I can confirm, it plays SUPER well with mouse and keyboard. Granted, the framerate is all over the goddamn place, but it's definitely playable. You can rebind the keys too, and adjust mouse sensitivity if I remember correctly...
CorndogOnaStick Shitty PC? Keep in mind, the ps2 port was made not long after the original release. Getting the game up and running on a conventional family PC from the late 90s might’ve been a tad too much for most hardware.
What was revealed recently about the Dreamcast port was that it was meant to be released on TWO discs, with the second containing multiplayer and another single player campaign (possibly opposing forces), but that second disc has yet to materialize.
Nick D I actually played on DC and PC. The DC version had an official Dreamcast mouse and keyboard sold separately. I think their was also cross play if I'm not mistaking.
@@Dev-nr4dw they probably already knew about it and were just teasing everyone. Alanah Pearce also did this years before the announcement, but everyone thought she was just joking.
@@Dev-nr4dw Yeah dude, everyone knew Valve had a major internal VR FPS in development since the Vive and the Oculus hit the marketplace, and that it was Half Life related.
Everyone: "If they make a new Half-Life game, the internet is going to blow up!" Half-Life Alyx releases: ......nobody cares I didn't even know it existed for a while. Not even a spark was heard. And I still don't see anyone talking about it much. I think the little geniuses at Valve have finally managed to sedate the crazy Half-Life fanbase completely 👏🏻
Ah, I totally forgot to include the bit about saving. Yes, the quick save is fantastic and saving to memory card works well too...but the DC version is terrible for saving. The save file grows as you progress through the level eventually exceeding the size of a VMU. It resets with each new main level. There is at least a password system, though.
@thegamereviewandreallifech1910 iirc the game on Dreamcast had a memory leak issue. Another reason as to why it never came out and prob why it had a password system.
I once left my Quake II CD in while playing Half-Life. The tram sequence worked just fine, and all of the Half-Life audio was present because I had run the installer and whatnot, but as soon as the next map loaded upon getting off the tram... Quake II music started blaring out of my laptop's speakers.
@@scoundrel8440 What? No. Only reason for inserting cd was to use it as "authentication key". Playing random audio from cd in cd-rom means sloppy and lazyness programming.
I'm not sure if you guys will see this, but these retro videos are amazing, I really enjoy taking a look back into really old tech and the games that were made at the time (and ported). I'd love to see more frequent uploads of this Retro series but I'm sure you have your hands full.
Half life was one of the first games I ran on my new computer in 1998. It was a 333Mhz K6-2, with an 8mb diamond fire GL paired with an 8mb monster2 voodo2 card and 32 mb of system ram. It ran amazing!
Within my first 5 minutes of playing half life, it instantly became one of my favorite games of all time. The pc version was my first, but don't pass up the ps2 version if you come across it. What a great port!
I really like those retro videos! Please keep making them! I actually played the PS2 version of HL some years back. It's not too bad. Except for the weird targeting system but those were common on console shooters at the time.
I love these DF Retro videos! I hope you do a DF Retro comparing all the different versions of Counter-Strike (i.e. all the original mod versions, retail release, console versions, etc.) sometime in the future.
they are working on games , they simply don't talk about them until they are finished (they don't want to make the same mistakes they did previously), they didn't make source 2 engine for fun
KayKay91 there's no point in creating an entire new engine with possibly new and improved physics just for an old game. I don't think valve will do full on conversions either...
That was great. I remember playing co op with a friend on ps2. It was really fun! I cant wait to see what you have to say about half life 2 on xbox original. That was the way I played it. Never played it on PC!!!
I do have a strong suspicion that the Dreamcast game would load a lot faster if it was a final game on GD-ROM, also I suppose you could cheat and use an SD card (some people made an adapter) I think the pirated SOF (on CD) used to have a lot worse load times than the GD-ROM SOF; in any case the PS2 version clearly also has better framerate, which could also be improved on the DC for a final release, but I wouldn't expect it to be better... regarding the PC; the current Half Life on steam seems to run with forced AA and AF, it lacks support for Direct3D and software mode like the original CD had, also the audio is lower quality than the CD release (low bitrate MP3), I remember once testing half life with a Pentium 133 in software mode, and it was surprisingly playable (like at least 10FPS), but it looked... interesting at 320x200 or whatever the res was, but this was just a quick run on starting levels, when I tested Hl1 on my Pentium II 400 in OGL and GLide mode (with a voodoo 2 and also voodoo 4 4500) it sill had significant slowdowns on big areas (limited a lot ore by the CPU side) to bellow 30 (but a lot faster than the Dreamcast footage here)
The Dreamcast version has significantly shorter load times with a GDEMU, while I wouldn't recommend getting one just for that it does make it more playable.
actually, the Steam version of the soundtrack are higher quality (with some of them exceed 200kbps bitrate) than original Retail (WON) release, this wasn't the case before around 2013 (SteamPipe), which most of the audio sounds very low quality on the pre-SteamPipe version. And for the D3D Renderer (and EAX/A3D Audio), they existed before SteamPipe also killed it.
PS2 version has: Better textures and models Better main menu Split Screen deathmatch and coop (Half Life Decay) Exclusive Deathmatch levels Exclusive alien cheat New elements in HUD Extended Levels Long Jump with sound effect and easy to use (only jump again in mid air) Bug fixes (yes, even more than 2020 PC version) The best Gordon Freeman model in game i have ever seen (Half Life 2 box doesnt count) This version is very underrated, it has a lot of content and is polished... Half Life 1 in PC is awesome, but in PS2 is one of my favorite videogames... And if you dont like the joystick, you can even connect mouse and keyboard to the PS2!!!!
I've seen a few remarks suggesting that and I remember issues back in the day, but after playing through a large chunk of it for this video, it played very well. There are some minor scripting changes and things work slightly differently but it seems solid.
+John Linneman hey man, I have a question, what is the name of the song that appear in game analysis? for example it appeared in need for speed most wanted wii u vs ps3 vs xbpx 360
Could you like me? The slow motion videos just use our in-house DF music (which was made for the site). The FPS comparison one just uses the in-game sound from MW.
Sure they do, but each Model 2 arcade board also cost about $15,000 in 1993 money. Jurassic Park also came out in 93 and stands as an example of the bleeding edge for the time. Getting the graphics was one thing, making them affordable for mass production and home use was another all together. The benefit for Sega, being *so* far ahead of their time, was that those arcade machines not only stunned people initially, but were good enough to provide a definitive experience for many years, completely outclassing the entire 5th gen console cycle.
The PS2 version of Half-Life is super legit. It was a far better port than almost any other PC->console port of that era. It's such a good port for that era it's downright surreal.
Please make more of these retro videos, they are awesome. I love the technical detail in them, as a 50 year gamer I remember them all. What about some Amiga classics like Xenon, Ruff n' Tumble, but to name just two out the dozens if not hundreds of great games. Commodore 64 and the 8 bit Atari had many excellent games.
You'd rather they just churned out sequels like other studios, rather than vastly improving the whole industry and helping bring proper VR to the masses?
Oh yeah, in the 90's joysticks were a common controller for PCs and other computers. I played Doom 2 on a joystick too, though it wasn't a too great experience, but compared to playing on a keyboard only, it was mostly the same (yes, it took years for the idea of mouse looking to make circles in the gaming community). The PC had the best joysticks too, analog control was awesome (Amigas and older machines had digital sticks) and each button could be assigned a different function not like on other computers where all 10 buttons would be the same (sic!).
Best episode so far, great work. :) Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay / Dark Athena would be nice to see presented some day. It's an interesting case of a console --> PC port and the expansion/sequel which also came out on several different platforms.
The Megadrive had a much faster processor than the SNES, as proven by slowdown being common in SNES games while being almost unheard of in Megadrive games.
It’s worth noting that the Dreamcast models and texture were what ended up getting used in the Steam release of Half-Life due to hardware of that release being vastly superior.
Back in early 2000s, my parent were going to visit relatives in New Mexico and they planned to visit Black Mesa. My dad asked me if I knew of something fun to do or interesting sights to see there. I lolled
I hope so. I ended up buying a Shield Portable just for that. Too bad the port ran like garbage, with drops into 15 fps during some of the larger areas and fights.
These framerate issues are exactly why i'll always be a pc gamer, i mean the ps2 version of HL will always run the same, no matter what, but with a pc, performance and graphics can be improved in the future, always. Like i can play disohonored 1 in 4K without buying the game again for a newer console, and having to deal with bad framerate, like in all "remasters" nowadays.
If the PS2 Version runs at 512*448 and the DC runs at 640*480, does that mean if we divide the two resolutions, 229376/307200, the PS2 is running at .75% of the resolution of the DC? Does that also mean the PS2 is doing 25% less work than the DC to output graphics to the screen? Someone with more technical knowledge please explain.
I'm talking purely from nostalgia there (just a fun anecdote). I built my first PC with an AMD K6 233 and was crushed by how much faster my buddies machine was running Quake engine games using a Pentium 200mmx. Both of us had Voodoo 1 cards at the time. Some of the later Athlon CPUs were really damn good, though.
John Linneman Should probably repharse that. AMD and Intel kept trading for fastest CPU as each new CPU generation released. AMD would release their new CPUs, they would be fast. Intel would release their CPUs a few months later, and they would be faster. When the Athlon 64 hit, AMD was clearly faster. Intel could only manage a paperweight launch and had to bribe PC manufacturers not to use AMD CPUs.
The music was a bit distracting (too creepy or maybe just cause it's loud) but otherwise great video! Love the fact you do both the latest & greatest as well as the retro games.
DF retro are the best. Seen it since before you announced it at eurogamer and its become better and much better on each episode.Keep up the goodwork,john.
just loving this retro series think its very interesting and important to see the technology that went in to the console ports of PC games great job so far digital foundry☺☺☺
I love that Black Mesa kept that random npc conversation system that is so 90s! Most Quake II engine games had it, I remember Kingpin had it. It was funny bacause you could bring any random npcs close together and they started conversing by saying silly generic things intead of the focused dialogue modern games have. It's so good this remake respected that retro detail
Idk but I always find DF Retro really interesting. It's fun looking back at older games and seeing the various ports. You've piqued my interest with the brief glimpse at Soldier of Fortune on the DC too. :P
I loved this video, I own the ps2 version of HL1 and PC version too. Back then I wondered why the PS2 looks better than the PC version before the update on HL1 that changed the models to PS2 ones.
Another awesome comparison. Love the retro series. Should look into the Quake III ports for Dreamcast and PS2 as those were both official releases :) Quake II on N64 and PS1 would be amazing too.
Now this was interesting. I'm not a Digital Foundry fan simply because i don't care about tech on consoles, but making comparatives between different versions of retro games it's something i can really follow. Now here's a suggestion: How about the original Out Run? It's a game i've been always curious about and i'd love to see a comparative between it most notable versions, throwing the 3DS' and PC fanmade remakes while you're at it.
It's great to see the Dreamcast version in action here. Honestly, the performance is not as good as I had hoped, but it's about in line with a few other FPS ports to the DC, like KISS Pyscho Circus and Slave Zero. Even Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament can have pretty inconsistent performance on the Dreamcast. I do wish Sierra had just gone ahead and released it. It wouldn't have sold in super high numbers, but I think there would have been enough interest from fans to warrant releasing it (I know I would have bought it, I was looking forward to it at the time!).
Crazy to think that The Dreamcast/PS2/XBox/Gamecube were all roughly part of the same generation of consoles, and that the Dreamcast ran Half-Life 1 poorly, the PS2 ran it well, and the Xbox just leap frogged them both and ran Half-Life 2 pretty well.
To be fair, if porting Half-Life 1 to the Dreamcast was a small studio's first (and only) project, there's no doubt it could've ended a lot better with a more experienced development team. I have no issue believing the Dreamcast could at least run Half-Life similarly to the PS2 with the PS2 version's added details, albeit maybe slightly slower. The PS2's first year has a bunch of ports that either ran or looked better on Dreamcast, and the Dreamcast's life was too short to witness its 100% potential (already comparing SA1 to SA2 on the same console is already a generational leap, even though SA2's dev team was super tiny by comparison), while the PS2's potential was uncovered only later due to more complicated architecture.
I think the PS2 version is the BEST version, I loved it. It looks and plays great, it's the one version I play these days. It's incredibly underrated and only takes what, 5 seconds, if that, to load a new area. Whenever I go back and play the whole HL series, I play the PS2 version. The frame rate never bothered me, BTW.
Forgot to mention that the PS2 version also has full mouse and keyboard support.
Really? And how well does it play?
I can confirm, it plays SUPER well with mouse and keyboard. Granted, the framerate is all over the goddamn place, but it's definitely playable. You can rebind the keys too, and adjust mouse sensitivity if I remember correctly...
OldsXCool I’m glad they bothered to put that in, but it begs the question. Why not just play it on pc lmao?
CorndogOnaStick Shitty PC? Keep in mind, the ps2 port was made not long after the original release. Getting the game up and running on a conventional family PC from the late 90s might’ve been a tad too much for most hardware.
so did the dreamcast. along with a developer console
What was revealed recently about the Dreamcast port was that it was meant to be released on TWO discs, with the second containing multiplayer and another single player campaign (possibly opposing forces), but that second disc has yet to materialize.
Dammit, Larry. I see you everywhere! Lol ;)
*****
But its on the first disc.
Nick D I actually played on DC and PC. The DC version had an official Dreamcast mouse and keyboard sold separately. I think their was also cross play if I'm not mistaking.
Larry Bundy Jr Really? That's pretty cool. Do you have a source that I can look at? Never heard of this.
I wonder if the multiplayer would have incorporated the Modem
Last levels are missing. Feels like a Valve product indeed.
Sick burn, bro.
i raged then i remembered ive been waiting 10+ years for black mesa and 8 years+ for Half Life 3/ep3
FUCK
lol
it's a joke genius....
and the "on a rail" levels is Cut from the game, had to mod it. T-T
14:47 You predicted Half-Life VR years before the announcement.
Its been known that Valve were working on a Half-Life VR project for years now, the only surprise was that they finally formally announced it.
@@mysteriousbob
Not in 2016 when this was made.
@@Dev-nr4dw they probably already knew about it and were just teasing everyone.
Alanah Pearce also did this years before the announcement, but everyone thought she was just joking.
@@Dev-nr4dw Yeah dude, everyone knew Valve had a major internal VR FPS in development since the Vive and the Oculus hit the marketplace, and that it was Half Life related.
Everyone: "If they make a new Half-Life game, the internet is going to blow up!"
Half-Life Alyx releases: ......nobody cares
I didn't even know it existed for a while. Not even a spark was heard. And I still don't see anyone talking about it much. I think the little geniuses at Valve have finally managed to sedate the crazy Half-Life fanbase completely 👏🏻
These Retros are fantastic from the first one and from episode by episode they are just getting better. Very impressive stuff DF, thanks.
I second this.
Not really in my opinion.
Half-Life for PS2 has also another great feature: quick save.
Ah, I totally forgot to include the bit about saving. Yes, the quick save is fantastic and saving to memory card works well too...but the DC version is terrible for saving. The save file grows as you progress through the level eventually exceeding the size of a VMU. It resets with each new main level. There is at least a password system, though.
@thegamereviewandreallifech1910 iirc the game on Dreamcast had a memory leak issue. Another reason as to why it never came out and prob why it had a password system.
Not gonna lie, loved playing Half-Life 1 on the PlayStation 2. Specially when i played it co-op with my best friend and siblings.
These retro segments are excellent!
the best
agreed!
Great episode
This is amazing, you have no idea how much i enjoy these DF Retro videos.
Keep them coming.
I once left my Quake II CD in while playing Half-Life. The tram sequence worked just fine, and all of the Half-Life audio was present because I had run the installer and whatnot, but as soon as the next map loaded upon getting off the tram... Quake II music started blaring out of my laptop's speakers.
That's why you don't play games while another game's CD is still inserted into your PC. Especially when that game uses the CD to play music.
@@scoundrel8440 What? No. Only reason for inserting cd was to use it as "authentication key". Playing random audio from cd in cd-rom means sloppy and lazyness programming.
maybe it is time to do oblivion now whith the psp version leaked.
Also, nice big rigs over the road racing referense!
PsP version for Oblivion?
PsP version for Oblivion.
Source? I don't believe this
hari 365 Sorry, do I look like your personal Google searcher? Even the ISO of Travels beta has been around for two goddamn months already.
3 years passed, the xen level is still in development.
Not anymore
I'm not sure if you guys will see this, but these retro videos are amazing, I really enjoy taking a look back into really old tech and the games that were made at the time (and ported). I'd love to see more frequent uploads of this Retro series but I'm sure you have your hands full.
Please keep doing these! As someone who loves history and tech, these are great!
Half life was one of the first games I ran on my new computer in 1998. It was a 333Mhz K6-2, with an 8mb diamond fire GL paired with an 8mb monster2 voodo2 card and 32 mb of system ram. It ran amazing!
Can't wait till the Half Life 2 port comparisons. You had PC, the original XBox (Remarkable that it ran on 64MB of RAM) , XBox 360 and PS3.
very remarkable
I'm so hyped for the next episode, it's not even funny.
+Bucketninja Never gonna happen though.
don't forget the port to Android/Nvidia Shield
Also that free Steam graphical upgrade released last year.
Great video. My first exposure to HL was the excellent PS2 port. I've replayed it so many times!
John, I hope you are always the one to make these videos. I love these!
1998: Ocarina, MGS and Half-Life. What a year.
listening to the magnificent soundtrack of Half Life brings me back to my childhood, Great video!
I love the work on these videos, such a seemingly dull topic made interesting. Please keep it up.
Within my first 5 minutes of playing half life, it instantly became one of my favorite games of all time. The pc version was my first, but don't pass up the ps2 version if you come across it. What a great port!
Yeah, PS2, my go to system for Half-Life!
I really like those retro videos! Please keep making them! I actually played the PS2 version of HL some years back. It's not too bad. Except for the weird targeting system but those were common on console shooters at the time.
back when games look better on release than in alpha
I love these DF Retro videos! I hope you do a DF Retro comparing all the different versions of Counter-Strike (i.e. all the original mod versions, retail release, console versions, etc.) sometime in the future.
They need to get back making games
They are :D remenber Source2 its almost finished so expect to see Valve announcing a game "soon"(in a few years)
they are working on games , they simply don't talk about them until they are finished (they don't want to make the same mistakes they did previously), they didn't make source 2 engine for fun
So far they've made Source 2 just for DOTA2 and CS:GO and that's it.
KayKay91 there's no point in creating an entire new engine with possibly new and improved physics just for an old game. I don't think valve will do full on conversions either...
they did it;s a shitty dead dota 2 card game glad it;s dead
I am really enjoying these DF Retro videos.
Looking forward to future episodes
Steam: "Recommended to you: Super Noah's Ark 3D"
Next DF Retro video confirmed.
Super 3D Noah's Ark*
That was great. I remember playing co op with a friend on ps2. It was really fun! I cant wait to see what you have to say about half life 2 on xbox original. That was the way I played it. Never played it on PC!!!
I played through it on Dreamcast just because. It was fascinating and alot of fun
referral madness I'm not sure. The controls we're weird. Abxy move and the joystick looks.
Daniel Stanford like MDK 2?
referral madness - I know it's 9 months late but yes, the DC version has full DC keyboard and mouse support.
Another interesting video for the Retro series, keep it up John! Looking forward to seeing to see what you revisit next.
I do have a strong suspicion that the Dreamcast game would load a lot faster if it was a final game on GD-ROM, also I suppose you could cheat and use an SD card (some people made an adapter) I think the pirated SOF (on CD) used to have a lot worse load times than the GD-ROM SOF; in any case the PS2 version clearly also has better framerate, which could also be improved on the DC for a final release, but I wouldn't expect it to be better...
regarding the PC; the current Half Life on steam seems to run with forced AA and AF, it lacks support for Direct3D and software mode like the original CD had, also the audio is lower quality than the CD release (low bitrate MP3), I remember once testing half life with a Pentium 133 in software mode, and it was surprisingly playable (like at least 10FPS), but it looked... interesting at 320x200 or whatever the res was, but this was just a quick run on starting levels, when I tested Hl1 on my Pentium II 400 in OGL and GLide mode (with a voodoo 2 and also voodoo 4 4500) it sill had significant slowdowns on big areas (limited a lot ore by the CPU side) to bellow 30 (but a lot faster than the Dreamcast footage here)
The Dreamcast version has significantly shorter load times with a GDEMU, while I wouldn't recommend getting one just for that it does make it more playable.
Dream cast is kinda hit or miss with CD media. Some burns run and load well and others don't.
actually, the Steam version of the soundtrack are higher quality (with some of them exceed 200kbps bitrate) than original Retail (WON) release, this wasn't the case before around 2013 (SteamPipe), which most of the audio sounds very low quality on the pre-SteamPipe version.
And for the D3D Renderer (and EAX/A3D Audio), they existed before SteamPipe also killed it.
DF has aged the shit out of John. This video is only 5 years old, but he looks like a baby here.
PS2 version has:
Better textures and models
Better main menu
Split Screen deathmatch and coop (Half Life Decay)
Exclusive Deathmatch levels
Exclusive alien cheat
New elements in HUD
Extended Levels
Long Jump with sound effect and easy to use (only jump again in mid air)
Bug fixes (yes, even more than 2020 PC version)
The best Gordon Freeman model in game i have ever seen (Half Life 2 box doesnt count)
This version is very underrated, it has a lot of content and is polished... Half Life 1 in PC is awesome, but in PS2 is one of my favorite videogames... And if you dont like the joystick, you can even connect mouse and keyboard to the PS2!!!!
Yes, my go to system for Half-Life!
Amazing content as always. Nothing comes close on UA-cam to your retro videos. Also thanks for making us wait through those load times in real time?
Why did this video seem like a creepy pasta?
I think the Half-life music in the back ground is why, it's very creepy but good music.
The remix of the Black Mesa theme at 11:14 still sends bone-chilling shivers down my spine whenever I listen to it.
It's the half-life music. Lol creepy 'pasta'. I'm stealing that.
eh it happens, but if you know HL very well just like i do, you will instantly recognize the soundtrack.
plus Big rigs over the road raceing
DF is one of my favorite UA-cam channels. Thanks guys!
Its incredible how bad the early ps2 games looked. Now compare this to RE4, GT4, Tekken 5, God of war 2, FF12, Killzone etc.
Lovely article and video John, love this series, please keep them up, my favorite youtube channel atm and probably favorite series too.
do you guys agree with the favourable words about HL: Source? People ripped it apart for being buggy as I recall?
I've seen a few remarks suggesting that and I remember issues back in the day, but after playing through a large chunk of it for this video, it played very well. There are some minor scripting changes and things work slightly differently but it seems solid.
+John Linneman hey man, I have a question, what is the name of the song that appear in game analysis? for example it appeared in need for speed most wanted wii u vs ps3 vs xbpx 360
Could you like me? The slow motion videos just use our in-house DF music (which was made for the site). The FPS comparison one just uses the in-game sound from MW.
+John Linneman obviously, so I wouldnt be able to download that song
+John Linneman please, try age of empires II in DF retro, I love that game, that is why I bought the hd version
I spent the whole day watching DF videos...so worth it!
DF Retro huh, kinda sounds like Retro Ahoy. :P
***** That's true, I didn't mean it negative though, I love these kind of videos.
His videos are incredible. Retro Ahoy is definitely an inspiration for me. I just wish I had the silky smooth voice going on. So good!
This was a great little retrospective. Looking forward to the HL2 one.
this brings me back to your Daytona USA episode. that game was launched in 1993 and those graphics simply destroys quake and even HL1.
Magnum Daytona USA was way ahead of its time. The first time i see the game i think that was a DC/PS2 game.
Magnum Also the DC port of Half-Life looks like mid end N64 graphics (Turok 3 comes to my mind).
Sure they do, but each Model 2 arcade board also cost about $15,000 in 1993 money.
Jurassic Park also came out in 93 and stands as an example of the bleeding edge for the time.
Getting the graphics was one thing, making them affordable for mass production and home use was another all together.
The benefit for Sega, being *so* far ahead of their time, was that those arcade machines not only stunned people initially, but were good enough to provide a definitive experience for many years, completely outclassing the entire 5th gen console cycle.
Love these Retro videos DF, Thanks.
i like half life ..
same here
WJG Indonesia don't we all?
Epic video! Really enjoyed it. Looking forward to future episodes.
Lost it at the big rigs reference
The PS2 version of Half-Life is super legit. It was a far better port than almost any other PC->console port of that era. It's such a good port for that era it's downright surreal.
That Mafia port...Jesus Christ.
Half life is a timeless clasic ^_^
Please make more of these retro videos, they are awesome. I love the technical detail in them, as a 50 year gamer I remember them all. What about some Amiga classics like Xenon, Ruff n' Tumble, but to name just two out the dozens if not hundreds of great games. Commodore 64 and the 8 bit Atari had many excellent games.
Remember when Valve made games? And I don't mean the "stealing small dev teams and their games like EA" games (like TF2, Portal, and Dota 2).
Those were good times. Sadly they are making too much money on 400€ skins :(
That's the way of the future ; more money in an ever smaller amount of hands, fueled by an anthropomorphic mass of illiterates.
Well, soon enough we got source 2 and it's matching games coming out
You'd rather they just churned out sequels like other studios, rather than vastly improving the whole industry and helping bring proper VR to the masses?
what about CS??? also another MOD
This is a great series! Thank you, John.
1:10 WTF? Playing Quake with a "stick"?
Oh yeah, in the 90's joysticks were a common controller for PCs and other computers. I played Doom 2 on a joystick too, though it wasn't a too great experience, but compared to playing on a keyboard only, it was mostly the same (yes, it took years for the idea of mouse looking to make circles in the gaming community). The PC had the best joysticks too, analog control was awesome (Amigas and older machines had digital sticks) and each button could be assigned a different function not like on other computers where all 10 buttons would be the same (sic!).
Great video, love these DF Retro features.
That ''you're winner'' cameo tho.
Best episode so far, great work. :)
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay / Dark Athena would be nice to see presented some day. It's an interesting case of a console --> PC port and the expansion/sequel which also came out on several different platforms.
They should re release all the valve games on PS4 would be awesome. The super orange box
This is an idea I could get behind (but they will never do that) :(
+John Linneman something like Rare Replay but valve. I would definitely buy it :D
I still have that Orange box in my 360 lol.
+EliteDeltaTeam so do I
Pffffffft, no. That sounds silly.
The nerdy part of me love these videos. Wish they were available when I was younger.
"You're winner"
Nice meme
I freaking love DF Retro episodes.
What happen SEGA? Where's your Blast Processing?
in the Sega MegaDrive
Blast Processing was a marketing gimmick for the Genesis/MegaDrive. not the Dreamcast
That version was never released, and its poor performance was more of the developer's fault, not SEGA.
blast processing was a real thing actually
..incredibly
The Megadrive had a much faster processor than the SNES, as proven by slowdown being common in SNES games while being almost unheard of in Megadrive games.
It’s worth noting that the Dreamcast models and texture were what ended up getting used in the Steam release of Half-Life due to hardware of that release being vastly superior.
a face for radio
only joking
you still said it
yes i did
great work on these retro stuff. very informative.
the first one is the best by far
Back in early 2000s, my parent were going to visit relatives in New Mexico and they planned to visit Black Mesa. My dad asked me if I knew of something fun to do or interesting sights to see there. I lolled
theinsfrijonds Black mesa isn't a real place.
You guys need to do Doom next. The console ports were very different apparently.
"The dsp sound effects" Someone needs to make an edit for that using DSP's laugh/snorts.
I wonder if HL2 episode will also feature the Nvidia Shield port.
I hope so. I ended up buying a Shield Portable just for that. Too bad the port ran like garbage, with drops into 15 fps during some of the larger areas and fights.
Keep these retro videos coming, they're great. :D
These framerate issues are exactly why i'll always be a pc gamer, i mean the ps2 version of HL will always run the same, no matter what, but with a pc, performance and graphics can be improved in the future, always. Like i can play disohonored 1 in 4K without buying the game again for a newer console, and having to deal with bad framerate, like in all "remasters" nowadays.
stfu
there are no fps in remasters nowadays so stfu
played tons of HL myself since mid '99. this is a very well made video. liked subscribed AND faved !
If the PS2 Version runs at 512*448 and the DC runs at 640*480, does that mean if we divide the two resolutions, 229376/307200, the PS2 is running at .75% of the resolution of the DC? Does that also mean the PS2 is doing 25% less work than the DC to output graphics to the screen? Someone with more technical knowledge please explain.
Great work, really love this series!
Wow, he's complaining about AMD CPUs back then, even though back then, AMD actually made better CPUs than Intel
I'm talking purely from nostalgia there (just a fun anecdote). I built my first PC with an AMD K6 233 and was crushed by how much faster my buddies machine was running Quake engine games using a Pentium 200mmx. Both of us had Voodoo 1 cards at the time. Some of the later Athlon CPUs were really damn good, though.
John Linneman Should probably repharse that. AMD and Intel kept trading for fastest CPU as each new CPU generation released. AMD would release their new CPUs, they would be fast. Intel would release their CPUs a few months later, and they would be faster.
When the Athlon 64 hit, AMD was clearly faster. Intel could only manage a paperweight launch and had to bribe PC manufacturers not to use AMD CPUs.
wasn't it the P4 that made AMD > intel?
Can't wait for future episodes and DF: Retro Hardware.
The music was a bit distracting (too creepy or maybe just cause it's loud) but otherwise great video! Love the fact you do both the latest & greatest as well as the retro games.
DF retro are the best.
Seen it since before you announced it at eurogamer and its become better and much better on each episode.Keep up the goodwork,john.
Love the retro treats keep them coming DF 👍
just loving this retro series think its very interesting and important to see the technology that went in to the console ports of PC games great job so far digital foundry☺☺☺
I love that Black Mesa kept that random npc conversation system that is so 90s! Most Quake II engine games had it, I remember Kingpin had it. It was funny bacause you could bring any random npcs close together and they started conversing by saying silly generic things intead of the focused dialogue modern games have. It's so good this remake respected that retro detail
Idk but I always find DF Retro really interesting. It's fun looking back at older games and seeing the various ports. You've piqued my interest with the brief glimpse at Soldier of Fortune on the DC too. :P
I loved this video, I own the ps2 version of HL1 and PC version too. Back then I wondered why the PS2 looks better than the PC version before the update on HL1 that changed the models to PS2 ones.
Retro reviews +1 thumbs up guys good work as always!
Great vid..I played the demo as a kid and not the full till a few years ago and they felt so different...never knew why
I love this series, please continue to make more episodes!
You were right at the end about a follow-up version in VR :D
Another awesome comparison. Love the retro series. Should look into the Quake III ports for Dreamcast and PS2 as those were both official releases :) Quake II on N64 and PS1 would be amazing too.
Now this was interesting. I'm not a Digital Foundry fan simply because i don't care about tech on consoles, but making comparatives between different versions of retro games it's something i can really follow.
Now here's a suggestion: How about the original Out Run? It's a game i've been always curious about and i'd love to see a comparative between it most notable versions, throwing the 3DS' and PC fanmade remakes while you're at it.
RIP Dreamcast, you are my favourite console of all time, despite your many flaws.
It's great to see the Dreamcast version in action here. Honestly, the performance is not as good as I had hoped, but it's about in line with a few other FPS ports to the DC, like KISS Pyscho Circus and Slave Zero. Even Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament can have pretty inconsistent performance on the Dreamcast. I do wish Sierra had just gone ahead and released it. It wouldn't have sold in super high numbers, but I think there would have been enough interest from fans to warrant releasing it (I know I would have bought it, I was looking forward to it at the time!).
The PS2 version was the first version of Half life that I ever played, had alot of good memories playing it through 4th of July weekend back in 2010
Thanks for this revisited title...played it 18 years ago !
Crazy to think that The Dreamcast/PS2/XBox/Gamecube were all roughly part of the same generation of consoles, and that the Dreamcast ran Half-Life 1 poorly, the PS2 ran it well, and the Xbox just leap frogged them both and ran Half-Life 2 pretty well.
Xbox is like console generation 6.5!
Xbox didnt run HL2 well, lol.
To be fair, if porting Half-Life 1 to the Dreamcast was a small studio's first (and only) project, there's no doubt it could've ended a lot better with a more experienced development team. I have no issue believing the Dreamcast could at least run Half-Life similarly to the PS2 with the PS2 version's added details, albeit maybe slightly slower.
The PS2's first year has a bunch of ports that either ran or looked better on Dreamcast, and the Dreamcast's life was too short to witness its 100% potential (already comparing SA1 to SA2 on the same console is already a generational leap, even though SA2's dev team was super tiny by comparison), while the PS2's potential was uncovered only later due to more complicated architecture.
@@VicViper I think its also unfair to compare the Dreamcast ports since when PS2 came out, Dreamcast had already 2 years in the market.
10:53 The "You're Winner" Got me good
DF Retro rising and shining!
The best thing that happened to DigitalFoundry : DF Retro.
I think the PS2 version is the BEST version, I loved it. It looks and plays great, it's the one version I play these days. It's incredibly underrated and only takes what, 5 seconds, if that, to load a new area. Whenever I go back and play the whole HL series, I play the PS2 version. The frame rate never bothered me, BTW.