I've only skipped through this so far, but I'm liking what I see! That being said, I would like to point out that this mod still takes some artistic liberties, especially when it comes to overall color/lighting of a space or even an entire map. The more heavily stylized turquoise sky/fog in Ravenholm stands out as the most obtrusive artistic change to me, and while some may argue it looks better, it's a fairly drastic departure from the nostalgic Ravenholm ingrained in my mind. The “more realistic” indoor lighting changes will unfortunately sometimes change the color temp as well and eliminates the cold, industrial, fluorescent lighting feel in some scenes that was part and parcel with the Half-Life series. And while addressing the stark nature of map boundaries with extra foliage or details seems appropriate, completely changing landmarks with new styles of buildings not previously seen seems like a bold choice. (In a small way, that's changing the HL universe.)

Other small items: G-Man's glowing eyes during the intro comes off as a bug rather than an improvement. And while adding small wave patterns to the shore line was direly needed, the random 16 foot sprays crashing against rocks don't seem plausible at all given the tame water and come off as extremely odd. At first I didn't even recognize what they were and thought it was some sort of explosion/glitch. Just bring them down to about 20% of their current size and I'm sure it would be a nice addition.

For every negative, there's a dozen positives though. I was always a proponent of Valve going back and fixing visuals and bugs in HL2, both those that were there from the beginning and those caused by subsequent updates. (I still think they should!) But I'm glad Filip has taken the time over the years to do this and a few other items while retaining HL2's vision and not going crazy with extras.

This is about as good as you're going to get if you want to get a more polished HL2 and don't want all that FakeFactory junk. Great job Filip, and THANK YOU SO MUCH for being a giant fanboi... we are all reaping the benefits!!! :)

I've only skipped through this so far, [b]but I'm liking what I see![/b] That being said, I would like to point out that this mod [b]still takes some artistic liberties[/b], especially when it comes to overall color/lighting of a space or even an entire map. The more heavily stylized turquoise sky/fog in Ravenholm stands out as the most obtrusive artistic change to me, and while some may argue it looks better, it's a fairly drastic departure from the nostalgic Ravenholm ingrained in my mind. The “more realistic” indoor lighting changes will unfortunately sometimes change the color temp as well and eliminates the cold, industrial, fluorescent lighting feel in some scenes that was part and parcel with the Half-Life series. And while addressing the stark nature of map boundaries with extra foliage or details seems appropriate, completely changing landmarks with new styles of buildings not previously seen seems like a bold choice. (In a small way, that's changing the HL universe.) Other small items: G-Man's glowing eyes during the intro comes off as a bug rather than an improvement. And while adding small wave patterns to the shore line was direly needed, the random 16 foot sprays crashing against rocks don't seem plausible at all given the tame water and come off as extremely odd. At first I didn't even recognize what they were and thought it was some sort of explosion/glitch. Just bring them down to about 20% of their current size and I'm sure it would be a nice addition. For every negative, there's a dozen positives though. I was always a proponent of Valve going back and fixing visuals and bugs in HL2, both those that were there from the beginning and those caused by subsequent updates. (I still think they should!) But I'm glad Filip has taken the time over the years to do this and a few other items while retaining HL2's vision and not going crazy with extras. This is about as good as you're going to get if you want to get a more polished HL2 and don't want all that FakeFactory junk. Great job Filip, and THANK YOU SO MUCH for being a giant fanboi... we are all reaping the benefits!!! :)