A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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I'm not young. But 25 years after the hype, I am finally getting around to playing half life (1)! Stupidly missed the free action, but paid a few eurocents for it. They're totally worth it! Awesome game, holds up very very well after two and a half decades!
Also the scripted sequences that were all in-engine were amazing at the time.
We were used to cool things happening in a pre-rendered cut scene before, but with HL1 everything happens from the player's perspective in real-time while you're in control of them. Even the opening where you put the crystal in the beam and actually cause shit to go haywire felt like an incredible moment of player agency in the world. Like oh man what did I doooo
EDIT: oh @massive_[email protected] kind of beat me to this point haha