Continuing the story that began in 's Half-Life , the sequel made history for the company, and the industry at large, because it introduced the public to Source, Valve's in-house game engine. Featuring impressive leaps forward in lighting and animation, a robust physics system one of the first in games , and a full suite of modding tools, Source soon became the technical foundation of Valve's work in the industry going forward.
It was that last one—the modabilty of the Source engine—that players truly embraced. The Half-Life 2 fan community rapidly became a hub for a vast, robust scene of modders, folks who produced incredible games like Dear Esther and The Stanley Parable —both of which would eventually get ported to different game engines and released as stand-alone titles, and both of which had a huge impact on the future of gaming.
Another of those projects was Black Mesa , an attempt to rebuild the original Half-Life in its entirety for the Source engine. Not a simple port, like Valve had done with its poorly received Half-Life: Source , but a remake, one that leveraged the strengths of the Source engine to make that original game new again. The Black Mesa project began around as a collaboration between a couple of modding groups with the same idea.
In , the group, which started as a person team that eventually became known as the the Crowbar Collective, got down to work rebuilding one of the most beloved games in the history of the medium. This week, they finished. Five years after the game was released, with Valve's permission, as an Early Access title on Steam, and just a few weeks before the release of Half-Life: Alyx , Valve's attempt at bringing some shine back to the franchise's name in virtual reality!
It only took 14 years. I first bought it in , which is long enough for me to have forgotten whether the opening chapters have changed at all in the final release. As a remake, Black Mesa is a little more extensive than something like the anniversary versions of Halo and Halo 2 , though the graphical upgrades are comparable.
Overall, though, Black Mesa essentially feels like playing the original Half-Life with better graphics than Half-Life 2. Black Mesa preserves its essence. The biggest change Black Mesa makes to Half-Life is its closing chapters where spoiler alert Gordon Freeman is transported to a mysterious alien world called Xen.
These levels were universally considered a downer by players of the original, with dull visuals, interminable platforming, and underwhelming boss fights. For Black Mesa , Crowbar Collective has completely transformed Xen, extending the section by several hours and making it one of the highlights of the game. But Crowbar Collective says that it plans to put out a 1. Even after 15 years and a 1. In kinda-sorta finished form, Black Mesa still ranks as my favorite way to play any Half-Life game.
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Your Store Your Store. Categories Categories. Special Sections. Player Support. Community Hub. Black Mesa. Crowbar Collective. Recent Reviews:. All Reviews:. Popular user-defined tags for this product:. Is this game relevant to you? Sign In or Open in Steam. Languages :. English and 26 more. View Steam Achievements It launches the player backward a huge distance, and it has to be outrun in certain sections.
It still has the Headcrab birthing and explosive toxin attacks, but now it also has the ability to launch green globs of acid that explode after a few seconds. Additionally, it is possible to spawn three Gonarchs during the Nihilanth fight at the end.
This can be done by pressing the "use" key on three specific plants present in the chamber; the Gonarchs will appear as soon as the player destroys the Nihilanth's three healing crystals. During the chapter "Interloper", all Vortigaunts are docile towards Gordon. This behavior, understandably a rebellion against the Nihilanth, was carried over from the original game, where this was only the case at one instance; it helps provide context for the Vortigaunts' reverential behavior towards Gordon in Half-Life 2.
Early in the chapter, an Alien Grunt is seen beating up a Vortigaunt while another Grunt keeps an eye on the other frightened Vortigaunts, until Gordon intervenes. While they do not assist Freeman in direct combat, the Vortigaunts will help him in a few tasks, such as disabling some force fields that were blocking his path. However, Alien Controllers will sometimes appear, and will force them to attack Gordon; the Vortigaunts become friendly again once the Controllers are killed.
It should be noted that Alien Grunts are more agile in Xen than they were on Earth, being able to strafe faster and jump towards elevated surfaces. It is also made explicit in this section that Alien Grunts are biomechanically altered Vortigaunts.
The Vortigaunts are forced to perform the process of transmutation upon themselves on their brethren in factories within the Nihilanth's tower.
Finally, the Nihilanth is far more challenging than his original counterpart, and has various types of attacks and moves to try and kill Gordon Freeman. Unlike the original version, this one doesn't teleport the player to separate parts of the map, but will occasionally teleport some large objects from Earth and throw them at Gordon. The same handheld weapons from Half-Life appear, remodeled, although the behavior of some of them has been modified in single-player.
For example, the MP5 has a realistic round magazine and less reserve ammunition than before, but deals higher damage, is more accurate, and fires M grenades faster. Another example is that the Crossbow deals extremely high damage being capable of killing an Alien Grunt with one hit in the unarmored part of the torso, even in Hard mode , at the expense of a very low fire rate and much less bolts in reserve.
Weapons with magazines also take more time to reload if the magazine is empty. Two mounted weapons are usable: the Browning M2 machine gun, and the TOW missile launcher which replaces the M Howitzer from the original game. Like in Half-Life 2 , the player can pick up certain objects, often required in order to progress through the game. Flares can sometimes be picked up, allowing Gordon to set enemies on fire, most notably early in the game when he hasn't picked up the crowbar yet.
The Long Jump Module is now equipped with landing jets, negating fall damage while progressing through Xen. There are some devices in Xen including Healing Showers that will restore not only the player's health, but their armor as well.
Additionally, some crystals in the chapter "Interloper" have the ability to refill the depleted uranium ammunition for the Tau Cannon and the Gluon Gun when the player is near them; they can be used for an unlimited amount of time. The tracks with a "pre" note next to them were only played in older versions of the game, prior to the Xen updates of The in-game version is shortened, hence the lower duration of this part before being looped.
Detail from one of Black Mesa 's computer models. Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Firefox can both be seen on the desktop, and the desktop's start button bottom left reveals that it is running Windows XP. While the official website is the main source for most official images, all personal websites of the respective team members also provide further, exclusive images.
Note that many of these images show pre-release models, or models that are only in the mod version. Half-Life Wiki Explore. Developers Gearbox Software Valve Corporation. Artists Character models Composers Voice actors Writers. Half-Life: Alyx. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? Black Mesa game.
View source. History Talk Do you like this video? Play Sound. Frozen area in the chapter Unforeseen Consequences. Flooded room in the chapter Office Complex.
Vortigaunts in the chapter Power Up. Houndeyes in the chapter On A Rail. Frozen area in the chapter Apprehension.
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