Black Mesa Valvetime review

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#141

Pretty much. I’ve been calling it a “game” rather than a “mod” from the very beginning. Because, realistically speaking, what is the game a mod of? It draws bits and pieces from probably everything ever made on Source, but takes no large chunks or complete frameworks from anything. To me, there’s enough original content and hard work in Black Mesa to make it functionally indistinguishable from something like Left 4 Dead or the host of other games coming out that use the source engine.

It’s not a Half-Life 2 mod, that’s for sure. There’s nothing resembling Half-Life 2 in it.

#142

I’m just going to go ahead and echo what other people said - it would raise eyebrows if you were this critical about a commercial game without mentioning the positive elements. Never mind a mod recreating one of the best games of all time (of which your site Valve Time is a fan of no doubt), that took 8 years and doesn’t cost a penny. I know for sure you have a right to criticise a game, and most of the points were legitimate complaints, it’s just frankly insensitive to pitch such an unbalanced ‘review’ at something that has been done as a service to Half-Life’s fans.

Looking at the actual points you made, I can agree with you that there were occasional bugs and random crashes. They were a little frustrating but autosave points were quite close together, so I never found it to be a big problem. As for the voice acting, I don’t get the hate for the soldiers because I’ve never heard anyone say they had more personality in HL1? I can see why creating believable personalities for the hundreds of grunts in the game might be a little tough too, so better that you make them seem aggressive than simply silent cardboard cut-outs. In any case, I personally thought the guard and scientist VAs were absolutely great. The music being loud and badly timed is true at times, mainly because HL2 conditioned me to feel like a battle is coming on as a pumping track starts, whereas in BM I felt like I was wasting the pumping track because I was usually walking around looking for supplies when tracks came on. I think though that that is something easily fixed if the mod developers want to do so. Certainly the songs themselves weren’t the problem, as I thought they were all very enjoyable (I’ve got them on my iPod as well).

So if I may ask, what did you think was improved over HL1 apart from the visuals? I feel like you placed a lot of emphasis on the ‘feel’ of it (despite the fact that I think most of that ‘feel’ has been lost to the sands of time). I understand this is a very personal expectation, but surely you have to see that basing your expectations on experiences from 1998 aren’t going to hold up? They never do with games, and that’s because that ‘feel’ is just as much to do with who you were when you played it as the game itself.

#143

music is pretty much the only thing he said something good

Is he another member of Valvetime or something?

#144

Well, I see your point in wanting to point out things thay maybe other reviewers didnt, I really do. But don’t you still agree that you put up soo many bad insights that it doesnt seem like a B graded game? I don’t know what grades you are used with but where I’m from A is max, E is worst, which would mean B is 75-80%. And to me that’s a decent grade, which really doesnt shine through the rest of the review. Or is C worst where you’re from?

As for the length of the review, I can only speak on behalf of myself. But I’m used to reading / watching very through reviews at maybe 3 A4 pages with lots of insights and thoughts. I wouldnt mind at all to watch a 15-20 minute review if it held Good standards and decent points with much useful information not only putting up a list with pros and cons. Because, as a critic you are supposed to question the games you play objectively and not favourize or trash talk (not saying you did this here) them - which I solely think you know. The more info the better - even if both you and I know that a review at 1 hour would be silly :>

Do you know where Im getting at?

#145

im glad they at least can review the game as it is without being fanboyish because it finally came out.

i do think though that the voice acting was fine except for the soldiers which really were terrible. and the level design and visuals i thought were also fine.

but they hit it spot on with the bad weapon balance. seriously nobody asked for a re-balance so why did they? if it aint broke dont fix it, and they tried fixing it and made it worse.

#146

It’s not that they are not valid points. It’s that they are (for the most part) minor stuff.

Are you seriously telling me that the lack in quality for the crowbar animation is not a nitpick? Or the music being too loud? When you try to stack up really small details while not mentioning, disregarding, or brushing aside the things that make this mod great, you’re not being fair.

#147

NO! i havent said that, I pretty much enjoyed BMS and it is 99% what I espect it to be, and you are right, some of them are minor stuff, but minor stuff is still stuff that should be taken care of, there is no point in deniing that. People seem to think that because someone says something bad about a small portion of the game you hate the game completaly, and thats not the case.

Plus, there are quite a few that are not just “minor”, the performance issue been one of them.

#148

Nope. If you watch the review, they spend far more time talking about the negatives than the positives. I’m not saying that you should not point out minor stuff, I’m saying that you should not nitpick small problems and brush aside the good stuff. Shitty crowbar animations = nitpicking. Overdetailing makes button-finding hard = nitpicking (and also, higly debatable). And so on.

#149

If no one agrees with ValveTime, there’s no reason for anyone to pay attention to them. Ever.

#150

@Malidictus
I actually find that Half-Life is in an interesting middle ground of having fun and playing itself straight. I mean who hires Harry S. Robbins to voice a character without being a little tongue in cheek about it? There’s also the scientist hiding ON TOP OF a damn generator as his safe spot. The beginning also has it’s fair share of silly. Later on though it feels much more straight, with a semi-serious sci-fi alien invansion plot coupled with the standard government conspiracy backdrops. Part of why I think I like it is that Half-Life manages to couple these aspects in such a way that one can yield to the other depending on the circumstance.

For calling it a game or mod, I have been swapping back and forth pretty arbitrarily. It’s more than a mod, but I’d not go so far as to outright call it it’s own game.

@OllyTrolly
What did Black Mesa improve over Half-Life excluding visuals? Honestly, I can’t think of a thing. I don’t consider that a catastrophic failing, but when BM did try to improve upon Half-Life I feel they generally fell short. Perhaps in reducing the number of level loads it was improved, having larger levels.

I won’t deny that I’ve brought up the feel of that game before but when you choose to remake a game such as Half-Life I feel like striving to meet that goal is as vital as it is in making the weapons work as they used to. I can always just go back and play the original if need be, and most likely will, as Black Mesa really got me hankering to play the real deal.

@lucifer579
I don’t mean to dismiss the comments on ratings, but I do want to stress as I have in past posts that I don’t feel the grades are the most important bit, and that we have onyl done a few other reviews so the scale is not yet solidified. Were it my choice we’d not do scores at all, but they can be an important shorthand for some.

Doing longer reviews, we’ll certainly consider it. It is a bit late for Black Mesa, but if another mod or project deserves similar attention perhaps we will have a shorter review for people with less time and a longer one that delves into more detail. I don’t handle the video editing however so I can only say that from a sound and writing perspective I’d be open to it. My ideal situation for a review is to say what I disliked, why I disliked it, and what could be done to fix it. We just can’t always afford the luxury.

[A Note]
Please refrain from name calling. Moderators have already taken action elsewhere in dealing with it and they shouldn’t need to keep purging the thread. We can all discuss this without having to resort to insults.

#151

#152

This thread is spiraling into arguments and name calling fast. Unless it returns to civil discussion just as fast I’m gonna close it.

#153

Im sorry, but I don’t think you answered my question really.
Sure, the grades might not be to focus at. But then why bother to put them up in the first place? Because if the grade you put up cannot reflect what you said in the interview you lose credit as a reviewer, imo. Do YOU think the grade was appropiate in line with your review and opinions? I don’t.

If you want to put up a review with dislike, why and a solution, then do so.
Because here’s where you gain cred with the crowd of people wathing your reviews. A good review is a non-stressed one. Take YOUR time and let the review be as long as it takes for YOU to show something that reflects your beliefs and thoughts well.

This goes for everything in general, not only this review.

#154

I was so angry when I saw this review. They must have something against the devs because everything they hated I loved! I thought the Voice acting was excellent. Every aspect of the mod felt like a true AAA game and nothing close to a standard community mod.

TOO MUCH DETAIL ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! Thats like saying an artist painted something too realistic! I had no trouble at all finding the GIANT GLOWING RED BUTTON.

Man its a discrace to Valve that the channel has the name “Valve” in it. Fucking awful review. I truely thought all the voice acting was superb, a FEW lines here or there that felt meh but EVERY ACTUAL RETAIL GAME HAS STUFF LIKE THAT IN IT!

No respect for something that is free and created out of love for the game and community. Man I’m all riled up now!

#155

grades should just go from the industry, really. There is no way you can summarize something as complex as a game with a simple 5 star system, 100 points, or A/B/C grade. If the viewer cant figure out if the game is good or bad by watching the review and needs a grade to the end to give him the yay or nay, then its his damn problem

#156

Haha, soo true.
You can smell the butthurt in that revirew.

It is an obvious joke, I mean they gave the Silent Escape mod an A- and it has mapping design that’s more simplistic than most HL1 mods, just empty corridors with props and zombies, horrible “cutscenes” with retarded slow-mo and voice acting that makes Microsoft Bob sound good.

Typical nerd baiting to get views.
Guess they don’t care for future credibility.

#157

@lucifer579
Sorry for not answering you actual question last time. Second time’s the charm I hope. For the review scores, frankly that’s just not my call. When we first started I suggested we ignore them entirely, but it just wasn’t in my control. It’s a REALLY unsatisfactory answer to that I know, but it’s the best I have. As part of working collaboratively I sometimes have to swallow the bitter pill and just go with it and do the best I can.

For taking our time and spending the time needed to say all we want to say, hopefully we can find better balances in the future. We’re still rather new on producing video content for things other than a weekly round up video. We all do our best and try hard, but we won’t always nail down the process and end result on the head. I stand by our statements. I would not retract any of them, but give the chance I would want to go into more detail.

Let me know if I failed to get the point yet again. It’s not beyond me. =]

#158

I understand where they’re coming from with a mainly critical review; if they included what they liked, the length would have been exponentially longer.
However, the topics chosen for critism, and the severity in which you felt necessary to criticize some points (loud music) became ridiculous.

#159

I must be one of the few people who had never heard of Valvetime before watching this video review, so maybe I was a little more objective when listening to it.
That said, the review standing by itself was almost dismissive of BM.
If I had been new to the Half Life world, it may well have put me right off.
This is maybe the reason I don’t read or watch reviews.
There’s just so much subjectivity in them.

#160

^ That’s the thing about this review. Of course if a game is good a review with a lot of criticism shouldn’t put people off from playing it, but I know far too many people who will base their decisions of whether or not to try something, even free games, off of a single bad review they hear.

I have say I felt the criticism of the weapons was way off. Yes the balancing was off for some of them, but they were generally animated pretty well and all have a sufficient “kick” to them, especially the revolver and even the glock. The animation work isn’t super fancy, but I see too many games now that just exaggerate animations to make everything look “cool”, and they are definitely better then the HL2 weapon animations, and I’d say some of them were pretty close in feeling to the HL1 animations.

Also James I have to ask, how do you feel about HL1’s Xen?

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.