Black Mesa

[ZealPath]

I was pretty excited to try this until I read Bleck's mini-review. I don't think I'll bother until it's the complete game just because as it stands I think (to me anyway) I would find it to mostly just be a big tease. At the same time I understand how challenging this probably was for the developers to even get to this point and I'm sure what they have done so far is probably pretty awesome, so it's quite tempting to give it a go! I also don't blame them for deciding to release something after 8 years of development... it seems clear enough at this point that their efforts have led to something pretty awesome for anyone who considers themselves a fan of the original Half-Life.

Personally I think I'll wait until it really is done but this is very exciting, especially considering how Half-Life: Source really, really, really didn't feel all that different from Half-Life and this is one game that is completely worthy of a full-on remake.

You sound like one of those COD fags

As far as why you felt this was necessary or appropriate, I have no idea. Criticize the game all you want but when you resort to this kind of shit it's hard to take you seriously.

[Hyperion5182]

Ok i'm straight up stuck, I've hit the missile silo i'm in the series of rooms where if you trip the explosives you die and take out everything within 500029834918247 miles. The first set is placed too low to climb under and too high to jump over. Is there a way around i dont know about?

[big giant circles]

I generally agree with Bleck's criticisms. That said, I also generally enjoyed the game.

A few things not mentioned though that almost ruined the game for me:

THE BAD

1) Jumping. It's absolutely awful. They lowered the jumping height, to where you cannot jump on/over even the most basic low obstacles without using the Jump+Crouch technique. Which let's be honest, is just stupid and needs to go away forever.

2) Ladders. There were countless times where I either would not latch onto a ladder I needed to climb, but more noteworthy, once I got to the top of said ladders the game would simply not detach properly. I could do it manually, but what would happen 95% of the time is I would simply let go of the ladder and jump off and fall back to the base either taking fall damage or dying. Absolutely horrid.

3) Some of the fights are nearly impossibly hard. Like the helicopter fight on the cliffs. It probably took me about 20 tries because of how many rockets the chopper can take, it's perfect aim and short window of not shooting so you can pop out from behind cover and shoot a rocket at it (and I feel like the red dot guided setting was too slow and didn't work super well). Maybe I just suck, who knows.

I do agree that releasing without a Xen level was very anticlimatic and essentially ruined the end of the game for me b/c I didn't know that was going to happen so it was very jarring. I think it probably would have taken more than a couple months to do that section, b/c IIRC Xen is actually a pretty long portion of the game. Doesn't at least 10-15% of the game happen there? That said, I would have rather waited and played the full game from start to finish, even if it took another year. We've waited this long, right?

The voice acting was ok. I think they intentionally wanted to make it as similar to the original as they could, b/c they found voice actors who sounded like the original ones for the guards/scientists. I lol'd at the guy who was trying to sound like Eli Vance at the beginning. The army guys did sound kind of stupid IMO. It was fine for the game in 1997 or whatever, but the distortion effect to make it sound like they were all coming through a radio was kind of silly, especially if they're right beside you. Also, some of the chatter didn't make sense. Right off the bat they say things like "I'm getting tired of playing games, Freeman" but it's like, aren't they not supposed to know who you are for a while? Stuff like that sort of broke the immersion for me b/c it just didn't seem consistent with the story.

Some of the weapons take a very long time to reload, (magnum, shotty, dart gun) longer than the original. And the machine gun is pretty much worthless beyond like 20 feet. Maybe that's much more realistic, but I want to have super human aiming, I don't want realism.

THE GOOD:

Level design is really good. I'm glad they didn't make everything 100% exactly as it was. The slight redesign made it seem fresh even though it's a cover of a 15-ish year old game. I'm glad they improved a bit on some of the puzzles, making good use of the source engine for reasons other than just a better look.

The game looks reasonably purdy. I can tell they put a LOT of work into textures/detail. It's particularly impressive for a non-funded fan game.

The guns that I didn't have an issue with were very nicely redone.

Vehicles actually move, which makes sense.

THE VERDICT

So anyway, yeah, the game is not without some glaring flaws, but again, considering it was fan-made, it's still highly impressive and I enjoyed it very well (except for the ladders & jump+crouching).

To the guy that said "COD fags", that's an excellent way to not win any argument ever. Your opinions are generally valid (as long as they're stated clearly and without bile) but the moment you arbitrarily throw out insults or lump people into a giant group based on a subjective personal opinion/bias like "I don't like Call of Duty" or "People who play Call of Duty are fags" then you pretty much throw out all validity of whatever you're trying to say as you metaphorically stamp DOUCHEBAG on your head in giant red letters. Feel free to use this opportunity to learn that lesson and start waning that habit for the future.

[Doulifée]

ladder are a bit more friendly when you use the 'use' bottom near top/bottom, so the game move freeman off/on the ladder.

[Dafydd]

My biggest issue was with the ladders. In the original game, you could go sideways on ladders by strafing, or aiming to the sides, and that meant you risked falling off in places you didn't really want to, but with a little training, it still gave you a lot more freedom than BM does. I remember ladder climbing being the smoothest experience I'd had with ladders in games when playing HL back in 97. BM, on the other hand, locks you a rail when you're climbing ladders, and you don't climb down when aiming up and backpedaling, as you did in HL, you go UP. It's easily the biggest flaw, I think. The use key didn't work as well for me as it apparently did for Doulifée.

Voice acting was fine for the most part - especially the Barneys sound very good. The scientists are supposed to be socially awkward, I guess, but even bearing that in mind, I think the way they talk is really unnatural. It's still a very slight problem compared to the marines, who don't sound convincing at all. The radio distortion doesn't do the same job as in HL, and even though the original's 22kHz sounds bothered me back in 97, I would much hear those for the marines than the new ones. I also miss the clinky maff-maff-maff sounds of the original's MP5, and pulling off a double blast with the shotgun, which isn't anywhere near as satisfying as in HL. But it's not a big deal.

On the plus side, BM looks amazing, and I've listened to the soundtrack probably 20 times since beating it - I liked it that much! I don't miss going to Zen, because I hated that part in the original game, and I don't think beating the last boss gave me any answers at all, but I understand why some people are upset about Zen missing, out of principle or otherwise.

The late 90's was a golden age for games, I think - so many new ideas and interesting concepts, many of which didn't work, but it was more exciting then than today's often uninspired releases are. It was great revisiting an old game in a form that looked like it was new, and still, in many ways, felt fresh, other than in game design. Crouch jumping, excessive crawling through air ducts, and horrible platforming are elements I don't miss in new FPS games.