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Have you checked out the Digital Foundry YouTube channel recently? You're guaranteed daily videos, some exclusive comparisons and analyses you won't see anywhere else - and we also like to try out some new ideas. DF Retro is the brainchild of John Linneman, possessed of a gaming lair crammed with virtually every major piece of console hardware ever released. Every Sunday, DF Retro brings us a new story based on a significant release in gaming history, backed by exemplary, clean capture taken using original hardware.In this week's video, John tackles one of gaming's most celebrated games: Half-Life. Before developing its Source technology, Valve stuck doggedly with the original Quake engine. We take a look at how Valve utilised idTech initially, with a look at the 1997 alpha code - which the developer canned, rebooting the project almost from scratch. And after that, we take a look at the quality of the console ports: the PlayStation 2 release and the cancelled Dreamcast version. Comparisons, performance metrics - you name it, we've got it.
But that isn't the end of the Half-Life story: we finish up by checking out Half-Life Source and Black Mesa, the most modern ways available to experience the original game.
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