If you were looking for some amazing “Half-Life” retro goodness to run on an older Mac for next to nothing, you’re going to like this.
Marking the 25th anniversary of the game’s release, Valve Software has made Half-Life next to free for a limited time, although you may need to use older hardware to actually play it on macOS.
The famed PC game Half-Life was released to the world on November 19, 1998. The groundbreaking first-person shooter introduced many new technologies and concepts to the gaming industry and enabled Valve to become a major force by creating the Steam digital storefront.
As of this writing, the game is available at 90 percent off. Although marked down to an incredibly low $0.99 price point, Valve has warned that the software is “not compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina or above,” due to Apple’s ending of 32-bit application support with that operating system release. Workarounds include playing the game on a Mac running macOS Mojave or earlier, installing Mojave on a separate APFS volume and booting to it, or using Boot Camp to launch the Windows version.
The game is also available on Windows and Linux.
The game places the player in the role of Gordon Freeman, a research scientist in the Black Mesa Research Facility. Following an accident, Gordon introduces an alien invasion to Earth, overrunning the facility and prompting a fight to escape. The game features incredibly immersive storytelling for a first-person shooter, as well as an in-game atmosphere and impressive visual effects. The story continued in Half-Life 2, a few episodic releases, and the VR game Half-Life Alyx.
Half-Life requires mac OS X 10.6.3 Snow Leopard, 1GB of RAM, and 4GB of hard drive space to run. Graphics require an Nvidia GeForce 8 or higher, ATI X1600 or higher, or Intel HD 3000 or higher.
If you’ve had a chance to download and play the game, please let us know what you think in the comments.
Via AppleInsider and Valve