Main benefit is the recompiled maps having a much improved draw distance so grass doesn't just appear in front of you like it used to, which was really the only major sign of age on the original game. I'm not always a fan of how the colored lighting changes the mood of some scenes though, I preferred Half-Life 2 with a bleak eastern-european feeling environment which is tarnished somewhat with the splashes of bright orange and blue in places.

I was willing to forgive the bizarre choice of YouTuber commentary if it was at least insightful but really doesn't provide more than short, surface-level development facts written like a student project. Ironically YouTube analyses have done a better job and stealing clips from those would give you a better commentary track. Commentary nodes are also far too short and frequent so it's really just an interactive bullet-point list.

It might seem like I went in hard on two quite small aspects but really that's all this offers. Still a valid way to play one of the best FPS campaigns of all time but the original is still being updated to work on modern systems.

Great game to play with people who aren't that good with a controller since it levels the playing field for the loser. The immense power of some of the perks make it basically an even score until the final round though, at which point the person who is better at platformers will always win. Physics are a bit fucky and there don't appear to be that many levels either. Still good fun though and priced very fairly for what you get. Far too easy to cancel character customization for both players by accident.

Fantastic tactical shooter that forces you to take your time and treat the planning stage with proper respect. In theory, anyway, since you can also get away with bum-rushing the objective with a bunch of reserve soldiers, but what's the fun in that? Extremely tense and exciting and does a lot with such simple graphics (which I love in the same way I love System Shock 2's graphics).

The planning screen interface isn't incredibly smooth by today's standards but c'mon, this was 1998, it's pretty damn good as it is and gives you enough tools to get the job done.

Protip: You can speedrun the awful final stealth mission by running the default plan and pressing '/' to let the AI take over, they will get to the security box without being seen before the first AI cycle makes them wait outside your only entrance in for five minutes.

Fantastic platformer that builds on DKC Returns with beautifully slick levels and gameplay. Marred somewhat with one too many annoyingly tight jumps placed right at the end of long gauntlets with the final boss being the worst for this. Has some stupidly hard bonus levels much like Returns did which I respect but I wish the true final boss wasn't hidden behind needing to beat these on top of getting all the KONG letters in every level. I'll probably never attempt to 100% this legitimately. Still highly recommend even if DK's voice still sounds a bit fucked.

What if Half-Life was made in the style of Half-Life 2? Fast forward fifteen years and we have something made in the source engine that resembles Half-Life but doesn't quite hit the same sense of mystery and unknown that Valve games are known for.
Everything is way more !!EXPLOSIVE!! with bombastic music and guitars that smack you round the chops whenever an iconic 'bit' from the original comes up. They really wanted to make everything feel bigger than it is, like you're playing through a film at times. I can understand the team wanting to do their own thing but the magic is lost a bit when it's all being jammed down your throat so hard.
The worst of it is Xen, where the music swells, the vocals kick in and the setpieces ramp up in frequency and linearity. I felt like I was playing James Cameron's Avatar at points. The final portal to the Nihilanth looked like fucking Lord of the Rings! Like a good action film, I at least enjoyed the spectacle of it all.
The gameplay exists on the engine powering HL2's refined and simplistic combat while having HL1's arsenal and enemies. The two are often incompatible and you'll have enemies that smoothly move between multiple animation cycles before completing actions, making the AI feel worse than a game from 1998. It still works, just not as neatly as it used to. The weapons look and sound as you'd expect, but a lot of the time it was quite mindless. Again, Xen takes it further by having you jump on moving pistons and plug cables into sockets, over and over, for hours. The frequent Gluon Cannon sections try and fail to recreate the powered-up Gravity Gun section from the original, since here you're just using a power weapon you already had, just with infinite ammo.
My problem is that Valve games captured something very specific to them alone, so anything else with the Half-Life name will always be held to that impossible standard in my head. I cannot see this as it's own individual entry to be taken on it's own merits, just a bizarre attempt to make Half-Life more obvious.

It insists upon itself.