

There's more detail, the shadows are definitely nicer, the water looks great, and it brings Half-Life 2 closer to the visual improvements we saw in Episodes 1 and 2.

It's all a bit subtle-it's not at all like playing a brand new game or anything like that-but definitely noticeable. The ultimate goal was to improve the look of the game without making any drastic changes along the lines of the FakeFactory's Cinematic Mod. It also fixes bugs and improves scripted sequences and the collision system. The Update mod promises a host of visual upgrades to HL2, including detailed shadows, better interior lighting, environmental fog, particle effects, better water reflections, and more world detail. Well, it's finally arrived as a free download on Steam. It had been in the works for a while, but the move to SteamPipe broke it, and there had been little news about it since. Īt the time, one of the mods I tried to look at for the piece was called Half-Life 2 Update, created by modder Filip Victor.
