Play this. The original Half-Life is great and much fun, but it is going to look dated, and not just the graphics.
This mod aims at making the experience have the same feeling, while updating the gameplay, graphics and architecture of the environments to more closely match the original designs that had to be scaled back because of performance.
I think we'll have to wait and see. It's awesome that they're updating mechanics and gameplay (as it allows them to be game designers, not just stenographers), but it does mean that it could end up a terrible gameplay experience.
The original half-life is very dated when it comes to graphics, and the pathing of the AI is sometimes hilariously bad, but other than that it's still extremely fun to play and gets a decent little story out of the tiny amount of time actually spent on narrative.
>gets a decent little story out of the tiny amount of time actually spent on narrative.
This is the real genius of half-life: it doesn't go down the awful Hideo Kojima route of 45 minute "LOL HERE'S THE STORY!" cutscenes, rather the story is simply there in the game, it happens around you. It is possible to pretend you're playing quake and blast through without taking any notice of it, and it's also possible to play it a bit more slowly, and upon consideration the story is actually quite deep.
Disclaimer: the above opinions lifted wholesale from the recent zeropunctuation retrospective review. They're still true though.
This mod aims at making the experience have the same feeling, while updating the gameplay, graphics and architecture of the environments to more closely match the original designs that had to be scaled back because of performance.