Inspiring

Question

Black Mesa - finally done?

31 replies
6174 views

I'm just downloading a 3.6GB update for Black Mesa. Considering at the beginning of the month they were saying they were very close to release - could this finally be the Finished Article? (unnoticed bugs excepted)

Show previous replies

J

JohnnyDioxinAuthor

Inspiring

It's just been put on deal of the day at Steam

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/

Johnny's Scale Models Showcase i5 9600k @4.5GHz; 16GB DDR4 3200; 6xSSD; RTX2080ti; Gigabyte Z390D Mobo Rift CV1; Index; Quest; Quest 2

A

Anonymous

Brixmis said:

It's just been put on deal of the day at Steam

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/

Definitely a good deal - I bought it for 50% off about two years ago I think. There is a lot of content - and Xen is coming very soon.

I think the coolest thing about it is how much care has been taken to make the Black Mesa Research Facility make sense as a place. Each room is cluttered appropriately and every inch of the world you get to see feels believable - and yet whenever I play it I feel like I am playing Half Life and not a remake.

I hope the same treatment applied to the first Half Life gets applied to Opposing Force and Blue Shift. I believe there are modders trying to do it - but I do not know if they will be as successful as Black Mesa has been.

J

JohnnyDioxinAuthor

Inspiring

Yes, I enjoyed those add-ons, although wasn't Blue Shift developed by a different team? I believe so - but it was still enjoyable.

I have frequently started playing through Half-Life since I stopped playing it every day (think I only played it all the way through twice, but played through the majority of it several times and dumped it at the Zen part) intending to play the Opposing Force and Blue Shift games through as well, but never got that far after the first time.

If they were given the Black Mesa treatment, it would be a reason to do the lot again.
Despite what someone was saying in another thread, about HL being a straight FPS that didn't require lateral thinking (or was always the same - which it was, but could play it through in different ways), what I enjoyed about it over Doom and Quake was that you really had to think about how you were going to get through each level alive. You couldn't just run through, guns blazing.
This was made even more the case with HL2.

Johnny's Scale Models Showcase i5 9600k @4.5GHz; 16GB DDR4 3200; 6xSSD; RTX2080ti; Gigabyte Z390D Mobo Rift CV1; Index; Quest; Quest 2

A

Anonymous

Might have been me saying that about Half Life in another thread as that sounds similar to my view on Half Life.

To a degree HL offers up emergent gameplay but it is still heavily scripted. I always felt it was a puzzle based First Person shooter.

If it was me that said it - I was just likely trying to intone that Half Life - while a great shooter does not imbue the player with as much agency as typically found in an immersive sim game.

I am more partial to games like Deus Ex or Thief that allow me to make minute to minute choices that greatly affect the way I achieve the objectives set out in the mission.

In Half-Life the minute to minute choices you make simply affect whether you die or not.

That said I am a huge HL fan - and loved both licensed mission packs, and have been greatly impressed by Black Mesa probably more so than any game remake I have seen to date.

J

JohnnyDioxinAuthor

Inspiring

My mate was nuts about Deus Ex (he couldn't pronounce it though!) and was always trying to get me to play it, but I was just too busy with other things and in the end never did. I bought it a couple of years back from GOG, but still haven't had time to play it. I know what you mean, though - it's like an RPG shooter, if ya like.
I do like retro gaming - just recently started a TOCA 2 championship on my XP rig (not Race Driver 2 - the original TOCA 2, bumpy tracks, squared-off polygons and all) and am luvvin it - but rarely have time for more than one quick race at a time.

Going off topic, though - it's good to see that the Black Mesa team have already released two small patches. Now that is a team listening to their customers!

Afterthought: Compare how long those good ole game campaigns were, compared to the quickfix-ware of today.

Johnny's Scale Models Showcase i5 9600k @4.5GHz; 16GB DDR4 3200; 6xSSD; RTX2080ti; Gigabyte Z390D Mobo Rift CV1; Index; Quest; Quest 2

D

DaftnDirect

Honored Contributor

@Brixmis, love revisiting the old racing sims. I was trying to convert the TOCA and TOCA 2 tracks to Assetto Corsa but the Codemasters format of the time just isn't helping. I managed to extract all the objects but they don't have a common positional reference so it's like putting together a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces looking pretty much identical.... needless to say I gave up.

13700K, RTX 4070 Ti, Asus ROG Strix Z790-A Gaming, Corsair H150i Capellix, 64GB Corsair Vengence DDR5, Corsair 5000D Airflow, 4TB Samsung 870 , 2TB Samsung 990 Pro x 2, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, Quest, 2, 3, Pro, Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (10.0.26100)

A

Anonymous

Brixmis said:

My mate was nuts about Deus Ex (he couldn't pronounce it though!) and was always trying to get me to play it, but I was just too busy with other things and in the end never did. I bought it a couple of years back from GOG, but still haven't had time to play it. I know what you mean, though - it's like an RPG shooter, if ya like.
I do like retro gaming - just recently started a TOCA 2 championship on my XP rig (not Race Driver 2 - the original TOCA 2, bumpy tracks, squared-off polygons and all) and am luvvin it - but rarely have time for more than one quick race at a time.

Going off topic, though - it's good to see that the Black Mesa team have already released two small patches. Now that is a team listening to their customers!

Afterthought: Compare how long those good ole game campaigns were, compared to the quickfix-ware of today.

If you do take the time to play Deus Ex - play the Revision mod... the level design in the original Deus Ex tends to feel a little abstract (much in the same way Half Life feels) today. Revision updates the level design as well as some of the AI and such so that it doesn't feel so dated - there was some community backlash over the release as it was only released on Steam originally - but I believe it works on the GOG version now as well.

As for campaign length - I know what you mean, especially for the more strict first person shooters. Although the new Wolfenstein games are decent length, as are most of the new immersive sim games (Dishonoured series, the new Deus Ex games, and Prey are all over 20 hours if you really put the time in - although you can blast your way through them in as little as 12 hours or less if you just play them to beat the story).

I never got much into racing games - but with VR I want to get a proper steering wheel and see what it is all about.

On topic - it appears that we may have the Xen levels sooner than we think, reading through the forums on Steam I think we are just a couple months away. I was considering starting a new campaign with the new patch - but I think I am going to wait it out for the full release.

A

Anonymous

Played a little bit of the new update - it has been 2 years since I played this. I forgot how great the opening couple of hours after the tram ride are. I just got to We've Got Hostiles

Can't wait for Xen - might have to keep playing while I wait. LOL

A

Anonymous

That tram ride has to go down as one of if not the best intros of a video game of all time. I might have to get this and VorpX it when it's finished I think.

A

Anonymous

I hated the tram ride when I was a kid - felt like forever until the game started lol. But over the last few years I have softened a little towards it - this last time I played through I actually enjoyed it for the cinematic qualities it brings to the table. Like a good opening credits scene.

I will give it a whirl in VorpX soon and let you know how it feels.

Show more replies

Get Help

Sign up

Login with SSO

Login to the community

Login with SSO