Personal Review of Black Mesa

[Kaeden]

Ok. After the long grueling download (and a couple of failed ones) I have now played through the game from start to “finish” in one sitting, and I will now give you my impressions.

This is the firt time I have ever posted in here, after lurking around as a ghost for many years, by the way.

First I would like to thank the team for making the installation process so simple and easy compared to many other source mods. That made my day/night.

When I first booted up Inbound I had high hopes, because if there were one area of the original that the source engine could greatly improve upon, then it’s this one.
I must say you succeeded in doing just that. The whole facility just feels so much bigger in this mod than in the original. Left and right people are going on with their everyday schedules around the different sectors of the Black Mesa Research Facility.

After getting off the tram and into Annomalous Materials, I was once again very impressed of the amount of things you guys added to it. Scientists chattering in every room about trivial matters. Toilet paper. A lot of different faces compared to the originals like 3 skins? Plus female scientists aswell this time.
And then of course when Dr Kleiner stepped up to greet me…such a great moment, and then he mentioned “Eli”. Just that made this game the go to version of Half-Life for when I just want to play through all the games.

The Resonance Cascade was awesome, although it seemed to miss a couple of sections, where you would catch a glimpse of Xen. But if they are still working on that, I can understand that it’s not ready to be put into the game yet.
I love Dr Kleiners comments on the headcrap when it appears in the tubes after the cascade. Could THAT perticular headcrap actially be Lamarr?
By the way. I love in the Office Complex how you made one particular office seem to belong to Dr Isaac Kleiner because of pictures and stuff on the walls.

I was really taken aback about how you changed the gameplay imediatly after the cascade. Having NO weapons at all except the security guard and flares (That was awesome) really made it so creepy to work your way through the first minuttes of it.

A lot of places I found to feel fresh again because you changed it just a little bit, enough to make it feel new but still the same. Good job on that. I wouldn’t have minded if this mod was just a copy of HL1 with source graphics, but you went beyond that and I thank you for it.

All throughout the game, I discovered how you made new puzzles involving the physics engine of source. That was a great thing to add. I mean. Why not use it if you have it? That also makes the game feel really fresh.

Up until the very end when you jump into the portal leading to Xen, I was pumped. That last portal was also very beautiful by the way.

Of course there can be made improvements to the game. Like many people I felt the jumping and ladder climping felt a bit clunkier than the original did, although in the end I had grown accostumed to it.
Some of the weapon, like the machine gun in my oppinion felt a bit underwhelming to use, particular against soldiers.

All in all I had one of the most entertaining gaming nights I have had in a long time. I was in an old-school gaming state once again, that I havent’t been in in years.
I thank the wole team for making this possible and making this awesome game for the fans of Half-Life and fans of the fps genre in general. Every company planning to make fps games should look to this and see that this kind of shooter is still relevant. (And hopefully Valce will look at it and think “Maybe we should give some details about HL3 soon eh?”.

Best of luck to the team in the future if you plan on getting into the gaming business and I will be looking forward to finishing this fight in Xen when the time comes.

EDIT: Oh, and I also liked how you made it seem like the Lampda Core team had more money to work around with and had better equipment. Note how the monitors in the early parts of the game are all old and then in the end parts, they have LCD monitors and what not.

[Rusty_S85]

I desided to post this here for everyone including the devs to see. I played HL1 when it came out in 1998 and I feel that I can make a fair unbiased comparision of how HL1 felt to play it the very first time when it was fresh and new compared to how Black Mesa felt to play it the very first time when it was fresh and new.

1. Content

a) Half Life 1 : The content of this game was captivating with many memorable moments. Example would be the Gargantua pushing a Black Mesa jeep into two soldiers crushing them against the wall. Another one would be the guard opening fire on the tentacle in the rocket propulsion test chamber.

b) Black Mesa : The content of this game as I played it while wasnt as captivating as the orignal (same story line and same location) there was quite a few moments that I would not forget. Probably more than in Half Life 1 considering many of those were just repeats. For example hearing one scientist rambling and complaining about how he isnt liking his job cause he didnt want to be pushing buttons and watching screens only to be told by a co-worker to push some buttons and monitor a screen. Another one would be getting into the armory and the first time seeing it I said out loud “Holy Shit” then had to laugh as the guard said the same thing no fewer than 2 seconds after I already said it.

Comparing the two together on content I would have to say its a very close tie with Black Mesa being slightly better than the orignal. This is mainly due to more human like responses from the NPC`s compared to Half Life 1. I cant really give Black Mesa as big of a lead over Half Life 1 mainly because in Black Mesa I was half ways through the game in just about 1 hour where with Half Life 1 it took me almost 3 hours to cover the same amount of area. This is mostly due to the removal of some areas or altering some areas to be straight through shots.

2. Game Play

a) Half Life 1 : The game play was simple yet decently realistic. There was a lot of jumping involved and some areas that required long jumping or crouch jumping. The way it was used in my view kept for a nice casual game play. The weapons were balanced decently which also helps for a casual play through. I wasnt stressing out over the ammo I had nor was I worried about being killed until I stumbled across the Gargantua for the first time.

b) Black Mesa : The game play was more on the realistic side in some aspects and more on the traditional style of Half Life 1. The jumping involved required the use of crouch jumping just about everywheres. The crate jumping compared to the orignal was a lot harder than the orignal. I had to try about 8 times before I got through the crate jumping mainly because you had to sprint and crouch jump on two crates to reach them. The weapons while they appear balanced at a glance really are not. My 9mm pistol and .357 magnum revolver`s were used quite a bit but the SMG was used rarely and was always the last weapon I had that still had ammo. The SMG lacked punch in my opinion and made it a last choice weapon over other weapons such as the shotgun, 9mm Pistol, and the .357 Magnum revolver. Unlike Half Life 1, I was constantly stressing out over ammo mainly because when you ran into a small concentration of soldiers typically its 4+ vs 2 or 3 in Half Life 1. Now just like Half Life 1, I ran every time I saw the Gargantua. The thing that was fun but at the same time quickly frustrating was when the water tower was being shook by the Gargantua and it made it almost impossible to aim correctly for the air strike. Then there was the trouble with the aim icon on the tactical map disappearing while trying to aim or call in the air strike.

Comparing on game play I would have to edge Half Life 1 slightly ahead of Black Mesa. Reason for this is some game play aspects were made slightly complicated compared to the orignal. Example would be how you were safe from the Gargantua till he broke the wall down to get to the tower you were on, but in Black Mesa he was shaking the tower making it hard to call in air strikes accurately. Then theres the interactive tactical map, the orignal used levers and a button to move the aiming retical where in Black Mesa you use your mouse to mark the locations.

Over all on a scale of 1 to 10, I always thought of Half Life 1 as a 9. After playing Black Mesa for the first time I would be inclined to give this a 9 as well. To be exact I would probably give it a 9.0 where Half Life 1 would be more like a 9.1 or 9.2. Black Mesa is a very good game in my book and I enjoyed playing it just like I enjoyed playing Half Life 1 for the first time back in 1998. While these two games are not exact duplications of one another I went into this expecting to have a lot of negative things to say about Black Mesa in the chapter On A Rail where large chunks of that map was removed. I have to say though it works for Black Mesa the way it was done and I honestly dont think the orignal design of On A Rail would have worked out right with this style of build. I could also make a fuss over how the shotgun and how it shouldnt have a double shot feature considering its a single barrel shotgun and what people think as the second barrel is actually a tube mag for the shells to be loaded into. But that would be something to complain about on both Half Life 1 as well as Black Mesa so that is a complaint not worth validating.

The last thing I have to say though is I thought it was a nice touch on the microwave in the wait room. I loved destorying someone`s lunch and in Black Mesa I loved doing the same thing and laughing at the responses. I also loved cooking that headcrab as well. Just been nice if I could have pushed the preset button for cooking Headcrab when there was a headcrab in there. I also enjoyed seeing some of my ideas I put forth years ago actually make it into the mod in some way.