Oct 4, 2026 · 13 min · 10 segments
Thursday 19 November 1998: Valve's Half-Life goes on sale in America, with UK shops getting it on the 27th. Lee and Mark take in Cher's Believe at number one, Half-Life and new sound cards priced in…
Mark WebbHostThat wobbly robot effect on her voice was a studio trick called Auto-Tune, pushed way past where it was meant to go.
No matter how hard I try.
You keep pushing me aside and I can't break through.
There's no talking to you.
Oh, I love that because it's a pop song that sounds like it's being sung by a very glamorous computer, and it fits today rather nicely, Lee, since we're about to spend a good while talking about what a PC could do with sound.
I'm not doing the voice effect, Mark, so don't even ask.
Well, that's a real pity because I'd already practiced mine in the car on the way in.
Shop prices with today's money worked in.
But the game was only half the story because to hear it properly, you wanted a new sound card.
Creative's Sound Blaster Live came out at a hundred and forty-nine pounds, roughly three hundred today, and Diamond's Monster Sound MX300 with Aureal's chip inside was due at around a hundred, so about two hundred pounds now.
Three hundred modern pounds just to hear the footsteps behind you is, uh, a big ask, Lee, and that's before anyone's even mentioned the graphics card.
Pretty much.
PC Zone's hardware pages that month were cheering a Voodoo Two graphics card for under a hundred pounds, which is still about two hundred in today's money.
So a game at forty quid could easily drag a couple of hundred more out of your wallet if you wanted it looking and sounding right.
Uh, with money like that on the line, you'd want the magazines to tell you it was worth it before you went near the shops.
That wobbly robot effect on her voice was a studio trick called Auto-Tune, pushed way past where it was meant to go.
No matter how hard I try.
You keep pushing me aside and I can't break through.
There's no talking to you.
Oh, I love that because it's a pop song that sounds like it's being sung by a very glamorous computer, and it fits today rather nicely, Lee, since we're about to spend a good while talking about what a PC could do with sound.
I'm not doing the voice effect, Mark, so don't even ask.
Well, that's a real pity because I'd already practiced mine in the car on the way in.
Shop prices with today's money worked in.
But the game was only half the story because to hear it properly, you wanted a new sound card.
Creative's Sound Blaster Live came out at a hundred and forty-nine pounds, roughly three hundred today, and Diamond's Monster Sound MX300 with Aureal's chip inside was due at around a hundred, so about two hundred pounds now.
Three hundred modern pounds just to hear the footsteps behind you is, uh, a big ask, Lee, and that's before anyone's even mentioned the graphics card.
Pretty much.
PC Zone's hardware pages that month were cheering a Voodoo Two graphics card for under a hundred pounds, which is still about two hundred in today's money.
So a game at forty quid could easily drag a couple of hundred more out of your wallet if you wanted it looking and sounding right.
Uh, with money like that on the line, you'd want the magazines to tell you it was worth it before you went near the shops.
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