Oh yeah, almost as scary as Half-Life at some parts. At some parts more scary than the original, but whenever I felt trapped I just went on thinking
“If you’re smart, if you value your continued existance. If you have any plans of seeing tomorrow, there’s one thing you never, ever put in a trap. Me.”
Oh I remember that
I have played BMS twice since I finally got the download to work and have yet to have an “OH S***!” moment. Sadly, that means I must declare that BMS is so far NOT as scary as HL1 was for me when I started playing in 2000. Even when I quit playing HL1 in 2008 (my computer died and I lost all my favorite mods as well) I still felt like I could die plenty of times.
So far, only one death in BMS and that was when my whiskey bottle fell over on my hand while I was making a jump onto a crate over an endless chasm. It was kinda fun watching my guy just run right off the edge into that chasm. Never really done that before in a game; a new experience. Funny how alcohol can change your life even when you are not drinking it.
IMO, fear isn’t being startled by a sudden movement, it’s being completely filled with dread of moving foward, fear builds up, it’s not one socond of “oh shit i wasnt expecting that!”, play amnesia in a dark room.alone.with headphones, then youll experience true fear, it’s not what you can see, it’s what you can’t see. But as far as BM being “scary”, i don’t know if scary applies, i never really thought of HL as scary. I think foreboding is a better word, seeing all the executed guards and scientists in QE sent a chill down my spine, especially because of the lack of HECU in the early areas. Pretty creepy.
In my case, a bunch of Poison’s do. Not a second of “OH SHIT” rather than having occassional nightmares since summer holidays. Totally worth it.
half life is not a scary game, so black mesa is not a scary game 2.
1984, and, together with Farenheith 451, Brave New World and Us, it’s one of the books that could or possibly have a straight up relationship with the HL2 storyline.
Anyway, I found Black Mesa to be actually not scary, but I was constantly training myself to use weapons such as the .357, the Crossbow and the Satchel Charge, due to my ability to set traps (in my co-op playthrough of Resident Evil 5 with a friend, I carried the explosives and a shotgun) and a slightly comfort with weapons that are insanely powerful in damage.
I found myself in the dam to be sniping with the Crossbow (and believe me, I suck at sniping), just to the running with the .357 (already a few guys down - 4), shooting down 2 guys with it, throwing a Satchel and detonating it shortly after, destroying the Marine squad. That made me feel "oh, hey, this is more of a “keep supplies and good aim and you’ll be fine”, instead of a “Um, this is scary…”
I found several moments to be scary in Black Mesa - the elevator flood caused my FPS to die, the tentacles were just THAT scary, I was insanely afraid and conforted at the same time when I picked up the Crossbow, the Assassin warehouse in Aprehension was kind of paranoic - it wasn’t exactly a terror à la Dead Space, it was more of a Edgar Allan Poe terror - mind terror. I was scared due to the flood and not knowing if I was going to drown in there, the tentacles were scary due to the fact that they dealed heavy damage, the Crossbow sequence was scary due to the goddamn Ichytosaur in the water, and the Warehouse was scary due to assassins being something that made me have trouble considering my terrible aim.
Black Mesa has that feel of “Fuck, what the hell happened? I’ll just fight my way through and be badass” and Half Life have that feel of “Shit, I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE”. Mainly because we played Half Life first, then Black Mesa.
We did not have the same amount of knowledge, so we were scared each time a new enemy showed up. Black Mesa fights against this with nothing but pure badassery. The Dam in ST, the Ambush in QE and the WHG finale (with the goddamn epic bass sequence) were awesome due to the fights, and I think that’s how they fought against a bigger player knowledge.
Oh, thank God it’s not just my computer.
For me, Black Mesa isn’t as much scary or creepy as it is just giving you a feeling of apprehension - very slight, and you hardly know it’s there until a headcrab leaps out at you from a vent for the first time. In my humble opinion, Unforeseen Consequences was easily the scariest chapter. I probably don’t really have to explain why… at the beginning I lingered for a second to see if the scientist ended up reviving the guard like in the original. Then I moved on and CRASH and BOOM and FIZZLE and CREEPY MUSIC and THE FREAKING INTRODUCTION TO CROUCH-JUMPING WITH THAT FLIPPING HEADCRAB and MUFFINS and G-MAN… it was pretty terrifying, in the dark at an alien-infested, barely-operational facility, even when I had a security guard by my side.
Well it’s hard to say if I find Black Mesa more or less scarier than Half-Life 1 since I knew what to expect. I did find Half-Life 1 a bit scary.
I do want to say that I did not like the first introduction of the alien race at the anti-mass spectrometer. In comparison with Half-Life 1, it was too obvious we are dealing with aliens. (In Half-Life 1 it was darker thus I was confused and a bit frightened what I just saw).
Speaking of darkness, darkness is a very important factor in making games scary. Here is a nice youtube that sums up 10 elements that makes games scary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KIaZvu39Po
I don’t know if I’d call it scary.
A lot of the “scare” in HL1 for me was due to jump-scares. First time playing, finding headcrabs in vents was not fun.
Subsequent playthroughs of HL1 were nowhere near as frightening. There are some parts that actually still make me tense up (i.e. running from the Garg at the end of ST or PU), and there’s certainly still an “unsettling” vibe to the game.
With Black Mesa, I knew most of what was going to happen because I had played Half-Life. I don’t quite have a photographic memory of HL1, but in BM, even with areas that were extensively redesigned, a lot of the time I could go “oh hey, it’s this area”. I could “track” my position in a BM level vs. where I’d be in the HL1 equivalent and prepare myself for anything lying ahead because of it.
I don’t know if I worded that very well, bluh.
Having said that, though - Black Mesa was definitely a more empathic experience. I felt the same way about Half-Life, but Source’s capabilities only enhance it.
I don’t find myself jumping or going “OH SHIT” because of things happening in BM (not to be confused with an “aw crap” moment), but it does a lot more - for me at least - in the psychological horror aspect.
Even already knowing what would happen, I can’t think of anything in the Half-Life series that hit me as hard as walking out of the test chamber post-Cascade in BM. Just, the entirety of that section up until you meet the first (alive) Security Guard… I thought that was incredible.