There are enough words said about Half-Life 1 as it is one of the most popular and known games of all time, so I will say some notes about the PS2 port specifically.
The port is awesome. As I understand, it is built upon an unreleased Dreamcast version. From here they took "lock on" systems which works nice for Dreamcast's single stick gamepad, but also not bad on PlayStation as well. A bit too clunky for modern standards, but it plays much better than the majority of PS1/Saturn games of the era, made for digital pads only.
Controls are fully configurable. There are multiple presets and the game allows you to customize your controls as you want. which is not typical for early PS2 games as well. The Separate category is special combinations, like the famous GoldSrc crouch jumping.
In addition to that, the game had a bit of enhanced GUI for gamepad, and widescreen support (lots of PS2 games did not have this option even at the end of the platform lifecycle!).
Besides a more or less known (sadly partially unfinished) coop campaign with secret vortigaunt mode, new models for NPCs, and some objects, the game is a faithful PC port that plays smoothly. The only major change in terms of level design was the enhancement of the Hazard Course map. Rest things are too minor to note in this type of review.
Can recommend. I played on SteamDeck... where the PC version has official support now, however, lock-on functionality and gamepad-friendly GUI sold me on the PC2 version via emulation.
The port is awesome. As I understand, it is built upon an unreleased Dreamcast version. From here they took "lock on" systems which works nice for Dreamcast's single stick gamepad, but also not bad on PlayStation as well. A bit too clunky for modern standards, but it plays much better than the majority of PS1/Saturn games of the era, made for digital pads only.
Controls are fully configurable. There are multiple presets and the game allows you to customize your controls as you want. which is not typical for early PS2 games as well. The Separate category is special combinations, like the famous GoldSrc crouch jumping.
In addition to that, the game had a bit of enhanced GUI for gamepad, and widescreen support (lots of PS2 games did not have this option even at the end of the platform lifecycle!).
Besides a more or less known (sadly partially unfinished) coop campaign with secret vortigaunt mode, new models for NPCs, and some objects, the game is a faithful PC port that plays smoothly. The only major change in terms of level design was the enhancement of the Hazard Course map. Rest things are too minor to note in this type of review.
Can recommend. I played on SteamDeck... where the PC version has official support now, however, lock-on functionality and gamepad-friendly GUI sold me on the PC2 version via emulation.