How did you discover Black Mesa/The Half-life Series?

#1

In this thread you can share your stories about how you discovered Half-Life or Black Mesa. Did you follow the Series since HL1 or did you first play HL2? Did you experience the launch of these games or did you recently catch up?
I also apologize in advance if there already exists a thread like this, I couldnt find one.

I didnt really knew anything about Half-life when a german Youtuber called Gronkh started a Lets Play of Black Mesa Source. I have played Portal 2 before (a friend of mine recommended it to me) and knew it was somehow related to Half-Life, but nothing more. I enjoyed the LP a lot and decided to download the game and play it on my own. It was also the first Singleplayer-Shooter I’ve played until then. After finishing playing Black Mesa on my own I enjoyed it very much and wanted more. I immediatly ordered the Orange Box (ordered it from Canada because the german version is horribly censored) and used the time waiting for it to watch a LP of the Xen Chapters as I wanted to know how HL1 ended before playing the sequel. I then played (and Steam-perfected) Portal1, HL2 and its Episodes and am now patiently waiting for Half-Life 3 like anybody else.

(Also: Can anybody tell me if its worth playing HL1(Source?) and its Expansions from a modern standpoint? (I dont have any nostalgia attached to them, obviously) I know the games I just didnt play them)

Edit: I also realised that this is probably the wrong forum for this as this topic would better fit into ‘technology and gaming’

#2

I stole my dad’s Steam account sometime before I was 10 years old (I think I was 7, but it’s hard to remember). It had the starter pack with the whole shebang loaded onto it, all the Half-Life games, CS, and so on that was available on Steam back in the day. I changed the email address and contact information to my personal details, and started playing all the games he had. I still use that account to this day, which explains why my Steam account name suspiciously does not match my given name.

I played Half-Life 2 first, because my dad was playing it all the time and I wanted to see what it was all about. This was back in the day when HL2 was considered the “OMGSUS TEH MOST REALISTIC GAEM EVAR”, which I thought was cool. I never fully appreciated the expository dialogue and the references to the original Half-Life, though, until I decided to fire up HL on the Steam account one day. Then the rest was history. Despite it being a “dated” game by my standards at the time, I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I hated the Xen levels because seriously what the hell.

#3

I had played Wolfenstein 3D as a youngster and heard from a friend that Quake was better because the monster models were not sprites, so I decided to check it out. It was outstanding at the time.

Then I got into Quake 2. While playing some deathmatch, I heard about this upcoming game that used a modified version of the Quake engine called “Half-Life” and it was supposed to have this kind of running story to it. A running story in a FPS game? I had to see this. I bought Half-Life in the stores and the rest is history.

#4

I just realized that this thread also asks for how we discovered Black Mesa, which I forgot to mention.

So when I was around 11, I was a n00b starting to get into the whole Source Engine mapmaking gig with Hammer. I became a fairly active member of the Valve Developer Community Wiki, learning to make awful leaky blocky maps of my own. One day, I was browsing the community mods page on the VDC Wiki, downloading any singleplayer mod that looked cool (e.g. MINERVA, Combine Destiny, etc.). One of the mods that looked really cool was Black Mesa: Source (as it was still called at the time). It looked really friggin awesome, so I found myself checking the website and the wiki page every day for updates. Now I’m almost 20, Black Mesa has released twice (and is no longer called “Source”), and my mapping skills have improved to the point where I can map for the Hazard Course dev team. My, how things have changed…

#5

For Half-Life, I was super little, and it was around '98-2000. My uncle had burned it onto a CD and gave it to my parents, who then let me play it. I remember wandering aimlessly around Anomalous Materials spraying walls. A few years later, I got it as my first game with my PS2, and being old enough to actually make progress, I fell in love with it quick. I got super hype when I found out there was a sequel and expansions beyond Decay.

For Black Mesa, I came across it around 2006/7 surfing Half-Life related Wikipedia pages, or something to that effect. I lurked the forums for years, before creating one just before a crash, and then not creating another for almost a year after that. It’s one of the main reasons I had an interest in modding. So yeah, Black Mesa has been a major interest of mine and influence for literally over half of my life. Good job, team. You stole the life of a little boy and replaced it with Source mod levels. I hope you’re happy.

#6

Was at my dad’s friends local computer shop back in early 1999 where I would play Doom and be a little shit and install new games that came into the shop, 1 day a huge box turned up with a brand new game called Half Life, I was only interested in it because the game box was orange as fuck and thought it would look cool on my wall at home, that day started my Half Life adventure, was pretty damn awesome, moved onto Blue shift & opposing force after that and well, into the crazy world of steam gaming later on.

Fast forward to 2007, I pick up a PC mag from the local newsagents as it has a cover story on Half Life 2 episodic content (anything about new HL stuff at this point was a must read for me) I get home and start reading, get to the mods section and there it is.

Black Mesa Source.

“Holy crap”

And now I’ve been following this damn thing for years :smiley:

#7

I walked into my brother’s room one day to watch him play games, and he was part-way through Half-Life. I think this was around 2004, so it was only a few months before he got HL2 on launch.

For BM, I believe I was reading Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman and one of the post-comic notes Chris Livingston had written mentioned it in passing. Either that or I found it on the VDC like DKY did.

#8

I discover Half-Life in early 2000s from a PS2 gaming magazine that I can’t remember what it’s called. Then few months later I get to chance to play the demo of it on my PS2 from another PS2 mag that comes with a demo disc. And one I was disappoint is not the gameplay or anything else about the game, It’s just demo has to make the game short because I just want to play it even more. So I have the rent the game from a video store to play the full game of it. So I played it, love it and I’ve been following HL series ever since.

As for Black Mesa, I discover it 5 years ago from a gaming magazine PC PowerPlay while I was working at the newsagency. And I was pretty excited when I first read it and I just can’t wait to get my hands on it, that is until 2012 when it first launched. So yeah, that’s pretty much all I got to say.

#9

As for how I came across Black Mesa:

I was playing Action Quake 2 with friends for a while and was enjoying the custom maps so I wondered if the “Action” mod team did anything for Half-Life. I found “Action Half-Life” and, while my friends weren’t playing it, it turned me on to the idea of Half-Life mods, so I searched around. I came across Blue Shift and Opposing Force which I played a lot of. But that wasn’t enough for me. I’ve played everything from Azure Sheep to Point of View, but I wanted even more.

Half-Life 2 came out and I started searching around for mods for that. I saw a port of Half-Life called “Half-Life: Source” and played some of that, but it was just Half-Life with some additional stuff so I wanted more. Then I found this mod calling itself “Black Mesa: Source” and it was purported to have updated graphics for Half-Life, so I began watching the mod.

Then I began posting on the forum for it. The madness took hold.

#10

It can be said that my journey towards the HL universe was somewhat stupid, but interesting at the same time.

Growing up in a city where, by the time I’ve learned about HL, CS was extremely popular and almost every kid was playing, I first discovered that CS started out as a HL1 mod. Then I though ,What is a mod and why would CS be based on it,. I’ve found very fast what was a so-called mod and that CS was based on its content, rather than a (for ex.) remake/continuation of it.

After this I began to be interested in the game and watched some gameplay videos on YT! (I was around 11yrs old when this happened (@2007). It felt very unique, something I’ve never played (and rightfully so. Before CS I’ve played only NFS and GTA), and the way it was played amazed me. I’ve downloaded it soon after I’ve read about it and the universe, although I hadn’t watched any walkthroughs, so I had no idea what was going on more exactly and what the hell I need to do. I think I’ve played it until I reached Unforeseen Consequences, then I basically got lost in the facility, very, very confused, and ceased to play the game and went back to CS. I didn’t play a lot of FPS’ after this however. Basically, I’d lost my interest in the genre somehow.

I came back to it, however, in 2011 or so. Since at that time I though that the graphics are the most important in a game and not the actual gameplay (I know, very stupid way of thinking), I didn’t want to play HL1 and chose HL2 instead. This time I was able to play the game from start to finish. Since I wasn’t at that time a gamer and played very few games, the graphics, atmosphere, gameplay, and story of HL2 just amazed me and it easily became the best game I’ve ever played. I enjoyed the subsequent episodes just as much as the original game. However, I knew that not playing a game that is widely regarded as a masterpiece (and rightfully so) just for being ,old, was just dumb, and began playing HL1 again. And this time I finished it :slight_smile: , although the longest part in the game was, for me, On a Rail, for the simple reason of being just… like a huge maze. I think I’d wasted a week after which I started shooting everything because I couldn’t find a way to progress in the game, and noticed that I was able to rotate the signs, which opened the way. The Xen part was probably the best part of the game for me. It was simply unique, I loved it. And of course, I’ve played Opposing Force and Blue Shift (I consider the latter to be the weakest in the HL1 series, but still a good game nonetheless).

Then I found HL:S, played it a little but never actually finished it (again). It just felt very, very cheap, and I considered it as a waste of time. Although I’d found some HD/UD packs and jumped back in, and it was a lot more enjoyable this way, I still wasn’t satisfied. The ,game, was basically a simple damn port and nothing more, incredibly lazy.

Then I took an interest in modding and played a total amount of over 100 mods (mostly for HL2, and very few for HL1). The best HL1 mods I’ve played are by far Point of View, Zombie Edition, Sven Co-Op, They Hunger, and Life’s End. I’ve played many smaller mods than these but none were as enjoyable. And for HL2, Human Error (both Episode and and Co-Op, although despite and early beta, Co-Op was a lot of fun), The Citizen, and Mission Improbable. I’d also say Combine Destiny, but it was nothing more than playing from a Combine Soldier’s perspective, and a, honestly, lame one, compared to Human Error, although I appreciate their effort.

And finally, around the end of 2011 I discovered Black Mesa :slight_smile: (very late, since the development started in 2004-2005 I believe) (Once I found BM I also found OBM and GD). It just amazed me by how ambitious it was, and I’ve anxiously waited it to come out, and followed it ever since. I’ve learned that it was initially scheduled for release in 2009, which drove me away from it unfortunately. As a consequence, each time I’ve heard about it I was like ,Oh, it’s that HL1 remake, hope they’ll release it someday, yeah…,. And, to my astonishment, it did in fact come out in 2012. It was beyond my expectations, I never though that such an ambitious project will come into being one day, but it did. It was well worth the wait, although I was a bit disappointed by Surface Tension as they cut some areas (On a Rail, honestly, didn’t really bother me so much). Either way, it was great, and the 2015 version is even better. Also, Multiplayer is available :slight_smile: .

It never bothered me that Xen was not included because I understood the team’s goal, so I’ve always been patiently waiting for (and still am, and I know it’ll be worth the wait. That’s undeniable).

And this is how I found the HL universe (and Black Mesa), and I’m glad that I did :slight_smile: .

#11

Like danielsangeo I’ve been playing FPS games since the grandfather of them all - Wolfenstein 3D. I was heavily into Doom and Duke Nuk’em 3D as a kid, was never a big fan of Quake or Quake 2 though. I saw a friend playing Half-Life at the back end of 1998, and remember the intriguing magazine ads (a sepia toned picture of a vulnerable looking child with lambdas for pupils, nothing at all to do with the game but very eye-catching and original) and the rave reviews and buzz. Got it myself and played it through probably in early 1999, and was just blown away. Even just the cinematic style opening credits were a revelation at the time, let alone the whole first section being without a gun, or enemies, but just setting the tone and introducing the world and story.

I think PCZone magazine running a feature on BM introduced me to it, back when Denzil was still running the colossal BM Steam Forum thread, and the BM:S website and forums had just broken away from the original Leak Free. I apparently just missed the ‘purism war’ on the forums, although there was still bickering about how pure a recreation of every tiny facet of HL BM should be, rather than re-imagining/improving/expanding where appropriate. As I write this all the Pro-gamer/Adrenaline Gamer fan bitching about bhop, circle-strafe, etc. suddenly seems very much like history repeating itself.

I also remember when the ‘Steam News’ pop-up window used to be actual news snippets written by Valve staff rather than just a series of adverts for new releases and special offers, and Valve mentioned BM for the first time. At the time lots of people were wondering if Valve would shut BM down with a Cease and Desist notification for using their intellectual property, so it was really massive news when Valve highlighted the mod in their own news item and said they were looking forward to playing it. At one and the same time that makes it seem incredible, and yet also almost inevitable, how we ended up with Valve coming to an agreement with CC to sell BM on Steam all these years later! :slight_smile:

#12

I’m pretty sure I had heard about it before, probably on X Play in the early 2000s. Though it wasn’t something I was that familiar with but I saw the PS2 version of HL1 at EB games and picked it up. Don’t think I ever beat it but that was the first time I played HL1. Then I got the Orange Box on the 360 and beat HL2 and both episodes I think. At some point I bought all the games on Steam when I started moving more towards playing games on PC. I remember X Play’s coverage of HL2 before it was released and when they reviewed it. Man, I miss X Play.

#13

I miss ZDTV, before it became TechTV… before it became G4.

#14

I became acquainted with Half-Life 1 around the same time it was released however at that time I did not play any games myself. At first I simply watched when my brothers played games, Half-Life being one of them. This was back in the day when computers was still new so we only had one we had to share between us. I was always fascinated with the game so when I started to play on my own and get my own computer Half-Life was the game of choice for me. I also played through the expansions with the same glee.

Then the hype for the sequel started and I can remember very clearly how my brothers and I watched a promo video that the displayed how the new graphics looked. We where not disappointed when it got released and the episodes of course added to the fun.

I came in contact with Black Mesa around a year after it had started via my brother who is a dev on the mod. He linked me to the site after happily announced that he had been added to the team. I’ve been following it closely ever since. It’s a very nice distraction while we wait for Half-Life 3.^^

#15

Computers were not new in 1998.

#16

When I was little (like 9 years old?), my grandma used to play video games with me all the time. Well around that time, she bought Half Life (came out a year before she bought it) and Unreal (I think it came out at the same-ish time) and I got hooked on HL and Unreal at like age 9/10. I particularly liked (and beat several times) HL and continued to play it for years (till I was… 15? When HL2 came out? It was 2004 right?) where I heard about HL2. About a year later she had bought it and all the rest of Valves games on Steam, which got me into CS, DoD, TF, and the expansions for HL as well as HLDM. I also played and beat HL2 at this point.

Then I bought and played the episodes and such as they came out.

I discovered BMS like… 5 years ago? I think I just ran into it accidentally on some social media site (tumblr maybe) and was like “cool. I’ll keep an eye on it.” Annndddd then I joined and just recently had to make a new profile cause I lost my old info.

#17

I did not imply that they never existed before then but it was still very much new to me at that age.

#18

Saw my brother playing Uplink, he tried to teach me how to play, I couldn’t understand how to play properly so I ran off through the house crying, I came back a couple hours later to try again and he said “you’re not gonna run off crying again are you?” I eventually got it. Though back then it was hard as shit, peeking through the storage container to take out the turret nest, good times.

#19

I first read about Black Mesa in russian gaming magazine “Igromania” (I still have that issue somewhere).
Maybe I’ll try to translate that tiny article.
Here’s the screenshot from that issue (april 2006) (I highlighted Black Mesa stuff):

1025×1450

#20

Well, I found the Black Mesa trailer back in 2011, or so on Youtube while browsing around, if I recall correctly.

Meanwhile, I found Half-Life because of that one guy… You know, Ross Scott, the Freeman’s Mind guy.

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.