it would be released on gog

Net Immerse went on to become Gamebryo under Bethesda with The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. So its still around, as the Creation Engine!

This and Klingon Academy are my allt time favs.

I hope you enjoyed the Let's Play series of this and my thoughts. Feedback always welcome! I've already recorded the first episode of the Half Life playthrough, so that'll come in the next couple of days 🙂

Second one sounds better and is easier on the ears, but the first one sounds more "Star Wars" (maybe just nostalgia?) BTW, what do those shots actually do? Is it actually an AOE damage 'flak burst' against fighters? I always thought that was just the animation for when laser ran out of range. Has this always been in the game or is it only in TFTC?

Sounds much better and is easier on my ears! I don't have hearing of 30 years ago LoL

Mich nicer. Maybe could benefit from a teeny bit less bass but its a significant improvement. Please tell me the audio is encoded in FLAC

two thumbs up!

I wish the explosions didn’t keep flying with inertia of the laser.

Yah, that sounds a lot better and doesn't drown out the other sound effects.