Yes the day has finally arrived and the iconic game Half-Life has been made to run on an Android Wear smartwatch. Before you get too excited, as one might imagine it does not run at a proper framerate all the time and is nearly unplayable using such a small screen for touch controls. What it does prove is that Android Wear can run some seriously robust apps all by itself and this is a fun proof of concept.
The process for getting Half-Life to run on your Android Wear smartwatch is pretty involved and you will also need an original copy of the game. That, added to the fact that it honestly doesn’t run too well really only makes this a fun exercise for showing what Android Wear is capable of or if you just really want to see it in action. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that one day there could be Android Wear optimized versions of popular games with different control schemes or the ability to use a separate controller. As crazy as that sounds, there are surely people out there who want to make that happen eventually.
It’s always fun to see people push the limits of hardware just to see what is possible and inspire others. One of the beautiful things about digital technology is being able to run a PC game that’s 17 years old on a wristwatch. Such a thing would have been entirely inconceivable when the game was first released and is now very much possible. If you’re a huge fan of Half-Life or just want to try the process out for yourself, the instructions are available at Dave Bennett’s site.
It could be an exciting future for Android Wear, gaming, and native apps and we can partly thank users like this for pushing the envelope.