Relive the 2004 Half-Life 2 experience with this nostalgic video

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But there's more to it than meets the eye.

In this nostalgia-laden clip, which YouTuber XJR9000 says he "recovered from an old VHS tape", we get to relive the experience of installing Half-Life 2 in 2004. XJR shows off his collector's edition of the game, and the new GPU he bought to play it: a Radeon 9800 XT with 256MB of video memory.

He gets excited about Half-Life: Source, which he says is a complete remake of the original Half-Life (it really wasn't), and seems baffled when he tries to install the game, but finds an installer for something called Steam instead.

(Image credit: XJR9000)

It's fake, of course.

This is actually an incredibly well-observed parody, recorded in 2016.

The old school PC, distorted VHS footage, and XJR's hair/beard combo are pretty convincing. But fake or not, it's still a fun blast from the past, and a reminder of the early, frustrating days of Steam.

Andy Kelly
Andy Kelly

If it’s set in space, Andy will probably write about it. He loves sci-fi, adventure games, taking screenshots, Twin Peaks, weird sims, Alien: Isolation, and anything with a good story.