Black Mesa - legendary vaporware Half-Life remake finally out

[Lyric Suite]

Wait, they added levels? I thought this was just a graphical update.

 

[JDR13]

Wait, they added levels? I thought this was just a graphical update.

They didn't add new levels, but some of the existing ones were expanded upon.

 

[Icewater]

Wait, they added levels? I thought this was just a graphical update.

They added Xen a month or 2 ago. Do you mean after that? Not that I know of.

Edit: Oh, I think Lyric Suite was being sarcastic. I don't get what possesses him to keep up this vendetta of shitposting against Half-Life 2, Black Mesa, and others. It's not like he's going to convince anyone with this bullshit.

 

[unfairlight]

I completed the rest of the game last year but I just did the Xen chapters alone. I'll say it's pretty good, but Interloper was kinda wonky with all the platforming and repetition. Visuals too, for that matter, Interloper looked a fair bit worse than the earlier parts of Xen. It's good, but I don't think that's the real problem for the majority of people. The question is rather if it was worth waiting like 5 years for just 4 hours of content to be made, and if another team couldn't have just made another Half Life remake in Unity or Unreal Engine instead in that time, which would have had a lot less technical limitations. The way they managed to wrangle the Source engine to such an extent with how good the earlier parts of Xen look, it's truly impressive; it almost manages to look like a modern game using PBR and fancy dynamic lighting techniques, but I do wonder if they couldn't have just started from scratch in another game engine instead.
I think the game leaks memory. Both VRAM and RAM. The game topped out my VRAM usage to the 8gb I have and over time my RAM usage went to about 11gb/16gb, when my normal desktop RAM usage is about 6gb, and loading times and performance got worse too. Near the end my performance took such a huge dump I had to restart to make it run well again.

 

[JDR13]

I completed the rest of the game last year but I just did the Xen chapters alone. I'll say it's pretty good, but Interloper was kinda wonky with all the platforming and repetition. Visuals too, for that matter, Interloper looked a fair bit worse than the earlier parts of Xen. It's good, but I don't think that's the real problem for the majority of people. The question is rather if it was worth waiting like 5 years for just 4 hours of content to be made

Yeah, Xen took way too long. Still, I have to give them credit for what I think is a pretty good remake overall.

There's a different team attempting to do the same thing with Half-Life: Opposing Force. Unfortunately, they're moving at an even slower pace than the Black Mesa team, and I have my doubts that it'll ever be finished.

 

[Origin]

Wait, they added levels? I thought this was just a graphical update.

They added Xen a month or 2 ago. Do you mean after that? Not that I know of.

Edit: Oh, I think Lyric Suite was being sarcastic. I don't get what possesses him to keep up this vendetta of shitposting against Half-Life 2, Black Mesa, and others. It's not like he's going to convince anyone with this bullshit.

He was not being sarcastic. He just wanted to know if they added new or expanded upon original Xen levels.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Wait, they added levels? I thought this was just a graphical update.

They added Xen a month or 2 ago. Do you mean after that? Not that I know of.

Edit: Oh, I think Lyric Suite was being sarcastic. I don't get what possesses him to keep up this vendetta of shitposting against Half-Life 2, Black Mesa, and others. It's not like he's going to convince anyone with this bullshit.

He was not being sarcastic. He just wanted to know if they added new or expanded upon original Xen levels.

Right. sser is implying nuXen is longer than the original one, which means, they added levels?

 

[unfairlight]

The entire game is longer. You can expect a single playthrough to take about 17 hours. The original game took me about 9. I'd wager it's double the length precisely if you take things slower and die more often. They more or less dropped the pretense of being a remake with the Xen levels and they're largely completely different from HL1.

 

[Origin]

Wait, they added levels? I thought this was just a graphical update.

They added Xen a month or 2 ago. Do you mean after that? Not that I know of.

Edit: Oh, I think Lyric Suite was being sarcastic. I don't get what possesses him to keep up this vendetta of shitposting against Half-Life 2, Black Mesa, and others. It's not like he's going to convince anyone with this bullshit.

He was not being sarcastic. He just wanted to know if they added new or expanded upon original Xen levels.

Right. sser is implying nuXen is longer than the original one, which means, they added levels?

Some Xen levels are expanded and they added some new levels. Basically, Xen was ~1h experience in original, now it's close to 4h mark.

 

[unfairlight]

Basically, Xen was ~1h experience in original, now it's close to 4h mark.

I recall it being about 2 or 3 in the original. I think I got to Xen at the 6 or 7 hour mark and I completed the game at the 9 hour mark according to Steam hours.

 

[schru]

Right. sser is implying nuXen is longer than the original one, which means, they added levels?

It seems like they've retained the basic location divisions, but changed everything almost completely:

 

[Scarlet Lilith]

I think HL2 has aged exceptionally well

It may or may not have, but if you install the game from steam today it's not the same game it was on release as it has been updated quite a lot.

 

[HansDampf]

The question is rather if it was worth waiting like 5 years for just 4 hours of content to be made

8 years.

 

[sser]

Wait, they added levels? I thought this was just a graphical update.

They added Xen a month or 2 ago. Do you mean after that? Not that I know of.

Edit: Oh, I think Lyric Suite was being sarcastic. I don't get what possesses him to keep up this vendetta of shitposting against Half-Life 2, Black Mesa, and others. It's not like he's going to convince anyone with this bullshit.

He was not being sarcastic. He just wanted to know if they added new or expanded upon original Xen levels.

Right. sser is implying nuXen is longer than the original one, which means, they added levels?

Spoiler

Xen is almost an entirely new act; virtually nothing like the original at all.

 

[DalekFlay]

The question is rather if it was worth waiting like 5 years for just 4 hours of content to be made

8 years.

I think they knew Xen had a bad rep from the original and wanted to work extra hard to BLOW PEOPLE AWAY with how much they could improve it, and it just kept getting worked on and worked on. That's my guess anyway.

 

[DraQ]

The question is rather if it was worth waiting like 5 years for just 4 hours of content to be made

8 years.

I think they knew Xen had a bad rep from the original and wanted to work extra hard to BLOW PEOPLE AWAY with how much they could improve it, and it just kept getting worked on and worked on. That's my guess anyway.

And yet they fucked the Interloper up something bad.

 

[DraQ]

And yet they fucked the Interloper up something bad.

that's not the only thing they fucked up

What are the other things?
I could list a few but they are pretty minor in comparison.

 

[Origin]

And yet they fucked the Interloper up something bad.

that's not the only thing they fucked up

What are the other things?
I could list a few but they are pretty minor in comparison.

He won't be able to give proper answer as he didn't play the game in its final form.

Let's remember, this interesting fellow played black mesa when it was a mod, 5 years ago or even more.

 

[Origin]

He won't be able to give proper answer as he didn't play the game in its final form.

Let's remember, this interesting fellow played black mesa when it was a mod, 5 years ago or even more.

I never said I only played it when it was a mod, dumbass. I replayed the whole game during the recent betas. I replayed the whole game and it was mostly the same shit it already was when it was a mod. All they did was update some of the graphics and add some levels to one of the chapters. It wasn't the version with updated AI, but that shit doesn't matter and I don't have an particular comments on the combat anyway. Oh yes, please tell me how the new AI changes everything and makes the shit aesthetic, shit audio, shit everything so much better and my opinion is just butthurt retardation that's completely invalid because I played version 0.99 instead of 1.0. The proper answer is that the entire game is shit and if you can't see that, then an in-depth analysis about why the game is so shit isn't going to help you.

Which betas?

What's your problem with the audio? If anyhing is superb in this remake, it's audio, you whiny little bitch. If you have problems with the *soundtrack*, thats completely subjective. They could've done better job of mixing it in, but it's pretty subtle overall, and doesn't ruin the experience anyhow.

 

[Origin]

Which betas?

What's your problem with the audio? If anyhing is superb in this remake, it's audio, you whiny little bitch. If you have problems with the *soundtrack*, thats completely subjective. They could've done better job of mixing it in, but it's pretty subtle overall, and doesn't ruin the experience anyhow.

It was the first one with a ‘complete’ Xen.

The audio is shit. That's the problem. I don't mean mixing, I mean the sounds themselves are stupid, especially the soundtrack. Sad piano and emotional female vocals are just so subtle, lol.

Soundtrack is shit = subjective
My opinion is shit = objective

Which sad piano? I played the game up until final Xen levels, I don't remeber any sad piano or emotional female vocals. What the fuck are you talking about?

It's low-key music generally akin to the original. I admit it sounds a bit out of place here and there but it's like "30 SECONDS OF RUINED EXPERIENCE" in a +15 hours game.

Turn the music knob down, retard, soundtrack was never integral part of hl anyways.

 

[Origin]

Pedantic little anal cunt dedicated his time to thoroughly listen and find 50 seconds of a soundtrack he doesn't like. Game should not exist because of this travesty!

You don't mind emoshunal in HL2, hypocrite? HL2 is all about emoushans.

What else sucks about audio in a game you didn't play?

 

[Lemming42]

Unreal is scary because he hates this game and its not worth his time, yet he can cite exact moments in the soundtrack that pissed him off. 90% of his brain power is, at any given moment, dedicated to thinking about how much he hates Black Mesa.

Unreal wakes up in his Black Mesa pajamas, throws off his Black Mesa bedsheets, opens his Black Mesa curtains and heads over to his custom-made Black Mesa themed computer (with Black Mesa desktop wallpaper). He opens Steam - Black Mesa ALWAYS installed and ready to go - and begins listening to the Black Mesa soundtrack, ready to post in the RPGCodex Black Mesa thread about how it's the worst game he's played. Chilling. This has to be building up to some kind of twist ending - Unreal is the lead developer of Black Mesa and has some Jekyll/Hyde shit going on maybe.

The new soundtrack is fucking terrible though. At least in the Earth based sections it tries - albeit slightly, and unsuccessfully - to emulate the industrial sound of the original but the Xen soundtrack is just bewildering with the awooohaoohAOHOoahah mystic vocals and the ultra-reverb piano.

Speaking of the soundtrack, can anyone find the original sample that the Half-Life closing theme is based on? I've been looking through a lot of those old industrial/ambient CDs that old games drew their soundtracks from and I've found a lot of the samples Kelly Bailey used for Half-Life, but this one still eludes me.

 

[Lemming42]

The true "muh feelz" sad piano emoshun music. I cried when Citizen_06 got shot.

 

[A horse of course]

Furries arguing with faggots.


That's RPG Codex.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

That's about as emotional as HL2 ever gets, and it's not misused at all. Meanwhile, Xen is supposed to be a creepy place, and they instead gave us Gordon and the Weird Forest. What matters is whether it is used appropriately, and that's where Black Mesa excels at failing.

Or maybe, just maybe, you are just nitpicking dipshit? Not to mention that in your arrogance you decided that you have ability to set "standards" for music tastes for all population of Earth. I, for example, don't find hl1 music THAT memorable and I still consider it a very good game. To be honest you need to be very sensitive person to think that original Xen was creepy or scary.
I don't understand what exactly you trying to prove here, is that you spent time to listening ost to a game you did not even liked and compare to other game? Well congratulations, you did it, you showed those "damn people on internet" how you capable of wasting your and everyone's time by being pretentious cunt. Now you should receive your 100 cred points from "pretentious cunts of RPG codex" on mail anytime soon.