I love how it has this lovely sound effect for echoes that no other version has. it also has some effects intact that are gone from Orange box updated version of PC/X360 HL2. Like eye gleam/shine in characters. Most noticeable on Gman during intro.
@777malkavian
9 ай бұрын
More games should simulate sound physics.
@Kacpa2
9 ай бұрын
@@777malkavian Sound is ignored and incredibly mediocre in so many games, even enviromental physics too, seems all focus is on visuals alone and nothing else. Its both lack of effects like this, and sub-par sounds for stuff vehicles or weapons to a point most games just pale in comparison to those 2000s tech pushing games, be it Half Life 2, GTA 4, Crysis or any other akin to them. Racing games also fail to match games like Most Wanted or Grid racedriver games in terms of sound, physics or handling. Its like devs/studios dont even try and just slap mediocre ready systems in place and call it a day. Especially when its stuff on Unreal engine. Its just sad :/
@olnnn
9 ай бұрын
Audio processing is one area where in the PC version HL2 was a bit lackluster compared to it's predecessor. HL1 had Aureal A3D and EAX, while HL2 much improved sample quality it lacked the sofisticated audio technology of the first game and we didn't really get anything similar until very recently in valve games again with the audio positioning stuff in Counter Strike 2.
@d3x7r0
9 ай бұрын
@@olnnnTBF Microsoft has a big hand in setting back PC Gaming audio for years with the release of Windows Vista circa 2006. Most of the cool audio stuff we had before (like A3D) was only possible thanks to how low level the audio drivers could go in the old days. When Microsoft introduced their Windows Driver Model, most of that stuff got killed off. Especially when Vista reworked the audio stack making audio accelerators basically unfeasible by moving most audio processing to the CPU instead. Microsoft did it because moving off the hardware does enable a lot of good things we take for granted nowadays (routing audio from any input to any output, muting an individual application, not crashing the whole system when the audio driver crashes, etc) but it also meant the end of custom hardware extensions like Aureal A3D. For those who are unfamiliar, A3D was very similar in concept to what Sony's Tempest Engine for the PS5 and was introduced in 1996! Thanks to Microsoft (and Creative tbh) positional audio in gaming was set back over 20 years!
@AgsmaJustAgsma
9 ай бұрын
It was genuinely jarring to see gameplay videos of HL2 using the original 2004 build of the Source Engine and playing the game on Steam afterwards, using The Orange Box build.
@MediaBoy13
9 ай бұрын
The audio difference is actually insane and caught me by surprise seeing them played back to back
@larsu-gx579
9 ай бұрын
I know the guy who designed the audio architecture for the Xbox, he is the smartest man I have ever met, by far. Look up the music from the Black Knight 2000 pinball machine, which he programmed in assembly language in the 80's, before he joined microsoft. Just an absolute wizard when it comes to digital audio.
@RiPvI
9 ай бұрын
Would they have used EAX like in HL1 it would have had better effects. Today everything is done in software.
@gowanlore2434
9 ай бұрын
@@larsu-gx579His name Dan Forden?
@larsu-gx579
9 ай бұрын
@@gowanlore2434 No, Brian Schmidt
@sonyPlaytation
9 ай бұрын
@@larsu-gx579holy shit thats one of my favourite “video game” songs (even if pinball doesnt count as a video game lol) No wonder i love the way this port sounds.
@SparksterG40
9 ай бұрын
There WERE additional changes aside from the texture reduction. Alot of prop, vehicle, and character geometry was reduced (airboat handle bars, barrels, etc), walls were added or replaced mesh fences to allow for additional loading screens and less to draw onscreen, and while certain audio effects were taken advantage of from the Xbox's audio hardware, certain sounds and voicelines have a reduced bitrate (Gman's speech at the endgame).
@almroa
9 ай бұрын
One change I noticed was during the mounted-gun sequence they used to show the difference between the stock and modded Xbox. On PC, the wall on the right is a chain-link fence that looks down onto the canal. On Xbox they changed it to, as you said, a solid wall, presumably to save on draw time.
@DutchDaddy
9 ай бұрын
Also the binoculars to spy on Gman in highway 17 was completely removed
@giannigamer4141
8 ай бұрын
@@almroache intendi per xbox moddata?
@Tomiply
Ай бұрын
As impressive as this port is, there's a TON more loading screens. They pop up very often, especially when you're a veteran who plays the game pretty fast.
@gumballegal
9 ай бұрын
wish we could get a mod too replicate those audio effects. Damn i love that
@paulbunyangonewild7596
Ай бұрын
Worst case scenario at least for Breen, you could just take the audio and bake the echo into it.
@geremipineault308
Ай бұрын
same man
@itchyisvegeta
9 ай бұрын
Not only did I know this game existed, the game was also backwards compatible on the 360 very early on, which is even more incredible in my opinion.
@Coolman13355
9 ай бұрын
Now I have to look up if it's playable on the One/Series BC.
@IFibreOpticI
9 ай бұрын
@Coolman13355 well no. Only orange box
@Coolman13355
9 ай бұрын
@@IFibreOpticI That would be the more important one.
@s2601d
9 ай бұрын
Yeah but unfortunately, moustly games on X360 backwards compatible from OG, runs the same, or sometimes even worse then on original hardware
@TDRR_Gamez
9 ай бұрын
@@s2601dit's a miracle they run at playable framerates at all. That said, I do agree it probably runs awful lol, there's very low framerates in even Max Payne 1.
@roolaing
9 ай бұрын
I was one of those who knew, and bought it. I don't remember the lag - I just recall being super impressed by the physics, which even Halo 2 didn't really have, as graphically impressive as that was at the time.
@jrayAF1
9 ай бұрын
Same! I don't remember the low fps and lag like showcased.. wierd but I was young
@JustAFan444
9 ай бұрын
I don't remember the lag in a lot of games from when I was younger... I definitely do remember playing through the original Max Payne in single digit fps on my aunts PC though lol.
@Shockload
4 ай бұрын
We all don't remember tha lag when we were younger, afterall nostalgia is one hell of a drug, go boot the game right now and see the difference
@DoctorNastyy
3 ай бұрын
@@Shockload i honestly just played it on the original xbox yesterday. if it makes sense the lag is a lot more noticeable watching footage of it than it is while playing it. when you're playing it all you really notice is how amazing it is that it works as well as it does
@awsxedc3
9 ай бұрын
Xbox ports like this and Doom 3 are always so interesting, seeing what compromises they came up with to get it running!
@redslate
9 ай бұрын
2004-2005 was an exciting period for console gaming.
@ORLY911
9 ай бұрын
I still argue the xbox port of Doom 3 is a bit better than the PC release, if unintentionally, cutting out portions of levels made it feel more evenly placed, and a bit less bloated before the hell levels.
@guitarzilla555
9 ай бұрын
Doom 3 looked straight up amazing for an Xbox game, plus it had co-op over LAN. My friend and I had a blast tearing through the campaign.
@HerZeL3iDza
9 ай бұрын
@@guitarzilla555 The fact that they added actual proper coop to the Xbox version is still shocking to me. I don't think anyone even expected that. I remember playing DOOM 3 on PC with my brother with a coop mod in 2005 over LAN, fun as hell but buggy at the time.
@MiharuHiramu
9 ай бұрын
The Xbox ports are still the only versions of these games I've played.
@JesusKristov
9 ай бұрын
Love that your experience of HL2 was exactly the same as mine. Having to install multiple CDs only to then have to install some crappy program called "Steam" that wouldn't run on my crap internet, then finally getting it to run at like 640*480 with low settings and it still being absolutely the best thing I'd ever played
@casedistorted
9 ай бұрын
That was my first experience too, our PC could handle HL2 somehow and it ran pretty well, but Steam was a bad taste in my mouth. It took until 2009 or 2010 for me to finally warm up to it and begin buying games again, that's why I don't have an old account from 2004 or 2005 on Steam despite using it back then.
@jeckek9936
9 ай бұрын
Im so grateful i got to experience that era of gaming.
@guily6669
7 ай бұрын
I played it fine at 1280x1024 at probably mixed mid settings on my 2004 ATI 9600XT that cost less than 100€ so only a MAGNITUDE better than nowadays since that was less than 1/4th of a month of salary back then and nowadays that would probably be like playing at 1440P so let's say a RTX4070 which cost close to a full month of salary here. Also in the same day I got the PC I never even bothered testing the original GPU that came on it, I upgraded right away to the 9600 XT and sold the original ATI 9250 or some crap like that to a friend for like 20€ never used and he finally could play Far Cry 1 on his crap intel Celeron 500€ PC even though all on low settings 😁
@ahmed4363
5 ай бұрын
i wish i can share this experience, but unless i pirate it i will probably never play Half Life 1/2
@chillingchill6823
2 ай бұрын
@@ahmed4363dude the whole game is like, 5 dollar during a sale
@ld5023
9 ай бұрын
Wow, those combine sounds in the hallway at 7:04 could be straight from hl:alyx. Incredible audio processing for the time. Wish there was more focus on audio in today's game development
@jothain
9 ай бұрын
I actually initially thought game has some weird bug or something when I first tried OG Xbox version. I was so accustomed to PC audio. Took me awhile to realize it's some form of EAX thing on it. In all honesty I did dislike it a bit. To me it added few notches too much of that echo effect.
@rewire6468
9 ай бұрын
@@jothain Yeah the echo sounds cool, but as you said, it's a tad too much. Same goes for the train station you initially arrive in. Splinter Cell Chaos Theory also used EAX on PC and it sounds about the same, to the point i just turn it off. Would be cool to be able to control the amount of reverberation, instead of just having 2 levels, "off" and "the sun is screaming".
@jothain
9 ай бұрын
@@rewire6468 True. I don't remember the card I got and games, but I've dropped EAX style effects off completely in some titles back in the days. I might remember fully wrong, but one could've been Thief, maybe? Anyway title had some let's say quite large cathedral/stone church style structures, but it just felt like effects where so overdone. Like instead of that building player would've been in gigantic thin steel drum.
@johnconnorpliskin7184
9 ай бұрын
Hellblade has some fantastic audio, especially if you play with headphones. I imagine the sequel will be even better.
@kvdrr
9 ай бұрын
@@jothaindsoal emutales eax at software level, check it out
@Papa_Khan
9 ай бұрын
I had no clue it existed until i found a copy at a thrift store a few years ago. I had to boot it up and didn’t play much because i thought it looked so bad but now i really want to give it a full playthrough. That audio difference is insanely cool.
@SigSelect
9 ай бұрын
That audio is amazing. I can see how a 2005 gamer would exit that train and be immediately immersed and enchanted into the world. just watching it reminds me of the first time playing Bioshock.
@BeaugosseRiche
9 ай бұрын
Speaking of Bioshock, don't you think there was a missed opportunity to make a deep RPG/shooting game rather than just an FPS where you shoot stuff? That elaborate world and lore was wasted on an action game.
@olzhas1one755
9 ай бұрын
@@BeaugosseRicheThat's exactly what Bioshock was during it's earlier stages of development, before it got butchered trying to "make it appealing to a wider audience".
@ronamisparks9122
9 ай бұрын
I did know about and bought this port because I saw it on the rental shelf when I worked at Hollywood Video back in the day. I was blown away by it. Seeing that the audio is still the best in this version is mind blowing. I wonder why they haven't been able to replicate it with today's current hardware and sound systems.
@iprodigy6723
2 ай бұрын
It's probably not that they can't. They just don't have the need or want to.
@samic
9 ай бұрын
I remembered playing it on my 5.1 home audio system the experience was truly out of this world.
@excess.subiefl0w
9 ай бұрын
Did you have that xbox 5.1 system? Cant remember who manufactured them
@samic
9 ай бұрын
@@excess.subiefl0w I had a Yamaha TSS-@0Yamaha TSS-10. (I don't have it anymore) At the time everyone was recommending that. Xbox's Dolby Digital 5.1 was an unsung hero most people didn't realize Xbox had a great sound system capable of 5.1 gaming. PS2 at the time could do 5.1 only during the FMV cut scenes.
@Marco-717
9 ай бұрын
@@excess.subiefl0w why would anyone buy the xbox 5.1 lol tons of brands out there with real experience in sound
@excess.subiefl0w
9 ай бұрын
@@Marco-717 back in 2001 it was pretty good value iirc.
@Del_987
9 ай бұрын
This was how I experienced Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 and was very happy with both back then.
@FoxConvoy
5 ай бұрын
Same with me . This and Doom 3 made me so happy I jumped over from PlayStation lol
@Cold_Media
9 ай бұрын
This port is super fascinating, especially with the modding community cracking this game open and getting other source engine assets to work like Garry’s Mod maps. It feels like we’ve only scratched the surface. Great video MVG!
@pishbot
9 ай бұрын
the xbox audio is stunning. dr. breen talking, the way the sound reflects and reverberates around the room. the hallway acoustics too omg. would be nice to have an option to use/mod the xbox audio with the pc version!
@hawyadoin1175
9 ай бұрын
This is how I had to play HL2 for the first time. I had a PC but it would’ve melted down if I tried playing HL2. Even as a kid I always wondered how the hell they put it on an XBox. Pretty impressive
@RussianSevereWeatherVideos
9 ай бұрын
Came here to look at HL2 footage, learnt about the Xbox CPU update, nice! Thank you for that new knowledge MVG!
@scoutbr00
9 ай бұрын
Finally someone has talked about the audio improvements in the Xbox version! Whenever I see people talking about the Xbox version, most people overlook the audio differences!
@TheShoe1990
9 ай бұрын
I bought a modded OG Xbox this year, largely thanks to you. I played Half-Life 2 on it not knowing that there was a port and I remember being very impressed. It's cool how you made a video about this
@EmeraldMage7188
9 ай бұрын
How did you buy it? Where is it?
@TheShoe1990
9 ай бұрын
@@EmeraldMage7188 Bought it unmodded from a local retro game shop, then sent it in to Pence PC to mod it. I recommend them if you're in the US, but it never hurts to shop around
@AbuHajarAlBugatti
9 ай бұрын
@@TheShoe1990 Modding the xbox is literally just installing a new OS on it
@SlaughterDog
9 ай бұрын
The version was my first play through of HL2, and the sound - in 5.1 - was the most impressive experience I had heard, and the thing that always stuck out to me. Even though I eventually got a PC that could run it and played on the same surround speakers, I was always aware the sound just didn’t stack up and left me disappointed, but I never knew why until now. Flying through the canals in the air boat while distant shots were fired, and explosions happened around you; and being in warehouse rooms when explosions went off releasing swinging beams knocking barrels and stuff all over, was just the pinnacle of cinematic surround sound intensity.
@LakesideAmusementPro
9 ай бұрын
This was my first experience with Half Life 2 and I played it all the way through. I loved every minute of it.
@W0lfenstrike
9 ай бұрын
Along with Doom 3, this is one of the games that REALLY made me want to buy an Xbox. Granted, around that time, my uncle gave us his used laptop and it was fairly good for it's time, it had a 800p widescreen panel and it had a decent Pentium 4 CPU, it definitely could handle HL2 in dx7 mode at much better framerates than the Xbox version could handle and I even played plenty of Counter-Strike: Source on that thing for many years until I saved up for a better PC.
@jajabinx35
9 ай бұрын
I remember those moments where in the xbox version, you'll see the devs placed a brick wall instead of a mesh fence like in the pc version. A good way to reduce models to pop in the game. Example of this is the following part of this video 8:27. The wall on the right would be a mesh fence on the pc version Man, I miss the older gen consoles. For me, gaming peaked when it reached xbox 360 / ps3 era.
@holyjewel
9 ай бұрын
Oh yeah. It was on a steady uphill climb for a long time. Guitar Hero 3 making Guitar Hero **massive*, CoD rapidly growing in popularity, GTA 4... What a time it was!
@johncruelty1
9 ай бұрын
also gta v was techincally a ps3/360 era game@@holyjewel
@holyjewel
9 ай бұрын
@@johncruelty1 It was! I rented it to play the campaign on my PS3; I finished it, then never played the game again until its PC release.
@CyanRooper
9 ай бұрын
I think if we were to compare console gaming to comic books then the 6th generation (PS2, Xbox, GameCube, Dreamcast) was the Golden Age while the 7th generation (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii) was the Silver Age. The 6th generation was a time of experimentation and innovation as consoles were finally capable of good 3D graphics and good physics but were still quite limited in what they could do so developers had to get creative to deal with those limitations. The 7th generation felt more like the devs understood what worked and didn't work from the previous generation so they simply refined and expanded upon what worked during the 6th generation for the 7th generation (apart from Nintendo who basically perfected motion control gaming during this time with the Wii and they had the DS as well so they were definitely experimenting and innovating during this time). Meanwhile PC gamers on one hand had Crysis, F.E.A.R, Half-Life 2 etc while on the other they suffered from bad PC ports of console games such as GTA IV, Saints Row 2 etc.
@aboveaveragebayleaf9216
9 ай бұрын
I mean, games look better, and do have some nice modern mechanics. That said, I'd say the 360 era was a balance between technology getting pretty good, and before things like battlepasses/microtransactions took the soul out of game devs. I don't think modern devs are bad, I just think the modern industry doesn't let them show their true potential, or have passion projects.
@toajames1
9 ай бұрын
Something worth noting is that this port also has about twice the number of loading screens in comparison to the other ports. And to give some perspective on how little RAM the OG Xbox has, it doesn't even have enough RAM for the minimum specifications to run the first Half-Life game. There's a homebrew mod of HL1 for the original Xbox and without modding the console to add more RAM, no player or NPC textures are visible.
@sebastiankulche
9 ай бұрын
Well, to be fair the first Half Life runs on PS2 and Dreamcast which had way less ram. RAM isnt the same when talking about consoles since games tend to be better optimized than on PC.
@toajames1
9 ай бұрын
@@sebastiankulche That is a fair point.
@bj0urne
9 ай бұрын
The HL2 intro looks SO GOOD on the Xbox, people back in the day must've been completely blown away by what their 2001 console could do
@crimsonlion100
9 ай бұрын
I'd love to hear your take on Rise Of The Tomb Raider on the 360, such an impressive port.
@Moravia90s
9 ай бұрын
What??? There is a port???? I had no idea but definitely sounds interesting.
@IFibreOpticI
9 ай бұрын
@@Moravia90sdigital foundry covered it st launch
@mruczyslaw50
9 ай бұрын
Considering minimal requirements on PC, it was a masterpiece how well the game ran, and it even looked better than what you could achieve on low settings on PC, all of that with just 512MB shared memory of the xbox.
@ohnoitschris
9 ай бұрын
Seconding this request. It's a 2016 game that couldn't be maxed out on even new midrange cards at the time, so for it to run well on a 2005 Xbox 360 is nothing short of impressive. Even Steam declares its minimum requirements to need 6GB of RAM, and the Xbox 360 had 512mb.
@bubsy3861
9 ай бұрын
Well... Technically it's not a port. It's a version that was build from ground up in line with main development. But impressive version it is.
@blaketindle4703
4 ай бұрын
Wow I never realized how good the sound is on the Xbox version! The echoes are awesome!
@Throbingkcoc
9 ай бұрын
I remember buying this game at a Half Price books along with Max Payne. I paid like $15 for both games. Great times back then.
@JuanGamer0202
9 ай бұрын
Half the price for Half a Life
@syncmonism
6 ай бұрын
Max Payne and Max Payne 2 are amazing. Max Payne is, for me, the best action game of its time, at least in terms of games that were available for PC. Max Payne was a real trend setter at the time, and extremely well made (the PC version in particular is really impressive, and ran well on a wide range of hardware), and the developer of Max Payne (Remedy) is still a highly regarded and influential game developer to this day.
@location3921
9 ай бұрын
I played this version when it was new and loved it both for the game's design and for how it pushed the hardware. It's one of those games that comes late in a console generation that makes it easier to wait for the next generation.
@ExcelionYogi
9 ай бұрын
This port is how 13 year old me had his first Half Life series experience. My jaw was on the floor the entire game! I liked it so much that when I got my first PC capable of playing games the first game I got was Half Life 2, along with the first Half Life.
@rustymixer2886
9 ай бұрын
Is there a half life 3?
@iamajustababa2000s
9 ай бұрын
Nah@@rustymixer2886
@EricFraire
9 ай бұрын
@@rustymixer2886 Yes! Of course!
@rustymixer2886
9 ай бұрын
@@EricFraire I heard half life 3 never released
@BobTrollge
9 ай бұрын
@@rustymixer2886 in reality, episode 3 was cancelled due to limitations of the episodic format, developers were adding a lot into "episodes" which just became new games then hl3 was delayed until source 2 was finished
@777MasterHero
9 ай бұрын
I saw a copy in a used disc store several years ago (Deja Vu Discs), and being surprised that it existed. I will say looking back on it, it is impressive given that they managed to squeeze it onto both the original and the 360. Ironically I bought the PS2 port of Half-Life 1 from the same store, and that was my first experience with the game.
@BeccaMidnite
9 ай бұрын
I’m really glad you covered this. I’ve always thought this was an awesome port, it doesn’t really run the best but the fact it exists at all considering the original Xbox’s hardware is incredibly cool. And I never noticed the difference in audio but I think that despite the performance and visual sacrifices the audio alone enhances the atmosphere so much that it’s worth a play for that alone
@chiarosuburekeni9325
9 ай бұрын
Why even mention that it doesn’t run great? That’s already implied lol. The whole point of this video is to praise the fact that they were able to get this running on that hardware and not have it look like a slideshow 😂.
@BeccaMidnite
9 ай бұрын
@@chiarosuburekeni9325 uh, because it does run like crap on original hardware, my point was that i think the enhanced audio makes it worth playing in my opinion despite the performance issues. i didn't know i was going to have people doing in depth analysis on my comment that was mainly regarding the impressiveness of the port overall and the fact that the enhanced audio is really cool 😂i was merely sharing my own opinion on the game with the knowledge of what mvg said in the video
@PolygonalGoat
9 ай бұрын
I just got an OG Xbox with first time recently and I didn’t grow up with one. When I was looking for games, I did see half-life two and I was very surprised knowing of the hardware specs of the Xbox. Thank you for doing this retrospective and bringing light to this port.
@TeamPandory
9 ай бұрын
I remember that the PC version of the original Half Life utilized EAX, and it sounded AWESOME. Team it up with a Creative 4.1 surround speakers... BLISS! I'm pretty sure EAX was part of HL2, but just checked and it's now not on the options screen? "Might be worth a google" 🙂
@TheBrain_
9 ай бұрын
I remember the same, I've only played the "echoey" EAX version on PC. As EAX is mostly gone, we began loosing these features. It will happen the same with Raytracing "RTX" HW and drivers as more and more devs begin using the frameworks and stop "wasting time" doing the regular "hacky, screen-space" implementations, as soon as the HW changes to a new trend, we will only have the "no light/no fallbacks" implementations.
@ThorStoneGaming
9 ай бұрын
I believe you are thinking of Half Life 1, which featured EAX audio, HL2 never had it.
@The-Real-Yakub
8 ай бұрын
This version was actually my first ever exposure to Half-Life 2. A childhood friend of mine had it and I watched him play through the part where you assault the beach with the ant-lions
@dustin6225
9 ай бұрын
Always a good Monday when MVG explains another technical marvel in gaming.
@VioletElite4
9 ай бұрын
Wow, i had no idea this game was on the OG Xbox; my first introduction was actually through The Orange Box with all the episodes on the Xbox 360 (with TF2 and Portal of course) I love coming across these kinds of videos and learning interesting things about these older ports
@AthanImmortal
9 ай бұрын
I wanted a DreamX so bad back in the day. I saw that the Xbox CPU interposer has now been released under GPL that may open up the possibility of upgrading Xbox's again. It seemed to be like magic, a drop in boost to games and we can see it so well here with Half Life 2. Halo got a big boost on those consoles too.
@animenightcores1502
9 ай бұрын
The UI of the xbox has to be a favorite since its pretty ironic if you played the demo on repeat. (Its the demo set in ravenholm)
@godspeed-is-taken
9 ай бұрын
Half life 2 on the og Xbox is how I discovered Gordon freeman as a kid long before I had my own pc. I wish I could go back and play it for the first time one more time.
@fawkesnake
9 ай бұрын
back then I didn't know they were releasing the 360 and I bought the OG in 2005. I only had the ps1 and a windows 95 pc so the jump was amazing. I played HL2, DOOM 3, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. It felt like the future.
@redslate
9 ай бұрын
Those were certainly some visually impressive console ports.
@fawkesnake
9 ай бұрын
@@redslate Yeah I just remembered FarCry and Riddick too. Awesome games.
@redslate
9 ай бұрын
@@fawkesnake Those last two in particular got pretty stunning re-releases on the Xbox 360 as well. The water effects in _Far_ _Cry_ rivaled those of the PC. _Riddick_ had some amazing lighting details.
@fawkesnake
9 ай бұрын
@@redslate never got the chance to play the 360 version of Farcry, but I did play the PC version of riddick with its sequel.
@R3D.R4V3N
9 ай бұрын
This was the way I first played Half-Life 2 back in 2009. I had a Mickey Mouse CRT (the one with speakers for ears) with an original Xbox hooked up via composite and a Duke controller. I remember playing it through 3 times absolutely loving it for its storytelling. The depth of the story and how well it executes it really is why it's my favorite game of all time to this day. I actually hadn't played Half-Life so I had to gather parts of the story from context clues and Combine OverWiki articles. It was amazing and coming from playing primarily on GameCube, PS2 and late 90s PC games it was the best looking game I'd ever played. Oh how times change. I recently booted up the Xbox version on my 360 and it was so jarring how different it felt having played on PC with maxed settings for nearly a decade. A truly impossible port, we're lucky we got it running as well as we do. I bet the community given enough time, effort, and tweaking could get it running at 60 fps but they'd need to decompile it first and optimize it further. Now I'm just eagerly awaiting Half-Life 2 RTX.
@Loundsify
9 ай бұрын
The best version of HL2 is the VR Mod. Definitely worth buying a Quest 2 to play it.
@name.mp4736
9 ай бұрын
the right game on the wrong system can make all the difference in the world.
@spartan456
9 ай бұрын
The Xbox port of this game is what finally allowed me to play it. I didn't even have a computer powerful enough to _launch_ the game. Sometime around 2008, I finally scraped up enough lunch money (from literally not eating lunch) to afford a modern video card. This is when I could finally start playing Source games on PC. But the Xbox port, and the release of the Orange Box on the Xbox 360, are what allowed me to play these games well before I had a computer even capable of launching them.
@TheEveryDayC
9 ай бұрын
I grew up playing the original half life on PS2 at around age four, moving on to half life 2 at around 7 on a modded Xbox that had a larger hard drive and a custom front end to run several different games from the hard drive (on a side note, this is also how I played Doom 3 and it's expansion, Halo 1 and 2, Descent 2, Raze's Hell, and a good few other games). I remember the game being really fun, and I remember getting to Ravenholm and seeing the first fast-zombie corpse in the ladder leading up to the beginning of ravenholm, and being blown away by the fact that you could look at the corpse and see the inside of the chest cavity. Same went for normal zombies too, it was gnarly and it really was insane to me being able to see that. I made my way through that part of the game, got to the section where the fast-zombies were introduced, hearing the howl and seeing them leap across the buildings, and it fucking terrified me. I eventually made it through that part, but I think I stopped and went and played through all of Super Metroid on that Xbox before going back to it, and had Crocomire scare me a bit too lol
@Taorakis
9 ай бұрын
Great Video! I got myself HL² for my OG XBox a while ago and i do enjoy it quite a bit. Question though: At 7:45 you say "no real reductions aside from Textures", but didn't they also cut back on geometry quite a bit here and there, walling off some areas that have background geometry to save on polygons etc?
@hippo1985
4 ай бұрын
I actually know this, it was ran in 480p (576p for PAL) resolution for a start, locked to 30 fps (not including the dips haha), many of the maps were heavily edited to remove effects and components that were used for visual flair, basically all the unnecessary stuff was removed, like grass sprites, etc. It also used a proprietary format for its textures, Instead of using the original PAK format for storage, everything was stored using XZP which GCFs could stream from, The biggest struggle was the havok engine physics due to the CPU limitation. Great video by the way.
@konradszkudlarek
9 ай бұрын
In 2005 everybody who had xbox was happy to see HL2 on their platform, even if it was so choppy. In 2023 every body is upset that they can play Batman on Switch because of choppyness.
@xtr.7662
9 ай бұрын
Standards have changed if any game nowadays released with goldeneye or hl2 xbox levels of gameplay it would become news just because of performance
@konradszkudlarek
9 ай бұрын
@@xtr.7662 yeah... i'm old :(
@sebastiankulche
9 ай бұрын
As someone who lived that era, framerate was something it was taked into account and could be criticized (i mean, if even Doom on SNES in the 90s was criticized, why HL2 on Xbox not).
@-GameHacKeR-
9 ай бұрын
0:35 yeah I remember that as well, I remember my friend coming across a offline installer that allowed you to bypass steam to install you game off the discs, The odd thing about Doom3 is the performance can be greatly improved if you just increase the cache settings in the Doom3.cfg file on older original hardware from the time, you can go from low quality to high by increasing the settings from the default 40 to 256 or higher
@KevsReviewsOnYouTube
9 ай бұрын
*_Very nice vid. As always._* 😊
@ChrisPatti
8 ай бұрын
Beautiful deep dive into how awesome this release was! I was a PS2 guy during the Xbox's heyday and never really had any experience with it. Now if I had unlimited room for my retro hobbies I'd definitely own one :)
@karlsmith4270
9 ай бұрын
Loving the impossible port series so far. Keep up the awesome work.
@buda3d2007
Ай бұрын
Seeing this play in 2004 was pure magic, I never had a powerful PC but the local game cafe did and Id come and play this through a few times becuase I could not log saves, it was amazing and still is.
@8BitPasta
9 ай бұрын
such a beautiful time in gaming history
@CryptToneMusic
Ай бұрын
Half life on Xbox literally changed my life. I can remember playing it on a big old projection screen TV and being scared shitless to go out on the roof top on ravenholm because I knew the fast zombies would show up and they absolutely terrified me. Yet to this day that chapter of the game is probably my favorite alongside Highway 17
@BasicallyBreezy
9 ай бұрын
Growing up HL2 launched on pc when I was in 8th grade and my dad bought it for me. He also picked it up on OG xbox so I got to play both. Eventually when I was in highschool and orange box came out I got that on xbox 360. So how you feel is very much how I feel. The OG xbox port was special and deserves this recognition ❤️
@ProducerX21
9 ай бұрын
Half Life 3 would break the internet
@cdlink14
9 ай бұрын
I first played Half-Life 2 on the PC with an old 1.3Ghz P4, 512MB RAM and a Geforce 2 MX400, the game defaulted to DirectX 7 mode which meant there were no specular effects, water reflections, dynamic shadows or bump maps. In 2005 I bought the Xbox version so I could experience those effects, and the port succeeded for the most part (mainly missing the water reflections). I later upgraded my PC to a DirectX 9 GPU (Radeon 9550) and got to experience the source engine in true glory with real-time water reflections. Those times were some of my fondest gaming memories and I was so in love with the game and the engine that I would go on to clock countless playthroughs of the game (easily in excess of 50) to this day.
@ConeFlower-gx2qk
29 күн бұрын
It’s insane how little ram the Xbox had. I have an MPC sampler from 2001 that has 128 ram granted that has the expansion but it’s wild how that thing has more ram. Literally a testament to how ingenious the devs for it were.
@ChosenOne41
9 ай бұрын
My first experience with Half-Life 2 was actually the orange box on the 360. I remember that version playing quite decently.
@JamesTDG
9 ай бұрын
Me too! I never actually got to beat the entire HL2 campaign back on the 360, but when I got the Valve collection on steam for like $5, I completed all of HL2 and the episodes in a day and felt really satisfied.
@jadearo9397
9 ай бұрын
same here, i never really understood the game because i was like eight years old, so i got lost constantly and couldn't progress very far but i do remember playing specifically the episodes and having fun with the gravity gun and just exploring the maps
@tbfünke
8 ай бұрын
Having just played Half Life 2 with both HL2:Update and MMOD installed on a 4K display, seeing the base game on such low settings is incredible to me. This game truly is timeless!
@zixty_
9 ай бұрын
Actually incredible... the sound difference really blew me away. I really need to learn more about how the Xbox handles sound. Were there other games that have stand-out sound quality like this on the Xbox or was this just a standard unknown to me? Amazing video, I learn so much from your videos, thank you!
@NickInTimeFilms
9 ай бұрын
I got into the orange box collection for xbox 360 a few year late when I borrowed it from a friend when I brought up portal and he asked if I ever played half-life. I had no idea about it, but immediately fell in love with the whole series after that. Had no idea this was available for the og xbox, and it's definitely impressive what they were able to pull off with the old tech, even if the frame rates neared unplayable at times.
@Bee-oz5bm
8 ай бұрын
This was the port that my dad was playing and was the first proper video game I ever played. I have distinct memories of me and my sister watching my dad play through Ravenholm and hiding in a clothes basket when the headcrab zombies showed up (I was around 3, haha)
@JohnSmith-iu8cj
9 ай бұрын
These KZitem adds get so annoying that i watch less and less KZitem.
@yikes6969
6 ай бұрын
That's wild you still get ads
@bionicseaserpent
6 ай бұрын
no adblcok moment
@bagl7833
6 ай бұрын
Got an add for angry birds 2 and sonic crossover
@Dorraj
6 ай бұрын
Imagine never using an adblocker and making a comment completely irrelevant to the video you're commenting on just to complain about it.
@vladimirchizhov3260
6 ай бұрын
uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock
@daltimond
9 ай бұрын
Thanks for covering this. These console versions are how I first played the Half Life games. I still have my discs for HL1 on PS2, HL2 on Xbox and the Orange Box on 360.
@matcam89
9 ай бұрын
The Half Life port on PS2 is also very impressive
@Evil_Ghandi13
8 ай бұрын
I remember playing this on Xbox, I had what was considered a large tv at the time 36 inch CRT I think it was a Panasonic. I had one of those all in one stereo systems with two large speakers hooked up to the TV. I loved the music how it would play and get loud during thrilling action parts of the game. 6:15 This part of the game really immersed me with the audio, I would just go around and messed with the guards and pick stuff up and throw stuff. The way objects would bounce or glass breaking and Dr. Breen droning on and on made it feel so real and hopeless.
@RSNTM3NT
9 ай бұрын
How I learned about Half-Life, was playing the first game on PS2. It was my first Half-Life game back in the day. After my parents bought me an Xbox 360, I got The Orange Box and playing HL2 and it's Episodic release (including Portal and TF2), it was cool to see. Half-Life 2 being on the OG Xbox which I learned around 2006, was one of the many reason I want an Xbox. But since I got a 360, it was even better. Seeing it on the OG Xbox. The struggles are frickin real!
@walteracevedo5105
9 ай бұрын
Remembered seeing this port in early KZitem speedruns and bug comps, like duplicating objects using loading zones or abusing physics to moon leap across the map.
@BigDeal0716
9 ай бұрын
Dude im having the craziest Dejavu right now, did you already make a video about the Xbox port of Half Life 2? Because I specifically remember watching a video from you talking about the Xbox port of Half Life 2 which then inspired me to go on ebay and buy a copy. And I’ll also mention that i had never played Half Life 1 or 2 ever before, or had ever even been interested in the series.
@bamster64
9 ай бұрын
Damn, I didn't know about the HL2 sound on Xbox. That echo effect was really cool.
@nexxusty
9 ай бұрын
MVG, I friggin love you dude. As soon as I saw the framerate on the OG Xbox, I immediately thought "I wonder what a 1.4ghz Tualatin Xbox would do".
@blunderingfool
9 ай бұрын
The xbox version was my first time playing Half Life 2, on a tiny little CRT in France, wired directly into the socket... it got fried after being bumped. I also had Half Life, Blue Shift, Opposing Forces, and TeamFortress Classic via the anthology. Weirdly, I don't remember the framedrops being so bad, also would be rather surprised if the game is aware of anything other than the CPU speed increase, games tend to need patching to work properly with xbox unified memory expansions.
@darkcoeficient
9 ай бұрын
I wonder if maybe the size of the TV helped you with the perception of the frame rate.
@blunderingfool
9 ай бұрын
@@darkcoeficient The analogue nature may have. Granted, tiny little maybe 7inch travel telly, maybe it did?
@darkcoeficient
9 ай бұрын
@@blunderingfool sure, analog helps but only to an extent. 7 inches? TINY!
@blunderingfool
9 ай бұрын
@@darkcoeficientIt was used in a lorry to catch over-the-air broadcasts. Certainly before the likes of Sky or NTL (Now Virgin Media).
@aboveaveragebayleaf9216
9 ай бұрын
@@darkcoeficientpeople just weren't as picky back then. There was no standard.
@JetSoulsForever
9 ай бұрын
What an absolute gem of a port. I had great memories of playing this as a teen, with no 360 or PC powerful enough to play this decently. Only reason I got to play this was that I picked this up at a Blockbuster in around 2007 that was selling off its old inventory, picked it up for about 10 bucks I think (also, I really can't understate what a dated experience this was). I can tell you that, yeah, on a CRT the reduced texture quality isn't really that noticeable compared to the frame drops. There were also physical CD issues to consider, as sometimes the levels wouldn't load quickly or at all if you had a scratched-up disc (then the usual would ensue, eject disk, spit shine, buff w/t-shirt, test, repeat). A lot of people gave me flack for this being my first experience to Half-Life, even not having played the original at that point, but looking back on it I got an experience only few are lucky enough to have - considering this is one of the few legal ways to play something analogous to the original build.
@WookieFragger
9 ай бұрын
I love this port. My family didn't have a PC powerful enough to run Half-Life 2, so the Xbox port was the first way I ever played the game, and it still holds a special place in my heart.
@JLStudija
9 ай бұрын
Back in early 2010s, I used to do refurbish business on PS2 / Xbox era consoles. I used to buy them on flee markets, fix them up, jailbreak, and then resell for more. And installing Half Life 2 on them was a huge selling point. :D
@haruhisuzumiya6650
9 ай бұрын
My first half life game on XBOX 🤣
@vonvoyage14
2 ай бұрын
It was like having Doom on the SNES which the Genesis couldn't. The PS2 was the Genesis of this era. Impressive port on the XBOX actually
@AlMiGa
9 ай бұрын
Wow thanks for this MVG!!! I played HL2 on the 360 when The Organge Box came out, but I had no idea that there was an OG XBox version. Amazing!
@jowi_24seven43
9 ай бұрын
I was working as a third party DELL support person (we identified as Dell when answering the phone) when HL2 was released. We installed it on a PC in our lab. The internet bound Steam requirement was unheard of back then for a single player game, wtf. I'm happy that Steam/Valve turned out to become "a good internet citizen", a pro consumer power house for gamers in the long run. But at the time we were all very very sceptical of its intentions. Great episode MVG
@sygos
9 ай бұрын
Steam/valve are pioneers of lootboxes and simulated gambling cases marketed for children. They're not "pro consumer." TF2 and Counter Strike case opening and skins are a huge reason for the destruction of the video game market today and being replaced with gambling simulators.
@rhythmandblues9302
9 ай бұрын
Passed me by completely. I played - and loved - the Xbox Doom 3 port at the time, but I didn’t know about this until now.
@JayS96Bruh
9 ай бұрын
That Breen speech sounds incredible on the Xbox. That’s a pleasant surprise
@RedBeardedGriff
9 ай бұрын
The first time I played Half-life 2, it was the demo version of the game on Xbox, which featured roughly 90% of the "We don't go to Ravenholm" chapter. Half-life 2 on Xbox is an absolutely awesome port, even with the low resolution textures and rollercoaster frame rate.
@sandrinowitschM
9 ай бұрын
I would've killed for a DreamX back in the day. The fact that such a thing was even possible...
@NoooiZ
9 ай бұрын
6:28 I actually didn't know about the audio tech on Xbox. By comparison on the PC version it sounds like I'm playing Dr. Breen's speech on my Sony Walkman™
@GameMaster136
9 ай бұрын
The XBox was how I first got to play Half Life 2 as a kid. I tried playing the PC version but couldn't since I didn't have internet and it was impossible to use Steam. Was pretty pissed off when that happened but I'm glad I was at least able to enjoy it on the PC and then again on The Orange Box for the 360.
@GreychanicPersonal
Ай бұрын
I love this port. I've loved HL2 since I was little, and when I found out this port existed, I had to get my hands on it. I've played it through a handful of times now, and always get a kick out of how hard and fun it is to try and play this games on the pisslet of a CPU that the OG Xbox has.
@05jake5
9 ай бұрын
Wow the doctor breen speech in the intro sounds really good on the old xbox.
@Destroyah5000
9 ай бұрын
This port of HL2 was my first taste of Half Life back in the day, on a friend's borrowed Xbox. It wasn't played as much because the low frame rate dips were really obvious, but it did help familiarize me with Valve when the Orange Box came out. It's incredible to think that a PC game firstly came out on 5 disks, went to console on a single disk a year later, then just 3 years later with 2 more episodes, AND two more games, all on that single disk.
@trelard
9 ай бұрын
Pretty sure HL2 was my very first digital buy. I owned the original HL and it's standalone releases on CD, but I've never even seen the actual disks until now. That buy led to the insane backlog of games that continues to this very day. As for the Xbox version, it was most definitely a case of rounding off the corners of a square peg to fit into a circle hole. I had a mate who owned an Xbox at the time, and I was highly impressed by what I was seeing. The CRT TVs of the time are exactly what made it look as highly presentable as it was.
@kamikazemelon787
9 ай бұрын
I remember in 2005 Call of Duty 2 came on 6 CDs. Sometimes I miss those install screens with music even!
@SyntheticSajo
9 ай бұрын
With the still thriving og xbox modding community, Imagine what could be done with further optimizations and some bug / script fixes.
@richardm1015
9 ай бұрын
Awesome video. I first played HL2 at a friend’s house on his XBOX I think. I got the original Xbox for my 10th birthday after being blown away by Halo, GTA, and many others. I loved it. I didn’t own a copy of HL2 until orange box on 360. Went back to finish it in lockdown . All those years later I still thought it was incredible. Definitely ahead of its time. I’d love to play the first one. Just watched a documentary on that game. Clearly a special time in gaming. 👏👍
@shecklesmack9563
9 ай бұрын
The fact that HL2 and Doom 3 are nearly 20 years old really blows my mind. TWENTY. It’s actually insane… it just doesn’t compute.
@drmegaman
9 ай бұрын
We're just a few months away from Shovel Knight being a decade old. A game funded by a Kickstarter campaign is now reaching double digits of age.
@wertia391
Ай бұрын
something to consider is that the version you played on in 2004 didn't have all the updates now that modern half-life 2 has gotten, and the specs have probably not been revised since then for it. So that might contribute to lower FPS when testing the Steam version on hardware from around that time
@stgigamovement
9 ай бұрын
Technically speaking it's possible to further upgrade the double-RAM double-speed XBOX CPU. It turns out that there are Tualatin Celeron chips clocked at 1.5GHz, while Tualatin Pentium 3 chips only went to 1.4GHz. But Celerons do have less L2 cache and some other stuff that I don't know how an XBOX would handle. However, Tualatin Celerons have a very good use case outside the XBOX. If you have a late-run version of the PC-9821Ra433 (made from 2000 to 2003, you want the 2003 one here due to voltage stuff), (a machine that shipped with a 433MHz Celeron), you can put a 1.5GHz Celeron in it, and since some PC games require 1.5GHz and don't work on 1.4GHz, a Tualatin Celeron at 1.5GHz improves game compatibility of very late PC98s. Mind you, the PC98 bus has significant bottlenecks even in late-model Ra43s, but since many games ask the CPU what speed it is, a 1.5GHz Tualatin Celeron will make some games boot that don't boot on a Tualatin Pentium 3 in all its 1.4GHz glory at maximum. So if you're a PC98 enthusiast and have the tail end of the final PC98 model, you can boot more games and apps on it than you would be able to on a Pentium 3 at maximum. Oh also, while PC98 only went to Windows 2000, the ReactOS developers are making a PC98 port for Pentium 1 and higher, as well as an XBOX port. ReactOS is basically XP but clean-room reverse-engineered.
@thesilentobserver93
9 ай бұрын
HL2 on the OG Xbox was my first time playing through the game. I didn't have a gaming PC at the time, or the ability to buy one, but I did have an OG Xbox that I bought from a friend for $60 with some money I got from my dad. I had an absolute blast playing through it. It was the best way to play that I could afford at the time, and the port was done very well.
@carloscolocho2625
9 ай бұрын
The first time a played a HF title was this exact one on the OG Xbox.
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