Black Mesa - finally done?

snowdog said:

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.

I know folk say doom (and to a lesser extent wonfenstein 3d) are the most iconic FPS games ever made... But not for me. Half life 1 and 2 not only nailed great FPS gameplay with superb level design  but they wrapped it up with a bloody good narrative experience too. In fact honestly a large chunk of the contempt I hold for valve is probably down to them letting the franchise rot whilst they sit on their asses making money off hats and card traders and other peoples games 
The sad thing is it is so long ago it is probably too late to release HL3 now unless........ (Bringing it back on topic)... IF this is a success it will bring HL to a whole new audience, then hl2 vr should be out by year's end (if it is ever going to come at all)...
Maybe these will be enough to reignite HL interest and the there could be a HL3....

I would still love to see a Half-Life 3 - even if it was created in the current Source engine that Black Mesa is being developed on.

I think that with Ion Storm 3d Realms has shown there is still interest in PC games developed on older engines and not every game needs to completely throw out the established rule set because of innovations made in other games.

The point is, Mike, the reason they say that about Doom is the timing and what it brought to the table.

Wolfenstein3D was a game like no other, and basically introduced the FPS genre, but Doom took it to a much higher, new level and because of it, we had a whole raft of games - inlcuding Half-Life, that wouldn't have otherwise existed.

Personally, I consider Doom the founding FPS genre game, rather than Wolfie3D. I still enjoy playing it through (in the Doom3 BFG pack) now. I actually wasn't a fan of quake to begin with, either - i was too busy playing other things. But when I finally did play it through, it was truly awesome. Half-Life was the next logical step, imho.

I'd buy HL3 tomorrow if it came out, and even drag myself away from SkyrimVR to play it :p

Wolfie, Doom, Quake  - then Unreal Tournament (which took away Quake's crown in my books!) - and now the new wolfies  - so many great FPS games which got better in each new generation (graphically anyway) but I do agree, the old originals introduced their genre so well and were just so playable.

Wonder if VR will get something quite so good in the days to come?

I agree about UT - that was a fave of mine, too - in fact, the original Unreal game - though not quite up to ID standards - was enjoyable, but it had a fantastic multiplayer mode - the forerunner to UT - which I thought was great.

@brixmis - I forgot about the Original Unreal, only ever played it in single player, but recall it was very good.  Used to play the first Half Life Deathmatch and Team Fortress multiplayer (up to 16 of us if I remember correctly) along with UT in local lan parties - great fun.

I loved unreal. That flyby of the.... Castle was it (forgive me it was ages ago) was amazing. Unreal Tournament I am torn by. Technically it was amazing and as far as arena shooters go it was a long long time before it was bettered imo (better than quake MP imo)..... But OTOH it was the start of the nails in the coffin of so many full length single player narrative games and the beginning of the putting all effort into MP gaming... Which was a bad bad thing for me as primarily a single player gamer.

Hmmm, I really needed a quick fix (courtesy of GOG)...

Flak cannon - my favourite :)   Flak monkey!

I have been following FPS games since Wolf3d - Doom was huge for a number of reasons, but first and foremost it just felt good to play. I maintain it has the best shotgun in any game ever.

Half Life was huge because it brought the interactivity and aesthetics of the build engine games to true 3d - with a well paced narrative and tighter gameplay to boot.

But there were other FPS games throughout the nineties that weren't big hits commercially that I absolutely loved - Cybermage, System Shock, Blood, Unreal, etc. were all games I played way too much.

bigmike20vt said:

I loved unreal. That flyby of the.... Castle was it (forgive me it was ages ago) was amazing. Unreal Tournament I am torn by. Technically it was amazing and as far as arena shooters go it was a long long time before it was bettered imo (better than quake MP imo)..... But OTOH it was the start of the nails in the coffin of so many full length single player narrative games and the beginning of the putting all effort into MP gaming... Which was a bad bad thing for me as primarily a single player gamer.

I am much more of a single-player gamer myself - but there were plenty of great single player shooters after UT like No One Lives Forever, Deus Ex, Thief 2 to name a few (ok so DX and Thief are not first person shooters per say, but...)

I am just glad that more and more games like the recent Wolf reboots are putting serious effort into the single player campaigns again.