Black Mesa |OT| They're Waiting for You Gordon...

Dancrane212 · Mar 4, 2020

Platform(s): Windows PC, Linux
Release Date:

Early Access - May, 5th 2015

Final Release - March, 5th 2020

Genre: First Person Shooter
Price: $19.99 USD
Player(s): 1 (Campaign) 32 (Multiplayer)
Format: Digital
Developer/Publisher: Crowbar Collective
Size: ~20GB

What is Black Mesa?
Black Mesa is a fan remake of the original Half Life in the Source Engine that was given the greenlight by Valve to be sold on Steam. It has been in Early Access for almost 5 years as the team worked to reimagine Xen and is now leaving Early Access for a full release.

Is it a completely faithful remake?
No, parts of the game are reimagined though it does still aim to include a lot of the big "moments" from the original Half Life. Xen, as mentioned above, is significantly redesigned however.

What exactly is Xen?
Xen was a controversial (in terms of quality) set of chapters in the original Half Life that made some pretty significant changes to the moment-to-moment gameplay, the biggest of which was a focus on platforming. When Black Mesa first released it ended before Gordon reached those areas as the team wanted to try and redesign them to flow better with the chapters that came before it; the game is now launching with their new interpretation of Xen.

How long is the game?
10 to 15 hours.

Is there much crouch jumping like the original (crouching at the end of your jump to reach higher ledges)?
Yes, but there is a toggle in the options to make the crouch automatic.

Wasn't this a free release?
There was a free release before the Steam launch but it did not get the Xen update.

Is there controller support?
Partial support so you can't control the menus with a gamepad, but once you're into the game you're good.

Is there multiplayer?
Yes, Black Mesa has a new interpretation of Half Life Deathmatch included.

21:9 support?
Yes.

Console release?
No other platforms are planned for release.

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Metacritic | Opencritic (TBA)
(Pre-Xen Reviews)

Destructoid 8/10

No matter what level of experience you have with Half-Life, this is worth playing. It's a brilliant tribute to one of the greatest videogames ever made, and it's also a good game in its own right.

Kotaku "Yes"

Now that it's here, though, the Black Mesa team has actually delivered. This is Half-Life updated just enough to make it palatable for contemporary tastes, but not so much as to deviate from the original vision. Considering the amount of people involved, the time it's taken and the legacy of the source material, it's an amazing achievement.

Official Site

ViewtifulJC · Mar 4, 2020

....in the tesssssssssssssssst chamber....

Dancrane212 · Mar 4, 2020

ViewtifulJC said:
....in the tesssssssssssssssst chamber....

I was pretty close to going with "First Half Life, 3rd Party Remake".

MJForum Poster · Mar 4, 2020

Have played through most of this in Early Access - I guess I need to go back and finish off Xen. They tweak some things where if you remember/memorize a lot of the original game, you'll be surprised and caught off guard a few times. But it's generally a pretty faithful remake.

Would love to see them try their hand at Opposing Force, but I don't want to wait another fifteen years for it

DieH@rd · Mar 4, 2020

The old beta from 5+ years ago was already great, I can't wait to replay it again now when entire campaign is present .

Pilgrimzero · Mar 4, 2020

Loaded this up and been playing it. It feels super weird because Im just so used to classic Half-Life

Deleted member 60295 · Mar 4, 2020

MJForum Poster said:
Have played through most of this in Early Access - I guess I need to go back and finish off Xen. They tweak some things where if you remember/memorize a lot of the original game, you'll be surprised and caught off guard a few times. But it's generally a pretty faithful remake.

If I'm reading this correctly, and you haven't played Xen at all, you're in for a treat. Xen is where Crowbar Collective has proved they not only can make a faithful remake of a Half-Life game, but that they would be capable of making an entirely brand new Half-Life game from scratch. In fact, if Valve hadn't miraculously returned to the franchise like they recently did, I would trust Crowbar Collective to make a theoretical Half-Life 3 more than pretty much any other development team in the industry.

HylianSeven · Mar 4, 2020

CyclonatorZ said:
If I'm reading this correctly, and you haven't played Xen at all, you're in for a treat. Xen is where Crowbar Collective has proved they not only can make a faithful remake of a Half-Life game, but that they would be capable of making an entirely brand new Half-Life game from scratch. In fact, if Valve hadn't miraculously returned to the franchise like they recently did, I would trust Crowbar Collective to make a theoretical Half-Life 3 more than pretty much any other development team in the industry.

Yeah Xen is pretty much as entirely different game... For the better. It's very visually inspired and a ton of fun from a gameplay perspective.

I played the entire game when it was in beta, and will probably play it again.

Randomly Generated · Mar 4, 2020

Dancrane212 said:
I was pretty close to going with "First Half Life, 3rd Party Remake".

That's damn good.

MauroNL · Mar 4, 2020

How heavy are the specs? I can run vanilla HL2 fine on my laptop and kinda want to play this since I still haven't played OG HL. I rarely game on my laptop though, but I can Max Payne 3 in 1080p on High perfectly for example. Not sure how that compares.

Dancrane212 · Mar 4, 2020

USGamer article on the 15 year development of the game:

For Black Mesa's Developers, the Reality of Launching After 15 Years Is Still Setting In

Six months ago, if I was told there would be two Half-Life games coming out in March 2020, I probably wouldn't have bel…

www.usgamer.net

Cliff Steele · Mar 4, 2020

FYI: The Steam Controller works wonderfully with this game.

skeezx · Mar 4, 2020

never played HL1 outside of dicking around with the black mesa beta off and on. i think it's been two years since i last played and never got past the intro section

i saw it as a neat little experiment that'll never come to true fruition but here we are. looking forward to cracking open a six pack and giving it a full rundown

TeenageFBI · Mar 4, 2020

I recently played through this. It may have taken a long time but a goddamned modding team made something that compares favorably to Half-Life, one of the best games ever made. The new Xen stuff is so great.

denx · Mar 4, 2020

I completed the game with the Xen chapters a couple of days back and yeah, what they did is impressive. My only big gripes are with the Interloper chapter, which drags on for too long. That chapter also severely tanked performance at times, although that was during the 1.0 beta.

But aside from that, the game is brilliant. Hopefully the Crowbar Collective can reach an agreement with Valve to port the game to consoles so that more people can enjoy this game.

Deleted member 60295 · Mar 4, 2020

MauroNL said:
How heavy are the specs? I can run vanilla HL2 fine on my laptop and kinda want to play this since I still haven't played OG HL. I rarely game on my laptop though, but I can Max Payne 3 in 1080p on High perfectly for example. Not sure how that compares.

Unbelievably heavy, unfortunately. Xen pushes the Source engine to its furthest limits, and optimization has taken a heavier hit than in any other Source game as a result. Even people with GTX 900 series cards struggle to run Xen. Doom 2016 is more optimized than this game, and its not even close.

TeenageFBI · Mar 4, 2020

CyclonatorZ said:
Unbelievably heavy, unfortunately. Xen pushes the Source engine to its furthest limits, and optimization has taken a heavier hit than in any other Source game as a result. Even people with GTX 900 series cards struggle to run Xen. Doom 2016 is more optimized than this game, and its not even close.

Doom 2016 is more optimized than most games!

But yeah, Black Mesa is significantly tougher on hardware than Half-Life 2.

denx · Mar 4, 2020

CyclonatorZ said:
Unbelievably heavy, unfortunately. Xen pushes the Source engine to its furthest limits, and optimization has taken a heavier hit than in any other Source game as a result. Even people with GTX 900 series cards struggle to run Xen. Doom 2016 is more optimized than this game, and its not even close.

There's a particular section in Interloper that tanked performance into the single digits. This was running the game on a GTX 1060, so yeah, things can get crazy at times.

xir · Mar 4, 2020

is Xen a lot longer than it was in hl1? and if so..... is that a good thing?

Pixieking · Mar 4, 2020

xir said:
is Xen a lot longer than it was in hl1? and if so..... is that a good thing?

I read someone's impressions (can't find them now, sorry!) that said Xen was about one third the entire game, and that it felt a little unnecessarily long now.

PaulloDEC · Mar 4, 2020

I played this through just after the big Xen update dropped, and I'd say my main criticism is that the game is perhaps a little too long. Other than that, it's an extremely high-quality update and well worth playing.

mutantmagnet · Mar 4, 2020

The op should clarify what the Xen update is.

To my understanding it is their remastering of the last 4 sections of the game.

Love Machine · Mar 4, 2020

Bought earlier this year, played up to the lab and then got sidetracked. Gonna jump back in to quell the HL: Alyx hype!

Yarbskoo · Mar 4, 2020

When does the 1.0 update go live?

MJForum Poster · Mar 4, 2020

CyclonatorZ said:
If I'm reading this correctly, and you haven't played Xen at all, you're in for a treat. Xen is where Crowbar Collective has proved they not only can make a faithful remake of a Half-Life game, but that they would be capable of making an entirely brand new Half-Life game from scratch. In fact, if Valve hadn't miraculously returned to the franchise like they recently did, I would trust Crowbar Collective to make a theoretical Half-Life 3 more than pretty much any other development team in the industry.

Started Xen tonight and oh man, you're not kidding. What they did with the first Xen level was awesome. It did feel a little long though which has me dreading Interloper if I can get past Gonarch

Dancrane212 · Mar 5, 2020

mutantmagnet said:
The op should clarify what the Xen update is.

To my understanding it is their remastering of the last 4 sections of the game.

Good catch, I missed that when I was whipping the thread together last night.

Patitoloco · Mar 5, 2020

Is the 1.0 update out yet?

pswii60 · Mar 5, 2020

Would like to know how well this game actually plays with a controller?

Fear and wonder · Mar 5, 2020

pswii60 said:
Would like to know how well this game actually plays with a controller?

Yeah, I've seen a reply about the steam controller but what about an xbox one controller?

olimpia84 · Mar 5, 2020

I just went to the store and it still shows the game under Early Access, weird.
At any rate, I'm planning to buy this since I've never explored the Half Life games.

ps: does it work well with a Dualshock 4?

Blade Wolf · Mar 5, 2020

I literally have no idea I was playing the early access all this time. Crazy.

pswii60 said:
Would like to know how well this game actually plays with a controller?

olimpia84 said:
I just went to the store and it still shows the game under Early Access, weird.
At any rate, I'm planning to buy this since I've never explored the Half Life games.

ps: does it work well with a Dualshock 4?

Keyboard & mouse is highly, highly recommended.
The game is made with kb&m in mind and a lot of puzzles & platforming are designed for PC controls, for example the crouch jump.

There are platforming sections where you have to crouch jump and look turn (moving your camera while moving) at the same time, this would be much harder with a controller cause you need your right thumb for both the jump & crouch button as well as the right camera stick.

Also you can select individual weapons within a second using keyboard (there's like 12 weapons or something), makes the already fast paced combat more responsive & manageable.

CGriffiths86 · Mar 5, 2020

I've owned Black Mesa for years but never got more than a few hours in because I knew I was going to restart it at official launch. I can't believe it's finally here.

Mr.Deadshot · Mar 5, 2020

Finally. Will play this tonight.
Also perfect timing to get back into Half-Life before Alyx comes out :)

denx · Mar 5, 2020

Blade Wolf said:
Keyboard & mouse is highly, highly recommended.
The game is made with kb&m in mind and a lot of puzzles & platforming are designed for PC controls, for example the crouch jump.

There are platforming sections where you have to crouch jump and look turn (moving your camera while moving) at the same time, this would be much harder with a controller cause you need your right thumb for both the jump & crouch button as well as the right camera stick.

There's a toggle in the options menu that makes crouch jump automatic, so that isn't really an issue.

Personally I have auto crouch jump activated since crouch jumping is annoying and doesn't add anything to the game.

Dancrane212 · Mar 5, 2020

denx said:
There's a toggle in the options menu that makes crouch jump automatic, so that isn't really an issue.

Good to know!

pswii60 · Mar 5, 2020

denx said:
There's a toggle in the options menu that makes crouch jump automatic, so that isn't really an issue.

Personally I have auto crouch jump activated since crouch jumping is annoying and doesn't add anything to the game.

Useful to know as I'm a couch PC gamer!

Matzpxl · Mar 5, 2020

It is finally here. God. I've been following this project since 2012 and they finally did it.

I'm so proud. :')

purseowner · Mar 5, 2020

Got a new PC today incidentally, and this will be the perfect housewarmer.

Blade Wolf · Mar 5, 2020

denx said:
There's a toggle in the options menu that makes crouch jump automatic, so that isn't really an issue.

Personally I have auto crouch jump activated since crouch jumping is annoying and doesn't add anything to the game.

Agree but still it's much easier on keyboard, on top of that you get quick weapon select. Just recommending the best way to play that's all.

Mugen · Mar 5, 2020

Nice that Black Mesa gets an OT. It will release "later today" according to the devs (from the community hub, discussion forum on Steam), unclear with respect to which timezone sadly.

Firebricks · Mar 5, 2020

My save file has been sitting at Xen for awhile now, can't wait to pick it up again.

Kazer · Mar 5, 2020

Gunna play through this over the weekend. Really excited - never tried it during EA.

Dictator · Mar 5, 2020

I played through it all this week. I just loved it. Absolutely phenomenal work.

I had played it in 2016, and also in 2012ish as well and this is the best version by far and is just incredible. Amazing work.

Thekeats · Mar 5, 2020

Eurogamers review is up for it, an Essential as far as they are concerned.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...masterful-remake-that-improves-upon-a-classic

Dancrane212 · Mar 5, 2020

Dictator said:
.

On that note...

Patitoloco · Mar 5, 2020

I can't wait for this, my playthrough on 2015/16 (whenever it got on Steam) was awesome, I can't wait to see how that improved + Xen!

What I remember the most of that playthrough (and my countless hours on Spotify listening to it) is HOW DAMN FANTASTIC the OST is. This is the best Half-Life OST IMO, and that's high praise.

ned_ballad · Mar 5, 2020

Thekeats said:
Eurogamers review is up for it, an Essential as far as they are concerned.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...masterful-remake-that-improves-upon-a-classic

I remember the original release was not well balanced near the end of the middle. The marines vs aliens surface war part. Points where unavoidable damage and no pickups meant you had no health to survive and couldn't even fight your way out. You were basically soft locked by enemy spam.

Reading this review, it seems like they re-balanced the game a lot better so stuff like that doesn't happen.

Napalm_Frank · Mar 5, 2020

Is the full release out in EU yet?

thenexus6 · Mar 5, 2020

I wonder if someone can help me. When the final Xen levels were added to the beta a few months ago I booted up the game to see my previous save file was invalid meaning I had to start from the very start. Not wanted to do this I looked online and saw there was a console command to access all levels.

So I went into the console, did some inputs and unlocked all levels. However, when I would start the game I had no audio what-so-ever. I went into settings, even went as far as completely uninstalling the game but the problem still remained. Now I wold really like to finish this game now its going into 1.0 but what should I do if the problem is still there? Is there a console command to reset it or something?

TioChuck · Mar 5, 2020

thenexus6 said:
I wonder if someone can help me. When the final Xen levels were added to the beta a few months ago I booted up the game to see my previous save file was invalid meaning I had to start from the very start. Not wanted to do this I looked online and saw there was a console command to access all levels.

So I went into the console, did some inputs and unlocked all levels. However, when I would start the game I had no audio what-so-ever. I went into settings, even went as far as completely uninstalling the game but the problem still remained. Now I wold really like to finish this game now its going into 1.0 but what should I do if the problem is still there? Is there a console command to reset it or something?

Try snd_rebuildaudiocache on the console, you maybe will have to to this for every map.

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