Half-Life 2 News

A Valve engineer fixed 3D lighting so hard he had to tell all the graphics card manufacturers their math was wrong, and the reaction was: 'I hate you'

The PC gaming icon that is Half-Life 2 recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and Valve pulled out all the stops with a major new update integrating the game with its episodes and adding a commentary track. The studio also released a two-hour documentary about the making of the game and what was going on at Valve during its development, which is absolutely crammed with fascinating digressions about the challenge it set itself. And one of them was lighting...
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Galactically petty Half-Life 2 modders ban 'anticitizens' who criticised their mod by targeting their Steam IDs, leave the proof visible in code: 'Script kiddies vibes from this lmao'

In an act of incredibly targeted pettiness, the developers behind a Half-Life 2 mod that's been available since 2022 have managed to ban a select group of YouTubers from playing the latest version of their work. The mod in question, Half-Life 2: Overcharged, is an "overhaul modification" that adds new enemies and weapons as well as restoring some cut content, promising new ways to play and so on (thanks, RPS)...
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'Stop talking s*** about us' - Half-Life 2 mod blacklists a handful of YouTubers as 'anticitizens' and blocks them from playing

There is some spiteful drama in the Half-Life modding scene this week. The developers of a heavily criticised mod for Half-Life 2 are intentionally blocking a small number of YouTubers from playing that mod, using Steam IDs to effectively blacklist and ban specific people from running it. Instead of launching the game as expected, these players will see the first-person shooter crash, alongside an error message that reads: "STOP talking SH1T about us". This is an act of revenge for previous criticism of the mod, say the affected videofolks, who are described in the mod's code as "anticitizens".

s part of Valve's 20th anniversary Half-Life 2 documentary, Secret Tape (the same crew behind NoClip) spoke with some of the actors in the game's prominent roles. Among them, Barney Calhoun and G-Man voice actor Michael Shapiro explained some of his craft and theories behind the Half-Life series' iconic extradimensional stalker...
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Valve stiffed speedrunners by adding an invisible wall in its Half-Life 2 tuneup, so now it's fixed the fix and says 'enjoy'

The 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2 saw Valve release a major surprise update for the PC gaming hall-of-famer (as well as an excellent two hour documentary). It integrated Episodes 1 and 2 with the base game (so you can now play through the entire experience seamlessly), added a new commentary track from the old gang, and for the coup de grace every location was given a glow-up: "Every map in Half-Life 2 has been looked over by Valve level designers to fix longstanding bugs, restore content and features lost to time, and improve the quality of a few things like lightmap resolution and fog."..
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