This is a guide for all of you who just installed half life, want to make it a better experience but don't want to embarrass yourselves by asking people how to make it better

(these count for (almost) all goldsrc games!)
Some of these tips have become obsolete due to valve updating the game and adding a lot of things for the 25th anniversary. The tips are still useful for the expansions and older version of the game.

There are 3 categories in this guide
Tips, Info and Optional.
Read all of them (trust me)

The tips themselves

FOV Means Field of View, which zooms in and out the camera to make you see more or less.

The default fov is 90, which is pretty small, and when playing in wide screen, the screen is streched and its very small

Start by opening the console (to open the console press the tilda key (`) on the top left of your keyboard) and type

default_fov 106

And thats it!
You can use any value from 106 to 110 to get the best experience

(thanks to Zebitus for the correction!)

HD models were added after HL: Blue Shift came out. They change a lot of things and most people hate them, so here is how to disable them. (If you like them, please refrain yourself from raging in the comments)

Open Options
Go to Video
And uncheck Enable HD Models if available

Your mouse is not moving and its glitchy?
Go to options
Mouse
Enable Raw mouse input

Thats it

Dont do this if its your first time playing the game

Open the console and type

changelevel c1a0

Info about the game(s)

Bhop is a trick speedrunners use to be very fast
Hold W
Jump
Release W
Press and hold A as you slowly move your mouse to the left
Then jump and hold D as you slowly move your mouse to the right.
Repeat process until you are very fast.
You have to jump as soon as you touch the ground. It is reccomended that you bind the jump button to your scroll wheel, so you can jump very fast.
(this is an oversimplification of bhopping, if you want more insight go to youtube and watch a video about it, i highly reccomend doing that because my explanation is bad)

Pressing F6 will quick save, and pressing F7 will load the quick save (This works for every singleplayer valve game, goldsrc or not). Quicksaves are useful when you beat a hard section and you don't want to do it again if you die.

Deathmatch is a multiplayer gamemode where... well its just a basic free for all.
Only play this if you have super fast reflexes and if you are okay with tryharders

Ricochet

Ricochet is an online multiplayer game where you throw discs at other players and jump around in a very small arena.

Deathmatch Classic

Basically if Quake deathmatch had a half life theme.

Opposing force multiplayer

Now, it is kinda weird, but Half life OF also has a deathmatch mode, yet its not very known and its pretty much dead. (i don't know if it even counts here)

Half life: Uplink

Uplink was a free 20 min demo released back in 1999. If you want to play it, its preinstalled in Sven CO-OP, or if you want to play it as a standalone game, you can get it from here: https://www.halflifeuplink.com/
OR, if you want to play it in your browser (without the hassle of installing the game), you can play it here: https://playminigames.ru/en/game/half-life-uplink

(just, please have an adblocker)

Please, for the love of god, do NOT play this version.
You may be like "oh but, this is a conversion of the game to the source engine, its gonna look better!"
And you're right, kinda.
The game has a TON of bugs, loading screens are too long, and it just isn't fun to play.
There IS a mod that fixes a ton of bugs and glitches, but it still doesn't fix the crap steam created.
(Funny story, back in 2004, a lot of valve nerds got angry that the port is so bad that they created their own full on remaster, Black Mesa! Which you can buy on steam right now)
https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/362890/Black_Mesa/

Half life: CAGED https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/679990/HalfLife_Caged/
Poke 646 https://www.moddb.com/mods/poke646-anniversary-edition
Half life: Restored https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/1283930/HalfLife_Restored/
They hunger https://www.moddb.com/mods/they-hunger
Half life: Echoes https://www.moddb.com/mods/half-life-echoes (thanks to SuicidalSolipsist for the reccomendation!)
Crack life https://www.moddb.com/mods/crack-life (thanks to paulin bacana for the reccomendation!)
The Specialists https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-specialists (thanks to shotgunner20 for the reccomendation!)
Half life: Field Intensity https://www.moddb.com/mods/field-intensity

(type in the comments mod reccomendations)

Half life
Hl: opposing force (play as the the main man of the HECU)
HL: Blue shift (play as barney calhoun, the guard that everyone loves)
Hl: Decay (ps2 exclusive coop dlc)
Half life 2
Hl2: Lost coast (a cut chapter of the game that is a tech demo)
Hl2: Episode 1
Hl2: Episode 2
Half life: Alyx

Sven co-op is a standalone game on steam that allows you to play an improved version of half life with your friends (or on a public server) for free.
Yup, the entire game, for free, with new super hd models and overall improvements.

Here it is:
https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/225840/Sven_Coop/

Now you may be asking, "Wait, but if this is free, then why should i buy/have already bought half life??" Trust me, there are a lot of benefits by having OG half life.

To play with a friend (maximum of 32 people in a server)
Press new game
Then choose the first level, hl_c00 (the tram ride)
If you want to skip to the second chapter, then start the server at hl_c01_a1.
Then give your steam id to your friends by opening the console and looking for it (it should look something like this: STEAM_0:0:123456789 (this is an example)
Then your friends need to open the console (once you start a server) and type
connect STEAM_0:0:123456789
After you finish a session, i strongly reccomend writing down on what map you are on by holding tab and seeing what map you are on, so you know where you can continue next time you play with your friends.

(Note that almost all of the other tips i gave you will work in sven co-op!)

Stuff you shouldn't really do on your first playthrough but if you want, thats your choice

The subtitles mod adds subtitles to the game.
The original link was deleted, so you will have to use this one

https://www.gamepressure.com/download.asp?ID=51023

After downloading,
Open your library on steam
Find half life, right click it and then manage, and then browse local files.
After that, just extract the sm_valve folder from the English folder in the half life folder (the folder itself drag and drop, not the stuff in the folder.

And after that, restart steam.
You should have a new game in your library called Half Life: Subtitles Mod
You have to launch that for the mod the work (Note that deathmatch wont be available and you will have to play on a new safe file)

Texture filtering makes the textures look smooth ingame. But since the game is from 1998 and the textures are very low resolution, its better to play with no texture filtering. What do you think the original doom would look like with texture filtering? (I really don't care if you like it)

Open the console and type

gl_texturemode gl_nearest

Note that you have to do this every time you open the game if you want to turn off texture filtering.

You may have seen youtubers that post hl1 videos have a "change game" button on the main menu
What this button does its that it allows you to change between goldsrc games without exiting half life

Open the game directory (ive shown you how to do that in the subtitles section)
Go to the valve folder, and then the resource folder.
After that open the GameMenu.res file with notepad
There are numbers that mark sections, go to section 14.
Look for the line "nosteam 1", and delete that line (Be careful though, you must delete it like the line wasn't even there in the first place, so the height matches with the other lines).

After that open the game and you should see the Change Game button

This is all the basic stuff you should do when first playing half life

(thanks so much for 3000 views!)
(i have a site where i post things that i make! spimbili.blogspot.com)
(also give suggestions in comments on what i should add)