Want more HL? Try Uplink Demo

Roland Deschain

Roland Deschain

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I was suprized to learn that most people have never played or heard ofHL: Uplink. As far as I can remember it is a original standalone (ie different from HL single player) demo to get more people to buy HL. Now I know this is a HL2 forum subsection, but you for all those that have never played HL: Uplink, you are missing out.

Oh, you want to play the demo now. Well I must dissapoint you :(. Oh wait, good news for you, here is a free link. No line up required.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,6813,00.asp

PS: Who can spot the G-man in this demo?
 
This is the demo that got me hooked to Half-life. I love it!
 
G-Man at the end with the Garg?

You can activate shadows in it because it's an old engine build.

"r_shadows 1" in console.
 
I played Half-Life at home, then a friend brought it into school back when HL was out for..a few months. We played it on those POS computers, dear god. I can't remember their specs, but they were old when we were using them, and HL ran at a VERY slow pace. 6 min loading times for the win.
 
The level design on Uplink was excellent in 1998. It caused me to buy Half life. At the time, I was running it on a very old computer (Cirex 148Mhz with 16 MB RAM and graphics card with just 1 or 2 MB)
 
1 or 2 mb!? holy crap half-life has come a long way with min requirements for lost coast at 3.6 ghz at least 512 mb vid card and 2 mb ram..
 
i have heard of it but never played it... i will try downloading it but befor can it be used in steam like in third party games?
 
I played it after HL1, and I gotta say it was GREAT!

Edit : wow, it took me like 3 minutes to download it ... their servers are slow, I mean 260 KB/s is kinda slow! :dozey:
 
yeah this demo can really be a life saver on an occasion in which you are stuck on an old ass computer with internet access as an only mean of survival.
 
wow, it's really short ... it took me just 10 minutes to finish it this time around!
 
First time I played the uplink demo, back in 2000, it took me 3 days. I'm not kidding. :monkee:
 
It took me ages to complete it the first time. In 1998 I had never played many shooters before. On my very old computer, the average frame rate was crap, and loading times were several minutes long (as you would expect with just 16 RAM) which made it almost unplayable, even at the lowest resolution at 320x240
 
What you really need to get hold of is Half Life: Day One - although if you've played Half-Life there's not much point. I got that free with my 3Dfx 3000 graphics card and I was quite literally blown away.

Looking at at it now just makes me laugh - back then I got excited by the shafts of light coming through the cracks in the rockface...but then, at this time, there was nothing else quite like it. That opening train ride was one of the classic gaming moments of all time (even though you didn't actaully do much)
 
-nods-

I played uplink after HL1 and while i was waiting for HL2 - and i was -still- blown away. Sure it only took me 3 hours (hint hint! :thumbs:) but it was a blast from finish to end. I still remember fondly leaping wildly above the soldiers as they grenaded my brains out.
 
I played Day One too. It was a weird mishap where I was supposed to buy the full version of Half Life but the store guy gave me a Day One CD by mistake (weird unpacked box story).

So when I completed Day One in two hours I was visibly pissed off. I stormed back to the store and got the full version. The store guy was so apologetic he let me keep the Day One CD as well.

After that, whenever anyone asked me if I knew of that game everyone's talking about, that Lambda symbol game, I gave them the Day One CD to check it out.

Funny days. :)
 
Chiefi said:
First time I played the uplink demo, back in 2000, it took me 3 days. I'm not kidding. :monkee:
Click to expand...

Wow how long did the whole game take to complete??! ;)

HL: Day One... Is that just the first few maps of single player or wut?
 
Yeah Uplink is great mission (its something like old-fashioned Lost coasts :D )
Sometimes I play Uplink!
 
Downloading now, only 49mb and it sounds great, but im only getting 130kb/s so there must be a LOT of people that want this demo.

Uplink: Source has a nice ring to it.

EDIT:

WOW!
I remember this running style from the HL1 Beta! Where you lean when you strafe and have to use W and A/D to bunnyhop (instead of just strafejumping)

This is really fun, but Im having some trouble on the Difficult setting, and in opengl the game is too dark, but otherwise Im having a good time remembering the OLD version of HL, before it was released.
 
Man, First time I played Uplink...
I was BLOWN AWAY by the graphics.
Now, If I look at it...They're mediocre at best, but doable.
 
wilka91 said:
I played it after HL1, and I gotta say it was GREAT!

Edit : wow, it took me like 3 minutes to download it ... their servers are slow, I mean 260 KB/s is kinda slow! :dozey:
Click to expand...
I got 640 :smoking:
 
Eh? I get like 60kbs... and your calling 260 slow?

But Ill DL it tomorrow and see if its any good...
 
RamenFiend said:
...
This is really fun, but Im having some trouble on the Difficult setting, and in opengl the game is too dark, but otherwise Im having a good time remembering the OLD version of HL, before it was released.
Click to expand...
I had a blast playing it. Even if the graphics were dated, it brought back fond memories.

It makes me think though: there's a HUGE difference between professional level designers and homegrown heroes (well duh) I've played a few single player mods for HL2, and while some of them are decent, this Uplink demo surpasses them all. It gives me more respect for the more talented among us.
 
Uplink demo... brings you back doesn't it? The gaming gods were against me you know. I read a review of Half-Life in PCZone UK and it sounded good... then they wouldn't shut up about it for ages... finally the Uplink demo was on the cover CD but... MY CD WAS MISSING! No sh*t, some bugger had stolen the CD from my issue of PCZone as it was on the shelf... I forgot the demo, thinking perhaps the gaming gods were trying to save me...

Months later, I got a new PC (so actually my P1 133 would never have run the demo in the first place... sssh!) and the uplink demo was on there. But so was Unreal and Incoming, two games that had been free and complete and I played through them until I got bored... then I got curious and played this Uplink thing. Amazing, was my reaction. I'd never played anything quite like it. I remember reloading again and again to try and save as many scientists from the execution in the outside area... when I did, they'd run around like headless chickens but this didn't matter to me - these people had to survive damnit! (yup, I was one of the many people who reacted well to HL's NPCs and helped make HL2 what it was. My abject stupidity is useful for something!). As a year 8 (13/14 years old?) student, I put Half-Life at the top of my neatly word-processed and prioritised birthday list. I rushed out and got Opposing Force on the day of release... or even the week before the day of release because I heard it was going to be out one week earlier than it turned out to be :P

I think the deal clincher for me was the first, simple sequence at the beginning of Uplink. You had no weapons, running down a collapsing corridor, these two mannequins with flappy mouths yapping something about a transmitter dome - but back then, it was somehow something unprecedented. My favorite exchange in the whole of the Half-Life series is probably one in Uplink:
Sci: "Plus I'm getting high radiation readings from the transmitter dome; Nobody but a fool would go in there"
Barney: "Well what about this guy?"
Sci "Yes... you could survive in that suit of yours!"

It's not much, but it got me all nostalgic. We love you Uplink :D
 
Original poster (aka Roland Deschain)

Do my eyes deceive me? Or is your name found in probably my favorite novel (more like a series of novels but all one big book a la Lord of the Rings) of all time, The Dark Tower. Good to see a fellow Stephen King fan out there.

hmmm.....I'm pretty sure it was Roland Deschain but now that I think about it, I don't remember his last name. But, it sounds like it. I just hope I'm not making a complete fool of myself.
 
It was awesome. In ways there were cooler parts than in half life. Like when you destroy a soda machine, it explodes, falls over, and steam comes out. Also there are more military people killed by barnacles
 
was uplink a beta level that was later cut out of Half life 1?

ANyway it was a good game even tho i completed it under an hour.. Plus the Blue garg at the end looks bigger than normal?
 
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