I like what I've seen of Xen so far, but that's only judging from footage. I'm trying to wait until it's out of Beta before doing another playthrough that includes Xen. I want to see if the devs do any sigficant tweaking in the near future.
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
Black Mesa - legendary vaporware Half-Life remake finally out
- Thread starter racofer
- Start date
Liz
Novice
Having played Xen, it's clear they just kind of stopped caring when designing the 'Interloper' chapter. It. Just. Keeps. Going. And. Going.
The start was fine with the Vortigaunt village and the beginning of the Alien factory... but when you get to the conveyor belts it just feels like the game stops.
That and the same plug puzzle repeated what felt like 50 times. If there's one thing this chapter needs it's some serious trimming.
IMO Valve demonstrated this with HL2. When you introduce a new gameplay gimmick (Like the super gravity gun in the final Citadel levels) either don't overuse it or spice it up by combining it with other aspects of gameplay (Like how in Ep1 you had those bridge puzzles)
The start was fine with the Vortigaunt village and the beginning of the Alien factory... but when you get to the conveyor belts it just feels like the game stops.
That and the same plug puzzle repeated what felt like 50 times. If there's one thing this chapter needs it's some serious trimming.
IMO Valve demonstrated this with HL2. When you introduce a new gameplay gimmick (Like the super gravity gun in the final Citadel levels) either don't overuse it or spice it up by combining it with other aspects of gameplay (Like how in Ep1 you had those bridge puzzles)
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,425
https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1709611046898646594
Xen Released - Happy Holiday Sale!
Happy Holidays! Did you remember to get your Steam tokens and cards today?
Xen is OUT, Black Mesa is on sale for 20% off, lots of other great games are discounted, and I am sure everyone has caught up on their gaming backlog in anticipation of the Steam Holiday event, right?
Yeah, neither have we...
Xen is OUT!
We have pushed a major patch to the Xen levels and released the full game on Steam “mainline”. This means you can play a polished and tested version of all Black Mesa without having to switch into public-beta. If you have been holding out for Xen, this is what you have been waiting for!
With this update, we not only bring the beta over to mainline, but also implement feedback to refine the difficulty, increase player guidance, fix bugs, as well as increase performance throughout the Interloper chapter. See the detailed change list below.
The game is still in Early Access (EA), so that we can get even more data and bug reports from a wider set of players and machines. We will be watching people play the game and listening to how we can further improve the game for the next big update to take us out of Early Access. In addition to polishing the levels, we want to look at the game as a whole before switching out of Early Access.
Note: It is extremely likely that workshop mods will currently break the game in strange and unexpected ways. During the beta we noticed odd issues caused by seemingly unrelated mods, such as players’ long jump modules not jumping them far enough. If you are experiencing strange issues with your game, try unsubscribing from all your workshop mods. This may resolve some issues. In the future this will hopefully be less of a problem, as workshop modders update their mods to work properly with the latest version of our engine/game.
Road Map
With the Xen levels complete, we have got a lot of questions about what is next for ‘Mesa. Here are our current plans. Keep in mind these are our plans; they can change based on new priorities and new data.
0.91 and Achievements
There may be more bugs found as the game gets played by a wider audience. We will fix any major bugs as they come up, and also implement any small quality of life changes for the levels. We have a new set of achievements that are ready to be implemented for the Xen levels. We would like to release both of these as soon as possible, but if no major issues are found right away, we may roll these fixes and achievements into the 1.0 release.
1.0 Release
We will do a thorough review of the game’s systems and levels to work out any bugs and broken bits for our release out of EA. This includes:
- A Multiplayer Pass. There will not be any features added to MP for 1.0, but we do need to make sure all the current features are working and work well.
- An AI Pass. The alien AI between Earthbound and Xen is completely different. We want to evaluate if it can be ported back into Earth without breaking the gameplay balance. We also want to look at the HECU Marines and make sure they are using all their features, and see about reining in some bad behaviour.
- Workshop Pass. We would love to utilize the workshop for our own experiments and to see what the community can do with our assets and tools. The first step in this will be making sure all the workshop systems are working properly and improve usability.
- Bug fixes and refinements to the entirety of the game. With Xen, Gordon’s adventure clocks in around 15 hours. We want to make sure there are no major sticking points, and that everyone has the best Black Mesa experience they possibly can.
Earthbound Update
After the game leaves EA, we would like to go through and touch up Earthbound to make sure we are using all our new graphical features, improve gameplay, and try and make the whole game feel cohesive. We jokingly call this the “Black Mesa: Definitive Edition” but the scope will be fairly small. We want to add a couple of gameplay improvements based on what we have learned over the years, and add a couple of visual improvements now that we have a lot more experience making natural structures using Wallworm. A major goal of this update would be to add these changes without drastically affecting performance.
0.9 Change Log
We took in A LOT of feedback from the last beta, and worked hard to get some major improvements to performance in Interloper and other chapters. Here is a comprehensive list of what we have changed and improved in this update.
Thanks as always! The betas have been more valuable they we ever thought possible!
Build Changes
- Fix for static / screeching sounds - rebuilt the soundcache. Please let us know if this does not resolve issues with static / screeching sounds for you. We think this fix should resolve the issues for everyone but we need reports to know for sure.
- Fixed Interloper / Nihilanth / Endgame not unlocking correctly.
- Fixed missing song in On a Rail. This was a bug and not an intentional choice!
- Fix for the Rare Specimen achievement not triggering in Lambda Core.
- Fixed some Vort sounds. They were not being properly positioned by the engine, so now will play correct positional sound.
- Optimized sound code for Controller energy ball attack. Helps with performance, especially when lots of Controllers are attacking you.
- Fixed "Always Run" (again!)
- The player will no longer drop items if they are holding them and walk onto a bouncepad. This helps with the purple hat!
- Fixed incorrectly written / formatted names in Credits. Tidied up some elements of the credits in general.
- Fixed Sound Effect and Music volume sliders. You can now turn down or up sound effects and music independently. Also added a Master Volume slider that controls overall volume.
- Last, I am the last...
Gonarch’s Lair
- Fixed map B mortar related crash. Also fixed crash related to shooting the gonarch mortar in mid air.
- Reduced Gonarch’s health in the final battle. Health reduced from 3300 → 3000, meaning it now requires 3 less rockets to kill him.
- Fixed basalt columns in the final fight. There was a bug where the basalt columns in the Gonarch final fight would either deal far too much damage or even one-shot the player.
- Updated Gonarch death sequence for higher impact.
- Re-balanced Gonarch final fight on hard difficulty.
- Fixed incorrect web texture in map C chase. There was a breakable web texture on an unbreakable web which was causing a lot of players to die during the map C chase, because they thought they could go down a route which they actually couldn’t.
- Various visual and lighting improvements throughout the chapter.
- Soundscape improvements throughout the chapter for better blending.
- Fixed RPG colliding with acid mortar fire in Gonarch’s Lair final fight.
Interloper
- General optimisations throughout all Interloper maps. This should improve general performance for everyone.
- Optimized dynamic light settings throughout all Interloper maps. This should improve performance, particularly on lower end systems. In some places this has improved performance quite a lot.
- Fixed the “no free edicts” crash in map D.
- Split maps C and D for significant performance gains (10 - 20 fps) on CPU bottlenecked systems. No extra content has been added. Map names used to be Interloper C, C1 and Interloper D. Maps are now Interloper C, C1, C2 and Interloper D, D1.
- Fixed map A crash.
- Lighting, player guidance, and pathing improvements across all Interloper maps.
- Significantly re-balanced elevator fight throughout map D. The fight now starts much slower/easier and ramps up throughout. Controller spawns are much more spaced out, and the dynamic cover system on the elevator has been significantly tweaked to provide much more cover for the player, and variance in where the player is covered from. You now only face a full-on 360 assault of controllers during the final “pull-down” sequence. Otherwise you’ll always have cover.
- Fixed Controller telekinesis explosive barrels sometimes one-shotting or dealing massive damage to players, and significantly reduced their damage. Changed these barrels from 120 explosive damage + uncapped impact damage (physics) to 45 explosive damage with no impact damage.
- Many visual and lighting improvements throughout map D.
- Reduced panel health in elevator fight in map D. All panels should be a bit easier to break now, reducing the amount of time you spend at the “final” stop.
- Removed cover barriers in the middle of elevator in map D. This makes it easier to path freely around the elevator without getting stuck now.
- Fixed many spots in map D elevator fight where you could get crushed against walls, killing you for no reason. A lot of players died to this, as there were multiple causes. We have resolved most of these now.
- Fixed a bug in map D elevator fight where some Controllers could use electrocluster attack. They were not meant to, and this made the fight harder than it was supposed to be, as the electrocluster attack significantly limits your movement.
- Reduced panel playertouch damage in map D elevator fight. Previously, if one of the spinning panels touched the player, it would break and deal 20 damage. This has now been reduced to 10 damage. This makes the spinny panels more forgiving if you fall into them.
- Added sirens to closed ceiling doors in map D elevator fight. This should help make players more aware that getting crushed against the ceiling is potentially imminent.
- Fixed elevator visibly clipping through surrounding geometry.
- Fixed player clipping in/out of massive healing pool in map D1. It was very hard to climb in/out of the pool, it is now buttery smooth. And there is also now a mega HEV crystal in the middle. This replaces an old (and redundant) healing shower slightly earlier in the level.
- Fixed some floating props in map D1.
- Made the parkour pistons alternate in map D1. This makes it a bit easier to climb up if you missed one “upward” timing.
- Adjusted island positioning on tower top sequence in map D1. This makes it take a little bit longer to get to the tower top from the starting island (giving the sequence a bit more length and pacing), and is also easier to jump around than before.
- Many visual improvements and tweaks to the tower top sequence in map D1.
- Split map C1 (conveyor sprint) song. The song is now in 3 parts, so players cannot end up doing the 2nd half of the conveyor sprint with no music playing.
- Made the map C forcefield hearts glow. We had a bug where these did not glow, so were not attracting player attention as much as they should. This will make them easier to see and understand now.
- Made map C ledge drop down before machine 3 more clear. We noticed a lot of people got confused here so we removed the top platform.
- Reduced length of Vort Village intro sequence. Removed an unnecessary wave animation that one of the Vorts does in the introductory sequence, to reduce the amount of time the player has to stand around watching them.
- Fixed many map skips across the entire chapter. It’s a bit harder now to break maps by totally skipping certain sections or doing some clever jumping.
- Removed a few illogical healing showers in certain parts of the maps.
- Fixed broken hologram screens on map B.
- Fixed lots of pod pile ups across map C. This can also help performance by preventing pods from building up (they are performance hungry).
- In map B, Vorts will now fear you and run away if you attack them unprovoked.
- Potentially fixed gibs floating above water in map B2.
- Fixed B1 first control room controllers that did not attack the player.
Nihilanth
- Fixed Nihilanth voice lines. There was a bug where in Phase 1 he would only use his lines where he tells the player to die.
- Fixed Nihilanth shield panels (phase 2) not breaking in 1 RPG hit.
- Fixed Nihilanth song. Increased its volume and stopped it from pausing mid-song.
- Fixed collision of healing crystals not recessing into ground when crystals do.
- Nihilanth now has 50% damage resistance in phase 3 scripted intro, so that players cannot cut his health down too far and shorten Phase 3.
- Disabled the radioactive trigger_hurt when the player gets pulled into Nihilanth at the end of the fight. This fixes a rare bug where players can die after killing Nihilanth.
- Sped up the final teleport out at the end of the Nihilanth fight. Should make it less likely that players will clip into Nihilanth.
- Increased effectiveness of Gluon against spinning panels for shield pylon. The Gluon was too ineffective against the shield pylon panels, which didn’t play well considering we taught the player to use the Gluon against these in Interloper. The Gluon now does 1.5x damage against the panels.
- Buffed Nihilanth mortar attack. Damage is the same, but falloff is reduced significantly, so the player will feel the effect of higher damage if they are stood on the edge of the attack.
- Buffed Nihilanth energy balls attack. From 8 damage at all phases to 12 damage in phase 1 / phase 2, and 20 damage in phase 3.
- Buffed Nihilanth telekinesis attack. Doubled speed at which he throws his projectiles at you.
- Re-balanced Nihilanth fight on hard difficulty. The fight should provide much more of a challenge now on hard difficulty.
- Fixed glitched clavicle on Nihilanth death animation.
Endgame
- Fixed being able to fall out of the tram.
- Fixed a bug where the player could move around inside the invisible room and cause issues during the good ending.
- Added teeth shader to gbuffer. This fixes the issue where G-Man’s teeth were rendering in black.
Known Issues
- Minor exploits and collision bugs. The community has done a great job finding exploits and collision issues. We will be fixing these with the next major update.
- Glowing pink and green props. Some PCs have a small number glowing props. We hope to have this corrected with a hotfix (requires map recompiles).
- Saving holding items is broken. If you save while holding a physics object, when you load that save the object will float in air. We also hope to address this in a hotfix soon.
- Multi colored NPC teeth. The fix above for the teeth being completely black, may cause them to be rainbow colored on some machines. We will investigate.
Hope you enjoy!
-Crowbar Collective
Discord - https://discord.gg/PSZfh8N
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,425
https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1707362418744405955
Black Mesa 1.0 Preview
Happy Lunar New Year from the Black Mesa team!
We wanted to let everyone know we are close to having a release candidate for Black Mesa 1.0! We also wanted to give an update on what is going to be included in the full release, what our road map looks like going forward, and to mention we are 20% off for the Lunar Sale.
Beta for 1.0
As soon as it is ready, we will push the build to public beta like we have in the past. After lots of internal and external testing, we will patch the build as needed, and finally, FINALLY (FINALLY!!!) release Black Mesa out of Early Access!
This is a huge deal for us. The team has put in a ton of effort to improve the game in ways big and small.
1.0 Preview
The biggest change we have made is a complete overhaul of the HECU AI. Soldiers will now lay down suppressing fire, flank your position, communicate more, throw grenades more effectively, use their MP5 grenade launchers, and more.
We have also evaluated and changed a number of the combat spaces to better utilize the AI and to reflect what we have learned since we first built Earthbound. It has been a lot of fun redesigning areas of the game to work better, and to use “creativity through constraint” to make the most of our levels without completely rebuilding them.
The team watched a number of playthroughs and identified sections in the game where the pace came to a grinding halt. We redesigned or fixed these sections so that players can keep up their momentum.
In addition to the design, we evaluated the art as well. We took what we learned in Xen and updated A FEW sections of Earthbound to better match Xen and current graphics standards.
We will fully support the game after our launch, and plan to expand upon this process to give the whole game an upgrade while keeping the performance the same.
Road Map
1.0
As mentioned above, we are close to a release candidate for Black Mesa 1.0. We will test the whole game internally, push the build to public-beta for even more testing, patch the build if necessary, then release the game in full.
1.5
We jokingly call this Black Mesa: Definitive Edition, but don’t worry, it will not be any type of re-release or paid content. After 1.0 we will take a few months to go through the game, identify rough spots, and polish the art on Earth and Xen. We’d also like to continue to improve the workshop and organize team and community events to document as much as we can about the Source engine and how to best use it. We don’t have a scope for these events yet, but after years of loving/hating/fixing/breaking the Source engine, we would love to help others get information and solve problems.
Thanks Again
We like to sign off these updates by thanking the community, but know they are not canned lines or something we tack on to look grateful. We are really proud to have been able to finish this game, and it would not have been possible without our patient and helpful community. I don’t think it has fully set in that we are almost “done” with Black Mesa. We REALLY look forward to some low-pressure fun updates for this game, as well as starting in on new projects.
Thank you for the support, thank you for the constructive criticism, and thank you for all the time spent in our game. We will be back soon with release notes and a beta!
-The Black Mesa Team
Discord - https://discord.gg/PSZfh8N
Lemming42
Arcane
Thank fuck for the Marine AI update, that's crucial. The visual changes are looking good.
The only other things I'd like to see are fixing up the second half of Interloper, which is awful, and adding On A Rail Uncut into the game.
The only other things I'd like to see are fixing up the second half of Interloper, which is awful, and adding On A Rail Uncut into the game.
I'm surprised they haven't done that yet to be honest. I remember thinking it was pretty good when I tried it.
I wonder if they're worried that some people might find it too long. Didn't they add the expanded Surface Tension level?
Lemming42
Arcane
Yep, Surface Tension uncut was added a while ago and the guy who made it joined the dev team, which makes On A Rail's exclusion even stranger since he authored that too.
It could be that it needs a once-over to be deemed good enough to be in the game, I guess. There's a few parts that feel a little clunky like the giant courtyard with the snipers but for the most part it's ready to go into the game unchanged.
It could be that it needs a once-over to be deemed good enough to be in the game, I guess. There's a few parts that feel a little clunky like the giant courtyard with the snipers but for the most part it's ready to go into the game unchanged.
Yosharian
Arcane
What's the consensus on waiting for 1.5 vs playing 1.0? This will be my final playthrough since I already played up to Xen on an old build (like 2-3 years ago)
All this hard work, and still so inferior to the vanilla HL.
Lemming42
Arcane
1.0 will probably be fine. The only things to really wait for before the game is "complete" are the Marine AI overhaul and, possibly, reworking of Xen. I've got a feeling they're going to significantly change key areas of Xen that pretty much everyone agrees are terrible.
The AI improvements sound good, but I'm doubtful about this part:
Maybe that's part of the reason they prefer the streamlined version of On A Rail?
Maybe that's part of the reason they prefer the streamlined version of On A Rail?
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,425
https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1711867920418803575
Black Mesa Beta for 1.0
Hello Black Mesa friends,
We have pushed a build to public-beta on Steam. This is our candidate for our release out of Early Access! If you are interested in helping us test, we would greatly appreciate it. You can find instructions on how to opt into the beta here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1724246478625804044
What We Are Looking For
Most importantly, game breakers. We obviously want the 1.0 experience to be as smooth and enjoyable as possible, so if you find any crashes or progression blockers, please let us know so we can fix it. The game has been very stable during our internal testing, but we need to test on a wider set of players and machines.
We are also looking for difficulty spikes. Throughout all of earthbound we rebuilt combat spaces and upgraded the AI of the HECU and Vortigaunts. We think this dramatically improves the combat in the game. Let us know what you think, and let us know if there is a section that feels too hard.
In addition to redesigning the combat spaces, we took time to make sure the player path is as clear as possible. Let us know if you find any part of the game unclear. We still have some sections of the game that make you stop and think, but we made a huge effort to keep the player’s momentum up throughout the game.
Lastly, we need help testing the achievements. We now have 50 total achievements, so if you have trouble completing one, let us know on the Steam forums or Discord.
Known Issues
As you’d expect with any 1.0 release, we worked to have the most stable and complete game possible. We think the main game is solid, but we do have another patch on the way to fix what is found in the beta, and to finish off the new game user interface. Here are some quick notes on what you might find broken in the game:
User Interface
-The new UI can’t launch MP listen servers
-Workshop section of new UI is not working
-The Xen maps do not display the correct chapter title for save files
-The godray setting will not save in the settings menu
-The new UI occasionally flickers
-Manual saves show a screenshot of the UI, not the game
-The developer console needs some polish
-Searching for games online takes too long
-Other misc UI errors
If you need to use the old UI for any reason, launch the game with -oldgameui.
Besides that, we don’t expect much wrong with the game. As always, we want to hear about everything you find, but we will be focusing on the issues listed in the section above for 1.0.
We will be back soon with a MASSIVE change list that details the entirety of the 1.0 update!
Thank you, and have a very safe and productive day.
Discord - https://discord.gg/PSZfh8N
Lemming42
Arcane
Played through most of the game earlier and the lighting looks better in some parts and far worse in others. Outdoor areas look better. There's a few very small redesigns of areas throughout the game, don't really affect anything.
The Marine AI is definitely improved albeit still not great. They don't just file towards you anymore at least, and if they're far away they miss often. They do actually seem to move into cover and try to flank you now.
New menu UI is pretty ugly honestly but it's no huge deal. It pointlessly has today's date and time written on the menu so you can stare in utter disbelief as the seconds tick away.
The Marine AI is definitely improved albeit still not great. They don't just file towards you anymore at least, and if they're far away they miss often. They do actually seem to move into cover and try to flank you now.
New menu UI is pretty ugly honestly but it's no huge deal. It pointlessly has today's date and time written on the menu so you can stare in utter disbelief as the seconds tick away.
LESS T_T
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2012
- Messages
- 13,582
March 5th: https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1716372156964734244
Two Half-life games in the third month? Something's not right...
Release date of Alyx - March 23 -> March 2+3 -> March 5 - Release date of Black Mesa
Fear Not The Long Road
In March 2006, two of my college classmates got onto the Black Mesa mod team. I applied as an artist, and they more or less vouched for me. The team “hired” me without even completing an art test. From there I became the art lead, a partner in the new “Crowbar Collective LLC”, project lead, and eventually owner of the company.
As I write this, I am realizing that we plan to FINISH Black Mesa exactly 14 years to the month from when I first joined the team. 14 years working on a single project, with a dedicated team, that had a vision, and saw it through.
There are probably a fair number of people who if you asked them “Do you want to own a video game company?”, would say “Yes! Absolutely. Whatever it takes!”, but it is easy to commit to something when it is guaranteed. If instead in 2006 someone said to me “This will be difficult. You will consider quitting multiple times, and it is going to take you at least 14 years to complete.” I am not sure I would have signed up for that.
Who would have blamed me if I didn’t? For the majority of its development, Black Mesa was a volunteer project. Even after we got the green light to sell the game, we still did not make any money until late June of 2015.
I have heard “you should never work for free”, and I really couldn’t disagree with that more. I did multiple free side projects in college that either eventually paid off, or got me connections I otherwise would not have had. I learned communication and leadership skills in my volunteer fire department. I got my first game industry job because of my free work on Black Mesa, and then after a round of layoffs, my job BECAME Black Mesa. The thing that was supposed to be a portfolio piece to launch my career, became my career, and I would not have been in that position if I didn’t commit to the work as a volunteer.
The key to doing work for free is it has to be important to you AND it has to be important to other people. For Black Mesa, the quality of the source material, and the excitement of the community when we would post even the smallest amount of media is what kept us going.
The fact is, all roads are long roads. If you fear that, you’ll shy away from choosing the one that excites you most, and has the biggest reward. Not everyone is going to have reliable friends to pull them onto projects, not everyone is going to have the opportunity to own a video game company, but if there is something you want to accomplish there’s nothing left to do, but to do it. You can not win the game if you don’t play.
Through luck, hard work, and maybe a bit of ignorance we didn’t shy away from our goal of bringing this game to completion. We are proud of what we built. We think this upcoming 1.0 release is the best, most polished, and most fun version of the game yet. The anticipation and excitement around our project is beyond flattering.
Black Mesa is a video game, it is our video game, and it has its strengths, and its flaws. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned” and while we plan to fully support this game after 1.0 with bug fixes and more, it will never be a perfect game.
This is not to downplay, or make excuses, but as the person who drafts most of these media posts, I think it is important to break away from the marketing and the “hype”. Before Astroneer launched, they made a blog post about managing expectations for their game, and it really resonated with me, and inspired me to someday write a post like this one. We are super excited to have Black Mesa be “complete”, but acknowledge it is not perfect and won’t ever be perfect.
I hope that everyone has something that inspires them as much as Half-Life inspired us. I hope that everyone embraces the setbacks and challenges that come, and I hope no one fears the long road in front of them.
Black Mesa 1.0 will launch Thursday March 5th on Steam.
Thank you,
-Adam Engels
-The Black Mesa team
Two Half-life games in the third month? Something's not right...
Release date of Alyx - March 23 -> March 2+3 -> March 5 - Release date of Black Mesa
DemonKing
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2003
- Messages
- 6,008
I guess they took "Valve time" to heart with this one. Did even Duke Nukem Forever take 14 years (yes according to Wikipedia) to develop?
I played it up to the alien levels a few years back and it was ok - I'll probably check out the final release.
I played it up to the alien levels a few years back and it was ok - I'll probably check out the final release.
Alyx - March 23, 3 is bigger than 2 - HL3 confirmed?March 5th: https://steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1716372156964734244
Two Half-life games in the third month? Something's not right...
Release date of Alyx - March 23 -> March 2+3 -> March 5 - Release date of Black Mesa
Last edited by a moderator:
And none of those two matter to me. One is a shitty mod of a 22 years old game, the other one a niche tech-showcase.
sullynathan
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,425
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...masterful-remake-that-improves-upon-a-classic
Black Mesa review - a masterful remake that improves upon a classic
Finally complete after fourteen years, Crowbar Collective's remake is more than faithful to Valve's masterpiece.
Typical, isn't it? You wait half your life for a new Half-Life game, then two come along at once...
All eyes may be swivelled in the direction of Half-Life: Alyx landing like a gravity-propelled toilet later this month. Yet while everyone's eagerly setting up their VR headsets in preparation, another little chapter of gaming history has just written its final page. Black Mesa, the long-in development remake of Half-Life, is done. Dusted. Finito.
Many of you may already know this. At least, in part. The Black Mesa bit of Black Mesa has been available to play since 2012, while the whole game made its transition from amateur mod project to paid-for Steam Early Access title back in 2015. For a lot of Half-Life fans, this was enough. Many such enthusiast projects never see the light of day, so to get even a partly complete remake of Half-Life felt like a minor miracle. Besides, who cares about Xen? It was always rubbish. Why bother?
Crowbar Collective has their own answer to that, which I'll get to in due course. But it's worth going over the work the studio did converting the Black Mesa facility itself into the Source engine, not least because they've made some further tweaks since 2012.
The introductory train ride is now longer, with many additional details.
Black Mesa starts with a ballsy opening gambit, an introductory tram ride that's longer than the one in the original Half-Life. It's odd to think such an iconic moment in FPS history was one of the less-liked aspects of Half-Life on launch. Extending it is a deliberate move on Crowbar Collective's part. It gives you more time to notice the extra details they've added into the introduction.
Black Mesa is more populous than in Valve's original vision, with scientists loitering around the newly introduced railway station, and guards manning security checkpoints that didn't exist in the original. It isn't merely visual stuff that's changed either. The carriage's welcome message now sounds like it's emanating from a speaker, while a whole new soundtrack plays its opening notes out as a 27-year-old MIT graduate begins his worst day at work.
It's a statement by Crowbar Collective. We're not messing around, nor are we slaves to every pixel of Valve's game. This, ultimately, is what defines Black Mesa. The willingness not just to replicate, but to attempt to improve upon the core experience of Half-Life. To refine what works and, crucially, remove what doesn't.
The low-key survival horror of Office Complex makes it my favourite level.
It's surprising how bold Black Mesa is in the latter regard. Certain chapters such as On A Rail have been edited down, cutting out the tedious bits, while other chapters have had elements removed, such as Surface Tension's rogue tentacle monster. Black Mesa also adds completely new elements too, like a greater range of scientists (including female scientists). Meanwhile, there's brand new dialogue and voiceovers intended to add greater context to the plot, and better link the story of Half-Life to its sequel.
All the while, Black Mesa never loses sight of the spirit of the game it's recreating. The opening chapters, Unforeseen Consequences and Office Complex, are pure survival-horror, limiting the player's weapon roster as they dodge leaping headcrabs and evade the claws of zombies. With the arrival of the Marines in We've Got Hostiles, Black Mesa kicks into high gear, offering taut and thrilling combat that Crowbar Collective has been tweaking right up to release, adjusting the Marine's AI so they flank and evade you in the right ways. One big difference between Black Mesa now and in 2012 is it is less punishingly difficult by default. The Marines still feel dangerous, but are no longer robotically accurate in their shooting.
All of this holds up well for what is now an eight-year-old game. But the foundations Black Mesa builds on here were rock-solid to start with, and it's often hard to know whether the brilliance you're experiencing is that of Crowbar Collective, or that of Valve. Black Mesa offers a steadfast response to this with Xen, taking Half-Life's comparatively poor closing levels. (namely Xen, Gonarch's Lair, Interloper, and Nihilanth) and transforming them into what is arguably the best part of the game.
The Redesigned health and HEV dispensers are a joy to use.
These four levels have been completely redesigned, expanding their limited scope into huge environments complete with new puzzles, encounters and even story elements. Nowhere is this change starker than in the titular Xen level. In Half-Life, Xen was only a few minutes long, comprising a small chain of underwhelming floating islands. By comparison, Black Mesa's Xen offers well over an hour's worth of extra-terrestrial exploration through landscapes that push the Source engine to its limit.
The opening sequence is breath-taking. Gordon stumbles out of the Lambda portal into a vast alien panorama, rocks bobbing in the purplish void ahead of him, partially silhouetted by Xen's ice-blue sunlight. As you approach the precipice of the island you're stood on, a flock of alien birds soars across Gordon's vision as Joel Nielson's rousing soundtrack swells in your ears.
Multiplayer
It's worth noting that Crowbar Collective hasn't only remade the singleplayer component of Half-Life, it's also remastered Half-Life's deathmatch mode. Classics Half-Life maps like Bounce, Chopper and Crossfire have all been given the Black Mesa makeover, while the campaign maps can also be loaded up onto a multiplayer server.
Unfortunately, it's quite hard to actually test how good the multiplayer is because nobody seems to be playing it. It's a shame, as the redesigned weapons and core movement all feel like they'd make for some cracking deathmatch fun.
This is but a taste of what Xen has to offer. Crowbar Collective terraform Xen from a brown chain of floating islands into a rich and diverse alien ecosystem. It shows us Houndeyes and Bullsquids in their natural habitats, providing a sense of how Xen functions. My favourite sequence sees Gordon pass through a frontier laboratory established by a previous Lambda exploration team. Not only is it a fantastic piece of additional worldbuilding, it contains a wonderfully devised twist on a classic Half-Life foe.
Xen is primarily an exploration-focussed level, giving you plenty of breathing space to coo at the scenery and puzzle out where you need to traverse to. Crowbar Collective save the fireworks for Gonarch's Lair. Here, the slugfest against Half-Life's infamous testicle-monster has been expanded into a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase filled with twists and surprises. I won't reveal any specifics, but the quality of animation and set-piece design is on par with any modern FPS.
The third chapter, Interloper, begins as promisingly as Gonarch's Lair. Sadly, the extent of Crowbar Collective's ambition does as much harm as good here. The level is overly long, lacking the same environmental variety that sustains the expanded Xen chapter, and repeating several puzzle sequences to the point where they become tedious. While hardly terrible, it is a noticeable step backward compared to the two opening chapters.
Guards and scientists are no longer clones of one another.
The final confrontation with the Nihilanth is the most straightforward remake of the four chapters, although Crowbar Collective has made some alterations, increasing the spectacle and making it a more direct battle, with no frustrating teleport-based intermissions. It isn't as exhilarating as the encounter with the Gonarch, but it still makes for a satisfying finale.
Black Mesa is a fascinating work. What began as a straightforward engine upgrade for Half-Life has become a game that stands on its own merits, less "Half-Life Remastered" and more "John Carpenter's the Thing." It's an evolution that mirrors that of the people who created it. What formed as a diffuse bunch of enthusiast Half-Life 2 modders has coalesced a remarkably talented and undeniably dedicated studio. I'm curious as to what they will do now. Tempting as it is to say "Opposing Force when?" I'd like to see what they can create on their own terms, unbound from the constraints of nostalgia. Then again, if Valve don't fancy making Half-Life 3, I know a bunch of folk who could do the job.
DraQ
Arcane
Interloper is mostly shit.
The rest of Xen is mostly a large improvement.
The rest of Xen is mostly a large improvement.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,425
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.