Camobot plays through Half-Life 2's original console port, the only one from before the Orange Box and a cool way to experience vanilla Half-Life 2.
I have Half-Life stickers on my Redbubble!
Redbubble, Twitch, and Other Junk: linktr.ee/camobot
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0:00 - Intro
1:24 - Reviews and Back Compat
3:55 - HL2 Xbox (Skip Intro Here)
13:35 - Outro
This is how I had to do my first playthrough of HL2. I first tried it on a friend’s PC when it first came out but I didn’t have a good enough PC to run it. As soon as it came out on Xbox, I had to have it. I was too young and dumb to realize there were any differences from the PC version. I actually still have that copy.
I still have dreams of having enough money for a laptop an halflife
You could probably get a shitty computer of free or cheap on Facebook marketplace or Craigslist, and half-life 2 is usually $1 on sale and runs on anything. Nothing to complain about!
i too still have my og xbox hl2 copy!
Same for me. I remember being scared to death of the zombies and could only play certain levels that weren't that scary
@@Ave_Satana666Do you live in the third world? Any junky laptop can run half life.
bros hair 💀💀💀
@@fahq you trippin, dude looks like a vanilla icecream cone
Mine is similar but it's because I get a haircut every 3 months 😂. They're too expensive now
My first time discovering/playing Half-Life 2 was on my own PC, but i didn't cared much about the game until i met a friend of mine wich really liked half-life and encouraged me of getting it, wich i did. But i really liked old versions and ports to consoles back in that day, when i had some money saved up, i bought a PS3 just to play the orange box, not regretting it, still loving this version to this day :)
Since The Orange Box collection was delisted from the Xbox Marketplace recently, now would be the perfect time to make this port available via backwards compatibility with an FPS boost, you've piqued my interest in playing this port!
Several copies of the XBOX360 orange box collection are on sale on eBay, I believe.
I'm not familiar with Half-life but your editing on this video is pristine! LFG Camobot!
good video bro im glad youve finally decided to talk about this version of the game
2:34 "it dosen't cut any corners" well, about that... some of the metal fences in water hazard (and probably elsewhere) were made white metal walls in an attempt to get more frames
i see that you actually acknowledge that and the other quirks the port has.... My Bad
People dissing the Xbox imagine if it was on a PS2 you might get how impressive some of the ports were for the time. PS2 had half life with the coop decay it had a lock on button. 800mhz back then people were running winXP which ran fine on a p333 so Xbox was massively powerful at 800mhz. The og Xbox had more grunt than most people's desktops back then.
I wonder how it would run on a 1.4 GHz modded Xbox with double the RAM.
@@cannedbeverage7687 way more smooth
@@cannedbeverage7687check ModernVintageGamers video on Half life 2 Xbox. He does this.
my favourite thing is that valve had so much trouble working with the ps3 hardware when developing the orange box port for it, and that version has its own small array of issues
Perfectly summed up why the OG Xbox is my favorite console of all time. It is essentially a gaming PC for back in the day and had really great games that where too much for the other consoles for the time. Half-Life 2, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, and Star Wars Republic Commando are some of my favorites, and they were not on PS2, let alone Gamecube. Not to mention most games that were on PS2 and Xbox looked and ran better on Xbox.
This was the first way I played it, and for quite a long time, it was the only way I could play it since we didn't have a pc or Xbox 360. It might be why I don't remember the performance being what it is, but this was nice trip back to my childhood. Very nice video, kind of feel like finding a Xbox copy to play it there again.
Very nice and well edited video!
for the people that dont know, the original xbox is powered by a 733mhz pentium III. The system has 64 MB unified DDR SDRAM, with a 6.4 GB/s bandwidth, of which 1.06 GB/s is used by the CPU and 5.34 GB/s is shared by the rest of the system. Its GPU is Nvidia's 233 MHz NV2A. The fact that they made half life 2 run on these specs is black magic.
This channel is criminally underrated, with this quality of the conten,,!!! Hopes ya video's gonna be much more popular in future, would be well deserved.
Also hell yeah, hl2 on xbox is quite cool thing, love diferences with levels with og version
thanks for the comment!
The different echo/reverb on Breen's speech is because HL2 on Xbox is utilizing the hardware for audio processing rather than software. Many games did this during that era, like in doom 3 you could choose between hardware and software audio, you just needed a dedicated soundcard.
CAMOBOT I LOVE YOU
Banger video. I’ve been loving the OG Xbox recently PS: I’ve gotten decent results from capturing XBOX with the pound HDMI and a $30 cap card off Amazon
I was looking into that hdmi adapter, maybe Ill invest in one soon
Great vid, subbed
This was the first version of HL2 I played back in the day when I was in grade 6, and even with the lag and bad graphics, I still remember having an absolute blast with it. The physics system was so fun and novel at the time.
I made the journey of setting up xemu because I was so curious about this version of hl2. It's a really good reminder of just how good the base game is, because what initially started as me poking around more for curiosity ended up in me playing through to Sandtraps in a few sittings, using the literal worst form of the game because I was still having fun.
The binocular room is there to foreshadow the gunship attack
Fun Facts: Minerva Metastasis for Xbox port was done by someone in the community. And is completely playable. There's a Brazilian kid trying to port EP1 & 2 and so far he has managed to get EP1's several map working and he has made some new UI for his mod. He's on OGXBox forums.
Minerva could use an update on PC it runs on a very old version of source.
@@Puxi It works fine with HL2 Update and MMod. I've finished it three times.
In the puzzle after the room with all the explosive barrels where you need to turn a valve to increase the water level, the valve is in a different place and has its own platform
It’s still weird to think half-life 2 was on the original Xbox.
It's weird they didn't just do a 360 launch port
@@selzzaW they did. The orange box had Team Fortress 2 Portal and Half-life 2
@@spectrumstudios4848 that wasn't at launch, it was two years later.
HL2 for xbox began development long before HL2 was even released on PC. Valve assumed they would be able to release it alongside the PC version. When the PC release was delayed to November 2004, resources were redirected from the xbox port to getting the main game to release on time, meaning it didn't come out until the xbox 360 was about to launch. In the end, it became overshadowed by the prospect of an eventual port for the 360, which didn't come out until 2007. It's really good that there are creators like you who shine a light on these obscure ports, because immense work was put into them. You're effectively giving the devs the credit they deserve, which society at large didn't.
Games in particular that release just before next gen console release dates fascinate me, mostly because its nice that people who couldnt buy those new consoles were still be able to get a new game
dude i live half life so much i bought Half life 2 before i even bought a Xbox, i was holding it in my hands and was like "now we need an xbox" and then the same thing with half life alyx - i bought the game before owning a VR headset
What I like about the OG Xbox release is the sound is hardware accelerated
the black and white buttons turned into the shoulder buttons. but yea they should actually add 2 more buttons on the controller, 4 is starting to get cramped, and maybe put start and select above too for quick access
I Grew Up on This version of Half-Life 2, I played it for my first couple of years of playing Half-Life 2 until I got the orange box
Ha. It hit me that I only ever played half life 2 and n Xbox and 360. 17 years later I got it on pc and instantly noticed something breens speech. Now I know.
epic vid :]
cool vid
I hope Valve does something to bring the Xbox audio to PC on the 20th anniversary of HL2. Also, the Xbox version of Doom 3 for the OG Xbox might be worth a look, since it's another PC game running on a console. Or Escape from Butcher Bay, another great PC game that somehow runs on the OG Xbox lol.
As soon as you mentioned the black and white buttons I knew you were going to say something about how you want them back
biggest mistake in modern controller design
but they weren't gone? you do know they were just renamed lol@@thecamobot
@@MisterChief711 They pretty much turned into the bumpers for 360, but I think we could have had both
@@thecamobot no? that's just an extreme bloated mess of a controller and would encourage developers to not give a shit about initiative controls
@@MisterChief711agreed
At least the audio is good. I would love to see the 2005 xbox Port audio in retail half life.
It's an awesome port
I was always amazed at how they managed to pull this port off, even with the obvious compromises. I always loved Breen's creepy echo in that first level too lol. I really enjoy your perspective and style in dissecting these games, I really enjoyed your Portal video from a few months ago as well. I really think you deserve a lot more subscribers and viewers, so hopefully my comment helps the algorithm pick it up, haha. I really enjoy your videos, and I hope you keep making them!
Thanks for the comment!!
You know what I always found the gun audio too loud in Half Life 2, especially the SMG like you said. Without headphones I often end up turning the volume down whilst playing, so as to not terrorise the rest of my household.
0:42 looks like the starting hallway of follow freeman
>No multiplayer. Sounds like a selling point to me. Especially in this day and age.
got this game for xmas with PGR3 and Cod 2 for a new Xbox 360, this was also long before orange box, I played that christmas morning before going to folks for dinner, and to be honest i really liked it. The low res textures arent that big of a problem when the TV is an old SD CRT! Framerate was still bad though and you basically had to play around it to not die. Curious, is there a mod that restores the enhanced audio this port got for the PC version?
Every now and then another KZheadr makes a video about HL2 on Xbox with a compelling thumbnail and a whole new wave of Half Life fans learn it exists lol
@5:10 they did, they just replaced them with bumpers
Half life 2 on the xbox reminds me of the classic Unity engine 3D graphics.
Got to love the old "Duke" controller, with those giant handles that could double as a weapon...HL2 on the Xbox is laggy, buggy, and uglier than the PC version. But in 2005, none of that really mattered as much - chances are you were playing on a CRT so the lack of detail would be somewhat hidden, and gaming on a PC was more expensive. The fact that the game ran as well as it did is a testament to the power of the Xbox, Microsoft's first venture in the console market, and the Half-Life 2 port is like a sendoff to that beautiful black box with the big, green X.
Well said
Its fun cuz you can still propsurf in it
Hey i like that poster behind you! Where did you got it?
Its from a Babymetal concert I was at!
@@thecamobothuh cool, thanks
Crazy how people are still covering this.
15:24 lol
I rented the game with a friend, from blockbuster, and the enemies didn't render correctly and showed up as big red 3D flashing ERROR meshes. Very funny, made it unplayable, though.
That's awesome
Could you do a Video on a the PS2 port of Half Life blue shift? It's not official, but you can burn the files of this mod to a disc and put it into your PS2 in order to play it. Or use an emulator. It even has the alien mode the original half life on PS2 had.
I can look into it when I get around to the PS2 port, I'm trying to get my hands on the demo disc for HL PS2 too!
@@thecamobot Nice. If you mean the demo disc that allows you to play half life uplink on PS2, then that actually ties back into the PS2 port of blue shift. Put the disc that you have the files for the blue shift PS2 port burned to into your disc slot when you open the half life extras menu, and then you should be able to play half life blue shift on PS2.
@@thecamobotI would suggest doing a video of the entire port, not just the mods 👍
i like Ur hair
Glad to see this version get more recognition, this was my first introduction to half life and I played the hell out of it. Too young to care about the frame rate, just having a good old time.
I think at the end of the day, the best experience of Valve titles (with except maybe L4D) is on PC. Their games are either unoptimized, don't lend themselves to controllers, or are otherwise a huge handicap if you decide to play on console.
omg the fps is horrid on xbox. nice vid btw
Thanks zezima
It's actually better to download an older version nowadays bud, like the 04/06 version. The original blood sprays / splats look more realistic, th AI is better, for some reason valve in their infinite wisdom with orange box turned off ALOT of the AI features so combine soliders no longer flank you, run off or indeed do much except run left, run right and then run RIGHT at you. EAX was also cut so you can't have anywhere near as good'er sound immersion anymore, they deleted the glowing eyes on the metro cops the list goes ON AND ON AND ON and tbh makes no sense.
I do also believe its way worse optimized. Sure, any 2024 cheap PC would run it, but thats kind of the problem, it wouldnt run on 10 year old PC or so, when it shouldnt be the case. Hell, even my ryzen for some reason struggles running the game when antialiasing is activated which is ridiculous.
@@sebastianaliandkulche God yeah original HL2 would work on a potato, absolutely loved it bck thn. Only had a 1.4 amd prossesor, riva TNT2 and 2 gig of ram and it still run on mostly high settings lol You are absolutely right on the optimisation.
@@CrashHeadroom And the think is it still runs! The only reason to play the Steam version if for the achievements or if you want to play in ultra wide but thats it. I dont know why Steam constantly kind of ruins games with obligatory updates. The fact that they removed support for older Windows also doesnt help either. It reminds me that i used to have a notebook which could barely run the Steam client, but games ran perfectly fine.
That's how I played the game back in 2006! I did not have enough money for a midrange PC so I had to buy this version of HL2. I was truly impressed. Playing it was like finding yourself in another world - a different world, but a convincing one nonetheless! What a seriously impressive port, the original Xbox had a 700 mHz Pentium 3 processor, 64MB of RAM and a custom Nvidia solution, what they managed to achieve was simply amazing. The game was so good I barely noticed those framerate dips.
more like full life amirite
half man have life
Brilliant video. I've always felt defensive of this port as it was my first foray with Hali-Life 2. You raised a lot of points that I hadn't even considered. I would probably never play this version again. It doesn't mean it's not important, though.
11:15 Half life 2 also doesnt have multiplayer, HL2 Deathmatch is a separated client you need to buy away from Half life 2 and orange box in the same vein as lost cause. I have it because they gift them if you have an AMD card around 2010
This is true! I mostly mentioned it because the old articles did
I think the complains at the time made sense since it was common in consoles to have split screen in FPS and if you compare it to the first game which had an amazing online.
Wheres my comment
I miss the og xbox.
xbox is the best box
its impressive that this was able to run on 64mb of ram!
It's easy to see the graphics and low fps and think this port was terrible despite being impressive. But it really wasn't uncommon for games to have really low fps and low res textures back then. Seriously, a lot of people didn't really mind low fps, I remember I played the hell out of the first Killzone local deathmatch on my PS2 and It ran horribly, but we did not care cause it was pretty fun for us. Same with even older games like the Zelda OoT, Starfox on the Snes, Road Rash on the genesis and many others. Chances are, if you were a console gamer back in the day and you got this copy of the game, the lag wouldn't be such a turn off, you'd just roll with it, and as mentioned in the video it wasn't that far from the PC version in terms of performance anyway (but I think the pc version had more consistent fps) I know i'd play the S outta this if I got this version of the game instead. Gamers had a bit of a different mentality for some things back then.
????? Actually the sixth gen was when 60 fps became way more common.
People hate this version, but it's crazy they did it. Its atleast better than The Orange Box on PS3
HL2 on PS3 really isn't that bad. I just finished a playthrough of it and the episodes and it was pretty fun. Weird audio glitches aside for certain voice lines, it's a very playable port. My framerate tanked once, to my memory.
Orange Box on PS3 looks and runs better.
No, it isn't. The PS3 version has obvious problems but it still runs better than this og Xbox version.
Playing it on a medium to even small CRT is not that bad. But trying to play this on a modern TV.... It's fucking UGLY AS FUCK.
Nobody should care, PC version is better.
(There's even a mod that gives it the console HUD for whoever plays it with controller, making this even more irrelevant)
Ok.
@@ShyitFard69 👍
Now craterface wants to be a youtuber. Man why does everyone have to be a beta
Lmao