Black Mesa Announcement in less than two hours

[Carpet_pissr]

Ok, fam is out of town on a ski trip, so I have more hours to game than I have in years. I think I’m more than halfway though now, and these later stages/chapters are familiar.

My idea was to play this, then play through HL 2 ONE more time, then finally finish Ep1, and start and finish Ep2.

By that time, maybe HL3 will be out, and the video card market will sell me a decent video card at a reasonable price.

Of course also by that time, I will be completely burned out on HL.

[TheMix]

Don't forget picking up a Valve Index to play HL: Alyx on....

[Blackhawk]

...and playing Opposing Force and Blue Shift.

[Blackhawk]

I picked this up on sale a while back and decided to give it a shot. I'd played it while it was still a mod, but this was my first time with the commercial release.

I'm... not loving it. It's a good game, and to a modern audience it's likely better than the original. The situations are more complex, and the graphics are obviously much better. As a standalone game, it's actually pretty a pretty good mix of old school design with more modern elements.

But as Half-Life, it's lacking. They did too much that changed the atmosphere. The game's darker, like really, really dark. And they've designed the flashlight to look like the batteries are almost dead. Every level is Ravenholm. It's not the well-known darkness glitch, it's by design. It's effective as a means of creating tension, but turns the atmosphere from 'scientific installation under attack' to 'abandoned ruin.' The music - notoriously limited in the original - is loud and long, drowning out whole segments of the game.

If you're looking to play a more modern take on Half-Life, this is a great game. If you're looking for an updated version of Half-Life or a remaster, this isn't it. Since I'm wanting to do a 'full run' of the series, I think I'll download a save file and switch the original.

[Sudy]

That's interesting... in my memory, the original Half-Life really was a fairly bright game, wasn't it? I remember running around most of the facility and it looked like it was fully powered. I guess because the incident had only just happened. Once you got outside, it was daytime.

I don't think I recall a lot of FPSs from that era that were really dark, lighting wise. Like to tone of Doom/Quake/etc. was obviously "dark", but the lighting was only dark when it was briefly cut for gameplay purposes in a level/section of a level, and I don't recall it happening often. That was a few years earlier though. It feels like maybe lighting as a major gameplay element/atmospheric effect didn't emerge for several more years, and then obviously within a decade it was prone to overuse in horror shooters. But I haven't played everything and I'm sure there are exceptions.

[Blackhawk]

There have been games since the 90s where darkness was used to good effect - Thief and System Shock 2 come to mind. The first game (from my memory) to really use shadows as something other than a drawn-in texture was Blade of Darkness in 2001. The first time I remember darkness being extreme in a game was Morrowind in 2002. The first FPS I saw it an an issue in (as in it negatively affected gameplay) was in 2003's Chrome (although I didn't bitch about it until 2005.

But yeah, Half-Life always had fairly well-lit environments.

It isn't that Black Mesa is bad or doesn't make good use of light. It does, and is more atmospheric as a result. It's that it creates a completely different feel than the original. Here's an example:

HL:



BM:

[Jaymann]

On sale at Steam for $4.99. Any final verdicts on this?

[Isgrimnur]

I'll let you know in less than two hours.

[Carpet_pissr]

On sale at Steam for $4.99. Any final verdicts on this?

I absolutely loved it, personally. Has to be one of the best fan remakes ever, if not the best. I remembered next to nothing about the original (Gordon, a crowbar, being in some facility, headcrabs, and some military personnel out to get me), so the changes from the original bothered me exactly 0%.

I will say that I thought I was at the end of the game at least twice so far, but noooooo! I actually AM very near the end now (I took a break for some reason...probably some other game shiny grabbed my attention) Won't spoil it in case you also can't remember...but there is another...."level" that I didn't really see coming, and it feels like a whole new game almost for various reasons. No idea how many hours in currently, but this feels like a looooong game (Ha! Just looked it up and typical is 14-21 hours!). And not because it sucks and makes me wish it was over. Just seems like a shit ton of content.

I do think it's hard though, as in difficulty. Apparently it's much harder than the original. AI is better for sure, of course.

As a result, starting about the middle of the game, I had to have a browser tab constantly open with a playthrough bc either I suck at shooters (I don't play very many, that's true, and not in a long time), or it's just super hard. Example, without spoiling anything hopefully. There is a "scene" where you are being chased by a large beast. Either due to the lighting, or the chaos, or the fear or all of those, it was VERY hard for me to see any kind of indications as to the best (and only, BTW) path to redemption from said beast. I guess that's also more of an old school type situation, and that certainly could have been in the original. (You are running fast, have to make split decisions as to whether to run into the tunnel on your left, go up the hill, or down the slope....choose...incorrectly....and you will be reloading. Many of those decisions must be made "on the fly" during the chase...like maybe 5 choices back to back, and you have to choose correctly each time, or die, and the "right" choice didn't seem obvious to me...especially as I was screaming at the top of my lungs while running and panting, and in a suit, carrying an RPG, etc etc).

Bottom line: HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommended, if only to marvel at what can be done to an old game, by a dedicated group of fans. The quality is mindblowing considering the development process.

[Jaymann]

You had me at HIGHLY. Plus this is the only game in recent memory where every Steam review on the purchase page was thumbs up. I'm in.

[Carpet_pissr]

You had me at HIGHLY. Plus this is the only game in recent memory where every Steam review on the purchase page was thumbs up. I'm in.

Gah. I knew I should have led with that. Rambler’s curse.

[jztemple2]

I could swear I was completely over this genre of gaming, but at only five bucks I might get it for nostalgia sake. Can I save scum in it? I'm thinking I'm likely to spend a lot of time dying

[Jaymann]

I could swear I was completely over this genre of gaming, but at only five bucks I might get it for nostalgia sake. Can I save scum in it? I'm thinking I'm likely to spend a lot of time dying

I use the quick save after every encounter. And I backtrack whenever possible to top off my health at 100%

tl;dr: Yes.

[Carpet_pissr]

I could swear I was completely over this genre of gaming, but at only five bucks I might get it for nostalgia sake. Can I save scum in it? I'm thinking I'm likely to spend a lot of time dying

For me at least, scum saving was the only way to get through it, especially the last half. That’s a huge negative obviously, but I still enjoyed the overall experience very, very much.

I think that was very much par for the course in games from that era, so that could be part of it.