New Beyond Black Mesa Trailer Hits the Tubes

[Andy Chalk]

New Beyond Black Mesa Trailer Hits the Tubes

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A new trailer for the Half-Life [http://www.amazon.com/Half-Life-Game-Year-Pc/dp/B00001KUII]-inspired short film Beyond Black Mesa has been released and for a low-budget, fan-made project, it's hot stuff indeed.

Gordon Freeman may be the G-Man's go-to guy but, like every great strategist, he has a backup plan, too: Adrian Shephard, a particularly talented and durable U.S. Marine who was plucked from the Black Mesa meltdown at the end of Valve [http://www.amazon.com/Half-Life-Expansion-Pack-Opposing-Force-Pc/dp/B00002CF96/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1288976797&sr=1-1] hasn't had much to say about him since, but he's back and kicking Combine butt once again thanks to the team behind Beyond Black Mesa.

The "official" trailer for Beyond Black Mesa cuts a few short clips from the teaser that came out in July [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102003-Amateur-Film-Makers-Tease-Impressive-New-Half-Life-Project] with a bunch of new footage and a little bit more of an insight into the plot. The G-Man has brought Shephard out of stasis and has him leading a small band of fighters to "get the warning out" to City 17. What exactly they're being warned about isn't clear since I think everyone already knows that the world has been invaded by aliens, but it's not terribly important either. Promotional trailers are about getting attention and looking cool, and this does both quite nicely.

Hopefully we'll get to see the whole thing fairly soon; beyondblackmesa.com [http://kotaku.com/5682233/half+life-fan-movie-pretty-kids-explosions-aplenty]!


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[steverivers]

This trailer screams out "Half Life should be made into a movie."

Someone budge Chris Nolan... he's not got anything better to do after filming Dark Knight Rises!

 

[JaymesFogarty]

The parkour aspects and the slow motion isn't exactly what memories are evoked when I think of Half Life, but for a budget production that looks absolutely beautiful!

 

[ZeroMachine]

It looks... cool and all... but it doesn't capture the feel of Half Life. At all. It's the music. Half Life doesn't work with orchestrated music like that. It works with electronic synth stuff and atmopheric sounds.

Not to mention that the guy that was talking sounded boring as fuck.

What's more, it, like with too many fanmade things, make it seem like the Combine came to Earth with those soldiers... they didn't. Those are all humans they enslaved.

/fanboy

I'll watch it when it comes out, but it'll have to be damn good to have me want to consider it part of the canon... The story is something I hold dear, as well as the presentation and feel. The only fanmade things that impressed me that much were the Minerva mods for Half Life (known as Someplace Else) and Half Life 2, and the Riot Act mod. Turning Sheppard from a military man into a dude from the matrix just strikes me as... too over the top. Half Life just isn't that kind of universe.

 

[Impluse_101]

It looks... cool and all... but it doesn't capture the feel of Half Life. At all. It's the music. Half Life doesn't work with orchestrated music like that. It works with electronic synth stuff and atmopheric sounds.

Not to mention that the guy that was talking sounded boring as fuck.

What's more, it, like with too many fanmade things, make it seem like the Combine came to Earth with those soldiers... they didn't. Those are all humans they enslaved.

/fanboy

I'll watch it when it comes out, but it'll have to be damn good to have me want to consider it part of the canon... The story is something I hold dear, as well as the presentation and feel. The only fanmade things that impressed me that much were the Minerva mods for Half Life (known as Someplace Else) and Half Life 2, and the Riot Act mod. Turning Sheppard from a military man into a dude from the matrix just strikes me as... too over the top. Half Life just isn't that kind of universe.

Well....Adrian Shepard really didnt feel like Half life to begin with for me. During apposing force when you played through that it was... different.

This will be interesting to say the least.

 

[Pandora92]

Aww, as cool as this looks I originally didn't read the article title properly, I was hoping for more information on Black Mesa: Source. :/

 

[Fusionxl]

...And I thought the first trailer looked fucking impressive ...

 

[ZeroMachine]

Aww, as cool as this looks I originally didn't read the article title properly, I was hoping for more information on Black Mesa: Source. :/

That's what I thought I read when I saw the article on the side. I almost flipped with joy- I need something happy right now. Maybe that's why I was so underwhelmed...

Well....Adrian Shepard really didnt feel like Half life to begin with for me. During apposing force when you played through that it was... different.

I find that shocking and unsurprising at the same time. To me, it felt definitively Half Life while also feeling like something knew. I loved it, even if some parts were nearly unbearably difficult. I hated most of the new aliens... but it stuck with the whole idea of everything you fighting being interdimensional rather that interplanetary. These were just aliens from another dimension, not from the borderworld itself. Like the Combine.

I hate hearing people calling the Combine a normal alien occupation. They're an interdimensional empire. That just sounds so much cooler...

 

[tkioz]

It looks good, but all the good cinematography, editing, effects, and sound wont mean jackshit is the actors and script are plain horrible like the majority of "fan" projects.

 

[Kris015]

Love this even more than the first one! CAN'T FREAKING WAIT FOR THE FULL FILM! Have been waiting for a HL movie for a long time

 

[Casual Shinji]

Am I wrong in thinking that none of these people look like they belong in City 17?

They look too friggin hip!

This looks more like a gritty Mirror's Edge.

 

[aakibar]

speaking as a non fanboy. This shit looks good! (for lack of a better term)

 

[gibboss28]

This trailer screams out "Half Life should be made into a movie."

Someone budge Chris Nolan... he's not got anything better to do after filming Dark Knight Rises!

I'm going to go ahead and say it: Chris Nolan really isn't that good. Yes I know i'm probably going to be flamed for it, but I don't really care.

 

[RobCoxxy]

I can't wait to finish uni and have free time. I have the capacity and knowledge to do this (as well as all that stock footage).

I just don't have the money, the camera or the time right now.

Curses.

 

[Layzor]

Looks real cool though a bit too much free running.

 

[ultimateownage]

Not particularly hyped. But when he said 'The right man in the wrong place, can make all the difference in the world' it sent shivers down my spine.

 

[Chimichanga]

The trailer was actually pretty good considering they were working off twigs and dirt for a budget, but it doesn't really evoke 'half-life'.

For starters, Adrian Shepard was a former HECU soldier - you'd think he'd be in shape for, you know combat.... I know casting is limited, but why did they cast some anorexic hipster? I can find progeria patients more buff than this guy.

I guess the parkour-esque thing could work - I wouldn't expect one man to LITERALLY fight through an alien army that conquered the Earth in 7 hours, but they seem to be going for something out of the first Matrix movie.

Of course, I'm just being extremely picky.

 

[repeating integers]

I guess the parkour-esque thing could work - I wouldn't expect one man to LITERALLY fight through an alien army that conquered the Earth in 7 hours, but they seem to be going for something out of the first Matrix movie.

Nitpick, but they didn't "conquer" Earth in 7 hours in the traditional sense apparently. What happened was, the leaders were killed, then Doctor Breen took over and convinced the humans they'd have a mighty fine life under the Combine before surrendering. Read this in a timeline of all events to happen in the Half-Life universe that some enterprising bloke put together.

This looks pretty good, actually. From what I played of Half-Life 2, the part that interested me most was the backstory, which I had previously read about on the internet.

As some people said, it doesn't entirely feel like Half-Life (from the first half of the second game I was able to play ) but hey, for a fan-made effort it's pretty good. I mean, it's nice to see fans of the series actually doing something constructive rather than writing essays about how fans of Halo are inferior beings should be ashamed, because Halo isn't Half-Life, etc (Yep, that was aimed at the more vocal elements of the HL fanbase).

I'll be following its progress.

 

[Nouw]

Strange how they made jumping out of a very low window dramatic. Looks interesting to say the least.