So... Black Mesa

[Bromion]

I was looking forward to this, then I found out that my university blocks steam. So I won't be playing this for a while

 

[surg3n]

Ahh, that lunch room incident. For a second I could swear that guy is based on Malcolm McDowell .

I'm enjoying it emensely, and am entirely impressed by what they've done. Really I didn't expect it to be so polished and fun, I was half expecting some better textures and physics and that's about all - I didn't expect to find a free mod game that stands beside commercial games.

In fact, this along with DayZ are really begging the question... what in the hell are commercial game developers up to - if this is awesome, and DayZ is awesome, then how come I still pay money for terrible games... in the case of DayZ, I have to pay money for a terrible game just so I can play the awesome mod game that is free. Commercial game developers mostly need a dry slap IMO.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

I absolutely LOVE it. Brilliantly remastered game. I was unsettled by the music at first, but its totally grown on me. The little achievements are nice (anyone else give a scientist a roll of toilet paper?) I also love the dialogue and bantering.

I was a bit nervous at first. I had gained quite a posse early on in the game. I thought this game just got too easy.

Spoiler

I was quite curious just how far I could go with all of them still following me. They only made it so far before their path was blocked. Oh and then I found out the marines still hit like a truck.

There are a few mistakes, glitches, crashes, etc but its really not that big of a deal. This is the worse one I found.

Spoiler

If thats it, I would call this game a success.

 

[willsham45]

Dam it. I wait for this for ages and now it is out I got limited internet
Dam sky and there inability to actally connect me to the internet quickly 2 Weeks the website said 2 and I got until the 2 of oct...that was when I signed up 3 Weeks ago.

Still I guess something to look farward to.

 

[Starbolt-81]

Anyone gotten their hands on a Snark yet and sat there watching the idle animations? Freakin' hilarious

All in all, this mod is everything i hoped for, amazing set pieces and stunning re-imaginings of the most iconic Half life levels. The section where you move about the cliff side is especially awesome with the Harrier jets passing by (and that one freaking awesome part where they make a bombing run on a pump station off in the distance).

 

[Kingjackl]

It's an awesome game, but I have to say the jump mechanics are really frustrating. Your basic jump has a max height of about 2 inches and is literally useless for climbing and platforming. To do that you have to use the crouch-jump which is really awkward and not very intuitive.

Anyone else having this problem? Just doing the first platforming section when you're hopping up the pipes was an exercise in pain.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

There are a lot of things I do like - redesigns in levels that add detail, nothing wasn't given a new skin, amazing soundtrack, a few extra mechanics (soldiers dropping from the Apache copters, Bullsquids shooting acid waves instead an acid ball, splatters appearing on your gun and hands), homage to the original, the list goes on.

I don't really enjoy the combat. I did at first, when I could Glock and occasionally crowbar or .357 everyone, but the Marines are just mean. Facing five Marines at once, when one Marine could easily take you out without having to reload is just plain nasty. Add that to the game's neutered gunplay - the MP5 in Half-Life could carry 50 shots per magazine, around 250 shots on standby and 10 rifle grenades... compared to Black Mesa's 30 shots per magazine, 150 shots on standby, and only 3 rifle grenades. And I sure am missing the shotgun's 120 round standby. Bullsquids are plain dangerous instead of easily avoidable, because the wave of acid is hard to dodge and it can pull you down to half health no problem.

And the combat can be just plain boring at times, but I'm not blaming Black Mesa for this, I had the same gripes of boring combat with all Half-Lifes except Opposing Force.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

The reason no one seems to be talking about it is pretty obvious. We're all very busy playing it.

 

[DazZ.]

It's an awesome game, but I have to say the jump mechanics are really frustrating. Your basic jump has a max height of about 2 inches and is literally useless for climbing and platforming. To do that you have to use the crouch-jump which is really awkward and not very intuitive.

Anyone else having this problem? Just doing the first platforming section when you're hopping up the pipes was an exercise in pain.

As someone who crouch jumps as a habit anyway in every Source game I think it would annoy me if it didn't use it.

 

[Findlebob]

Do you have to own half life 1 to play this?

 

[5-0]

This looks amazing, but I guess I should probably complete vanilla Half-Life first.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Do you have to own half life 1 to play this?

No, you only have to have the source SDK 2007, basically own any orange box game.

 

[CleverNickname]

Another type of change I really liked was how the guards and scientists now have scripts and lines when you have to leave them behind. The 4 guards and 3 scientists (or however many) you can collect in Office Complex and leave behind at the elevator shaft... they now talk about staying put there, holding out, etc. And that happens several times.

Black Mesa makes you feel like you're actually helping or even saving people along your way. HL sure never did. Makes it feel more natural and ... human.

Do you have to own half life 1 to play this?

No, you only have to have the source SDK 2007, basically own any orange box game.

So... TF2? Which is free? So... the whole world can now play Half-Life 1 for free? And Valve not only doesn't care, they're gonna distribute it on their platform! It's a good time to be a gamer!

Never thought about it before, cuz I've just had the Half-Lifes and Portals and TF2 forever...

 

[SajuukKhar]

So... TF2? Which is free? So... the whole world can now play Half-Life 1 for free? And Valve not only doesn't care, they're gonna distribute it on their platform! It's a good time to be a gamer!

Never thought about it before, cuz I've just had the Half-Lifes and Portals and TF2 forever...

Valve has been anxiously awaiting Black Mesa themselves. I don't see why they would care that it's free, I mean HL1 doesn't exactly sell anymore.

As to getting it to run, all you have to do is
-Go to your games library
-Click on the part that says all games, should be located right next to the search bar right above your games list, to open up a menu
-Go down to tools, and that opens you a whole list of things such as SDKs and dedicated servers, -look for Source SDK 2007
-Install it.
-then install Black Mesa and it should run

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

Overall, I feel this mod is an impressive piece of work, especially for something you can get for free. I have gotten to the cliff-side portion of "Surface Tension", and so far the love that was poured into this project have shined brightly through all the way.

The atmosphere fits to a T. It hits that perfect blend of survival-horror and action-pulp that Half-Life represented, there is a multitude of wonderful small details, and the humor feels right up Valve's alley. The soundside is fantastic for the most part; the soundtrack is one of the best and most fitting things I have ever heard, and it comes to the voice-acting the security guards and scientists are just perfect, with the female scientists and the HECU marines being kind of average mod voice acting, and Eli being kind of terrible.

The Gameplay is fun, but is bugged a bit down by a couple of things. The jump height seems to be gimped a bit too much in order to enforce crouch-jumping, and it doesn't feel very promising when you consider yourself more acrobatic than the character you play. The marines are a bit too good; they drain your health like crazy, and can now run and gun at full auto at the same time. I must admit that I like the way they behaved in the original game (occasionally stopping to shoot in small bursts) better. I hope they will tweak these things in a later update.

Overall; I really, really dig this game, and I can barely contain my excitement for the Xen chapters!

 

[bigfatcarp93]

The first 10 minutes of the game took be nearly an hour, because I spent so much time, looking for more people to have conversations.

It is amazingly well made , I spent 90 minutes talking / harassing people before reaching unforeseen consequences.

The Black Mesa Research Facility is so much more detailed now that even through the rest of the game I wasted tons of time just taking in the new environments and exploring every little change in layout they made.

BTW, did you guys notice the return of the "lunchroom sabotage opportunity"? The poor guard whose dinner you ruin has a bunch of new, very punny, dialogue:

It isn't his dinner, it's Dr. Magnusson's from Ep2. Also, did you notice that the microwave has a setting for "Head Crab?"

Captcha: Which one is math?
Options:
Blue Berry
Kitten
China
Pickled Herring
Chewing Gum
Sqare Root of 3

 

[SajuukKhar]

Black Mesa also has a bunch of women scientists which weren't "canonically" there either. I don't know if you remember, but there are exactly 4 different scientist models in HL1. Valve makes fun of this by later saying that the black one was Eli, the bald-ish white one was Kleiner and the hairy one was Magnusson. There was also a single security guard model for the entire game; was Barney simultaneously every security guard in the Black Mesa Research Facility?

Actually, Valve has said there WERE female scientists at Black Mesa.

them not being in the game was due to resource limitations.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2503050

Well, we didn't always have the resources; early on we wanted a wider range of characters - we wanted women scientists and stuff there - but we just didn't have the texture read memory. The train says they're an equal-opportunities employer on the way in, but the fact is that there are no women there that day. They all stayed at home; they knew there was something going on.

The whole relationship with Dr Mossman in HL2 was a scene that we tried to do in Half-Life. We'd done a whole bunch of stuff for this scene where there was a betrayal by a woman scientist; at that point in the story Freeman was being hunted and you think that the scientists are all your friends, so this scientist says she's going to get you help and tells you to stay in the room you're in - and then she calls the guards. We couldn't do that in Half-Life - we didn't really have characters on that level - so it was cool in HL2 when we had characters who were far enough along...