Black Mesa has been released

[KeithP]

Black Mesa has finally come out of Steam Early Access. 1.0 is now live.

Release trailer:

-KeithP

 

[shortylickens]

is this the one that was in early access for 10 years and never impressed people anyway?
or am I thinking of something else?

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Ah so they finally finished the Xen portion.

It is an incredible acheivement to manage a mod into a full blown game. There are definitely going to be rough edges, you can tell from the trailer the opening levels look like they were developed on OG source years ago and the Xen levels look like something made much more recently with the lighting effects etc.

Maybe these guys should take over development for Star Citizen/Squadron 42

 

[Zenoth]

I'm glad they finally finished that project. I remember playing the Sector-C Test Labs portion of Black Mesa many years ago (can't even tell when it was, probably as soon as they released that portion of the game for a public test). I thought it was very good back then. I'm pretty sure that the overall quality of the whole thing is good even today.

The reality - at least for me - is that despite the original Half-Life not aging that well, it still plays very smoothly and is still a fun game (sounds a bit like a contradiction, but what I mean by 'not aging well' in this case isn't related to the gameplay much, more about audio, physics and visuals). So the Black Mesa 'remaster', while not necessary to experience Half-Life, is a welcome version of it to bring the game to a more modern style and look for perhaps a new audience. Not necessarily for the younger generation, but even for gamers who never cared to play the game to this day even if they heard about it left and right back then when it was the craze.

I don't think I'll buy Black Mesa since I really don't mind just playing the original version. But I'm absolutely glad they've done it all and never abandoned the project. They managed to make more Half-Life content than Valve since Episode Two, that's saying something. Maybe Valve should hire them to make an actual new Half-Life game. If I was Gabe (or whomever is responsible for the Half-Life IP licensing stuff) I'd give them the green light to work on something of their choosing within the Half-Life franchise / universe, make their proposition if they have any and provide them a full complementary team to work on their game.

I'm happy for them.

 

[EXCellR8]

They had previously released the Xen update but this one has a new UI and other tweaks. They did a fantastic job overall though, even if I didn't like 100% of what they changed. If you haven't played it, then you wouldn't know it's not a 1:1 remake.

Was going to run through the final chapter before the Xen portion last night but there was an issue with my save files... so I gotta run through the entirety of 'Lambda Core' once again.

 

[Igo69]

Nice, I played this when it was released for free and without Xen levels. Might buy it when it goes on sale.

I think these guys should make Half-Life 3 since those idiots at Valve don't want to do it.

 

[shortylickens]

They should have licensed out the franchise to another company at least 10 years ago. I'd like to see Obsidian take a shot at a game in the Half Life universe.

 

[Craig234]

Never played half-life almost at all. Installing.

 

[shortylickens]

I got it today, it was marked down 35 percent.
Will concede it looks much better than the original, but the game itself is exactly the same, and I'm pretty sure 20 years ago I got all the entertainment I from it I could possibly have.
Will also concede nostalgia is sometimes a good thing. I got a little warm feeling in my belly, just like when they remade Full Throttle and Grim Fandango and Duke 3D (all of which are now available at Steam, by the way).

 

[EXCellR8]

It's not exactly the same, I assure you; the Xen chapter makes the whole thing worth the buy anyway---as it's not even close to the original (which Valve themselves admits was not designed that well).

 

[DigDog]

megabump.

I am playing this right now.

The beginning of the game is practically a 1:1 clone of the original HL1, with some quality-of-life improvements (no more dying on every damn ladder), visual upgrades, and a better UI.
The end .. well, the end is nearly as big as the rest of the game. While in HL1 once you go to Xen, you have 1 big map and a stupid fight against a boss that stands still, in BM you have several hours of brand new gameplay, totally new maps, a much more fleshed out view at what the Xen dimension's world is like, additional lore, and, well, i haven't gotten to the end yet.

One a point of view, i love it. Not only is it better in everything compared to HL1, it's amazing that you can get this much game for this little money.
One another, Black Mesa, and Half Life, are not shooters; they are puzzle games, platformers, with a bit of gunplay mixed in - don't expect Doom.

 

[you2]

Well the end was puzzle heavy in a portal sense.

 

[CP5670]

This has been on my radar for some time. I'll have to try this out.

Many FPSs back then had that kind of puzzle aspect (Unreal, Descent 3, System Shock 2, etc.). I find that FPSs from 2004 onward or so lacked some things that made the earlier FPSs so good, as they became more mainstream and driven by consoles.