This makes me want to go back and play HL2 Episodes 1 & 2. I know I bought them, but don't remember ever finishing them. HL2 was so technically impressive. Portal 2 was also great, especially the co-op multiplayer. Alyx is a good VR title- it's close to a "killer app" for VR, but not quite there. 1 of the few VR titles compelling enough to keep headset on for more than 1 hour.

Not half-life related, but "old but cool" PC tech from that era: I had a DVD/MPEG2 decoder card that did VGA passthrough, and would replace black pixels with the movie content - so I could watch the Matrix in the background of playing Quake or other FPS (this was a dual PIII-450Mhz). I later installed an ATSC tuner card - one of the first channels that broadcast in HD was Fox, and one of my favorite shows, 24, started to broadcast in HD - and the early days all the makeup artists took advantage of low-res, so as soon as the show went to HD, you could see how fake all the blood, makeup, and other effects were. Hollywood ramped up quickly once the first HDTVs started shipping.
That computer also ran BeOS quite well.

Since HL2 will be/is 20 yrs. old and we're all getting nostalgia! Let's talk about those days!

IIRC during the first week of its release, I bought its retail from a local Best Buy with a $10/10% sale or something back then. According to my detailed https://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/toys.html history, I recently upgraded my Windows gaming PC with these parts: "... ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card, an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.2GHz 512KB Socket 754 single core CPU, ASUS K8V SE Deluxe (VIA K8T800 Socket 754 ATX; VIA VT8237 South Bridge; Revision 2; onboard sound disabled; onboard NIC not used/connected (using 3COM NIC for network) and can't be disabled or else Promise Raid won't be activate), a 3 fan HDD Peeze cooler, 1 GB of PC3200 Kingston RAM (CAS 3), and Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS." I think I also got Windows XP OS too.

Anyways, I remember playing this game over my long Thanksgiving weekend. It was amazing! Very smooth, pretty, and fun! I don't remember how long it took me to finish it. It was a great sequel. Of course years later, episodes 1 and 2 (The Orange Box -- will talk about that in three years). I don't have and want a VR to play Alyx.

What about the rest of you? Also, remember PlanetHalfLife.com web site? RIP, & GameSpy's web sites.

I haven’t enjoyed a turn based game since Herzog Zwei on Sega Genesis (and I’m not even certain it was one, it’s been so long).
I did the gaming pc thing for a decade, but realized that it will ALWAYS need an upgrade to play the newest games well, and I don’t have infinite money to keep up. Consoles last years to a decade with no upgrades needed or possible, so it always plays the new games just fine…and there’s GameFly so I can play through every game I want to for cheaper than buying 5 games a year.

I still have no cell phone…it’s a badge of honor that I never have.

I haven't owned a console since my Atari 2600! I still like computers because I want to do more than gaming! I can even get addons, hacks, etc. for computer games. I don't play much games these days though. I even play more games (Duolingo, Propel, Lengendary (just started last night!), etc.) in my iPhone than my PC these days! They are short and turn based.

Its playable demo came out several weeks ago. However, my PC doesn't have enough resources to play it.

Man.... those were my peak PC gaming days. I was into RPG, RTS, TBS and simulations (racing & flight) mostly for the long hours, SFII and FPS for the short plays.

Loved Dune II. It's one of a handful few RTS that I would replay more than once throughout the years. I like it over C&C/Warcraft, the storylines more mature. But Starcraft was the best for an RTS. But THE strategy game that I go back to most often is X-COM.

The visuals would be trashed by a video gamer players if this is served as an in-game footage in 2022 on PC/consoles. I feel only Gozilla's rendering and movements felt natural. Everything else is pretty bad and unexciting. The city... I think even Microsft Flight Simulator got better models and more "lived-in" than this. Need more realistic filters and more sirens/screaming BGN at the minimum.

X-COM & its sequels are THE strategy PC series I played & replayed the most ever, on both PC & Android on my tablet.

No other copycats I played like Jagged Alliance came close to my love of X-COM.

I always picked my team members that's high on Psych att/def. I prefer mind control the aliens to recon & go on suicide missions than using firepower.

So dragons don't breathe fire but rather ... hot coals (or black dragon phlegm)? OK...

I didn't grow up on tabletop DnD, but rather on Wizardry, Eye of the Beholder, Ultima and later the BG/IWD/NWN series etc. on the PC ... this doesn't feel like any of those DnD PC games. Now now, I know a tabletop DnD game can feel vastly different depending on the DM and the players, it CAN be as silly as anything, please don't boooo me.

I mean, if I'm more charitable-minded I'd call this is more Discworld and The Bard's Tale than typical DnD.

But really, this, this feels like a lazy MCU formula movie put in a fantasy setting and call it DnD.

Ah... yeah I can certainly see how that would complicate things. I still prefer kb+m for gaming in general as it's what I've trained myself to be good at over the years, unfortunate that it isn't a viable scheme for all PC games

You don't play any controller-based games on PC? There are SO MANY really excellent ones...

It's for PC, but you need a controller (no keyboard and mouse) so it's not for me.

If it's not on PC it's not for me. Starting at just $400.
I'll up vote because it's Aperture and Steam.

No problems in my SeaMonkey v2.53.10.2 web browser in my 64-bit W10 Pro. PC. What's your setup like?

Ant,

It would require a fairly intensive refactor to get it to work. The hardest part would be figuring out how to shoehorn GOTO into a modern BASIC interpreter since that command was taken out back and shot in the head -- and for good reason -- but with the memory and processor restrictions of computers at the time, GOTO was necessary because GOSUB required 4 bytes of stored information and a bit more processing power. There's also a number of functions that are exclusive to TRS-DOS BASIC and the Model III in particular.

At one point, I thought about moving the code from BASIC to Z-80 Assembler, but by then the first PC Jr. clones were out (I had a TRS Model 1000 and it was GREAT!) and it no longer made sense to continue doing anything on the Model III.

The worst loss is the database data, which was all the room and pathing descriptions, as well as part of the warm storage for the games. That's the part that breaks my heart to have lost.

That said, the sound over an acoustic coupler of an analog modem making a 300 bps connection is still makes me smile.