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PaperclipPerfector  13hr ago (text post)   375 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 3, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video game thread

What are you playing these days?

I will be playing through Half-Life soon. I noticed I didn't have it in my Steam library so I picked up the Anthology bundle for a couple of dollars. Only a couple of years have passed since the last time I played HL, but for some reason I'm drawn to it again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Still waiting for a reasonably priced 5120x2160, 39 inch ultrawide monitor to show up. I'm sort of holding off on some games until I can upgrade my monitor. Some games aren't well suited for playing on the TV.

Genuine question since I haven't played the first half life game. Is Half-life good by modern gameplay standards? Or is it one of those games that was great for its time and era but feels dated now?

IMO it's still good. I don't play anything purely for nostalgia vibes. If you like old school FPSes at all, you'll probably have fun with it.

One of the things I still value about it is that it is "no BS". You don't have to deal with listening to shitty characters in cutscenes or anything. There are no cutscenes. It's all in first person mode from start to finish.

It has lowres and lowpoly graphics, of course, but it was well designed artistically. You can find pretty good graphics mods for HL1 and HL2 to increase the texture resolutions.

The gunplay is good. It's very satisfying to unload on an alien with a double barrel shotgun blast, or to fire the big shiny revolver that does high damage and has pinpoint accuracy. I like how they don't let themselves get stuck to realism needlessly. The sound design is great.

The main downside with the game is that the second half, and especially final part of the game is far less good than the first half. The level design takes a nosedive at times. But I don't remember myself or anyone else feeling really let down by the game at the end. It doesn't stick the landing, but you still look back at a great experience. The whole setup, universe, design, and first half of the game is so damn good. Especially for its time. So there might be a little bit of "goodwill" involved due to remembering how the rest of the game scene was in 1998. Valve made huge strides with both HL1 and HL2 and the Source engine.

One decision to make is whether to play the original, or the third party remake Black Mesa. The latter looks a lot more modern, but they had scope creep going on. And, very annoyingly for me, you can't disable their mouse acceleration. They force you to have a slow mouse for minor movements and a fast movement for major movements.

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