Should I Play HL1 First?

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#281

Nope… You shouldn’t play HL1 first. If the Black Mesa mod is truly a recreation to the original, let a person without experience with the Half-Life series (but is familiar with first person shooters) play it and ask him/her if it was great. If this is great, the mod is a success! You really did recreate the anticipation and excitement of what was in 1998. If not, you know what to do… right!?

If you’re gonna play HL1, you’re just like playing the same game all over again with improved graphics. I’d suggest that anyone here who hasn’t played HL1 shouldn’t play it. It’s kind of a spoiler, really. It destroys the anticipation and the puzzle of the game which HL1 was praised for.

#282

Indeed dont play it. If you plkayed it once you will play the mod 3 times as fast and missing the new improved stuff. A few months waiting isnt that bad.

#283

I’m actually playing through Half-life now. After I finish a chapter I look at all the sexy screenshots from BMS of the same chapter.

#284

Half-Life is definitely a great game, even today it compares well to some modern first person shooters. First time i learned about Half-Life was when a friend of mine showed it to me back in 99, i was only 11 at the time and not really into PC-gaming yet at that point. I did play on an N64 though.

So when i finally got a capable PC (previous one was a 486) i borrowed the game from my friend and quickly played through it and opposing force. It was mind blowing. The opening tram ride remains as one of the most memorable gaming moments to me. The interaction with the game world by being able to destroy barriers and pushing boxes was something i had not experienced before.

Couple of days ago i loaded Half-Life back onto my steam account and played through it one more time, it had been a while since i last played it so some of the progression through the levels left me puzzled at some points. Like when you fall into the water from the train cart. Took me a good 15 minutes of exploring the surroundings before i figured to use the barrels to get over the water. Man what a great game, it has so many versatile situations that even after probably the 10th playthrough it can keep you guessing. Also it was considerably harded than i had remembered, on medium the grunts really made me fight for every damn corridor and staircase.

I followed up that great gaming experience by playing through Half-Life 2 after that and surprisingly after checking the steam stats afterward they both clocked in at around 6 hours. (EP2 clocked about 4 hours, not too bad for not being a full length game).

It’s been sort of a habit for me to play old classic games a while after they’ve been released, mainly because of not having a good enough system to play them at the time of their release. This happened with both System Shock 2 and Deus Ex. Both games i turned off after about 20 minutes, it was just too hard and/or time consuming to get into them, mainly because of my shallow expectations. But i couldn’t just turn away, how can you say no to two of the most widely recognized great games of all time. So i gave them both the benefit of the doubt and tried them again, after the initial hump you just get pulled into the games and visuals are set aside, you forget all about shaders and physics and it’s the gameplay which sucks you in. SS2 and Deus Ex are now two of my favorite games ever.

One should never pass by great works of art because of an initial negative reaction, I’ve witnessed the folly of that exercise time and time again with great games, music and film. First time i tried watching Casablanca, immediately got put off by the black and white and old school cinematography, but now it’s one of my favorite movies. And even if i wouldn’t have liked it it’s still worth watching simply for being a great cultural treasure.

Same applies to Half-Life.

Sorry for the long post guys, i sometimes get carried away.
If tl/dr : Yes you should play the game, even if you’re initially put off by it.

#285

^Is this guy a reincarnation of J.Downey/Floyd?

#286

Sorry, but I am compelled to reply.

If you cannot get passed the graphics, then you obviously aren’t fit to play the game.

Back on-topic…

YES! PLAY HALFLIFE NAO! :freeman::freeman::freeman:

#287

Why would he need reincarnating? He’s still around, I saw him post the other day. Maybe his long lost brother, lol.

Anyway, I read his whole post and agree wholeheartedly.

#288

I owned half life 2 first, then like 2 years later I bought half life 1 for arround $10.00.

#289

I played counter-strike first… cause it was a trend in my country. then I played half-life… around 2003… a lot of greater games have passed so I haven’t enjoyed it much. I left the xen unfinished. I bought Half-Life 2 for a whooping Php 2150 ($44 Not adjusted in currency inflation). This game is considered expensive for a retail game as games usually sell Php 1250 ($25) usually EA Games sell at this price. Then again, I’ve bought it only for Counter-Strike Source… and playing with myself.

I’ve finished HL2 and then I got back to finishing HL1 (with cheats) just to know the storyline. I was surprised… With all the drama, emotions, and plenty of scripted crap (Play the game over and over again, you’ll see the dullness of HL2. It lacks replayability much like any other HL2 episodes) in HL2… Why is HL1 a emotionless, characterless, and pure dull action and plenty of expendable npcs with still plenty of scripted crap (scientist goes on a vent, then sounds come out then you see gibs-where-you-don’t-know-where-it-came-from)

After I’ve heard that Valve transfered their retail distribution rights to EA, I thought the next valve release would have their price go down since all standard EA games sell less than $30 and since i live in a 3rd world country. I was wrong. EP1 was never released in retail. The Orange Box was released with a hefty price tag (Php2500 I think ~$50) but was also quietly pulled out due to “activation problems” (OMG!!! My country isn’t officially supported!) L4D costs Php 2150 (Still a heavy price tag $42 to this date. It never changed, I thought time would make L4D cheap)…

I really hope the BM team release this mod ON OR BEFORE THE END OF 2009 or else they’ll just be continuing the development hell (all over again) like in the first Half-Life, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Team Fortress 2 (the original TF2 was cancelled. The one we are playing is no way related to their original project. I’d wish valve could dump the source code of the original TF2 to the community), and Half-Life 2.

We’d be probably thinking when Valve says 2001, 2002, or 2003, its actually 2004. When Valve says 1999, it’s gonna be 2007. I guess when you say 2009 and ITS THE END OF THE YEAR BUT NO NEW ANNOUNCEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE… I fear it might be 200-Never. I hope you will not ‘continue’ the tradition of most valve games. But I appreciate valve’s effort not to be like the ones who work in 3D Realms… couldn’t even finish a damn game… Poor Duke… At least they released CS:CZ despite being outdated in its generation and it could just be easier to cancel the whole game.

#290

Hefty price tag you paid 10 dollars for each game you idiot the orange box was 5 games.

and l4d isn’t still 40 dollars I got my copy retail for only 28 dollars.

#291

I think I might go with Half-Life: Source. I know it isn’t completely retro, but I’m still in need of a Source game to prepare for Black Mesa (I own the 360 Orange Box, rather than the PC version). I haven’t played Half-Life yet (and I’ve really wanted to), so I thought it would be like killing two birds with one stone.

#292

Back in 2005, I was set on waiting to play HL1 until I had played through BM… only to remember that I had already beaten HL1 years ago. :lol:

#293

Unfortunately Half-Life Source does not provide you with the Source SDK and Base that will allow you to play Black Mesa. You need one of the Source games from this list.

#294

I was afraid of that. I really don’t want to bother buying Half-Life 2 or it’s episodes, since I already have the Orange Box. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch seems cheap enough. Thanks for letting me know.

#295

https://www.filefront.com/9563068/Half-Life-Day-One-Demo/

There. Now you can at least play until the end of “We’ve Got Hostiles.”

#296

I spent at least 16 hours, and I didn’t even get to Xen :frowning:

Rounded up Blue SHift and Op FOrce pretty fast though. So they sort of spoiled the ending for me

#297

++, i sayed it for many times - i spent 3 months to get to xen, as my behaviour in the game was like if i really was there, and everything was real.[COLOR=‘DimGray’](endogenous psychedelics, what can i say more…)[/size]

#298

Wow, nice country you have there… I wonder why Left 4 Dead here is more expensive than any other games I’ve seen in retail. I’ve confirmed the price is about Php 2450 or about $ 50 assuming Php 49 = $ 1 even if it is the “Game of the Year” edition. Isn’t being GOTY make games less expensive?

The last game I paid for was Half-Life 2. I never bought any games ever since since there is no community in my country to support it. TF2 never gained popularity here. The Orange Box never hit retail shelves (they did but only to be pulled out cause of regional lockout cause the game was intended to be sold at Singapore, but instead landed in the PH, which valve never supported at all). I couldn’t even see Counter-Strike Source on Valve-run servers and I tend to land on Chinese servers cause they have the least latency.

I hope I’d be expecting Black Mesa Source this year. The front page rarely gets updated and the Source engine may lose its competevity as new and improved game engines are coming up these year and prices of old expensive hardware are coming down. The source engine is no longer listed in https://au.ps3.ign.com/articles/100/1003727p1.html IGN’s top ten best game engines of this generation (it may be a PS3 article and many Valve fanboys are protesting Source should be on the list, but they’re missing the point… All those game engines [fps only, they added a race game so no one could say that the best game engines are exclusively for FPS genres] listed have far more graphics capabilities than what the Source engine currently has for an FPS game). It will take more than a feature add or two in order to catch up with the current FPS standard, they would have to make a complete overhaul to the engine, starting with the physics, environment interaction (floating objects isn’t realistic), AI (AI in HL2 is the most dumb I’ve encountered with this current generation FPS games… Enemies are so predictable, they just charge, shoot, and die. Even the Hard mode seems so easy and is indeed without a challenge), and sound (Playing L4D with these sounds feel like playing HL2 with unrealistic sci-fi sounds and it is the first Source based game to gain mainstream acceptance to our gaming community, DoDS, and TF2 never reached popularity… CSS had some popularity, but never entered competitive gaming unlike its pre-predecessor CS1.3).

While BM isn’t released yet, I took the time of uninstalling my Half-Life 2/CSS so that I can play COD4 since it is occupying too much disk space. I only have 80 GB HDD and I have to save every space I’ve got. If this gets released, I’d be happy to experience the game I never finished.

#299

I hate region-locked stuff. I tried to buy M&M: DM while in Singapore and the store page just didn’t show the buy button. I eventually found out the game was not released/supported in asia, so had to buy it when I was on holiday back in NZ, and then the download worked fine over in SG…

#300

It would kinda make sense? besides the first one is still great this day and age. GO PLAY IT NOW

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.