Black Mesa - legendary vaporware Half-Life remake finally out

[GrainWetski]

Even if the game had no prior release and was to be considered an indie remake instead of a mod, 20 euros is a ridiculous price for that game. I can get Far Cry 4 or another AAA FPS for that price or even half of it.

You can buy shit for 20€? I'll sell it to you for a mere 10€ per turd.

 

[taxalot]

Even if the game had no prior release and was to be considered an indie remake instead of a mod, 20 euros is a ridiculous price for that game. I can get Far Cry 4 or another AAA FPS for that price or even half of it.

You can buy shit for 20€? I'll sell it to you for a mere 10€ per turd.

So edgy my hemorrhoids are bleeding.

 

[Average Manatee]

Tried this because the fact that it became a paid product seemed odd. Played free version (I'm assuming little has changed except possibly bug fixes) and until We Got Hostiles.

Pros:
- Good graphices (not that I really care).
- Makes some of the levels more interesting, mostly just in a cosmetic scenery fashion but sometimes in gameplay.
- Unique characters for the scientists and guards is pretty cool.
- You can one-shot headcrabs out of mid air as they are leaping towards you. I'd list this as dumbing down and making the game easier if it wasn't pretty awesome. Also headcrabs get picked up by barnacles.

Cons:
- Game is markedly easier. Lots more ammo and health in BM.
- HL2's movement system (not as quick, sprint action). Just feels wrong.
- Voice Acting is worse in a lot of parts. Many probably won't notice unless they've played HL1 recently (I did another playthrough just a few months ago), but it takes a lot out of the intro when VAs are putting emphasis on different (wrong) words. A number of them also just seem bland and not properly panicked/despairing.
- Some random quirks left out. For example, in HL1 the scientist performing CPR on a guard eventually saves him and he gets up. Not in BM, unless it takes a lot longer waiting around than in HL1.
- Annoying random popamolification and linearization. Have to wait far longer to get the crowbar, before which you are forced to stand around watching a guard kill things (can't pick up a pistol from dead guards). Hand is held to make sure the first scientist that opens a side room for you is found and utilized, so that you know you can throw things at barnacles to get them out of your way, and so on.
- Some small level issues and bugs.
- Some of the level additions are tedious and stupid to add. e.g. rather than riding the elevator down while the headcrabs jump on you in the beginning, now you need to jump up through a vent, crawl through a long vent shaft, push a button to power up the elevator, then ride the elevator down while the headcrabs jump on you.
- Load times are annoying. Wouldn't mention this normally since its still low for a modern game, but when HL1 loads instantly and therefore feels like it has an almost seamless world, it's something that comes up pretty squarely in HL1's favor.
- Normally I wouldn't complain about randomly adding in about a dozen female scientists just because muh diversity, but when I was looking after the intro to see what happened to all of the scientists (I was interested since they were all unique and had new dialog before) I found none of the female ones. What, you have to shove in women just to be modern, but as soon as anything actually dangerous happens they must magically disappear into the void with no trace? Can't have this shit both ways.

I'd say it's pretty good for a mod, but for a $20 product? Haha fuck off if you think I'd pay that. Especially with Xen missing. inb4 retards spouting retard shit about Xen being bad. Even when they add it, why would anyone pay for it? There's basically no creative capability I've seen so far, it's just HL1 with random changes. Even if they fixed all of my cons list, it would still just be HL1 with random changes. You want me to pay money just for higher quality textures and models? lolno. If they had done an additional side campaign in the lines of Opposing Force, sure I'd pay. But not $20, and not for this. Infinitely better things to spend your money on, even if you loved HL1 and want to replay it again.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-05-11-gap-between-free-and-paid-black-mesa-will-widen

Gap between free and paid Black Mesa will widen
The newer Xen levels will be incompatible.

The gap will begin to widen between the paid and free-mod versions of Black Mesa, a Valve-sanctioned remake of Half-Life 1.

Multiplayer is already exclusive to the £14.99 Steam Early Access version released last week. Required adjustments of the game's engine mean the much-anticipated Xen levels will be, too.

"It's impossible [for the new Xen levels to be added to the free mod]," said multiplayer level designer Joe R in a Reddit Ask Me Anything. "In order to make Xen look the best it possibly can look, we need to upgrade the engine with new features. These new features will make it incompatible with the mod version."

He added: "Since the paid version is on a newer engine, we aren't able to back-update the mod version with some of the features of the paid version. That being said, we are looking into porting bug fixes onto the mod version that are found in the paid version."

When those Xen levels will be finished - when Black Mesa will finally be finished - isn't something the Crowbar Collective team is ready to say. "We have an internal schedule that we're pretty confident we can meet. We just haven't released an official deadline/ETA to the public," added another multiplayer level designer, Jordan F.

"We've only been on Steam [Early Access] for less than a week, so it's a little too early for us to have a concrete release date."

However, the team has made one significant alteration and that's to the game's final price; it will now remain at £14.99. The Black Mesa Early Access FAQ had warned that the price "may go slightly higher" but the community didn't want that.

"Pricing was a controversial issue on the team all the way up until release," wrote Jordan F. "We worded it that way to leave our options open in the future, but given the community's reaction we've decided we're gonna keep it at $20 [£14.99].

"The price is never going to increase past $19.99 for any reason. We apologize for any confusion and misinformation about this."

In addition to the Xen levels there are "lots" of multiplayer updates planned including new modes and maps. Some single-player areas that "are looking dated" will be tarted up too.

Mac and Linux versions of Black Mesa are "in the pipeline" but there's no timeframe for release.

There are no plans for remakes of Half-Life add-ons Opposing Force or Blueshift.

Problem?

 

[Average Manatee]

The newer Xen levels will be incompatible.

Surprising absolutely no one.

 

[BelisariuS.F]

 

[rezaf]

There are no plans for remakes of Half-Life add-ons Opposing Force or Blueshift.

Well, this team has no plans. There ARE plans to remake both Blue Shift and Opposing Force, but in either case, they're only plans so far, with nothing except screenshots to show.
The Blue Shift remake seems to be still going, whilst the OpFor one had it's last update more than a year ago.
Considering how long it took the Black Mesa guys to produce something releasable, though ...

 

[Alfons]

Shit free remake back then, shit remake that costs money now.

 

[United Nations]

0/10

Could not muster the motivation to make it past Act 1.

 

[Infinitron]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/604983554167705573

Upcoming Update - Cascade Shadow Maps and Surface Tension: Uncut

Coming Soon
Here’s a quick glimpse of what we are polishing for our next update. You’ve hopefully already seen our preview of Surface Tension: Uncut over at Lambda Generation[lambdageneration.com]. We are very excited to see how the community likes the uncut levels. We’ve done a ton of work since we’ve shown those screen shots, and even improved our AI for the Alien Grunts and Vortigaunts to help make this chapter be as fun and engaging as possible.

Cascade Shadow Maps
Our BIG announcement though, is that we have implemented Cascaded Shadow Mapping, or CSM into the Black Mesa engine. CSM brings the visual quality of the game to a whole new level. It’s hard to describe in words what CSM does to the game, so we’ve added a few screenshots below to give you a better idea. Notice the crisp shadows on the world and weapons, that originally weren’t there.

Why work on these instead of that other thing?
First, there were a lot of community members asking for this addition. One of our developers, Chon Kemp, added these levels into the mod version of the game, and people wanted to see it in the official version. To show we hear what the community is asking for, and as a small thanks for the people who have already bought the game we completely rebuilt the last three maps of Surface Tension based off of Half-Life (side note you can play Chon’s On A Rail: Uncut on the workshop).

Second, Surface Tension did not feel complete without its later levels. The end of ST is the part where the H.E.C.U start to lose, and it sets up the events for Half-Life 2. It’s a very important part of the Half-Life story.

Third, CSM was an absolute must for us to reach our vision for bringing Xen to life. We've brought CSM to you in this update as a little tiny taste of what is to come. We hope this excites you as much as it excites our team! Surface Tension: UNCUT was the perfect opportunity for us to test CSM and get it functioning on our already completed earthbound levels, as well as a number of other techniques to be used in completing Xen.

When with this be released?
You can expect the Surface Tension Update to launch later this month. The new update will also include a large number of bug fixes and other improvements to many parts of the game.

 

[skacky]

The whole Surface Tension Uncut update is available through public beta if you want to give it a try. I played through the chapter a few days ago and liked it very much. Glad to see these maps back, they were essential to the flow of the chapter and it is the turning point for the HECU's onslaught (basically, this is when they start losing).

 

[Metro]

Wait... so after I don't know how many years of taking to get on Steam... then turning around and charging for it... this shit is STILL in Early Access?

 

[DosBuster]

I remember hearing that due to selling the game they had to remake a lot of assets that were made over the years by other modders no longer involved with the project.

 

[Makabb]

6 years and still not complete? modders, modders never change.

 

[Astral Rag]

Wait... so after I don't know how many years of taking to get on Steam... then turning around and charging for it... this shit is STILL in Early Access?

Only 12 micro-issues remaining.

 

[Israfael]

Didnt not play this since the release, have they actually added the Black Mesa Announcement System past cl1a3 ? It's been a major downer for me when i played BM through, as there was no any announcements in the game after the "this announcement system is under military command". Did they actually fix it or nothing was done in the last 4 years (as i expect)?

 

[Drakron]

Six or is it seven years and still no Xen.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Instead we get a pathetic attempt of short-changing the fanbase and trying to gouge them for everything they have.

 

[Infinitron]

Xen coming summer 2017: http://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/548704690350103809

Xen Timeline
31 OCTOBER - [BMS] ADAM-BOMB
Happy Halloween!

We wanted to use the holiday and the sale to announce our rough timeline for Xen. We are currently targeting a summer 2017 release. We will keep you up to date on our progress and we plan to show off some media as we finish developing Xen to give everyone a glimpse at what we are working on.

Why so Long?
We can’t overemphasize how much work it was to get the game on Steam. Most of our effort before launching was put into porting to the retail engine and getting the game to work better than it did in the mod. Since release, the team has been focused on developing Xen. We even planned our updates to have features that would help improve the earthbound levels and Xen (for example CSM).

We want to do Xen the justice it deserves, and have it be the definitive climax to the Half-Life 1 story. To do this we have completely redesigned and expanded the Xen levels to what we think Valve would have done without the limitations of the time.

To help illustrate this, here are some comparison shots of our levels to the original Half-Life levels in Hammer. Not only are our maps substantially bigger than the originals, there are more of them as well.

Comparison of HL1 and Black Mesa's first Xen Map[i.imgur.com]

Comparison of the first map of Interloper[i.imgur.com]

As always we want to thank our awesome community for supporting us in Early Access and for being as passionate as us about Half-Life. We have been working really hard on Xen and we hope you are as excited as us to see the full release of Black Mesa. We’ll have more in game media to show off in the near future!

Patch
We also wanted to quickly mention that we have a patch coming for our latest update. This patch fixes:

-The hitching on Linux multiplayer servers and on Linux single player
-Russian closed captions
-UI fonts being broken for people that do not have Steam set to English
-Workshop publish tool not launching
-ZECU torso crashing hammer and the game

Thanks!
-The Black Mesa Team

 

[Metro]

Wait... so after I don't know how many years of taking to get on Steam... then turning around and charging for it... this shit is STILL in Early Access?

 

[Severian Silk]

It's not summer 2017 yet dumbass.

 

[Astral Rag]

we have completely redesigned and expanded the Xen levels to what we think Valve would have done without the limitations of the time.

lol

 

[Hoaxmetal]

we have completely redesigned and expanded the Xen levels to what we think Valve would have done without the limitations of the time.

lol

It's not like they can do worse than Valve did with Xen.

 

[Carrion]

Xen maybe wasn't the most enjoyable part of Half-Life, but its biggest strength was that it was actually a pretty alien place that was completely different from Black Mesa and had to be navigated in unusual ways. There are plenty of ways to fuck that up.

Alarm bells should be ringing every time you hear a modder talk about completely redesigning something because of "the limitations of the time".

 

[Unkillable Cat]

It's not like they can do worse than Valve did with Xen.

Careful what you say man...it may actually come true.