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Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update

(www.half-life.com)
566 points Philpax | 4 comments | 15 Nov 24 22:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.865s | source
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jsheard ◴[15 Nov 24 23:10 UTC] No.42152345[source]▶
It doesn't seem to be mentioned here, but HL2 (which now includes the sequel episodes) is completely free to claim on Steam until the 18th, if you're new to the series.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/220/HalfLife_2/

Also try clicking on the gravity gun at the end of the anniversary page.

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XorNot ◴[15 Nov 24 23:15 UTC] No.42152383[source]▶
Also I highly recommend Black Mesa, which is the remake of HL1 in the HL2 engine. The Xen levels went from what they were to possibly some of my favorite levels in the game, and the music scoring is top-notch. It feels great to play.
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jsheard ◴[15 Nov 24 23:21 UTC] No.42152429[source]▶
Black Mesa is also 75% off right now, incidentally. Seems like everything Half Life is either free or on deep discount for the anniversary.
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bdjsiqoocwk[dead post] ◴[15 Nov 24 23:30 UTC] No.42152505[source]▶
[flagged]
jsheard ◴[15 Nov 24 23:35 UTC] No.42152546[source]▶
And when you buy an album on CD you just license it for personal use, you can't play it on the radio or in a commercial space. "Buying" a copy of some intellectual property always had strings attached even in the age of physical media.
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bdjsiqoocwk ◴[15 Nov 24 23:40 UTC] No.42152588[source]▶
Steam can delete a game from your account, they can't delete a cd that I physically have with me.

Why does this even need to be spelled out...

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1. ruggeri ◴[16 Nov 24 00:00 UTC] No.42152779[source]▶
Not contradicting your point, but adding tangential interesting information.

Blu-Ray UHD discs can no longer be played on modern computers as Intel has removed the trusted execution environment needed to decrypt them. Blu-Ray UHD players do a handshake that verifies the use of Intel SGX.

One might have always been skeptical of these discs, especially as AMD had never implemented those TEE instructions.

But I believe the interesting takeaway is that even physical media is becoming something you can’t count on using without the continued permission/assistance of some outside party.

Without regulation I would expect that all new media will eventually require players to be always-online.

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2. Halian ◴[16 Nov 24 00:06 UTC] No.42152824[source]▶
Why hasn’t the requisite software been updated to perform a non-SGX handshake? That seems like a yawning oversight. o_O
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3. jsheard ◴[16 Nov 24 00:10 UTC] No.42152849[source]▶
The UHD DRM scheme requires some kind of secure enclave for key management, and SGX was the only suitable system for that on PCs. There is no non-SGX system they would certify.
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4. Halian ◴[17 Nov 24 23:24 UTC] No.42168264{3}[source]▶
That seems less than optimal.