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Le story behind Half Life on Dreamcast

While Half Life was released on November 19, 1998 on the PC, a week later the Dreamcast from Sega was released in Japan. The console, which included a version of Windows CE, caught Sierra's attention and they wondered what game they could release on this new machine that allowed PC titles to be ported easily. They asked PyroTechnix, one of their in-house studios, to evaluate whether the console could accommodate Half Life.

For a month, software enginner Brian Kraack plays the game and prototypes on the machine. He creates a radar for the VMU that allows to detect Head Crab like the aliens in the eponymous movie. Unfortunately, Sierra decides to close PyroTechnix.

However, the publisher still wanted to port the game to the Dreamcast, so they asked Valve if they were interested and it turned out that the developer of Half Life was curious to see what the Dreamcast was capable of.

Jeff Pobst, then a producer at Sierra, recalls, "Executives from Sega came to Seattle, and the three companies met at Valve and discussed how each could support such a project, what would be good for a conversion, and how best to develop it. He adds, "I remember Sega recommending working with developer Captivation Digital Laboratories for the conversion, as they already had experience with the Dreamcast.

From there, Sierra and Valve decided to not only take advantage of the power of the console to deliver a more technically advanced game than the PC version, but also to create new content for it. They decided to call Gearbox, then in the middle of working on the Opposing Forces expansion for the original Half Life, and ask them if they would be interested in developing new content for the Dreamcast version.

In the end, the work of upgrading the assets was split between Captivation and Gearbox. Sega and Microsoft provided technical support to help port the game to the console, while Valve oversaw development.

Development began in late 1999. Randy Pitchford CEO of Gearbox says: "Sierra asked us to design another add-on for Half Life exclusively for the Dreamcast, which we accepted. We also wanted to help make the Dreamcast version more sexy than previous versions because, if we were going to make the creative effort to create a new chapter for Half Life, we wanted to encourage as many people as possible to play it."

Gearbox's development of this new content resulted in a side story called "guard duty". The game was about 30-40% of the main story of Half Life. The idea was to bring the events of the original Half life to life through the eyes of popular security guard Barney "Hey, catch me later, I'll buy you a beer" Calhoun. Eventually, the new story was renamed "Blue Shift".

The conversion was officially announced in February 2000 at the Millia show in Cannes, France. The release date was set for the summer of 2000.

While the original game was created for the mouse keyboard, the game had to be adapted to the Dreamcast controller. The teams spent a lot of time finding out how to adapt the controls in an intuitive way. The game is also compatible with the console's mouse keyboard and the …. Fishing controller from Sega Bass fishing!

Although the game works, there are still many framerate problems as well as long loading times. The game is then postponed to autumn 2000. From that moment on, the marketing around the game really starts to take place and some shops launch pre-orders.

However, a tragic incident occurred at Captivation when Betty Cunningham, the artistic director, died. The game was postponed until Christmas 2000.

The team still hopes to be able to fix the problems so as not to miss this crucial period, but they do not succeed. Sierra decided to postpone the game to 2001.

By March 2001, the loading times were optimised as best they could be and most of the issues were resolved, the game was ready for release. All that remained was to launch the mass production of the CDs. The game was so ready that the official guide to the Dreamcast version was available for purchase

It was at this point that Sega announced that it was stopping production of the Dreamcast to become a third party publisher. Sierra then decided to cancel the Dreamcast version and announced that Blue Shift and the Dreamcast assets pack would be released as an Add on for Half Life PC.

In 2003, a build dated May 23, 2001 of Half Life Dreamcast appears on the net, nobody knows where it comes from but the most important is that the build is only a few weeks old before the cancellation of the game. The build has framerate issues and a save bug on the VMU. Randy Pitchford suggests that it's possible that the leak doesn't quite match the final certification copy or that changes made by the leaker to make distribution possible without Sega's specific copy protection have messed up the indexing system used for vmu saves.

In 2018 an American found a prototype copy of Half-Life Dreamcast at a yard sale. He posted his discovery on Facebook. The community was abuzz, finally seeing a confidential red disc of this long awaited FPS. Perhaps this build 1638, prior to the 1672 version that had already been leaked in 2003, would allow the creation of mods to progress.

The only final version known to date is the one stored on the shelf at Gearbox's offices.

Sources : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_(video_game) https://www.bitmapbooks.com/collections/all/products/the-games-that-werent https://www.sega-dreamcast-info-games-preservation.com/half-life-dreamcast-unreleased-sega

dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2281

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For a few dollars more. Japanese poster.

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Japanese commercial for the Xbox Original. 

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Meynard Nixon - No place to go

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Lego Seven.

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Japanese cover of the movie Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me.

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This is the police

We play Jack Boyd 60 years old (voiced by Jon St John, the original voice of Duke Nukem) Chief of the Police of Freeburg who learns that he will be replaced in 180 days. The artistic direction is really successful, the music haunting; the characters are well written.In absolute terms, everything related to the atmosphere is really well done. The scenario is awesome. The goal is to raise $ 500,000 before he is forced to retire. Concretely, the game is a management game. The game is divided into days, everything happens on the city map. Events appear on the map and we must position police officers (the number varies depending on the mission) to resolve the ongoing cases. However, we must be careful not to offend the town hall and the Mafia (we are linked to them at the beginning for a reason that I will not mention). The happier the town hall is, the more funds it gives to the commissairiat, which translates into more police officers, more detectives (I will come back to this later) and a more efficient swat team. The happier the Mafia, the more you will have money.

There are a few niceties though. The police have an energy bar that empties with each intervention.

They may have problems that prevent them from coming to work (drunk, tired or forgetting to feed their goldfish for example). We can fired them when we want but we must be careful that it is legitimate otherwise consequences are to be expected. Each intervention gives them experience, the more experienced they are and the more likely they are to succeed in their missions.

We can also give them medals (which we have in limited numbers) to boost their experiences. When they succeed in their missions it is very good, he gains experience and the town hall is happy. But when they miss it, it translates into loss of experience at best or death at worst

Not all interventions are relevant. Some calls lead to nothing (like grandma who calls because she sees a black person in front of a car when it is hers, for example) so you have to make choices between interventions. For the rest, they do not all see a good eye that we mess with the mafia so some may file a complaint against us. In this case we can make them eliminate or buy their silences. (or take the complaint which results, in my part at least, by a salary divided by two). Detectives specialize in criminal investigations. We unlock the images, once they are put in order thanks to the testimonies, we can launch the intervention to arrest the criminal.

It seems complete like that but in fact no, it is disconcerting ease and it is repetitive to death. We do the same thing all the time.

It is not unpleasant far from it, you will have your favorites among your subordinates. Seeing them start at the bottom of the ladder and see them finish end with three medals (the maximum allowed per person) is something rewarding except when they talk to the city hall about your business with the mafia obviously.

To conclude, the game is really simple and repetitive but not unpleasant, on the other hand, replayability is null. In fact, the whole title is carried by the charisma of the characters and the excellence of the script. We want to know the end of the story and that's what motivates more than the game itself.

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Jules Tavernier - Kilauea at night (1887)

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Virginia

I was a little scared considering the bad reviews it got from the public, but in reality Virginia is a new step in video game storytelling.

So yes, it is a walking simulator and the gameplay is very limited but the way in which the framing changes are done using the interactivity and intelligence of the story without needing to make its characters speak is a tour de force.

The OST is sublime and accompanies the adventure in a magnificent way. An organic way. It is an integral part of the storytelling. His BAFTA for Music is well deserved. The artistic direction is really nice. Of course, it's not the game with the latest technical features that will makes your graphics card cry, but the whole thing is beautiful and above all extremely cohesive.

However, it remains difficult to advise, it is clearly not a game. It is an interactive experimental film which ends in less than 2 hours.

But for the curious, I bought it 1€ during sales on Steam but don't watch a walkthrough. The most valuable thing about this game is the correlation between interactivity and storytelling. Do not experience it for yourself, it will take away all the interest of this title.

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Review Moebius : Empire Rising.

Moebius is the latest born from Jane Jensen. Famous game designer for the Gabriel Knight trilogy. After a successful Gray Matter, but perhaps a little too classic, here is the cursed project of the lady. The game was so shunned by critics and the public that Jane Jensen retired.

The first thing that shocks is the ugliness of the UI. The music on the menu is unbearable and the intro comic is ugly and uninteresting. It feels like you're playing more of an amateur title than a video game legend. Suffice to say that it started badly. . .

The start of the game is hardly more encouraging, the sets, in 2D are quite pretty overall, contrast badly with the characters who are in a 3D worthy of the beginnings of the Xbox 360. Good again the quality of the 3D, It's not a big deal, but the animations on the other hand ... Let's say that the characters animations are laughable at best. We feel like we have stepped back twenty years.

So yes, Jane Jensen’s audience is an old fans audience, but that's pushing retro a little too far. In absolute terms, you have to mourn the technical aspect. It's ugly, badly animated, it becomes slow for nothing and it crashes.

Still, the game itself is cool. Jane Jensen has a knack for writing characters and scripts well, which in my opinion remains the most important aspect of an adventure game.

In terms of mechanics, it's still a classic point & click. We collect objects, we talk to people and we solve not really difficult puzzles. The original touch of the title comes from the character and object analysis.

Our character being an antique dealer, he sometimes has to determine if an antique is not a fake. The system is the same for NPCs you talk to trying to figure out who they are from the tick in their gestures or the way they dress.

In fact, there are several elements to be determined according to the people / objects to be analyzed and several possible answers. Absolutely no use, but it's nice. The interface would have benefited from being clearer, but nothing insurmountable.

To conclude, the game was clearly a victim of the name behind the title because despite the undeniable technical disaster, the game remains a good choice for all those who appreciate point & click.