Take Half-Life, a beloved classic, and port it to then cutting-edge Source engine, which brings in new lighting and water effects, and physics, including ragdolls. Doesn’t sound very exciting, but it’s still Half-Life, just slightly better, right? Then spice it up with bugs that weren’t there before, and continually deteriorating technical state with updates, and you get Half-Life: Source, a game that almost no one views favorably.

Let’s evaluate how does Half-Life: Source stack up against the original as a subsequent significant rerelease (which includes remakes, ports and what have you). The main difference is visual enhancements. I think the water and lighting are genuine improvements, at least from a technical standpoint. You may prefer this version’s lighting or the OG’s, but I think this is a decent demonstration of the new effects. The flashlight is now actually dynamic, and I think it functions better. I think the best comparison is the Training Room. There is a dark room that you have to navigate, using the flashlight, and it wasn’t that dark in the original. In Half-Life: Source, it’s pitch-black, so I had to use the flashlight, like you’re supposed to. I think grabbing & dragging objects like metal crates feels slightly better, though its janky in its own way. The water also looks rather nice… when it looks the part.

Okay, praise time is over. Now for the criticism. As I said, the water looks nice, but not always perfect. For instance, here’s one part. Do you see it? Of course you don’t! There’s no water in this screenshot. Look at how the original looks like, there’s a clear water puddle, and it becomes electric. In Half-Life: Source, it’s still there, but invisible now. It’ll still damage you, although it’s not as severe as in the OG, it’s still a big slap on the face, especially to the first time players (if you somehow chose this over the original). Or when it makes things see-through in this case. Yes, as I alluded to earlier, there are bugs! It’s clearly more unpolished than the source material, and it’s kind of baffling. There are a few visual bugs, like this infamous floating scientist. The scientists that are supposed to climb this vent don’t actually play the animation, instead they’re frozen there until the pop out of existence. Welcome to glitch hell, aka Residue Processing. This conveyor belt section is probably the most egregious visual bug I’ve ever seen. I suspect it has something to do with the haze effect present in a few areas, but I could be completely off base here. Or how about malfunctioning skybox? Or these weird black square textures left by the headcrab spawning alien thing? Also, apparently the surfaces being shiny is also a visual glitch. Honestly, if I have never watched “Why Everyone Hates Half-Life: Source” video by Richter Overtime, I would have never guessed this isn’t an original aesthetic change (it doesn’t even look that bad to be honest).

That would be all well and good (except for that water electricity thing and potentially seizure-inducing glitch nightmare), but there are bugs that affect gameplay, believe it or not. These barnacle creatures don’t always visually extend their tongues all the way down, which makes for an unpleasant surprise. The AI for human grunts is also faulty, the very first ones you meet just don’t function properly (don’t really fight you or the scientists. Future encounters are a bit better, but not perfect. I also noticed some aliens fighting headcrabs, which I don’t think happens in the original Turns out Bullsquids hunting Headcrabs is intentional. I don't recall seeing that in the original, so I assumed it was a bug. The tentacle creatures (the ones that react to sound) have broken collision – you can just run past them as they won’t crush you despite physically making contact. Also, I noticed Gordon’s physics seem slightly different. As in, I could crouch-jump higher than before, which means I could easily skip certain obstacles. There are dedicated YouTube videos about documenting glitches found in Half-Life: Source, I think you get the point of how bad the technical state of this port is.

Those issues sound pretty bad already. However, in my opinion, the most damning thing about this rerelease is that it doesn’t change anything about the game beyond visual effects. It doesn’t fix any of the level design issues that I detailed in my original Half-Life review. It does not fix any of the trial and error elements, it does not fix poor enemy placement. It did change one level to utilize physics, but it did not fix any of the problems I had with the original. Your tolerance for Half-Life: Source may vary, but to me, it really feels like the game I didn’t like that much but actually bad now. At this point, I’m just sick of the original Half-Life. Half-Life: Source is a bad rerelease and a bad game on its own. It doesn’t even make for a particularly impressive display of the Source engine. The graphical improvements are minimal, it doesn’t even change the textures to look better or anything (at least I didn’t notice), and it brings in its own issues. Even if you have never played original, this version will probably leave a bad taste in your mouth. I think this is the kind of game where everything was going against it, which includes Half-Life 2’s release and Valve’s own negligence, I question why they didn’t cancel this outright. Valve actually hid this game as part of Half-Life’s 25th anniversary, as they consider that version to be the definitive experience (an interesting statement, considering Black Mesa exists). You can still get it if you go out of your way, but why would you? I think it can only serve as a good case study of bad rereleases. Also, I guess it’s a treasure trove of unused content relating to the original game, but it’s not that big of an achievement. There is a mod to fix this version, but again, why not just play the original? Unless you find ragdolls amusing. I bet you do.