Half-Life 2 gets upgraded to Episode 2 engine

[Green Man]

For all its glory back in 2005, it can be a little disillusioning to fire up the original Half-Life 2 these days – it looks that much flatter and dimmer than the worlds we’re used to from more recent iterations of Source engine. No HDR or colour correction, and NPCs with pudding-like faces. The one-time Future Of Games doesn’t look so futuristic anymore, in other words. So, one man has sprinkled modern fairy dust over the old dear – porting the entirety of Half-Life 2 to the significantly shinier Orange Box version of Source.

It’s fairly unclear what side of copyright law this lands on, as while the mod (for lack of a better word) won’t run without both HL2 and HL2: Episode 2, its 1.44Gb of recompiled maps’n'that (done, he claims, by manually comparing decompiled PC maps to a long playthrough of the already-upgraded 360 version) does seem to contain a fatted clutch of Valve assets. Whether they’re bothered about that is another matter – they’re surely aware of it by now, after all.

But it does also mean that it’s currently fairly tricky to get hold of the mod – it’s all strewn over Rapidshare, Megaupload and the like. Have a browse of the thread on the Steam forums and see if you can find a goodie.

Alternatively, wait until it spreads a bit, and enjoy this side-by-side comparison video and the update and original HL2 in the meantime:

[youtube=560,345]-R5Z8Vfv32s[/youtube]

Link

I'm downloading the torrent now since it's split into parts everywhere else.

[Dickie Dee]

How would this work with a Steam version of HL2? (I've never gotten into the mods, but will this work like any other?)