Do you think Black Mesa is "Valve Quality"?

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#61

In general, after my third play through, I have to say most of the battles are pretty spectacular, it was exactly what I was expecting, and more. I was a bit bummed from the lack of alien vs grunt battles or the emphasis on an Alien invasion as well. While it’s not up to par with Valve’s work, it’s certainly up there, and I will keep both on my drive for quite a while.

I customized my skill.cfg and refined it to be more on a realistic level, the first play through was pretty brutal, but after getting used to it I managed to get through the game with out turning on God mode once and died far less frequently. Beyond that, the combat was satisfying, even if lacking the occasional alien vs grunt fight here and there.

I do hope they include some of the cut content after (it’s actually more of an if) it gets finished. I would love to see some more content and have an initiative to restart the game from scratch.

#62

What no one can deny is, that these guys have talent… too bad they didn’t have access to a newer Source and other software + money and support.

#63

Yeah. All things considered, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Valve hired some of the devs; the do have a history of it.

#64

It’s almost within hugging distance of Valve quality, but it’s mostly held back by the asinine amounts of crouch jumping. Valve would have focus tested that annoying habit to oblivion.

#65

Yup. :slight_smile:

#66

Valve quality no! It is still the most amazing mod I have ever played however!

#67

Yes, I think it is.

Remakes I’ve played:
[COLOR=‘SeaGreen’]Super Prince of Persia,
[COLOR=‘SeaGreen’]Dune 2000,
Conker - Bad Fur Day Reloaded
Super Mario All-Stars,
Ninja Gaiden Trilogy,
[COLOR=‘SeaGreen’]Star Fox 64 (considered a remake of Star Fox (Super NES),
Star Fox 64 3D,
Super Mario 64 DS,
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D,
[COLOR=‘SeaGreen’]Earthworm Jim,
Super Street Fighter II Turbo Hyper Remix,
GoldenEye Wii (more of a reboot),
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes,
[COLOR=‘SeaGreen’]Resident Evil (GameCube).

The thing with remakes: You always need to sacrifice some stuff for many reasons. One of them is to update to the new standard. The ambitious plan of giving Super Street Fighter II Turbo an HD format, didn’t work, because they wanted to keep every frame of every character the same so that it wouldn’t feel different. This made the HD work look choppy and ‘old’.
MGS1 remake was cool, but felt even more linear, because the controls were updated, while the bosses’ AI weren’t. And even though the levels were updated, they didn’t feel like they were meant for this new control system, either.

Playing Black Mesa, I felt as if I were sent back to when I played it for the first time on our—then—super gaming PC. After I completed it, I started playing the original again, and I was amazed how idealized my memories were of it. The game clearly looks very dated, the dialogue is of clear low audio quality, and the controls—while fluid—are quite unrealistic.

Black Mesa isn’t flawless, no. I miss the sudden elevator fall after you press the button to continue further. I like the new Houndeye’s howling, but I miss the BullSquid’s crying, though I love its new spitting and the radioactive junk’s glowing. Then again, Bullsquid is now probably my favorite character. Lastly, the Marines’ taunting are flawed and too over the top.

Though these decisions were made. And that’s like three complaints, where only the Marines’ changes affect the story (now, they know and are ordered to especially kill Gordon from the start). And, had Valve made this HL1 update, I bet they would’ve had to make the same hard decisions to change things or not, resulting in some sacrifices, some complaints. Probably different ones, but still, complaints.

The new puzzles are great. The added dialogue, included women, the music… I could go on. So much is done so well. And all for free. If it would’ve said: made by Valve, and the product would’ve cost me money, I would’ve believe it and buy it.

#68

Its very close since when you think about it this mod is free and cost nothing so i would say its the best mod i have played on a game if i would rank them all this is for sure number one for me. They could easily charged 10-15$ and i would gladly payed havent encountered any bugs or crashes yet and it plays like a very nice game that deserves all credit to the makers.

#69

Some more sound effects would be nice, especially hitting some surfaces with crowbar sounds weird, and now you have mentioned the Bullsquid, yes… it makes fewer noises than in the original, but this goes for other enemies as well… too bad :frowning:

#70

The only “Valve” games I’ve played are Half-Life and Team Fortress II, so I can’t really say anything about the “valve quality”.

Black Mesa is a very good and strong game.
It probably has some flaws, but they weren’t important to me while I was playing.

#71

Exceeds Valve’s attention to detail and animations (besides the crowbar) in many ways (bridge crumbling was PHENOMENAL!). I encountered no bugs/errors besides crashing to desktop 2-3 times through my entire playthrough, and my only real issue is with the marines difficulty (simply increasing the time they notice you would fix it imo, you can’t really sneak past them except for in the sewers on Surface Tension). I can’t even remember how many moments this game literally took my breath away, every other minute I was gasping at an incredible view or some spectacular new animation/cool as shit texture (like when hit with the bullsquid’s spray). It’s not on Valve’s level of voice acting, AI, or performance (with the crashes and all), but it sure as fuck is on their level of level design, animation, texture design, detail, effort, and the list goes on and on. I had a better time playing this game than any of the Valve games. This game did a spectacular job of giving the player breathtaking views and it did a very good job with pacing. Just my two cents.

#72

Yes and no. Yes, for that they did a very good job, and, obviously enough, gave everything they could to achieve the best possible level of quality. No, for the fact that Valve has a incomparable means, resulting in amazingly polished games, where a mod like BMS can not attain that level of perfection and being tested to such an extent at the moment of its release.

That said, it’s certainly one of the best, if not the best, mod I’ve ever played. And I’ll probably won’t play the original Half Life again much, because of it :wink:

#73

No. - Not saying they’re worse, just different. BM did some things better, but they also did some things worse. Valve is very good about keeping everything very consistent throughout. If the two were compared on a line graph, they would both be about the same height, but BM would be a big wavy sine curve, and Valve would be a straight line down the middle. Both quality products, but different feels.

#74

It does have Valve Quality, the mod looks beautiful, is great to play, recreats the world at the Black Mesa Research Facility quite well and if they listen to the community to get rid of the bugs and change some gameplay stuff (AI and such), animations (crowbar), … this mod is gonna be even better …

#75

I took a look at Narbacular Drop, which was the inspiration for Portal. Many that worked on Narbacular Drop were hired by Valve to work on Portal. Narbacular Drop was very crude and definitely not Black Mesa quality, so, it is my assertion that Black Mesa IS Valve quality.

Same with “Tag” and the inspiration for Portal 2.

#76

Graphics-wise, yes. But over-all, just almost, nearly. With some gud fixing, it would be perfect.

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.