BM:S is very, very nice looking and fun, but it's still not finished yet, anyone looking bear in mind multiplayer and the Xen levels are not implemented yet.
It's passed steam greenlight, so once finished, should be available for a nice one click install. I look forward to this :)
But if you're reading this thread and excited, you'll probably get a kick out of it.
All the pre-Xen levels are very well finished. If you just want the single player gameplay up to the point of the Lambda Complex, install Black Mesa now :-).
You can get a preview of the gorgeous Xen graphics in one of the rooms of the Questionable Ethics chapter.
Whenever I used to replay the original Half-Life (I think I've completed it 5 or 6 times), I would get as far as Lambda Complex, pretend that was where the game finished, and promptly stop playing.
I think plenty of us hated the Xen levels, and the BM:S team knows how challenging it will be to modernise. I'm looking forward to see what they do!
I personally enjoyed the Xen levels (except the fact that Nihilanth brought my PC to a near standstill when the game came out), but to each their own. I'd be interested to hear your complaints about Xen.
A common complaint involved the tiny little orbiting platforms that had to be jumped between. It turned an excellent FPS into a frustrating 3D platformer and interrupted the rhythm of the game.
At least gameplay-wise Black Mesa is very different from Half-Life. To me it is different in a bad, dumb, modern way. Please do not suggest that it is the same or even superior to the original game.
I found HL1 to be unplayable but loved Black Mesa. I didn't have any nostalgia factor for HL1 (I was ten and computerless in '98) but had always wanted to enjoy the game. Black Mesa made that mostly possible.
I agree. Game design has come a long way since 1998. I remember playing Perfect Dark when it came out in 2000, and it was the epitome of FPS perfection. I still love it just as much today, but I can't pretend that other people are going to feel the same way. It's nostalgia, and if you don't have those fond memories of the game, you're going to notice that it is very clearly a 3D game from a decade and a half ago.
You enjoyed Black Mesa then, not Half-Life! Sorry for being so nit-picky, but I find the distinction important. You would not tell some Star Trek Deep Space Nine nerd that watching Star Trek Voyager is the same. The biggest similarity between BW and HL is the general story/setting and general level layout.
You are not being nit-picky; you are being ridiculous.
You are replying to a comment which clearly states "I loved Black Mesa," and then go on to suggest that he enjoyed Black Mesa.
The general story, setting, and level layout are a tremendous amount of what would be considered a single-player, narrative-driven, FPS experience.
All that's left is the level of difficulty, and the feel of the code, as seen inside a particular engine. It's fine that you feel these are important aspects of Half-Life, but, when people wax nostalgic about this game, those who loved it remember their reactions to the setting they were in, the feelings they had inside the narrative, and the difficulties they had with particular aspects of the level design.
These are the things that were translated well, in your depiction. I haven't played it, but I suppose we can take your word for it: the team that made Black Mesa did a good job of replicating the Half-Life experience.
> You are replying to a comment which clearly states "I loved Black Mesa," and then go on to suggest that he enjoyed Black Mesa.
He was replying to a comment that stated that they didn't enjoy Half-Life but wished they had, and that Black Mesa let them do that. The reply is correct; Black Mesa and Half-Life are different games.
Half-Life is a good game, but it's also overrated because it was so novel for being narrative-driven at the time. It's still a Quake-like arcade shooter at its core, which is great but not new anymore, so people going back and playing the original expecting to be surprised may be disappointed.
No, what is left is much more than that. You left out the whole gameplay, which to me defines a game.
Invisible brushes, different physics, monsters are different, some attack much quicker and harder, others are dumbed down.
This might feel like an improvement to some people, to me it did not. It does make the GAME a different one though. If only you notice minor changes, don't even mind the different graphics and sounds, then it may very well be a better game to you.
But please do not say it is the same. If you have played Black Mesa, you did not play Half-Life. You played Black Mesa.
The gameplay is the way the code feels. That's what defines the gameplay, as you describe it.
I never played it, and don't particularly care about what people think of either experience.
I didn't say it was the same, but, if someone feels that way, they are entitled to care about different aspects of the single player experience.
People are entitled to be as aggressive as you are, and I find it strange that you would ask others to keep their opinions to themselves, if they found Black Mesa to be the superior experience.
I said to me, I did not say it is objectively. I am just saying that a fan-made mod for a modern engine, using modern gameplay ideas is not the same as the original game.
It's officially just for Windows, but it runs fine in Wine.