Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
hardcore_gamer

What do you think of the Black Mesa: Source remake?

Recommended Posts

Now that it has been out for a while good long while, I assume most of you who took any interest in it at all have probably played it. What are your thoughts on it? Did you think it was good or bad? Did it live up to it's hype?

Share this post


Link to post

Difficulty spikes all over and no Xen...

I personally don't like it, however there is no denying it is one hell of a good remake.

Share this post


Link to post

I felt like there were a few poor design choices, but for the most part, they really managed to capture the gameplay, atmosphere, and overall design of the original. While the lack of Xen was disappointing, I realize what a massive undertaking the game was and can sympathise with their taking longer to put out that last third.

Share this post


Link to post

Its fucking awesome. A lot of love went into this game. Its not just a we took the levels and put them into a new engine. Guns, situations, enemies are different from the original. There are a lot of extras that I've found that enhance things. I'll pay the $15 once the final version comes out. Catch is... It'll be $2.50 soon enough.

Share this post


Link to post
geo said:

I'll pay the $15 once the final version comes out


Wait, the final version will cost money?

Well if that is the case they better add a lot of new stuff into it. I won't buy something I can already get for free just because the new version has the xex chapter, which in my opinion was easily the worst part of the whole game. So much in fact that when I replay the game I typically just quit once I get to xex and consider the game beaten.

As for the remake, there is one big problem I have with it: Many of the weapons just don't feel powerful. I blame this on the weapon sounds. The pistol and the machinegun just sound pathetic.

Share this post


Link to post

I want to like it, and at times I do, but the difficulty spikes just drive me nuts. I realize some of this goes back to the original game - I remember that the soldiers were absolutely impossible to deal with, soaking up damage and having perfect aim and reflexes. There's also the platforming which just feels kinda slippery - wrong angle, bad timing, or whatever, and you fail what looked like an easy jump. It's just, in that regard, it almost feels like they did too good a job recreating the feel of the original.

As for the payola business, I don't really have a problem with that. They've been working on this thing for many years, and if they want to offer it for sale (assuming it's retooled and Xen is added), I think that's great if someone chooses to support their work by buying it.

Share this post


Link to post

If they're going to sell it they need to fix their tape-drive models. That's the one part of the game that stuck in my head: tape drives with counter-rotating reels. Ugh!

The rest of it? It was fun.

Share this post


Link to post

Are they actually allowed to sell it though? The mod uses Half-life 2 enemies and possibly also models. Not to mention that this is a half-life product.

Share this post


Link to post

It feels too different to me. I'd rather load HL2 models in HL:S perhaps with some appropriate hi-res texture replacements. Keep the same gameplay and map geometry.

Share this post


Link to post

I enjoyed the remake, but I didn't care for the original, so who knows whether that's a good thing.

Share this post


Link to post

It's great, especially music, though the absence of Xen sucks. So far though, it seemed much more reasonable than HL: Source to me.

Share this post


Link to post

Xen is coming. I don't know when but I'm pretty sure it's coming before the world ends.

Share this post


Link to post

May I ask what people find so great about the Xen levels? To me they were just boring and annoying jumping puzzles with uninteresting level design. Easily the worst part of the game.

Share this post


Link to post

I only ever played the Xen levels in Blue Shift, as that's the only Half Life game I ever beat. They were okay, some cool sights and stuff. Shootouts were enjoyable. Don't remember much else.

Share this post


Link to post
hardcore_gamer said:

May I ask what people find so great about the Xen levels? To me they were just boring and annoying jumping puzzles with uninteresting level design. Easily the worst part of the game.

I liked the abstract alien world more than anything else in the game because it was different, it looked beautiful and I am extremely interested in what lies beyond the playable area...

If you know what I mean.

Share this post


Link to post

i've downloaded it, but never got around to play it. i kind of got out of my Half Life and Portal phase sometime ago and play other kinds of games right now. there were certainly some odd design-choices of the game, like how you can have 32 rounds for the Magnum, 120 for the SHOTGUN, 10 AR-rifle grenades... i don't think i played hard on that game, but even if the enemy can hit you hard, you always get somewhat drowned in supplies you can hit them right back. unless this remake re-balanced the ammo in the game...

i never really liked Xen. i could deal with long-jumping from platform to platform at the beginning of it all, but then it introduces high-jumping near the end of it all, which can easily kill you, leading to some rather infuriating quick-save spam. i'd say something about Nihilanth, but he's actually pretty easy to deal with when you know what to do. it's just that by the time you figure it out at first, you might have ran out of any resources to deal with the guy.

Share this post


Link to post
DooM_RO said:

Xen is coming. I don't know when but I'm pretty sure it's coming before the world ends.

So before Half-Life 3 comes out, got it.

Share this post


Link to post

It was a fun remake, but I didn't like how they changed some of the levels in order to make it more modern. (a good example is on a rail where they got rid of the track changers you had to shoot.)

Share this post


Link to post

Great level design, annoying hitscan enemies. Still a very impressive effort for an amateur project. Looking forward to Xen.

Share this post


Link to post

I admire it more as an accomplishment than I enjoy it as a game, although I do enjoy it. The fact that a team of volunteers could achieve a project of that scope and quality - even with its flaws - is very inspiring. Yet it seems to attract an unreasonable level of hate and vitriol from some portions of the Valve/Half Life fan community, which I find baffling. When a team spends ten years making a free game for strangers to enjoy, it seems churlish and petty to flame them for making design decisions you disagree with, or for being insufficiently slavish in copying the original game. It's represents the ugliest form of entitlement that sometimes rears its head in gaming communities.

The arrangement around the retail version seems rather complicated. As I understand it, long ago, Valve agreed to let the project go ahead so long as they didn't have "Half Life" in the title, hence it became "Black Mesa: Source". A long, long time later, they finally released the project, sans Xen, which they said would come along later. They then set to work on finishing Xen, but beforehand decided to port the whole project to the newer 2013 version of the Steam SDK.

Contemporaneously, they were one of the first projects that was green-lit on Steam, and thereafter reached a proper legal agreement with Valve which lets them sell the game, and also gives them complete access to the Source engine, the same as a commercial licensee would have. In fact, they were required to port the project to this newer version of Source in order to distribute via Steam, whether they sold it or not.

So now they're in the middle of completing two porting efforts: The first to the 2013 Source SDK, which will be released as another free, standalone download like the first release. The second to an undisclosed newer version of the Source engine, which will be released as the retail edition on Steam, and which will have various additional features and enhancements above and beyond the free version.

It sounds like neither of these versions may have Xen, which is still planned but will arrive further down the road. My guess is that they want to get a commercial release onto Steam, then use the revenue from that to reward the team and maybe fund some of them to work full time on Xen and other enhancements, but that's just my speculation. Like I said, it's complicated.

Share this post


Link to post

Quick question - is there any trick to getting around the tentacle monster in "Blast Pit." I mean, I know you're supposed to walk slowly and not make a sound, but for some reason, that strategy doesn't seem to work for me in Black Mesa. Even throwing grenades to distract it doesn't seem to keep its attention occupied long enough for me to get past it.

I mean, I kinda assumed it'd work the exact same way it did in the original, but then since that doesn't seem to work, I started to wonder if they added a new trick to it or something to keep up the difficulty.

Share this post


Link to post
geekmarine said:

Quick question - is there any trick to getting around the tentacle monster in "Blast Pit." I mean, I know you're supposed to walk slowly and not make a sound, but for some reason, that strategy doesn't seem to work for me in Black Mesa. Even throwing grenades to distract it doesn't seem to keep its attention occupied long enough for me to get past it.

I mean, I kinda assumed it'd work the exact same way it did in the original, but then since that doesn't seem to work, I started to wonder if they added a new trick to it or something to keep up the difficulty.

If I am correct, just like in the original you can deal damage to it, deal enough damage to a limb and it will retract that limb for a short amount of time...

It's usually not worth the ammo though.

Share this post


Link to post

you could try lobbing a grenade into the pit the monster is in, which will make it retreat and give you about 5 seconds or so to run to safety. that is, assuming the monster works the same in Black Mesa.

Share this post


Link to post

Haven't played the original Half Life in years. Amazingly atmospheric, just pretend Xen doesn't exist and that the alien warriors don't have guns that fire wasps and it's a damn fine game. Will definitely play this.

Share this post


Link to post
hardcore_gamer said:

Wait, the final version will cost money?

Well if that is the case they better add a lot of new stuff into it. I won't buy something I can already get for free just because the new version has the xex chapter, which in my opinion was easily the worst part of the whole game. So much in fact that when I replay the game I typically just quit once I get to xex and consider the game beaten.

As for the remake, there is one big problem I have with it: Many of the weapons just don't feel powerful. I blame this on the weapon sounds. The pistol and the machinegun just sound pathetic.


Why else would Valve allow a standalone version? You can't make money if its free.

Share this post


Link to post
hardcore_gamer said:

So some of the money will go to valve?


Oh I'm thinking all of it will go to Valve and they'll either give a percentage of sales or they'll flat out pay them to finish the game. We should look up what they did for L4D, Portal, Dota2 and TF2.

Share this post


Link to post
geo said:

Oh I'm thinking all of it will go to Valve and they'll either give a percentage of sales or they'll flat out pay them to finish the game. We should look up what they did for L4D, Portal, Dota2 and TF2.


Or that.

Still, I think the only reason for why I would consider buying the full version would be for the multiplayer. Unless they add some considerable improvements to what they made already besides adding Xen.

Share this post


Link to post

It is odd to me that I'm willing to pay $15 for Black Mesa, yet I feel that I'd only be willing to pay $10 for the original Half Life 1 and I know the great entertainment value I'm getting for it. Maybe its the graphics or its just an updated version.

I can only hope they have the 2 extra episodes eventually. Although Blue Shift felt like a useless expansion to merely go from HL1 to HL2. The first expansion felt better as an actual expansion. I have a feeling once HL3 gets completed, Valve will release HL2 episode 3.

As for how much the devs will be paid for Black Mesa. I look up Left 4 Dead to get a feel based on history. Looks like Valve purchased the dev studio. Someone got rich. Then Valve closed the studio and moved everyone to Seattle if they wanted to. So I'm guessing one big pay off for the owners and everyone gets salary from Valve? >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Rock_Studios

Then for DOTA looks like Valve bought the DOTA name and hired the 1 or 2 developers from DOTA. So chances are someone got rich and someone got hired. I'm not sure if that means he gets a % of all the micro transactions.

Share this post


Link to post
geo said:

It is odd to me that I'm willing to pay $15 for Black Mesa, yet I feel that I'd only be willing to pay $10 for the original Half Life 1 and I know the great entertainment value I'm getting for it. Maybe its the graphics or its just an updated version.


The thing is, having replayed Half-life with half-life source not just once but twice just in the last couple of months, I actually feel that half-life source is better than Black Mesa. The reason is that it brings some nice source features such as ragdoll and better water, but is still classic half-life. I enjoy it more than black mesa.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×