I can understand why a lot of people may not like interloper, but for me, it's my favorite chapter. It's almost like fighting all of the combine soldiers with the super gravity gun in hl2 and what keeps me going back to it its just the soundtrack. The final part is that fighting all of the controllers and alien grunts in the hardest difficulty (even though it isn't that hard) with that banger in the background. I just love it.
Yes! Had pretty much the same experience; The elevator part where the soundtrack dropped hard while the elevator slowed down reavealing controllers ready to fight got me feeling so empowered - like I was the Freeman for a second
as soon as the interloper theme played in the first cable puzzle area I knew it would be my favourite. sure its tedious, but goddamn its atmospheric. it never falters and always feels sinister. shoutout to joel nielsen for the banger soundtrack.
While it wouldnt be possible without the base product, it's absolutely insane what passionate fans can do when theyre given time and resources to change an existing game or create one on top of it's framework. Some of the best games I've played were fan projects made on top of bethesda and valve games, black mesa specifically is one of my favorite mods and remakes ever created and it really shows that with time even fans can become more experienced and better with the tools that the original devs utilized, it's insane what they were able to turn the Xen chapters into compared to the original half life and I can't even express how excited seeing the Xen update was when it first came out. The same thing goes for FNV, skyrim, and especially morrowind modders who have been learning that version of the creation engine for 20 years straight (much like a lot of gold source modders.) I'd even go as far as to say at some point modders become more dedicated to the game than the devs themselves ever were. I can't wait to see how far modding will go with the advent of source 2 and other powerful engines that allow for extensive modability.
I wish we lived on a world where these people could get paid for doing so! CC is a rare exception in that they got the approval to sell the game at the end, but even then they spent more than a decade without getting paid to work on this.
8:49 u explained the Sound Part pretty good. As a Producer i say they mostly cut out the Low-End of these Sounds, probably because Sounds were hitting to hard when playing on Speakers and a woofer.
Black Mesa it's amazing. Gave me the exact feelings of my 1st HL run but with a lot of improvements while being lore friendly. Followed it's development since the very first trailer in 2011. Played every single version of it and after the Xen update i was stunned by the beauty. How is it possible that a *_dx9.0c_* game on a modified 2004 engine beats out lots of modern dx12 titles it's black magic. Looks like it has RT and all the modern tech but it's all raster and it runs like doom eternal. Very impressive work by a small indie team: *CrowbarCollective you are THE GOATS.*
when they got the approval from valve for steam green light valve graciously gave them the source for the latest source engine with all the improvements up until 2019 thats why :P
Black Mesa's good. Played it all the way back when it released in 2012, after following its development for years. It was absolutely insane to see the Black Mesa research facility with such visual fidelity, and even as a mod, it probably was one of the best looking source games out there. While I thoroughly enjoyed the earth part of it, I can't help but think Xen was a bit of a let down, especially for the time it took to release. Gone was the foreign feeling of a barren alien dimension where everything is either fleeing something, or fighting for its survival. BM's Xen rendition looks a bit *too* good in my opinion, hell, the opening chapters almost look like a Halo level rather than Half-Life. And the factory level is just so long and tedious.. And I'm sorry but if you have to resort to giving the player infinite Health and Ammo to complete the chapter, that's just bad level design. At least, while not great, Half-Life's Xen chapters had the decency of not overstaying their welcome, thing I can't say about Black Mesa's.
I personally wish they stuck to the style Xen had in Half Life 1 while still keeping the newer stuff they added. The visual design of Xen in Black Mesa conflicts so much with the original, and it really shows when you look at certain creature designs. For example: the Xen tree. The pale and fleshy design of the original Xen still remains with the Xen tree. However, it’s place in an area where it looks slightly out of place.
Honestly I'm going to have to object to your last point regarding infinite Health and Ammo. This wasn't something that was done because it was too difficult to complete, in fact that was a choice made on purpose. The infinite Health and Ammo sequence was meant to be a call back to the "Our Benefactors" chapter from Half Life 2, where it gave you the super charged gravity gun and (effectively) infinite health, and made you into an unstoppable killing machine. Its the same principle here, an end game power trip where you're fighting off hordes of some of the toughest enemies in the game with a supercharged Gluon Gun. Whether or not it does this well I will not comment on, but I wouldn't necessarily call it bad level design.
18:44 My theory is that those buildings aren't actually teleported by the Nihilant but actually they're teleported by the Black Mesa scientists in order to send as much ammo and supplies as posible to Gordon as quickly as they can because sending those capsules with supplies during the fight was more time consuming for them
Which isn't possible because they came from the portals that the Nihilant opened and in both phases they send you capsules. Maybe Gordon just got lucky. And besides, I don't think even the Black Mesa facility has enough resources to send in entire buildings, especially during the Resonance Cascade.
Could make sense as they were constantly sending Gordon supply crates during his time in Xen. Even the one which contained snacks, had a note written on it saying: "Press on, Freeman!"
But storywise the Black Mesa was no more at the time of fight with Nihilanth. It was destroyed by G-Man using Black Ops' Thermonuclear Device that he rearmed after Shepard turn it off in Opposing Force.
It's sad how people don't even use Black Mesa as a remaster anymore. They try to bring in Half - Life RTX and Half - Life 1 remasters when they completely forget the what Black Mesa's purpose is. I'd say it's a forgotten masterpiece because it's hard to find someone who plays Black Mesa in 2023.
I do,now im really stoked with black mesa blue shift and azure sheep,the dev behind it are surely knows what player want,and meanwhile....the dev of guard duty/operation black mesa give no update at all
@@TheKingofBunga2912Physics engine, references to future characters, continuity fixes... Yeah. Black Mesa is monumental, but let's not forget that the OG Half-Life did a ton of stuff right, and it's just a more enjoyable game in general.
@@TheKingofBunga2912 and yet it's more fun and enjoyable than BM will ever be. The fact that og half life 1 has the same amount of concurrent as BM is a testimeant to that.
Black Mesa was one of the first and best purchases I've made. Simply incredible game. Also it sucks a little you didn't include the incredible BM Blue Shift mod by HECU Collective but it is on the top of the mod page soo eh. also tripmine studios are also cooking something up so I wouldn't say it's over yet....
The first time i played half-life 1 i was 10 years old and could spend hours to try figure out how to proceed the different levels. I have seen every pixel you can find in half-life 1 so many times. I learned the levels and i have played it over and over countless times. The design and mecanics of Black mesa blew me away. I have never in my life felt the wow factor of any video game as this remake. It is abselutley lovley. I cant thank CC enough for bringing life to my childhood favorite video game!❤
I remember someone from CC said they were kinda relieved when they received negative feedback for Interloper, because they were worried when they cut several maps in the chapter. Honestly most levels sound tedious, but the reason they couldn't cut all of them was because they have a full document detailing how the whole island and the tower function and they don't want to abandon them all. One is the tentacle's lair, where you need to activate the thumpers to distract them. Another is an abandoned crystal mine connected to the village on the cliffside of the island, where you need to activate 3 generators to make a Xen pillar fully extend while infinite houndeyes would rush at you and blast you off the cliff. Obviously this part wasn't fun in their playtest, but it was the main reason they introduce new houndeye variants which have ability to blast you off the ground. Later in the chapter there was a portal that send the grunts to Earth, where you encounter contollers that throw the grunts containers from the tracks at you while the battle on earth can be heard from the portal. I actually don't like Xen more than Interloper, the later 3 maps in that chapter feels lack of live and it is mostly due to the houndeye AI. Houndeyes in BM is massively lacking of personality while they were the most characterized creatures in HL. In BM they only have 2 behaviors, sleeping and attacking. In HL, they could alert you and evade you. It would be nicer if we could see some of indication of their territorial behaviors. I imagine the part where you passing through their den in the valley, an Alpha would make a shockwave from a distance up the cliff which makes the rocks fall and alerts the pack then you would see them stalk you on the top and bark at you when you were too close to their properties.
Black Mesa really takes the concept of half life much further and seriously Crowbar Collective made the best remake ever made. I cant wait to see how the Operation: Black Mesa (remakes of Blue Shift and Opposing Force) will look.
the timming was impeccable, i just downloaded black mesa to play again(I just got the notification so for me you posted the video now and not hours ago)
Well, time for a subscriber's opinion: I didn't play the source mod, but I did play multiple times the pre-definitive and definitive edition (legally or not, yes I did buy the game just to enjoy it once more) Generally, yes, we can't not say that Black Mesa is one of, if not the, best looking game even by the modern standards, and probably will be because it has a slight stylistic choice that edges between cartoon-ish and realistic. Weapons are great, gunplay is awesome, I do agree about the sound design, but I will add that the sound just keeps going up, trying to break the sound barrier by the end, if that wasn't the case, it would've been that much more beautiful, but I guess it might be someone's preference after all, not really mine. Level design is great (later Xen chapters not included) it still beats every record of being recognizable, readable and easy to traverse, I liked every part I came across and eventually got through all Gameplay-wise, yeeeah, it's not as great, it does use the half-life logic, it's more like episode 2 with the plugs especially, but it doesn't really build upon it, not in a global sense, sometimes it doesn't point as good to the goal, uses some puzzles once or uses them way too many times. Let's get to my beatdown topic, enemies and balance. I don't like what they've done to soldiers, it's almost as if they made a gmod VJ snpc with how they move, talk and shoot. They have ideal accuracy if you're not juking them around a pole, their reaction speed is frame-perfect, it would've been nice with damage flinches, but what do you expect? Humans? Too bad buddy, your double barrel shot will be a breeze to them, while they throw 10 grenades at your exact location if you're not closer than 3 meters. Do they use the environment for their profit, do they know where you are at all times, do they even work in a team? Who knows? Not me. Let's go next. Alien grunts. That's better, that's good. They nerf your smg and other high spread weapon and make you use the more precise ones, armor piercing or highly explosive, but you know damn well, there's going to be these 3 lucky guys that survive all exactly when you're 10 hp, oh and yeah, they still have no sense of pain, or direction. Ask them how do they rush&punch and why do they not follow laws of known universe when they do. All the others seemed pretty balanced, so I'm done with that. Weapons. It's well balanced for the most part, but you're gonna regret seeing the explosives. The most common enemies like soldiers don't fall for tripmines or the bags, even if we get the most of these when we don't have anyone else to beat up, grunts are better, they just go straight, it seems like it's their life goal, but you don't get the environment to juke them with it, the only ones left are zombies, the only ones that have perfect conditions for the most lazy use of the most fun weapons. The downside is that you're still throwing the explosive bags like a baby while doing anything else better, this is like your absolute limit. Snarks are good, I didn't have trouble with them, because soldiers can't do anything, they're surrounded by a impenetrable wall of a hitbox these little guys have. And everything else? It only goes better from here on. So I said it. Farewell, For the love of the game.
And I forgot to say about Xen, sorry. Xen is great graphically, but not with how it plays out, yes it's a 100x better than what we had with hl1, but the interloper textures look like they were just remade hl:s assets. And I really wanted to blow up that corridor with tripmines in the tree of life, which you can't really do, as the death trigger is gigantic, you can't throw a grenade down where you were even after going through, and lastly the explosion doesn't go all the way through, unfair, I wanted the satisfaction of beating it, and I didn't get it. Then after, it's all the same: same corridors, same puzzles, same enemies, same weapons, same soundtracks I can't play through it without waiting for the end, and it's not really that better, really. Even if you can't do much with source, but just throwing random particles around for the pleasing effect, then it won't do the trick, they couldn't snap out of it and added more, and more, and more, creating a beautiful yet unpleasant cacophony of effects and sounds. I must say that I really liked Xen, I really did, but the bad parts are chapter-long and have such an impact that you can't view it the same. Nihilanth fight really does feel like a last stretch. After hours of exhaustion, there it is, your destination, just to get bombarded with anything that comes to their mind. And you know what I feel? I feel bad for their work, it's as if they rushed too, trying to make the ends meet. But let's talk about sound design again, why not? I didn't like it, it doesn't feel right, the pacing and how it just wants to top out the sound limit is bad. Especially with the gman speech, right after when everything was shouting at you, this makes it unbearable, you want a break, so that nothing can ruin it once more, and only then listen to a cutscene, which you don't get. From the top to bottom of sound in a graceful moment, it's not what I would like to see, but maybe it's what you liked? Then it becomes a matter of tastes, and I'm not one bit competent enough to speak for others, so speak for yourselves.
i'll always prefer the original game, but the sheer fact black mesa actually got made at all is miraculous, let alone it ending up for sale on steam. i remember following its development as far back as 2006 or 7
dude i’m so glad i found your youtube channel. I just replayed a lot of Half-Life games and mods. Just happened to get you in my recommendation and can’t stop watching! Also your editing is top tier, keep up the great work!
It took them way too long to get Xen into the game, but it was definitely worth it in the end, nice to see a Black Mesa video from you. I agree 50000% that the weapon sounds are quite lacking.
My only gripe with black mesa is the HECU design. Don't get me wrong, they look awesome, but I wish they looked more like the original hecu marines but with better graphics
HL2 was the first FPS I ever played, I played Black Mesa when it was released as a mod in 2012, I played it on my buddy's computer right before he left for the army. It was a shitty low end thing with a dual core AMD and 2 GB GPU (GT 630?), but it ran Black Mesa just fine. It has since transformed from a remaster to a remake, and while most of the game is playable on new low end gaming hardware, Xen brings my 1660ti to its knees. Read between the lines during the plugging in part of Interloper. Your now playing the role of the alien intruding on their labs, jumping on their equipment and short circuiting it for your own goals, reinforcing the themes that Breen brought up (have you ever created anything Gordon?) Gordon's actions here are callous and cold, and it works great to hint that your less of a hero and more of a pawn being being controlled (by G-Man/the player). I got the impression that the crystal portal puzzle, with the grey metal architecture, and the fact they apparently needed a literal cave full of crystals to teleport hints that you are looking at a Combine project in Xen.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to play Black Mesa, and for its contribution to the HL community, but will always prefer the original. Nothing will ever evoke the same historic and nostalgic atmosphere. The original is perfect the way it is, and does not need its Xen chapter multiplied in length.
15:24 Don't feel bad about killing it , picture the amount of humans you saved from a fate worse than death , Being trapped in their own bodies , crying for help and no one is there to help them , being in severe pain for more than 20 years , waiting for their deaths , So I'd say killing the gonarch is the right thing to do , Let's not forget about how ANNOYING these head humpers are (**especially the fucking babies**)
Half-Life: Source has always been intended as a demonstration of ease of porting Goldsrc content to Source engine. That's why it isn't as polished as a proper port would be.
Halo CE, Duke Nukem 3D, Time Splitters and Doom 3 needs a remake like this. I grew up with the original but always have my friends start with Black-Mesa.
I feel so great! after play the 2nd playthrough after xen get update (my 1st playthrough is 2017 and 2nd is 5/10/2023) and I get phd in pacifism achievement that time I feel like "Wait is that thing I do have a achievement too?" and "Hell yeah woooooooooooooooo"
Black Mesa's A.I. for the soldiers is so poorly done, that it killed off a good portion of my enjoyment when compared to Half-Life. Enemies will wildly strafe and backpedal while firing at you with incredible accuracy, are able to see through walls and will always know your location once engaged. It becomes much more noticeable once you reach Surface Tension. Additionally, there are issues with their animations where they may appear to be reloading, but are still able to fire at you. None of this combat feels fun, immersive, or even satisfying once it's over. The Xen portion was originally rushed and felt a bit out of place overall, but this version's just doesn't really do it much better, either. It's great that these devs were able to successfully recapture the majority of the original, but it just doesn't feel anywhere near as polished as it could have been, and I genuinely regret buying it. Hopefully plenty of others are able to enjoy Black Mesa and go back to see the original Half-Life for themselves, including Opposing Force and Blue Shift, as these games were all incredible for their time. Black Mesa just seemed to focus too much on the environmental aspects, but fell quite short on the technical portions to make it anything memorable for my taste.
Black mesa as a remake is a masterpiece But it got flaws like the weird placement of certain soundtracks, and the level design sometimes could be misleading like the part after the tank fight at surface tension and lastly I know this seems too much but they understood xen wrong a bit,it's great but they made it so alive which is the opposite of the idea of xen,it's not bad it got one of best alien environments I saw in a game let alone fan remake infact ideas like research stations are well implied in genius but to be honest I don't think people should consider it the new canon instead of hl1 That's my opinion ofc
I dont think Xen is wrong, but it's a different interpretation that probably provided more variety in visual design than the original Xen, which suits it's significantly longer playtime
What is the misleading part after the tank fight though ? You can find your path very easily . There is not like so many different paths . I agree on the soundtrack in some places . Like for example in Blast pit chapter after activating power , fuel and stuff you return to place where the tentacles are and the music starts then . I think it should after pressing the button to burn the tentacles ,it will fit more.
@@ilkeribrahim6541 when I played black Mesa It was my first revist of the series since years After that tank fight where you come out of a sewer and kick hecu ass there's alot of detailed places such a building with ladders and stuff and other doors at the garage which looks amazing but may make visual noise and that distracted me from exploring that small security door near the gate
@@thunderslug1066 well yes bm xen was the best alien environment I saw in a game let alone that it was fan remake But I kinda expected the dark and strange unsettling world The feeling was bit captured little bit at gornach and the factory though
Black Mesa was how i'd played Half-Life for the first time, and a couple of my friends who'd played the original when it released said that it was a damn good remake so i figured it was even more fine to play it. and after binging it and all of Half-Life 2 (even got all the achievements in all 3 Half-Life 2's, but the Black Mesa ones are pointlessly stupid and/or grindy so i didn't bother), i'm now sad we don't have Half-Life 3 yet. I get it now. but yeah, it's really good and definitely worth the price. planning on buying the original whenever i've got the money so i can properly compare them both.
Oh god, that pistol sound. Sounds like a fallout 10mm, which i always hated because a caliber that big sounding like the gun equivalent of a wet towel being thrown at you just isn't it. The shotgun is a bit better overall, but still weak compared to the HL1 sound. Sound design can make or break the feel of a weapon. So it's always sad to see weapons that are fun gameplay wise to not deliver sound wise.
The leitmotif used in the Xen music is extremely earworm-y. The use of it is probably why the conveyor belt and elevator fights in Interloper felt more epic rather than tedious to me. If those sections were silent, or used some other music, my immersion would have been lost entirely.\
Interloper on its finals levels with the alien controllers teleporting in mass while on the elevator becaus they really trying to stop gordon as they became aware that you a threat to Nihilanth wich with the music makes it more epic, as being the final defense between you and Nihilianth And that interloper being long, i didn't minded, specially considering how badly the military was going towards the xen forces, seeing the mass production of alien grunts has a impact making of gordon's task of stopping the invasion with killing nihilanth more important now than given by the lamba team back on earth, considering that they are really losing already on the current amount sent to earth
If anything I'd say the graphics of Half Life hold up, it's how stark and barren the level design and the set dressing in general are that doesn't. Even Blue Shift demonstrated a much better use of the Gold Source engine simply by virtue of how much _stuff_ Gearbox stuffed into every single space. But then that just puts it in exactly the same camp as Doom. They both got massively overshadowed by their own immediate predecessors who did vastly better with the same game engine and expanded assets, but they're also both still really good games.
I rather think that Black Mesa and the Original play very diffrent.I would say that you should play Half-Life 1 if you have the extra eight bucks(or even 80 cents).I also have to disagree with your opinion on Interloper:I can get that you and many other people don't like these big puzzles that take a millenia to complete,I personally like less intense moments to calm down from all the action,but the elavator section at the end,I know many don't like ot,but for me it's the most memorable part of the game.That feeling I had when going up that elevator,as the music started to play and you hear all the controlled teleporting in.The peak was at the point where there were these big towers protected by these platforms,where you jump around and try to dodge hits.For me it was the most fun I had in a long time.I do still thibk that your Video is great.
I just hate how people keep asking about BM being a replacement of HL1. It's not a replacement at all. If you play it without playing HL1 first, you miss out on a lot of things. It's a good reimagining, but people have to play HL1 first, and I hope they don't play the Source one either.
If I remember well, one of the Valve leads said that Black Mesa is a far superior product than Half Life, because it does grab everything they learned and applied it to HL1, to re-do it from zero. HL1 has issues and it's simply better to play Black Mesa
I know when I told my brother I was going to play half life, he told me about black mesa and how great it is. I thought I would rather play the HL1 first, and then BM. To experience what HL1 is all about. Despite the game being 2 years older than me (I'm 24). By the time I'm writing this comment, I'm not even halfway through HL1, and i'm loving the game a lot!
Regarding the weapon sound design, I suppose the most realistic representation you can get would be if you went to a shooting range, and capture real sounds. Good luck with that on the grenade launcher, unless you can get on the line at a firing range at Fort Benning (oh wait. Some assholes decided to rename it "Fort Moore" for some idiotic reason. Don't care, it says Benning on my paperwork)
The "tripmine canyon" in Xen, is supposed to tell the story of the researcher who met his demise venturing into this canyon from the opposite end to you (the player). Most likely, he placed those behind himself to fend off the hostile fauna, as he was making his way back(to?) the forward observation station you came from. We actually see the HEV body at the beginning of that canyon. The problem with that theory though, is obviously that the mines were placed awfully close to each other over a very long distance, meaning that if anything was to trigger one at any point, it would've taken out the whole grid making it a massive waste of resources for such a single-serving affair. Cool story-telling concept, but poor execution from a level-design standpoint.
Everytime I complete the game and I see the past developers section in the credits I tera up honestly.. this is such an amazing game made with so much heart put into it and went on so much of a journey and I love the game a lot.
I'll never understand why people say some parts of xen get a bit tedious over time, while haven't finished the game yet (i had some PC issues when i got to the vortigaunts being controlled), i found myself constantly distracted by how beautiful and alive the environment looks, i guess i'll have to experience those later puzzles and stuff to see if they're really that boring
Dude what? What about just recording a shotgun and then using that recording for the in game weapon? That Glock sound you like so much sounds almost like some star wars laser.
Imo the main problem with Xen is because it is too pretty and has too much of an actual biome. For a remake so focused on fixing lore problems, this comes off as very generic imo. Xen is a refuge to species hunted down by the Combine. It aint supposed to be pretty and the aliens arent supposed to be so accommotaded there because it isn't their world. It aint even a world tbh, it's a "border-world". It looks cool and the context was so subtle in HL1 that I kinda accept it as a retcon that they were there for a long time and grew used to the biomes but it still feels weird, especially when you know that the aliens mainly attacked Earth to find another refuge. If they were so accommodated at Xen, why try to so desperately escape to Earth?
This review is a breath of fresh air after hearing this really odd review that decided to criticize Black Mesa for being "too different" from the original for all these weird nit-picky reasons, only fueled by nostalgia for Half Life 1 and its technical limitations that the other reviewer saw as a "choice in design". Your review is awesome, and I think more people should try to see all the positive aspects in things.
@@Marine_2010 I should have been more clear, when you compare it to other games that have workshop support it is the most obnoxious one. If a game has a workshop feature I shouldn't have to go into the files and fiddle around.
We as a community should demand Crowbar Collective to release the source code of the game so that people can continue its legacy through Mods! They should be ashamed of not allowing people to use their code when they themselves started their game as a Mod. There's so many amazing things that I see modders want to be able to do with this game, that they can't, because that'd require access to the source code.
@@1lucia Black Mesa retail uses a modified proprietary version of Source. Luckily they opened their map bases and such but not the source code of their own version of the source engine. Which means people can modify the maps, modify the graphics and sounds, but not add anything new or fix problems that would require changing the code. I was browsing many Black Mesa mods recently and most of them complain that you can't add new things or that some things can't work as well as they could because there are bugs which can't be fixed without the source code. Some of them are in a perpetual state of "we'll make this work whenever CC releases their source code".
@@1lucia Me personally, I've been meaning to learn how to mod Source and I'd would love to fool around trying to implement Zuka bats (the cut HL1 enemy) and scatter them around the On a Rail levels and the Xen levels (I'd simply start by making them as a re-skin of HL2's Manhacks) or reimplementing some of HL1's AI behaviors of the Houndeyes and Cockroaches. I haven't looked seriously into it but apparently it can't be done without access to the code. There's also this vehicle section that was cut from HL1's Xen chapters, that would involve Gordon driving a research Jeep in low-gravity, and jumping over a bridge while avoiding King-Pins and Mr. Friendlies (more cut enemies), which I'd love to put back into the game. But apparently it can't be done.
I'm finally playing through BM full release and have resched Xen. So far I'm enjoying it but I don't think I like it more than HL1 so far. The two objective negatives are the really bad anti aliasing that barely works, you can't even force it through nvidia control panel. I'm using DSR to run it at 1440p and downscale to my 1080p monitor to remove the aliasing. Also it's just kinda buggy and unpolished sadly, for example if I open the settings, all image previews for my saves show the settings menu. My subjective issues come from not enjoying many of the level design changes and something just doesn't feel as enjoyable about combat. Still as a fan creation I respect BM a ton. I just wish they'd add proper antialiasing and do another polish patch
Interloper really did get boring for me and i played it for so long then i left and forgot about it. when i went back to black mesa and started playing the game over again, all of my Interloper saves were overridden so i couldnt continue, and i am not starting it all over again. and thats why ive never finished black mesa. the rest of the game is still good though👍
16:50 for me, Interloper visually looks amazing because is meant to be a meh-industrial área But I agree on the puzzle part.. I didnt even know what or how I did it xD Then I also agree, after platforming for so long it was becoming a bit tedious.. then the elevator, must confess I just wanted the Game to end at that point :(
If i want to refresh half life lore by replaying all games then i would play black mesa i would play oryginal hl only if ive felt nostalgic for old games. I still remember playing half life oposing force after half life 2 and my eyes were in pain like literaly
A brief history and a review of Black Mesa! Be sure to watch until the end! :)
Also, consider becoming a channel member! :P
hai!!! :3 :3 :3 ur channel awesome :3 :3
Why do you have 655 health in Xen?
Great video but there's a mistake: Crash bandicoot n. Sane trilogy is a remake, not a remaster. Look it up!
or pirated black mesa with the final version.
Black Mesa was my introduction to Half-Life. Without it, I wouldn't have played all the other games in the series! So I've got to thank CC for that.
Ha one hell of a intro to the series
U should also try half life 1 :)
Same here, unfortunately I stopped playing near the scorpion boss fight because I couldn't find how to proceed and went back to play the original
@@deathmaster38op has played all other games
Same
And Ive been gearing to play franchise for years
I can understand why a lot of people may not like interloper, but for me, it's my favorite chapter. It's almost like fighting all of the combine soldiers with the super gravity gun in hl2 and what keeps me going back to it its just the soundtrack. The final part is that fighting all of the controllers and alien grunts in the hardest difficulty (even though it isn't that hard) with that banger in the background. I just love it.
Yes! Had pretty much the same experience; The elevator part where the soundtrack dropped hard while the elevator slowed down reavealing controllers ready to fight got me feeling so empowered - like I was the Freeman for a second
I don't like that part of Half-Life 2 either; and Black Mesa's Interloper is even longer.
as soon as the interloper theme played in the first cable puzzle area I knew it would be my favourite. sure its tedious, but goddamn its atmospheric. it never falters and always feels sinister. shoutout to joel nielsen for the banger soundtrack.
While it wouldnt be possible without the base product, it's absolutely insane what passionate fans can do when theyre given time and resources to change an existing game or create one on top of it's framework. Some of the best games I've played were fan projects made on top of bethesda and valve games, black mesa specifically is one of my favorite mods and remakes ever created and it really shows that with time even fans can become more experienced and better with the tools that the original devs utilized, it's insane what they were able to turn the Xen chapters into compared to the original half life and I can't even express how excited seeing the Xen update was when it first came out. The same thing goes for FNV, skyrim, and especially morrowind modders who have been learning that version of the creation engine for 20 years straight (much like a lot of gold source modders.) I'd even go as far as to say at some point modders become more dedicated to the game than the devs themselves ever were.
I can't wait to see how far modding will go with the advent of source 2 and other powerful engines that allow for extensive modability.
yes
I wish we lived on a world where these people could get paid for doing so! CC is a rare exception in that they got the approval to sell the game at the end, but even then they spent more than a decade without getting paid to work on this.
The Xen footstep is probably the most memorable fact I know from this game
8:49 u explained the Sound Part pretty good.
As a Producer i say they mostly cut out the Low-End of these Sounds, probably because Sounds were hitting to hard when playing on Speakers and a woofer.
Black Mesa it's amazing. Gave me the exact feelings of my 1st HL run but with a lot of improvements while being lore friendly.
Followed it's development since the very first trailer in 2011. Played every single version of it and after the Xen update i was stunned by the beauty.
How is it possible that a *_dx9.0c_* game on a modified 2004 engine beats out lots of modern dx12 titles it's black magic.
Looks like it has RT and all the modern tech but it's all raster and it runs like doom eternal.
Very impressive work by a small indie team: *CrowbarCollective you are THE GOATS.*
when they got the approval from valve for steam green light valve graciously gave them the source for the latest source engine with all the improvements up until 2019 thats why :P
"I don't see why you would play the original Half-Life 1 over this one"
My broke ass with a 2009 computer:
I can at time play the first few chapters of HL1.
but a full play trhought of HL1, Opforce and blues shift I only done it twice.
Because at that time Halflife "felt" immersive like blackmesa. I'm a hardcore halflife fan from India. Been playing it for 20 years (Deathmatches)
Black Mesa's good. Played it all the way back when it released in 2012, after following its development for years. It was absolutely insane to see the Black Mesa research facility with such visual fidelity, and even as a mod, it probably was one of the best looking source games out there.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the earth part of it, I can't help but think Xen was a bit of a let down, especially for the time it took to release. Gone was the foreign feeling of a barren alien dimension where everything is either fleeing something, or fighting for its survival. BM's Xen rendition looks a bit *too* good in my opinion, hell, the opening chapters almost look like a Halo level rather than Half-Life. And the factory level is just so long and tedious.. And I'm sorry but if you have to resort to giving the player infinite Health and Ammo to complete the chapter, that's just bad level design. At least, while not great, Half-Life's Xen chapters had the decency of not overstaying their welcome, thing I can't say about Black Mesa's.
I personally wish they stuck to the style Xen had in Half Life 1 while still keeping the newer stuff they added. The visual design of Xen in Black Mesa conflicts so much with the original, and it really shows when you look at certain creature designs. For example: the Xen tree. The pale and fleshy design of the original Xen still remains with the Xen tree. However, it’s place in an area where it looks slightly out of place.
Honestly I'm going to have to object to your last point regarding infinite Health and Ammo. This wasn't something that was done because it was too difficult to complete, in fact that was a choice made on purpose. The infinite Health and Ammo sequence was meant to be a call back to the "Our Benefactors" chapter from Half Life 2, where it gave you the super charged gravity gun and (effectively) infinite health, and made you into an unstoppable killing machine. Its the same principle here, an end game power trip where you're fighting off hordes of some of the toughest enemies in the game with a supercharged Gluon Gun. Whether or not it does this well I will not comment on, but I wouldn't necessarily call it bad level design.
I love the Glock sound in Black Mesa. It has a crazy pop to it. The shotgun could definitely use more bass though.
The music in Black Mesa is so awesome. I personally like it even more than the original tracks.
Ach ja: mal wieder ein klasse Video.
6:28 To be fair Combine soldiers also use grenades to flush cover, but it depends on the situation and their positioning
I just finished a 100% HL2 run on hard last night. The Combine _rarely_ use grenades, and generally just run at you in a straight line.
18:44 My theory is that those buildings aren't actually teleported by the Nihilant but actually they're teleported by the Black Mesa scientists in order to send as much ammo and supplies as posible to Gordon as quickly as they can because sending those capsules with supplies during the fight was more time consuming for them
Which isn't possible because they came from the portals that the Nihilant opened and in both phases they send you capsules. Maybe Gordon just got lucky.
And besides, I don't think even the Black Mesa facility has enough resources to send in entire buildings, especially during the Resonance Cascade.
How would they send it???
Nah
Could make sense as they were constantly sending Gordon supply crates during his time in Xen. Even the one which contained snacks, had a note written on it saying: "Press on, Freeman!"
But storywise the Black Mesa was no more at the time of fight with Nihilanth. It was destroyed by G-Man using Black Ops' Thermonuclear Device that he rearmed after Shepard turn it off in Opposing Force.
It's sad how people don't even use Black Mesa as a remaster anymore. They try to bring in Half - Life RTX and Half - Life 1 remasters when they completely forget the what Black Mesa's purpose is. I'd say it's a forgotten masterpiece because it's hard to find someone who plays Black Mesa in 2023.
I do,now im really stoked with black mesa blue shift and azure sheep,the dev behind it are surely knows what player want,and meanwhile....the dev of guard duty/operation black mesa give no update at all
That's because it's not as good as half life 1
@@hazzmati That's not true. Black Mesa already did many things Half - Life couldn't do.
@@TheKingofBunga2912Physics engine, references to future characters, continuity fixes...
Yeah. Black Mesa is monumental, but let's not forget that the OG Half-Life did a ton of stuff right, and it's just a more enjoyable game in general.
@@TheKingofBunga2912 and yet it's more fun and enjoyable than BM will ever be. The fact that og half life 1 has the same amount of concurrent as BM is a testimeant to that.
Black Mesa was one of the first and best purchases I've made. Simply incredible game.
Also it sucks a little you didn't include the incredible BM Blue Shift mod by HECU Collective but it is on the top of the mod page soo eh.
also tripmine studios are also cooking something up so I wouldn't say it's over yet....
The first time i played half-life 1 i was 10 years old and could spend hours to try figure out how to proceed the different levels. I have seen every pixel you can find in half-life 1 so many times. I learned the levels and i have played it over and over countless times. The design and mecanics of Black mesa blew me away. I have never in my life felt the wow factor of any video game as this remake. It is abselutley lovley. I cant thank CC enough for bringing life to my childhood favorite video game!❤
I remember someone from CC said they were kinda relieved when they received negative feedback for Interloper, because they were worried when they cut several maps in the chapter. Honestly most levels sound tedious, but the reason they couldn't cut all of them was because they have a full document detailing how the whole island and the tower function and they don't want to abandon them all.
One is the tentacle's lair, where you need to activate the thumpers to distract them. Another is an abandoned crystal mine connected to the village on the cliffside of the island, where you need to activate 3 generators to make a Xen pillar fully extend while infinite houndeyes would rush at you and blast you off the cliff. Obviously this part wasn't fun in their playtest, but it was the main reason they introduce new houndeye variants which have ability to blast you off the ground. Later in the chapter there was a portal that send the grunts to Earth, where you encounter contollers that throw the grunts containers from the tracks at you while the battle on earth can be heard from the portal.
I actually don't like Xen more than Interloper, the later 3 maps in that chapter feels lack of live and it is mostly due to the houndeye AI. Houndeyes in BM is massively lacking of personality while they were the most characterized creatures in HL. In BM they only have 2 behaviors, sleeping and attacking. In HL, they could alert you and evade you. It would be nicer if we could see some of indication of their territorial behaviors. I imagine the part where you passing through their den in the valley, an Alpha would make a shockwave from a distance up the cliff which makes the rocks fall and alerts the pack then you would see them stalk you on the top and bark at you when you were too close to their properties.
Black Mesa was my introduction to this franchise, many years ago. Brilliant game
Another excellent video ! Your channel deserves wayyy more attention.
I like the original more for some reason, maybe its different weapon placement or something else, i can't find the exact reason
Black Mesa really takes the concept of half life much further and seriously Crowbar Collective made the best remake ever made. I cant wait to see how the Operation: Black Mesa (remakes of Blue Shift and Opposing Force) will look.
I am purely just waiting to play the opposing force remake.
the timming was impeccable, i just downloaded black mesa to play again(I just got the notification so for me you posted the video now and not hours ago)
Well, time for a subscriber's opinion:
I didn't play the source mod, but I did play multiple times the pre-definitive and definitive edition (legally or not, yes I did buy the game just to enjoy it once more)
Generally, yes, we can't not say that
Black Mesa is one of, if not the, best looking game even by the modern standards, and probably will be because it has a slight stylistic choice that edges between cartoon-ish and realistic.
Weapons are great, gunplay is awesome, I do agree about the sound design, but I will add that the sound just keeps going up, trying to break the sound barrier by the end, if that wasn't the case, it would've been that much more beautiful, but I guess it might be someone's preference after all, not really mine.
Level design is great (later Xen chapters not included) it still beats every record of being recognizable, readable and easy to traverse, I liked every part I came across and eventually got through all
Gameplay-wise, yeeeah, it's not as great, it does use the half-life logic, it's more like episode 2 with the plugs especially, but it doesn't really build upon it, not in a global sense, sometimes it doesn't point as good to the goal, uses some puzzles once or uses them way too many times.
Let's get to my beatdown topic, enemies and balance.
I don't like what they've done to soldiers, it's almost as if they made a gmod VJ snpc with how they move, talk and shoot. They have ideal accuracy if you're not juking them around a pole, their reaction speed is frame-perfect, it would've been nice with damage flinches, but what do you expect? Humans? Too bad buddy, your double barrel shot will be a breeze to them, while they throw 10 grenades at your exact location if you're not closer than 3 meters. Do they use the environment for their profit, do they know where you are at all times, do they even work in a team? Who knows? Not me.
Let's go next.
Alien grunts.
That's better, that's good. They nerf your smg and other high spread weapon and make you use the more precise ones, armor piercing or highly explosive, but you know damn well, there's going to be these 3 lucky guys that survive all exactly when you're 10 hp, oh and yeah, they still have no sense of pain, or direction. Ask them how do they rush&punch and why do they not follow laws of known universe when they do.
All the others seemed pretty balanced, so I'm done with that.
Weapons.
It's well balanced for the most part, but you're gonna regret seeing the explosives. The most common enemies like soldiers don't fall for tripmines or the bags, even if we get the most of these when we don't have anyone else to beat up, grunts are better, they just go straight, it seems like it's their life goal, but you don't get the environment to juke them with it, the only ones left are zombies, the only ones that have perfect conditions for the most lazy use of the most fun weapons. The downside is that you're still throwing the explosive bags like a baby while doing anything else better, this is like your absolute limit. Snarks are good, I didn't have trouble with them, because soldiers can't do anything, they're surrounded by a impenetrable wall of a hitbox these little guys have.
And everything else? It only goes better from here on.
So I said it.
Farewell,
For the love of the game.
And I forgot to say about Xen, sorry.
Xen is great graphically, but not with how it plays out, yes it's a 100x better than what we had with hl1, but the interloper textures look like they were just remade hl:s assets.
And I really wanted to blow up that corridor with tripmines in the tree of life, which you can't really do, as the death trigger is gigantic, you can't throw a grenade down where you were even after going through, and lastly the explosion doesn't go all the way through, unfair, I wanted the satisfaction of beating it, and I didn't get it.
Then after, it's all the same: same corridors, same puzzles, same enemies, same weapons, same soundtracks
I can't play through it without waiting for the end, and it's not really that better, really. Even if you can't do much with source, but just throwing random particles around for the pleasing effect, then it won't do the trick, they couldn't snap out of it and added more, and more, and more, creating a beautiful yet unpleasant cacophony of effects and sounds. I must say that I really liked Xen, I really did, but the bad parts are chapter-long and have such an impact that you can't view it the same. Nihilanth fight really does feel like a last stretch. After hours of exhaustion, there it is, your destination, just to get bombarded with anything that comes to their mind. And you know what I feel? I feel bad for their work, it's as if they rushed too, trying to make the ends meet.
But let's talk about sound design again, why not?
I didn't like it, it doesn't feel right, the pacing and how it just wants to top out the sound limit is bad. Especially with the gman speech, right after when everything was shouting at you, this makes it unbearable, you want a break, so that nothing can ruin it once more, and only then listen to a cutscene, which you don't get. From the top to bottom of sound in a graceful moment, it's not what I would like to see, but maybe it's what you liked? Then it becomes a matter of tastes, and I'm not one bit competent enough to speak for others, so speak for yourselves.
I love your videos so much please keep making these
10:19 they made xen look like the twilight cage from sonic chronicles
i'll always prefer the original game, but the sheer fact black mesa actually got made at all is miraculous, let alone it ending up for sale on steam. i remember following its development as far back as 2006 or 7
Always with the great content!
You deserve a lot more views and a lot more subscribers 🎉
dude i’m so glad i found your youtube channel. I just replayed a lot of Half-Life games and mods. Just happened to get you in my recommendation and can’t stop watching! Also your editing is top tier, keep up the great work!
Man Steam Greenlight, what a throwback
Three major Half-Life things happened in 2020: Black Mesa's full release, Half-Life: Alyx, and of course, Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware.
Half Life Alyx is trash
Black Mesa wonderfully improved the MP5's sound effect
I love how he says "BANG" in 8:50, at the exact same time when a HECU soldier is getting shot by a revolver in the background footage.
It took them way too long to get Xen into the game, but it was definitely worth it in the end, nice to see a Black Mesa video from you.
I agree 50000% that the weapon sounds are quite lacking.
but the shotgun and tau cannon sounds though.
I wish they made an achievement for crashing the game with airstrikes that’s the only true tragedy of black mesa
Great video, I really appreciate the content you are putting out. Thanks.
12:53 for the smaller houndeyes. You can easily kill them using Alient Grunt's homing gun. That gun is my favourite for ammo conserving in Xen
Awesome video man!
My only gripe with black mesa is the HECU design. Don't get me wrong, they look awesome, but I wish they looked more like the original hecu marines but with better graphics
Thankfully the workshop remedies this design choice.
@@TemmieContingenC I haven't played in ages, so I gotta take a look at it again
One of the best games I've played in my life.
HL2 was the first FPS I ever played, I played Black Mesa when it was released as a mod in 2012, I played it on my buddy's computer right before he left for the army. It was a shitty low end thing with a dual core AMD and 2 GB GPU (GT 630?), but it ran Black Mesa just fine. It has since transformed from a remaster to a remake, and while most of the game is playable on new low end gaming hardware, Xen brings my 1660ti to its knees.
Read between the lines during the plugging in part of Interloper. Your now playing the role of the alien intruding on their labs, jumping on their equipment and short circuiting it for your own goals, reinforcing the themes that Breen brought up (have you ever created anything Gordon?) Gordon's actions here are callous and cold, and it works great to hint that your less of a hero and more of a pawn being being controlled (by G-Man/the player). I got the impression that the crystal portal puzzle, with the grey metal architecture, and the fact they apparently needed a literal cave full of crystals to teleport hints that you are looking at a Combine project in Xen.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to play Black Mesa, and for its contribution to the HL community, but will always prefer the original. Nothing will ever evoke the same historic and nostalgic atmosphere. The original is perfect the way it is, and does not need its Xen chapter multiplied in length.
15:24 Don't feel bad about killing it , picture the amount of humans you saved from a fate worse than death , Being trapped in their own bodies , crying for help and no one is there to help them , being in severe pain for more than 20 years , waiting for their deaths , So I'd say killing the gonarch is the right thing to do , Let's not forget about how ANNOYING these head humpers are (**especially the fucking babies**)
Right on. Thanks for sharing.
Half-Life: Source has always been intended as a demonstration of ease of porting Goldsrc content to Source engine. That's why it isn't as polished as a proper port would be.
Halo CE, Duke Nukem 3D, Time Splitters and Doom 3 needs a remake like this.
I grew up with the original but always have my friends start with Black-Mesa.
15:19 someone has too much hp to be killed i guess
I was playing Black Mesa with my grandpa (that looks a lot like Gordon Freeman lol) when you published this video lol
I feel so great! after play the 2nd playthrough after xen get update (my 1st playthrough is 2017 and 2nd is 5/10/2023) and I get phd in pacifism achievement that time I feel like "Wait is that thing I do have a achievement too?" and "Hell yeah woooooooooooooooo"
Great breakdown Gamer.
Black Mesa's A.I. for the soldiers is so poorly done, that it killed off a good portion of my enjoyment when compared to Half-Life. Enemies will wildly strafe and backpedal while firing at you with incredible accuracy, are able to see through walls and will always know your location once engaged. It becomes much more noticeable once you reach Surface Tension. Additionally, there are issues with their animations where they may appear to be reloading, but are still able to fire at you. None of this combat feels fun, immersive, or even satisfying once it's over. The Xen portion was originally rushed and felt a bit out of place overall, but this version's just doesn't really do it much better, either. It's great that these devs were able to successfully recapture the majority of the original, but it just doesn't feel anywhere near as polished as it could have been, and I genuinely regret buying it. Hopefully plenty of others are able to enjoy Black Mesa and go back to see the original Half-Life for themselves, including Opposing Force and Blue Shift, as these games were all incredible for their time. Black Mesa just seemed to focus too much on the environmental aspects, but fell quite short on the technical portions to make it anything memorable for my taste.
Black mesa as a remake is a masterpiece
But it got flaws like the weird placement of certain soundtracks, and the level design sometimes could be misleading like the part after the tank fight at surface tension and lastly I know this seems too much but they understood xen wrong a bit,it's great but they made it so alive which is the opposite of the idea of xen,it's not bad it got one of best alien environments I saw in a game let alone fan remake infact ideas like research stations are well implied in genius but to be honest I don't think people should consider it the new canon instead of hl1
That's my opinion ofc
I dont think Xen is wrong, but it's a different interpretation that probably provided more variety in visual design than the original Xen, which suits it's significantly longer playtime
What is the misleading part after the tank fight though ? You can find your path very easily . There is not like so many different paths . I agree on the soundtrack in some places . Like for example in Blast pit chapter after activating power , fuel and stuff you return to place where the tentacles are and the music starts then . I think it should after pressing the button to burn the tentacles ,it will fit more.
@@ilkeribrahim6541 when I played black Mesa It was my first revist of the series since years
After that tank fight where you come out of a sewer and kick hecu ass there's alot of detailed places such a building with ladders and stuff and other doors at the garage which looks amazing but may make visual noise and that distracted me from exploring that small security door near the gate
@@ilkeribrahim6541 and yea the soundtrack is not bad at any way its amazing but misplaced at certain areas
@@thunderslug1066 well yes bm xen was the best alien environment I saw in a game let alone that it was fan remake
But I kinda expected the dark and strange unsettling world
The feeling was bit captured little bit at gornach and the factory though
You can actually skip the fight without killing it in the same room as the cyanogen tank insert you can do platforming to skip the fight
hell yea :D now do the hat achievement the pizza etc xd
Great video, do you planning to make video about Black Mesa blue shift?
Black Mesa was how i'd played Half-Life for the first time, and a couple of my friends who'd played the original when it released said that it was a damn good remake so i figured it was even more fine to play it.
and after binging it and all of Half-Life 2 (even got all the achievements in all 3 Half-Life 2's, but the Black Mesa ones are pointlessly stupid and/or grindy so i didn't bother), i'm now sad we don't have Half-Life 3 yet. I get it now.
but yeah, it's really good and definitely worth the price.
planning on buying the original whenever i've got the money so i can properly compare them both.
You're just gonna show the gonarch chase and fight without the epic music? How could you?
Oh god, that pistol sound. Sounds like a fallout 10mm, which i always hated because a caliber that big sounding like the gun equivalent of a wet towel being thrown at you just isn't it. The shotgun is a bit better overall, but still weak compared to the HL1 sound. Sound design can make or break the feel of a weapon. So it's always sad to see weapons that are fun gameplay wise to not deliver sound wise.
I know people shit on the black mesa MP5 for having less ammo per mag, but its actually realistic, as thats how much ammo it would have IRL.
I hope you'll cover the Black Mesa Blue Shift mod someday. When it's finished.
Also, just remember... _the pizza is a lie!_
This game alone mads my purchase of the steam deck worth it.
Bro 800 hp? 💀
Video is great btw
Really enjoyable content. The voice-over is way too fast though.
Playing it back at .75 speed sounds like normal speed.
The leitmotif used in the Xen music is extremely earworm-y.
The use of it is probably why the conveyor belt and elevator fights in Interloper felt more epic rather than tedious to me.
If those sections were silent, or used some other music, my immersion would have been lost entirely.\
Interloper on its finals levels with the alien controllers teleporting in mass while on the elevator becaus they really trying to stop gordon as they became aware that you a threat to Nihilanth wich with the music makes it more epic, as being the final defense between you and Nihilianth
And that interloper being long, i didn't minded, specially considering how badly the military was going towards the xen forces, seeing the mass production of alien grunts has a impact making of gordon's task of stopping the invasion with killing nihilanth more important now than given by the lamba team back on earth, considering that they are really losing already on the current amount sent to earth
Should have made on a rail longer and closer to the orginial
If anything I'd say the graphics of Half Life hold up, it's how stark and barren the level design and the set dressing in general are that doesn't. Even Blue Shift demonstrated a much better use of the Gold Source engine simply by virtue of how much _stuff_ Gearbox stuffed into every single space.
But then that just puts it in exactly the same camp as Doom. They both got massively overshadowed by their own immediate predecessors who did vastly better with the same game engine and expanded assets, but they're also both still really good games.
I rather think that Black Mesa and the Original play very diffrent.I would say that you should play Half-Life 1 if you have the extra eight bucks(or even 80 cents).I also have to disagree with your opinion on Interloper:I can get that you and many other people don't like these big puzzles that take a millenia to complete,I personally like less intense moments to calm down from all the action,but the elavator section at the end,I know many don't like ot,but for me it's the most memorable part of the game.That feeling I had when going up that elevator,as the music started to play and you hear all the controlled teleporting in.The peak was at the point where there were these big towers protected by these platforms,where you jump around and try to dodge hits.For me it was the most fun I had in a long time.I do still thibk that your Video is great.
15:45 were just not gonna talk about how bro has 890 health
When you use snarcs throw them into the room shortly after entering then run away far and wait till they explode
ah black mesa, the only source game to crush my framerate
8:50 BANG!
I just hate how people keep asking about BM being a replacement of HL1. It's not a replacement at all. If you play it without playing HL1 first, you miss out on a lot of things. It's a good reimagining, but people have to play HL1 first, and I hope they don't play the Source one either.
If I remember well, one of the Valve leads said that Black Mesa is a far superior product than Half Life, because it does grab everything they learned and applied it to HL1, to re-do it from zero. HL1 has issues and it's simply better to play Black Mesa
@@XaleyaYou _don't_ remember well, lol.
I know when I told my brother I was going to play half life, he told me about black mesa and how great it is. I thought I would rather play the HL1 first, and then BM. To experience what HL1 is all about. Despite the game being 2 years older than me (I'm 24). By the time I'm writing this comment, I'm not even halfway through HL1, and i'm loving the game a lot!
Just bought this, it looks awesome
Regarding the weapon sound design, I suppose the most realistic representation you can get would be if you went to a shooting range, and capture real sounds. Good luck with that on the grenade launcher, unless you can get on the line at a firing range at Fort Benning (oh wait. Some assholes decided to rename it "Fort Moore" for some idiotic reason. Don't care, it says Benning on my paperwork)
The "tripmine canyon" in Xen, is supposed to tell the story of the researcher who met his demise venturing into this canyon from the opposite end to you (the player). Most likely, he placed those behind himself to fend off the hostile fauna, as he was making his way back(to?) the forward observation station you came from. We actually see the HEV body at the beginning of that canyon. The problem with that theory though, is obviously that the mines were placed awfully close to each other over a very long distance, meaning that if anything was to trigger one at any point, it would've taken out the whole grid making it a massive waste of resources for such a single-serving affair. Cool story-telling concept, but poor execution from a level-design standpoint.
Everytime I complete the game and I see the past developers section in the credits I tera up honestly.. this is such an amazing game made with so much heart put into it and went on so much of a journey and I love the game a lot.
I'll never understand why people say some parts of xen get a bit tedious over time, while haven't finished the game yet (i had some PC issues when i got to the vortigaunts being controlled), i found myself constantly distracted by how beautiful and alive the environment looks, i guess i'll have to experience those later puzzles and stuff to see if they're really that boring
Black Mesa is my favorite Half-Life game
Dude what? What about just recording a shotgun and then using that recording for the in game weapon? That Glock sound you like so much sounds almost like some star wars laser.
13:07
Hostile Takeover reference 😊
Imo the main problem with Xen is because it is too pretty and has too much of an actual biome. For a remake so focused on fixing lore problems, this comes off as very generic imo.
Xen is a refuge to species hunted down by the Combine. It aint supposed to be pretty and the aliens arent supposed to be so accommotaded there because it isn't their world. It aint even a world tbh, it's a "border-world".
It looks cool and the context was so subtle in HL1 that I kinda accept it as a retcon that they were there for a long time and grew used to the biomes but it still feels weird, especially when you know that the aliens mainly attacked Earth to find another refuge.
If they were so accommodated at Xen, why try to so desperately escape to Earth?
Great video
This and the oblivion soundtrack are the greatest.
This review is a breath of fresh air after hearing this really odd review that decided to criticize Black Mesa for being "too different" from the original for all these weird nit-picky reasons, only fueled by nostalgia for Half Life 1 and its technical limitations that the other reviewer saw as a "choice in design".
Your review is awesome, and I think more people should try to see all the positive aspects in things.
5:50 I'm going to have to disagree with that, the black mesa workshop is one of the most difficult things i've ever had to install.
No
@@Marine_2010 I should have been more clear, when you compare it to other games that have workshop support it is the most obnoxious one. If a game has a workshop feature I shouldn't have to go into the files and fiddle around.
It'd be awesome if they now remade all of half life 2 in the source 2 engine
We as a community should demand Crowbar Collective to release the source code of the game so that people can continue its legacy through Mods!
They should be ashamed of not allowing people to use their code when they themselves started their game as a Mod.
There's so many amazing things that I see modders want to be able to do with this game, that they can't, because that'd require access to the source code.
Huh, what exactly can't be done at this point? I mean the Source SDK is pretty vast and avaiable for Black Mesa!
@@1lucia Black Mesa retail uses a modified proprietary version of Source. Luckily they opened their map bases and such but not the source code of their own version of the source engine.
Which means people can modify the maps, modify the graphics and sounds, but not add anything new or fix problems that would require changing the code.
I was browsing many Black Mesa mods recently and most of them complain that you can't add new things or that some things can't work as well as they could because there are bugs which can't be fixed without the source code. Some of them are in a perpetual state of "we'll make this work whenever CC releases their source code".
@@1lucia
Me personally, I've been meaning to learn how to mod Source and I'd would love to fool around trying to implement Zuka bats (the cut HL1 enemy) and scatter them around the On a Rail levels and the Xen levels (I'd simply start by making them as a re-skin of HL2's Manhacks) or reimplementing some of HL1's AI behaviors of the Houndeyes and Cockroaches. I haven't looked seriously into it but apparently it can't be done without access to the code.
There's also this vehicle section that was cut from HL1's Xen chapters, that would involve Gordon driving a research Jeep in low-gravity, and jumping over a bridge while avoiding King-Pins and Mr. Friendlies (more cut enemies), which I'd love to put back into the game. But apparently it can't be done.
I'm finally playing through BM full release and have resched Xen. So far I'm enjoying it but I don't think I like it more than HL1 so far.
The two objective negatives are the really bad anti aliasing that barely works, you can't even force it through nvidia control panel. I'm using DSR to run it at 1440p and downscale to my 1080p monitor to remove the aliasing. Also it's just kinda buggy and unpolished sadly, for example if I open the settings, all image previews for my saves show the settings menu.
My subjective issues come from not enjoying many of the level design changes and something just doesn't feel as enjoyable about combat.
Still as a fan creation I respect BM a ton. I just wish they'd add proper antialiasing and do another polish patch
Black Mesa is truly the Mesa of the black
What's with the subtitles popping in and out
Why
Interloper really did get boring for me and i played it for so long then i left and forgot about it. when i went back to black mesa and started playing the game over again, all of my Interloper saves were overridden so i couldnt continue, and i am not starting it all over again. and thats why ive never finished black mesa. the rest of the game is still good though👍
Gotta disagree with the sound design of the weapons. I love how they sound sharp and crispy. The shotgun sounds exlposive and powerful.
16:50 for me, Interloper visually looks amazing because is meant to be a meh-industrial área
But I agree on the puzzle part.. I didnt even know what or how I did it xD
Then I also agree, after platforming for so long it was becoming a bit tedious.. then the elevator, must confess I just wanted the Game to end at that point :(
i hope opearation black mesa and guard duty will success as black mesa
I've been gaming since '96 and still haven't played half life. It might be time
15:27 how did you get your health that high?
you can spare the gonarck
If i want to refresh half life lore by replaying all games then i would play black mesa i would play oryginal hl only if ive felt nostalgic for old games. I still remember playing half life oposing force after half life 2 and my eyes were in pain like literaly
i love Black mesa theres a reason why i have played it 30 times
more i guess i lost track on that