I love knowing how games are lying to me, and this breakdown of graphical tricks in Half-Life and more is an incredible peek behind the curtain: "The underwater concrete is just literally wobbling"

1. Games

I love knowing how games are lying to me, and this breakdown of graphical tricks in Half-Life and more is an incredible peek behind the curtain: "The underwater concrete is just literally wobbling" News By Dustin Bailey published 10 February 2026

"Fake motion blur," a "classic fake reflection," and more

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Valve)

• Copy link
• Facebook
• X
• Whatsapp
• Pinterest
• Flipboard
• Email

Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter GamesRadar+ Get the GamesRadar+ Newsletter

Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more

Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

You are now subscribed

Your newsletter sign-up was successful

Want to add more newsletters?

Every Friday

GamesRadar+

Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.

Signup +

Every Thursday

GTA 6 O'clock

Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.

Signup +

Every Friday

Knowledge

From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.

Signup +

Every Thursday

The Setup

Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.

Signup +

Every Wednesday

Switch 2 Spotlight

Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.

Signup +

Every Saturday

The Watchlist

Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.

Signup +

Once a month

SFX

Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!

Signup + An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter

Games have been lying to us for years – and I love knowing how those wonderful lies work. Sleight-of-hand tricks have been the backbone of graphical innovations for years, and even the most cutting edge games have some clever shortcuts hiding behind the curtain. A thread full of these tricks has been making the rounds on social media, and it seems everything from Halo to Half-Life has incredible technical cheats laying just below the surface.

For Halo, it's simply blurry tires. As Weird West developer Joe Wintergreen explains in a Bluesky thread (highlighted by PC Gamer), Bungie didn't actually implement motion blur for the spinning wheels of the Warthog in the original Halo. Instead, the devs are simply "swapping out the warthog tire texture for a blurry one when they're spinning fast. Fake motion blurrrr." Responses to the post suggest that this kind of trick is actually pretty common in any game that has a car in it, but the technique's been invisible to me for decades.

half-life blue shift does a classic fake reflection where it's just the same room under a glass floor. lots of old games did this, but ue1 games didn't! deus ex had real reflections. cool

— @joewintergreen.com (@joewintergreen.com.bsky.social) 2026-02-10T20:33:16.407Z

Another fun trick comes from Half-Life. In the expansion pack Blue Shift, certain rooms have very floors, with the entire room appearing to reflect on the surface. But that's no real reflection. Instead, an exact copy of the room is simply sitting upside down under your feet, and the "floor" is actually just a transparent window pane. "A classic fake reflection," as Wintergreen calls it.

You may like

• Ex Valve designer reveals the door and big toe that retroactively broke Half-Life 2: "This isn't a normal bug - it appears to have traveled backwards in time and infected the original!"
• "When I was growing up, games were designed to be fun, not manipulative": Path of Exile co-creator shines a blacklight on the "bulls**t" design tricks infesting all my live service games
• "We want you to feel like it's the game you remember playing": System Shock and Dead Space devs on the art of the remake

But my favorite example comes from a far less famous source: Zen Garden, a 2014 Unreal Engine 4 tech demo built for iOS. Here, there's a pool with what appears to be proper refraction featuring light shimmering through the water. But no, Wintergreen explains: "the underwater concrete is just literally wobbling."

meanwhile the Zen Garden ue4 mobile tech demo looks like the swimming pool has cool refraction shader stuff going on but it's actually offsetting the actual verts down there in the shader. the underwater concrete is just literally wobbling

— @joewintergreen.com (@joewintergreen.com.bsky.social) 2026-02-10T20:33:22.343Z

Some players treat these tricks as affronts to their highly developed gamer sensibilities – hello Starfield rain box – but really, this kind of thing is the stuff great art's always been made of. Heck, 2025 game of the year Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is still blowing the mind of more experienced game devs for its clever use of development "shortcuts."

Various Half-Life titles dominate our list of the best FPS games.

Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter

Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more

Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Dustin BaileySocial Links NavigationStaff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

View More

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

Logout Read more Ex Valve designer reveals the door and big toe that retroactively broke Half-Life 2: "This isn't a normal bug - it appears to have traveled backwards in time and infected the original!"    "When I was growing up, games were designed to be fun, not manipulative": Path of Exile co-creator shines a blacklight on the "bulls**t" design tricks infesting all my live service games    "We want you to feel like it's the game you remember playing": System Shock and Dead Space devs on the art of the remake    "There's always a loose end, trailing off into the distance": Inside the mind of a Metroidvania creator    Take a bow, Arc Raiders players: your degeneracy surprised even Embark, which didn't expect all the wallhacking – "We have to continuously find ways to waterproof the experience"    Mirror's Edge originally looked like "every other Unreal game" in 2008, but it literally made people sick    Latest in Games Square Enix shoutout has Xenogears fans behaving exactly as you'd expect on the classic JRPG's 28th anniversary    "I think Speranza is heavily underutilized": Arc Raiders boss wants to see more social elements, eyes the main city    Zelda producer says "hardware evolution" lifts "restrictions" but more importantly, "greatly influences the game design"    With Ubisoft's dire finances working against it, famously AAAA game Skull and Bones celebrates Year 2    Helldivers 2 passes 150,000 players on Steam for the first time in months thanks to Cyborgs, who may be good guys    "We have made back our development budget after 3 hours": Strategy roguelike Mewgenics is an instant hit    Latest in News Spider-Noir TV creators explain why Nicolas Cage's Spider-Man is "jaded" Ben Reilly instead of "boyish" Peter Parker    19 years after Frank Darabont's adaptation, Mike Flanagan is set to make a new movie based on Stephen King's The Mist    HBO's Baldur's Gate 3 TV show may not involve Larian, but Wizards of the Coast's former Head of Story has signed on    Nicolas Cage says his performance in Spider-Noir is "70 percent Bogart, and 30 percent Bugs Bunny"    This breakdown of graphical tricks in Half-Life and more is an incredible peek behind the curtain    Stranger Things spin-off creator says it's meant to feel like a "lost season" of the main show    GAME REVIEWSMOVIE REVIEWSTV REVIEWS

1. 1Crisol: Theater of Idols review: "This blood-powered shooter intrigues me, but never manages to live up to its dark folklore promises"
2. 2Mario Tennis Fever review: "Riotous, hilarious, and chaotic, but it can't quite serve up the complete package"
3. 3Romeo is a Dead Man review: "When this time-traveling hack and slash hits its groove, this is Suda51's bloodiest, sharpest spectacle since No More Heroes"
4. 4Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties review: "The meatiest brawling this crime thriller's tackled in years combines with its warmest story, but its overly edgy new chapter leaves me cold"
5. 5Mewgenics review: "The Binding of Isaac collides with Into the Breach in a strategy roguelike that has me battling bomber rats, breeding brutes, and more"

1. 1Return to Silent Hill review: "Neither an impressive adaptation nor coherent enough to act as a standalone film"
2. 228 Years Later: The Bone Temple review: "The wildest and weirdest entry into the franchise yet"
3. 3Avatar: Fire and Ash review: "Still a technical marvel, with some of the year's best action filmmaking"
4. 4Five Nights at Freddy's 2 review: "We have waited two years for a Five Nights at Freddy's 1.5"
5. 5Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery review: "Brings Knives Out back to its roots for a sequel that's almost on a par with the original"

1. 1Wonder Man review: "A low-key gem that's up there with the MCU's best"
2. 2Starfleet Academy review: "It may feel a little different to what we're used to, but this is Star Trek through and through"
3. 3A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms review: "This Game of Thrones spin-off is a surprisingly heartfelt and fun return to Westeros"
4. 4Stranger Things season 5 finale review: “Shows off both the best and the worst of Hawkins”
5. 5Stranger Things season 5, Volume 2 review: “All set up for a finale that has so much to deliver”