My HL1 settings: Brightness 0.5 Gamma 1.8 and since FOV scaling is messed up for widescreen, default_fov 106 (Around the same as 90 for 4:3) gl_texturemode GL_NEAREST will deblur all textures and display them pixelated like in software mode, which I personally don't like, but others do. Update: I've started using a brightness of 1 rather than 0.5 for videos because it improves visibility while keeping most of that atmosphere.
gl_texturemode GL_NEAREST in your autoexec makes the game not use gl blurring which blurs all the pixels in a texture. fov can go upto 115 without most the guns showing the invisible faces of the viewmodel.
When people ask "What is the best way to play the original Half-Life", I answer with "Why choose? Play both. But for the love of God, do not play Half-Life Source."
While I appreciate the effort that certainly went into this video, and I see where your criticism is coming from, I think this is overly harsh. Let me start by saying that I grew up playing the original and love it to this day, and it is one of my favorite video games. Still, I really love Black Mesa and while it does feel different, I really agree with many if not most of their changes. So here are some thoughts after listening to your points. I had to actually split it into several shorter comments: Combat: HL's combat is not about run & gun. It is about taking fights in a smart way. BMS enhances this aspect in my opinion. The fact that the try to pin you down with others trying to push you is so engaging. You then go on to say "Pray that a grenade doesn't land at your feet", which is what constantly happened in HL - only that you couldn't pick them up and throw them back. Yes, there are a lot more (and bigger) fights but I always felt that when taking them with a bit of strategy, you can turn the odds into your favor. In HL, it was just "wait for the marine to run around without shooting, then charge at them and insta-gib them with the shotgun". Oh and I agree that weapons felt better in the original. Especially the SMG in BMS is really unsatisfying. Sprint & Always run: You complain about the fact that you can sprint here. One issue I had with the original is the amount of walking long and boring corridors. Adding the sprint mechanics from HL2 was a great way to cut some of these short without changing the familiar layouts too much. Then, you complain about the fact that it isn't standard. But the option which turns it into the standard is also not right for you, because it makes controlling the platforming sections harder. Well, that's why it isn't standard. A minor point in the video but I found this complaint really pointless, sorry. Puzzles: I personally really liked how they took some puzzle mechanics from HL2 and put them in this game. It fits well with the theme of bringing the two games more in line. I don't think the puzzles "fail to justify their inclusion" since otherwise it would just be a straight run-and-gun shooter, which HL isn't meant to be. Finding the button to press, the valve to turn and - yes - the cable to plug is very much in the spirit of HL, in my opinion. You then go on to critique how they added some extra routes to navigate through and how it doesn't add anything. As someone who played the original so much that I can almost beat it with my eyes closed, I appreciated these extra moments a lot, bringing back some sense of exploration. Then you say that navigation is "often confused by the added detail" and complement HL on its "minimalist design", which clearly is simply driven by the technical limitations of the time. Look at HL2 (or even better, HLA), the environments are messy and cluttered, as is appropriate for the setting. The fact that I had to look around and got a bit lost here and there was very refreshing in that I couldn't just speedrun the game at my first try because I played HL1 a thousand times. Visuals: You start this section by claiming HL only looks bad because of its default settings. I mean, come on. It simply looks bad by today's standards because it's outdated. And are we sure it's the "intended look" if I have to fiddle around with console commands to get there? Maybe. But still - using this to talk down on the visual advantage that BMS has over HL is so out of place and really feels like you're scraping the bottom of the barrel to make the game look bad for some reason. You go on to claim that HL attempted a cartoonish style. I fail to see that and don't think that the presence of dark humor in HL can be taken as proof of that. I am also VERY glad that BMS didn't try to go for a cartoonish look and went for a graphics style that - to my eyes - looks like a more up-to-date HL2 art style. I think this was the right way to go for the intended atmosphere and I think they absolutely nailed that. The inside sections look fantastic IMO, the color shemes are both true to the original as well as adding what is possible to add with present day technology. I don't have see the issue with the presence of lense flares, I feel they are only added in very specific moments where you're staring into a light source that is much brighter than the surrounding area. You might be of the (perfectly valid) opinion that this might be a bit too much, but your outraged "who asked for this??" is so overblown it had me shaking my head. I somewhat agree with you on the soundtrack. It feels a bit generic and sometimes out of place.
Changes: You have some really good points here. I do agree that some of the added areas are too much. For example, Surface Tension is stupidly long and really repetitive. But then your rant about how they effectively remove crouch-jumping. I don't see why we need this mechanic and why we shouldn't just make the character jump higher, especially since you don't get any advantage from not performing a crouch-jump. Earlier in your vid you actually complain about having to hold down Shift for sprinting all the time. But dare they remove having to hold down Ctrl for every jump! And if it bothers you that much, by all means just disable the option, it's not like it's hidden. On a Rail: At least you start by saying it's a divisive chapter so I can just say: I hate this chapter in the original almost as much as I hate Residue Processing. I'm glad they cut it shorter. It still feels long, but never as dull as the original one. There's still considerable amounts of "getting lost" in the BMS version. Oh, and the ambience sounds in the BMS versions make the atmosphere so incredible intense. It really feels like you're wandering through dank, dark and abandoned tunnels and it made me feel genuinely uneasy. The chapters before On a Rail are nearly identical to their HL counterparts because those were universally loved, so here's your reason as to why this is the first instance of seeing large changes being made. And honestly, the stuff that they cut from the original wasn't half as memorable as you put it. My biggest complaint would be that they didn't give Residue Processing the same treatment. But maybe I'm the only person in the world that really hated this section... Interloper: The scene with the grunts beating down the vorts is justified by the fact that the original fails to establish the hierarchy between the creatures on Xen. The vortigaunts are slaves and this scene makes that clear. When I played Interloper in the original for the first time, I wondered why the vorts aren't attacking me and if the game is bugged. The fact that they are slaves and inherently friendly was implied at best. BMS wants to do more storytelling, and I think it does it well with these moments. You obviously disagree, that's fine. Then the technology... Why wouldn't the aliens have technology? They are obviously intelligent. I agree that the visual style is too much of a departure from the original here, though. Another point where I agree with you very strongly: Interloper is much too long. It drags on forever without adding much. There are many sections that introduce little mechanics that are cool the first time you encounter them, but then they get copy&pasted until you can do them blindfolded. One example is the section where you climb the "conveyor tower" and have to shoot red bubbly things to disable force fields. Ugh. I did like the mechanic of the overcharged gluon gun, it felt like paying hommage to the gravity gun in the citadel in HL2. NIhilanth: The Nihilanth battle was IMO the lowest point of the original game. The fact that he teleports you around is just so weird and disorienting. You end up in another room thinking "Is the battle over? Did I fail it? When I return, is the guy back at full health?" It's poor design. In BMS, the fight is actually really epic. And by the way, the battle still revolves around the Nihilanth's teleport ability, as it spawns in sections of rooms from earth. It was a cool mechanic of resupplying the player with health and ammo during the fight and I thought it really looked cool. The battle as a whole really does the scale of the creature more justice than the original, where it was some weird floating giant space baby that didn't really seem all that threatening. The only conern was really how to climb the chamber. Then the fact that they kept G-Man's ending scene more or less the same. I'm glad they didn't touch it. If they had extended this beyond the original, it would have felt like fan fiction. You conclude by more or less expressing your anger over the fact that people might view this as a replacement and that some might not enjoy the original because of its dated graphics. But there's a good possibility that someone who plays this game today might not enjoy it so much because they don't share our nostalgia. We grew up with Half Life, it was groundbreaking when it came out and we were awestruck by its atmosphere and scale. It has set a standard back then, but this standard is now outdated. People playing this game for the first time in 2021 might simply not get what's so great about it because the world has moved on. Many moments that, back in the day when I saw them for the first time, gave me the chills and made me feel like "Oh god what is happening here" might be unintentionally comic by today's standards. My conclusions: While I agree that BMS has issues, I still think it succeeds in being a modern reimagination of Half Life. What really rubs me the wrong way about your video is how you completely skip over some seriously great alterations CC have made and focus almost entirely on what you think its weaknesses are. The way they actually implemented some of the retcons that Valve made, like putting Kleiner and Vance in the game and bringin the Vortigaunts more in line with how they appear in the sequels, is cool. The environmental storytelling is also much better than the original. Many things that we had to infer from the game files or statements from the devs are now actually shown in the game and can be read off the environment - again the example with the "Alien Slave" and "Alien Controller" here. We did not know the names for those back in the day until someone unzipped the game files. And their roles weren't communicated in the game very well. BMS does a much better job of showing you these things and you will understand the lore of Half Life a bit better. So yeah, that's a lot of text. Cheers.
@@MadMatty01 i just beat half life 1 for the first time ever yesterday at age 22 lmao, it was aboslutely amazing. i went into the game hyping myself up on the history of HL and the impact it had. i went into it also just "expecting" quake (even tho i know its not) just so i can see/feel what it mustve felt like, even if i only felt 10% of what that feeling was. I was FOR SURE caught in moments thinking "what the fuck is happening here im fucked" simply due to the style and way valve tells their stories, very set piece, everything feels skippable or missable which makes those moments even better(thinking of surface tension when the aliens land and the military calls in an airstrike and then you fight mili dudes before going in a building) the pure rawness of the game was something that still to this day is yet to be captured the same. I havent played HL2 or Opposing force or blue shift or much alyx besides shooting a gun, and i still havent played black mesa, but i agree with what you have said, the game always seemed fine and everyone i know has said its a great modern VERSION of HL1 but still cant hold a candle to og, but is still something to play after beating hl1
@@MadMatty01 How is nihilanth teleporting disorienting? You already know when we will teleport you and when you get there you get a little confused but you dodge and shoot, then you get back, HOW THE FUCK IS THAT CONFUSING?!
@@voldy3565 yet right about everything he criticized. Video was not blind hate. It's like if we gave you the job to remake Max Payne. You might be tempted to make your inputs and it will show, because you either missed the idea of the original or you lack talent and skill. It can also be mixture of both. Black Mesa is good, but they really didn't have to go out of their way and put their spins where they didn't have to. I'd say it is worth playing but after the Valve games.
I love how every person on youtube showing their Xen gameplay failed to realize if you hold crouch while landing off the boost jump, you will continue to slide at the same speed. This makes the chase sequence and the Nihilanth fight insanely fun and epic.
@@mvnkycheez The crouch-long-jump glitch is only useful like twice in the entire xen section. The part where you have to jump across the water in which a humongous shark-thing is swimming and the other part in which you have to kill barnacles to get across the platforms unless you wanna die a watery death with none other than the shark thing and his cousin.
I completely disagree to the "They worsened the nihilant fight by removing the platforming sections" part, those sections are a really big pain in the ass that make the nihilant fight even worse
they did annoy me at first, but i did honestly grow to enjoy it. i think it's a pretty cool mechanic, how the nihilanth shoots portals at you is honestly pretty cool
@@VinVonVoom Idk, I feel like that it was just a fundamentally bad idea at its core. No amount of polish would've made constantly having the pace of the fight broken to do menial platforming any fun.
@@thegreatgonzales6813 By polishing I largely meant to up the pacing of the portal locations, add some time element like rising death liquid and make the platforming more engaging.
@thegreatgonzales6813 at tge very least, I think having the Nihilanth shot portals at you, even if only as one-time phase transitions, should have been kept.
@@almosthappysandwich I've always disagreed with the argument that Xen is too long. The design significantly makes up for it to me. Each section is just unique and intriguing compared to the next (Edited for spelling)
I'm playing it right now and am honestly enjoying it much more than the original HL. The combat can be a little rough, but other than that I've been having a lot of fun with it.
I overall prefer Black Mesa, but I also generally agree with the criticisms in this video. I can see a lot of potential for improvement if the dev team took criticism like this to heart and tried to implement more of what the original did better into the experience. In particular, I would absolutely love it if the soldier AI was tweaked to be more fair to the player. There's a few sections in Forget About Freeman and Surface Tension that were more frustrating than fun to deal with because of them.
For me, by the atmosphere is very well done, just the level designing and tension feels it's lowered. like shortened. Thus, XEN was supposed to feel like a horrific alien world originally, and i liked the organic meat style for the story-wise content. VIsually, new XEN looks like something i would see like Space subnautica or AVATAR
yeah I don't get why he's complaining about the soldier's being smarter and there being more of them, It makes it feel like you're fighting trained marines rather than glorified walking turrets. Plus the increased amount of them makes it feel like an actual military force and like they're in control like you said
@@downwindfish1 a lot of people prefer half life 1 ai. There's tons of videos on half life 1's ai and maybe 2 complaining about half life 2's ai including me something about half life 1 HECU made fighting them a lot more fun compared to the combine
@@michaciejka2839 I know people have preferences to what version of games they want to play, but i think (and this is my opinion) that HL is definitely the better version over HL Source, since the game breaks alot of aspects of what made the original so good, like that infamous bit when you first meet the HECU. but people can enjoy what they want to enjoy i guess
It's just cheesy and tries too hard to sound sinister though. They should have just continued using the normal VOX voice like they did in OG half life.
@@Gameprojordan The original also had some misspelling (could just be 98's limitations) which further emphasized that dumb HECU, sir yes sir, oorah stereotype, showing their charismatic and somewhat comedic side. The announcement also sounded realistic and grounded. They weren't hacking the VOX with some malicious creepy AI, they were just announcing that they had gained access to it, and that the base was under military control.
Does it really have to glitch out though and change voices entirely, like some evil AI hacked into it, imagine Overwatch from HL2 doing that, it's just so unnecessary IMO Ironically enough the original is more realistic, where it just simply announced the military has control of the VOX now with a deeper voice than normal, with a loud alarm sound ringing beforehand. No glitching or hacking. BM just made it ridiculously cheesy and felt way too try hardy
@@GameprojordanYou say that like the original Half Life wasn't absolutely filled with cheese. From the over the top nerdy scientists to the "SIR. I. FOUND. HIM." soldiers
Triage at dawn? More like triage at down as it let me down, am I right? I'm sick of that being the staple HL2 music and CP Violation or Something Secret Steers Us/Nuclear Mission Jam being just second
In regards to calling games "replacements" in general, I don't really see that as a thing a game can do. No matter how amazing a remake or new game is, it can never undo the existence of an older game or the impact said game had on the industry as a whole. That having been said though, a game can replace a predecessor in regards to being someone's preferred game to play. Someone is entirely valid in saying Black Mesa has replaced the original Half-Life as their go-to first thing to play in a full series playthrough every bit as much as someone who played Black Mesa first is valid in saying the original Half-Life has replaced Black Mesa as their go to first thing to play in such a playthrough. Such things are strictly a matter of preference, and that's something that simply isn't possible to take away from someone. People are going to do things the way they prefer regardless of what case someone makes against it. Someone could make a video that's the exact opposite of this one, arguing that Black Mesa is somehow superior in every way, but that's not going to stop fans of the original game from preferring it over the remake. For people who do feel as though Black Mesa is their personal replacement for the original, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Them preferring Black Mesa over the original does nothing to stop other people from playing said original. Rather than recommending to people that they play the games in the order they were released, with Black Mesa after HL2:E2, I would recommend that if it's their first time getting into the series, they look into both games, Half-Life and Black Mesa. Play them back to back, or just pick whichever one seems more their thing based on criticism like in this video. Only go on to HL2 after they are satisfied that they are done with that first chapter of the story. This allows the player to cleanly transition from HL2:E2 into HLA without an awkward flashback section inbetween.
@@audax117 I didn't copy anything. I haven't seen your post, but any similarities there might be are a coincidence. Likely, you and I just happen to share a very similar viewpoint on the matter. It's actually not the first time this kind of thing has happened to me recently either. Somewhere else somewhat recently I suggested a remake of the Mega Man Zero games with the playstyle of the Devil May Cry series, and someone replied to me mentioning they had just recently posted the same idea on Reddit. I replied to them that I don't even use reddit.
@@Crow_Rising dude i didn't posted anything, i just said you copied my thoughts lol, i was too lazy to write a post about what i was thinking but you kinda did the work for me xD
Idk man, Black Mesa recaptured that feeling I got when I was a little kid playing half life for the first time. All those "next-gen graphics", all those encounters, the story, going back to the original definitely feels home, but Black Mesa manages to fascinate me even through years of experience with many other videogames that beat many concepts to death.
@@Mightyjack_ not really because Valve would be sensible enough to measure things such as how the movement scheme of HL2 does not fit the level design of HL1, they also had a 10x more talented musician making the soundtrack, Kelly Bailey and his contribution to the game's vibe is so important. The music of Black Mesa pales in comparison. If this game came out like this without the memory of HL1 carrying it, it wouldn't make half the impact HL1 did. To me it's as clear as day how the team of the original game could make much more tasteful decisions.
14:15 Someone really plays stealth in that part? I'd rather just sprint through to the control room just in time to hear the beat drop during the incineration.
thats what you are meant to do because when you do the music stops in time when the monster dies you can not "stealth" as easily ive tried many times but i all ways get gibbed by that thing so i just run for it
@@lukkkasz323 Stealth is definitely an option in both versions, i was able to crouch walk through the section in both Half-Life and Black Mesa without being harmed.
I think the reason Black Mesa's combat is criticized so harshly here is that he's trying to play it like it's Half Life 1. However, this game is very different from Half Life, and the combat is no different. In fact, every game's combat is different from each other, so you need to learn the mechanics for each game. Hell, if you try to play Half Life 2 like it's the original, you will get through, but you'll constantly be at low health and loading saves. In Black Mesa, the combat is very Fast-Paced. In Half Life, you could crouch behind cover and wait for the enemies to come to you because they couldn't shoot while they moved. But that doesn't work here. Instead, keeping your distance and moving around as fast as you can is the best strategy I have. Your weapons are far more accurate and do much more damage than those of your enemies, so you can strafe around a group of soldiers and pick them off with your revolver if you need to. And the weapons function a lot better too: The MP5 is more accurate and does more damage, the Grenades actually respond to physics, making them a lot easier to throw, and generally the weapons look and feel a lot better than in Half Life 1. The only one I REALLY don't like is the Tau Cannon, which has been changed in a fundamental way. I found that combat in Black Mesa is built off of 2 pillars: Run Fast, Shoot Faster. And once you internalize that, this game becomes HELLA fun to play. Edit: And if you're really THAT pissed about the Ammo Values, you can edit the Game Files to change this, or enable cheats to change it. You're not forced to play with those values.
I don't see why he was upset about not having as much ammo. I never once ran out of ammo in both games, at least not places were I normally would. I also much prefer BM combat to HL, but that's more of a person preference.
@@stormhought I like to have not as much ammo in games, makes me feel a sense of progress that I'm using everything I have, but the thing with Black Mesa is that still the same arsenal from Half-Life 1, the arsenal that is almost a sandbox, most weapons are reliable enough that you will have the option to use the ones you want when you want, BM on the other hand tries to do a "You will have to switch to survive" but it doesn't feel as fun in my opinion, I myself like to switch weapons a lot in games, even when not needed, but I kinda agree that Black Mesa does not that good of a job incentivizing the player to do it in a way that feels much rewarding or interesting.
I found the lesser ammo in black Mesa to be better, because it incentivized using more of the Arsenal In the original half life, honestly. You could get away with just the Mp5 and the shotgun. (And rocket launcher for those parts that needed it) There was no real need to use anything else cause you’d never eat through your ammo I just completed black mesa. Throughout the game I found myself using every single weapon, even the Tau Cannon. Even using the Tau Cannon after I had the Gluon Gun (which in the original there was 0 reason to use the Tau Cannon over the Gluon gun)
Traditional instruments don't make it into HL usually without being drowned in distortion, when they do it's usually used to symbolize the resistance (think Triage at Dawn or a lot of the music in Episode 1). Obviously the resistance does not exist in Half-Life 1.
In my opinion sad piano does fit half life, just not the original. Half life 2 and black Mesa are less about fighting against all odds, and more a survival story about the end of the world, where everyone you knew dies around you.
Well, what can I say? As someone who's been playing the original Half-life since 1999 on Pentium 2 and Intel i740 Graphics Card, I loved Black Mesa and appreciate it in almost every mindful detail Crowbar Collective added. My only 2 gripes with Black Mesa in its current state are: 1) mandatory escape sequences in Xen which took the freedom of exploration and experimentation from you; and 2) those insta-game-over laser tripmine sections which takes away the fun of embodiment while expose awkward limitations of interaction in the game. Other than those, Black Mesa feels like a love letter written by and for those who understand, appreciate and love HL1. That's just my two cents.
@@amystery2188 Insta game over even if you try to detonate them from a distance, to be precise. Remember that facility full of trip mines? That's what I am talking about.
@@amystery2188 Sure, each HL player has their own subjective experience and preferences. I am not by any means saying others should not enjoy what I dislike in Black Mesa. Although I do think those "dodge all 100 trip mines or game over" sections in Black Mesa are more annoying than that in the original. IMO, those levels make more sense in HL: Alyx where you can handle the challenge with the movements of your real body.
The reason why Triage works so well is the timing and where it was placed in the game. That the Combine raid before it is one of the more memorable uses of the transhuman infantry.
Haha, unplugging the blast shield was the first thing I did with that laser in the remake. I was so conditioned to "see plug, invert state" that I didn't even realise there was a puzzle to be solved Honestly my favourite part of Black Mesa (that I've played so far, haven't reached Xen yet) is the sort of urban exploration vibe you get platforming in the chemical processing zones etc.
@@semaj00 idk man, i think the only reason it didnt get cut cause some level designer was like what if winston gets hit, i do beleive though, traige at dawn is SO overused, and its not even the best song (in my opinion)
Good analysis. I kind of want to half-push-back-and-half-agree on the soundtrack, though: I think Black Mesa's soundtrack is one of its biggest successes *because* it changes the tone of the game so much, in a way that makes sense in a greater context. Half-Life's soundtrack emphasized mystery, horror and alienness. It had quite a lot of variety but always stayed musically unconventional. This is a great choice for a game that's the first of a series and spends much more time asking questions than answering them: You don't understand what you went through, but it was one hell of an experience, sometimes terrifying, sometimes heart-pounding, sometimes just absolutely bizarre. The effect works particularly well if you were a kid first playing the game in 1998. Black Mesa on the other hand has, besides the action pieces, basically just one tone: Melancholy. And that makes all the story events turn up in a different light. I did feel bad for the tentacles: They'd done nothing to deserve being teleported away from their home and then roasted alive... nor did the Gargantua deserve to be electrocuted (though who knows, maybe it kills people because it's knowingly a huge jerk). I took the title of Questionable Ethics much more seriously than I did the original, too, as well as the thing about the Vortigaunts being enslaved and not your enemies by nature. Even the crashing elevator in Unforeseen Consequences feels like a tragedy in Black Mesa, where in Half-Life it was indeed more of a bit of black comedy. ... And that's not to mention the entire context from the Half-Life sequels released before Black Mesa came out. You're not even saving the Earth, you are at best a small element in a much larger conflict. Nothing about the story is inevitable, but everything, all the death and destruction, happens because of the greed of forces much greater than you. Oh, and on an even more meta level, you, the player, are now 20 years older, and while Half-Life isn't going to scare you anymore, it *can* work as a tragic story, they just had to give it a soundtrack that brings that aspect out. (Uhh, sorry about the length, I didn't really intend to write a book chapter here, but oh well. This does all add up to the fact that I see Half-Life and Black Mesa as entirely different experiences where one can't replace another or even be compared to the other that well, which is why I found this video's thesis really easy to accept.)
i disagree with the statement that the mp5 was less satisfying. Its accuracy, pretty high damage output, THICC tracers and the way blood spatters is something truly beautiful. Half life's smg was in fact satisfying to use, but i wouldnt say it was more satisfying than black mesa's. in my opinion they are equal in being pleasant to use (love the originals reloading animation tho :D)
thats the point he is making, everyone likes it so its in everything, he is probably sick of hearing it but still enjoys the music, like Christmas carols
This video has a very bittersweet ending, I love it. I don’t agree with everything said, but I respect the opinion of people who don’t like things in black Mesa. Personally I think it’s an absolute gem. I can’t wait to see your video on black Mesa music.
@@AydarBMSTU No. Who kept the resonance cascade portal open after the satellite closed it? The Nialanth did. Who has the normally peaceful vortigaunts try to kill us at every moment? The Nialanth. Suuure, in terms of the overall story of the series (a political chessgame of cosmic proportions) the Nialanth is not really the antagonist of HL1, but in terms of HL1 as a standalone game, it very much is. We don’t know who Gman is by the end of HL1, nor what he wants or what he’s really done. He’s also done nothing directly by this point to stop us in any way, only appearing to watch us at times. How could he be the antagonist of HL1 if he doesn’t antagonize you until the last 5ish minutes of the game?
Surface tension in BM was awesome. You had to figure out each section through pain and blood. And the fight in the end of questionable ethics labs. It was so good. It makes you inventively use cover while shooting back AND laying traps for the guys that get from the ceiling or from the opening door. How they make you ration healthpacks to last longer. And you just call it frustrating? Like the young people say "skill issue".
I frankly don't understand the complaint about the game's lighting. The way the "Orange Fog" is spoken about makes it seem like the whole game looks like this. Personally, I don't remember ever seeing this kind of lighting until Blast Pit, where it was all over the place. I think less than half of the Earth-Bound chapters have this kind of lighting, the ones that do being Blast Pit, Power Up, On A Rail, Apprehension, and Lambda Complex. Every other chapter has a distinct look and is instantly recognizable. And each of the Chapters not only really look different from each other, but feel different as well. I particularly love the first half of the game even more than I love Half Life 1. The High-Poly, HD environments are much better on the eyes than Half Life, because they actually feel like real places that people work. It feels like you're in an actual facility instead of the sterile corridors of the Original Half Life. Again, the main thing that resolves most of the complaints is that Black Mesa isn't supposed to be a perfect remake. It's a reimagining of Half Life, which updates and changes the game to make it more contemporary. And I like it.
As a MASSIVE Black Mesa fan, I have to say that this is a great video. A lot of very well constructed and valid points. While I agree with your message of "Don't call Black Mesa a replacement" though, I will say that as a reimagining I heavily prefer most parts of Black Mesa to the original, even when they feel different (except for the puzzles, which I completely agree with you on). When I play Black Mesa, I don't try to compare it to the original anymore, it's an amazing project in it's own right, especially considering it was built using a very outdated version of the Source engine.
@Damsen What is it with people shoving their opinions down other peoples throats and insisting that their thoughts are law? Lmao just let people enjoy or pick what they want
I have to disagree about the soldiers. I never found the fights against them fun in the original game. They were too good at tracking Gordon even while he was moving, and too many of the arenas didn't seem to have any thought put in to giving the player a way to avoid hitscan attacks. Aside from a few set-pieces like that one in Surface Tension, I was always reduced to camping at the start of an area and trying to pick them off one by one with the revolver, or save-scumming and hoping that *this* time I'd actually get lucky enough to move more than a couple of feet. You talk about how they supposedly kept the player moving, but in my experience playing the original game, as soon as Gordon started moving he had about one and a half seconds to live. They may not be able to shoot and move at the same time, but they cover each other well enough that I never had the chance to use that advantage unless the one I was fighting was by himself. Black Mesa may indeed have changed their behaviour for the worse -- I really don't survive long enough against the originals to comment on that. XD But just by having more complex versions of the arenas, with more stuff in them, those same fights could sometimes be at least a little bit fun. Which counts as an improvement in my book.
Not once, in ALL of Black Mesa did I ever die of fall damage going where I was supposed to be going like I had to have done maybe 5 times when I played the original half life last summer. I didn’t even finish the Gonarch fight in that game because in the final section with that last drop I would constantly have to hug the wall behind me and try to use it to slide forward so I wouldn’t just fucking die as soon as I hit the ground. Black Mesa instantly surpasses the whole game in that regard. And even outside of that half of these are highly subjective to a degree that makes the almost objective tone of this critique really unfounded. I like that the soldiers in this game use tactics like that to try and pin you down and really make your life hell, it makes them feel like more of a threat, and here your problem with that is one thing you use as part of a statement, not that “for me personally this can’t replace ogHL”, that “this FAILED as a remake”.
8:00 honestly that seemed like a workaround because of how Source deals with object colision, if you try that with a door you'll get a misile thrown at your face in any Source game
Yeah, Source's physics don't like it when you collide objects. Picking up a crate full of bottles in HL2 causes the bottles to go spastic and fly out, for example
They definitely could have done it because there's an example of exactly what happens in the original half-life happening in half-life 2: At the scene where barney stops you going to nova prospekt at the start of the game, if you're quick enough you can place a suitcase in the gate that barney stops you going through, causing the door to bounce back into it being opened and it will stay like that forever. (unless you're playing the old engine, then you turn the suitcase into a cannon)
@@Gulliblepikmin door physics are different from the actual physics in source, if you put barrels in an elevator or a scripted moving object the barrel turns into a vibrator and noise machine
My main complaint when it comes to black Mesa is how cluttered the game feels putting in some objects to make it feel more alive would’ve been fine (even though I thought with the limited technology they had in hl1 was extremely lively) but it is so cluttered in the early chapters Possible to play the game properly
i almost clicked off cause right then i knew this was about to be partial to the original. nothing wrong with that but its tough to call it a comparison
"This is a counter-balance to the praise" *Shits on Black Mesa and Crowbar Collective while sucking Valve's dick for 30 minutes* "Go play Black Mesa" Purple, the fuck?
The Xen portion of Black Mesa was where I really started to enjoy it the most. They did a really good job of visually fleshing out the alien world, and the vortigaunt village was especially atmospheric. I love that they incorporated the same glowing graffiti that showed up in Alyx.
I remember when I first played Half Life in 1999 and how impressed I was. I also remember when I first saw some early access videos of Black Mesa. I thought, "even if this does everything perfectly, there will still be a ton of people in the community moaning about every single change." But even back then, I never thought I'd one day be listening to someone complain about the color of distant fog. Few things are as potent as nostalgia goggles. It's odd how you can one moment complain about "needless" expansions to levels making them too long and then complain about "On A Rail" being too short because this amazingly tedious part of the game has actually been streamlined. Black Mesa isn't perfect but for every moment in which I prefer the original, there far more where I'm blown away with how much things have been improved while maintaining the spirit of HL1.
Just a brief note about the Plug Puzzles, I honestly don't mind them. The way you talk about them makes it seem like they're the only puzzle mechanic in all of Black Mesa. I only remember there being one or two per chapter on Earth. It was just a simple mechanic to update the game with Source Engine mechanics. And I like the redesigns of the maps, I feel that most of them look good. And while yes, the pathfinding can be challenging, this is true for every entry into the Half Life series, not just Black Mesa. It's hard to find where you're supposed to go in all of the games, at least in my experience (Although that may just be my stupidity)
@@PurpleColonel You'd think less developed areas in our world wouldn't have modern firearms or ammunition but they do. Much of the tech is likely stolen and the Nihilanth is likely very old. The armies it built were for whenever the combine would eventually find them. The Vortigaunts were also shown to be very smart in later games with them helping out scientists like Magnison.
@@nesrovlahsurvivalist8399 Less developed nations in the modern world get firearms because other nations are willing to trade with them. And that's very different from an entire factory capable of building soldiers.
@@PurpleColonel While you are right about that, I just realized something. The Combine are way larger than most people think they are. Think about it, the Black Mesa invasion managed to stay contained for multiple days. But the Combine showed up and forced humanity’s surrender in just 7 hours. Not to mention that what was left there in half life 2 was basically a police force. With multiple kilometre high towers looming over city’s. The Combines power is so large, escaped slaves with factories don’t seem that farfetched in comparison to them.
You aren't entirely correct, Xen are just borderworld. Nihilanth escaped from Combine to Xen as last of its kind, it then enslaved Vortigaunt and copy Combine technology.
I think the biggest misunderstanding of this video is that, yes, it's trying to remake half-life, but it is also trying to be its own thing. Your gripes with the combat are due to the fact that you keep trying to play it exactly like half-life, but the combat is different because of the updated AI and maps. Once you start treating the game as more of a retry at half-life rather than a remake, you'll be able to appreciate it more.
The thing is, the best part about HL1 is the gameplay, which is arguably better than HL2 (specially given that the Hecu AI are more engaging than the combine), so it makes sense to be disappointed with BM.
If you noticed some of the complaints, they were that the maps were made like HL1, but it is using HL2 combat mechanics, meaning that the area is not designed to be played as the combat mechanics intend. So the biggest misunderstanding is that you don't understand the point of the complaint.
My favourite piece in all of Half-Life is definetly _Nepal Monastery._ It is just such an eerie piece while also telling you how to get past the tentacle (even though I was too dumb to understand), when I finally played that section with the sound low enough to hear it I was amazed and genuinely scared because of it.
I'm gonna have to disagree with your point on Nihilanth. While they probably could've went in a different direction, I enjoyed the fight much more than I did in HL1. Other than that, this is an excellent video and I've been waiting a long time for someone to share my sentiments.
Honestly, I liked how the music was used throughout Black Mesa. Like Surface Tension 1 genuinely influenced the way I played to be more aggressive and fun
Personally, i like that you can choose to sprint. Personally makes me somewhat more immersed cause i choose when i want to run and sometimes i want to move at a walking pace and not a snail pace like what pressing shift did in the original
“Which one should I play?” Both. Playing both will help you appreciate both. The better gameplay of black mesa can only be appreciated by playing Half life, and the tiny details of half life can only be appreciated by playing black mesa. I have no reason to miss the cockroaches while playing Black Mesa, but I do.
I like the original, and I like black mesa. I like the more modern take black mesa did on original. And I especially really like the bigger enemy count. Makes the whole world really feel like there's an army going in. But to each their own. I still liked the video and it gave me a new perspective.
Alright now I'm stoked to play Black Mesa. I've got the orange box, the HL anthology and Black Mesa Definitive Edition, so I'm in for a nice tour of nostalgia and new 😁
Great video! Though you did make some compelling points I kinda disagree about the general sentiment about what Black Mesa is. I never got the feeling it was trying to replace Half Life in any way, but instead give a different interpretation of the world and its story. It has a much different vibe than both Half Life 1 and 2, and while the combat steers more towards 2, the way in which it delivers the story is much more focused in the former. The combat is definitely different than 1 and 2, but I don't think that's necessarily bad, I just think the way in which combat is presented to you is a bit more focused on strategical, quick thinking movement rather than constant sprinting like the first, or something more methodical like the second. While it would have been nice if this was displayed a bit more, it would have probably been hard to do so, considering that the expectation of how combat functions is smack dab in the middle of the two games. I also think the level design isn't given enough credit, and I think Crowbar Collective made an incredibly compelling environment that feels lived in, realistic, and natural, and rarely did I really feel lost in the game due to its use of colors, lighting, and sound. You very early on realize what doors do and don't provide any further progression, so it's pretty easy to dictate where the next viable path forward is, and I think Black Mesa uses a lot more landmark level design than the previous games. I also believe that the use of alien technology similar to Combine is intentional, especially with the first giant Xen portal. It is clearly based off of the Citadel core level from Half Life 2: Episode 1, and the use of force fields and sophisticated technology was meant to foreshadow the fact that the Combine was soon to enslave the border world, take their resources and technology, and move onto the next. I do find your points interesting about how Black Mesa stacks against others in the franchise, but I believe the game wasn't meant to compete, but instead give an entirely different experience. But that's just me personally.
After reading these comments, there seem to be 4 types of people People who genuinely have the same complaints as those expressed in the video Elitists who will find any excuse to hate anything that isn't the original experience People who have genuine criticisms of the video People who claim that anyone who agrees with the video is an elitist
Most of the criticism here are either nitpicks or make no sense. It sounds like a lot of it is just. " I wish it was a 1;1 copy of Half Life. " Come on, you say Half Life 1 was minimalist? It wasn't. It was only very empty because it was 1998. You couldn't add beauty. Then you say Half Life original looked better than Black Mesa? Nobody cares.
14:10 i'll have to dissagree with that one, that music placement was the best i've heard in a long time, i know it sounds stupid but i used to hate that part of the game because i just wanted to run past the tentacles but i was never able to, maybe my kid mind was too scared or was too shit at running to make it. This time tho, after going through that place twice while crouching, i heard that epic music and thought to myself "what if i just throw a grenade and run like a mf?" So i tried it, AND IT WORKED, with intense rock music and everything, that felt straight out of a movie
Yes! I agree that his criticism of this part makes no sense. You'd already stealthed past the tentacle monster twice (once to get to the oxygen/fuel and once to get to the power generator). You've DONE your stealthing. Now you've got all necessary systems online, and you're heading back past it one last time to kick it's fuckin' ass. That music comes on and it's just EPIC.
I disagree greatly with the plug puzzle when fighting the Gargantua in Power. Pushing the plugs in as the Gargantua starts to sear your back with its flames before you have to climb up and disintegrate it. Whereas in the original you run up to the switch flip it and the gargantua either doesent touch a hair on you or hits you for 40 damage and then piss off. The tension is much more nerve wracking.
You're mistaken about one thing, the scientists were clearly being pulled into the vent by some unseen creature and its a mix of horror comedy with the gratuitous gibs that get thrown out of the vent.
Ok so I can agree with a lot of points in this video but your thoughts on the music personally I found the placement of the music to be perfect. Its this heavy full on combat style of music which just goes really well in places like the end of we've got hostile's as well as a deep wavy track like after you kill the boss in power up and I find your example of the end of blast pit to be flawed I mean you can interprate the song and placement of it as you want but personally I found it to be a way to reflect on what you've accomplished this structure of music placement works really well in a level like blast pit because in other levels like on a rail, we've got hostile's, office complex, questionable ethics and so many others you're going from point A to point B where as in blast pit the level is centred around the tentacles with you working tirelessly around them and only them you fall down elevators just to get the power up you almost get you're head chopped off because of a fan for the oxygen so this makes it a very powerful moment when you finally kill off this thing. I don't know how anyone else found blast pit or maybe I'm bad at half life but in my opinion this chapter is long so the feeling of finally killing these giant tentacles needs to be captured and also yes the music turns off for a reason in my opinion because it needs to capture a silent moment where you can just watch all of you're hard work launch into space at hundreds of miles per hour and kill the monster
14:08 i usually just start running through this section once the beat drops, it fits in way more than the funny little crowbar man crawling along the floor to avoid the funny tentacle monster
@@bensadfleck9972 You're completely misrepresenting him. He states at the end of the video that despite everything he enjoys black mesa and thinks its a good game, but not a replacement to the original. He is combatting the idea that Black Mesa is a replacement.
Personally, I feel Black Mesa's rendition of On A Rail was great. It still had quite a few puzzles, and the fights were fun and satisfying. While I realize the original point of On A Rail, it never really fit into the fast-paced nature of Half Life. Some of the Mechanics were just a bit too ridiculous for my taste (Shooting signs to change direction was kind of stupid even back in 1998.) Plus, I feel the linearity makes it much better in the long scheme of things, as the OG On A Rail was a bit of a steep learning curve. And the ending was pretty satisfying to me. After fighting my way through all those soldiers and getting the rocket ready to launch, it felt so good to see it fly into the sky. I won't talk about the rest of the game here, this is just my thoughts on On A Rail. The thing I think holds back a lot of people's thinking about this game is that they compare it too harshly to Half Life 1. This isn't a remastering, it's a reimagining. It's supposed to be different from Half Life 1.
It might sound weird, but i always liked On a Rail. and Power Up chapter as well. It felt like a separate adventure. Getting the cart, trying to find a way through split tunnels, solving puzzles to progress further. I enjoyed the thrill of dark claustrophobic tunnels, squeezing through hazardous rails, shooting signs, launching face first into pits on a crash. I didn't mind getting lost there even. I don't know why, but i still like that chapter more than many other chapters in HL. I kinda wished they would improve and expand on rather than cut pieces of that chapter in BMS. But giving that most people hated it, that was probably for the best.
I tried getting a friend into Half Life. He tried the original game but found its mechanics lacking in gunplay. If it wasn't for Black Mesa, he'd never try Half Life 2 and fall in love with the series.
Kinda same for me actually. At first, I wanted to play Half Life in my uncle's pc because I was like "the older the game, the better it is". I mean yeah sure Half Life is the ultimate iconic version and Black Mesa is just a remake (I mean it's a whole game now, but u get the point), but we can't just shit on Black Mesa for being a remake of Half Life. It's just on par with Half Life in my opinion. So, my uncle somehow convinced me to play Black Mesa instead to change my old mind, and it worked. I got into the Half Life franchise via Black Mesa and then I became absolutely obsessed with every part of it. I love everything about every Half Life game ever, especially Black Mesa. I just don't understand why some people shit on BM so much, like, that's some hater energy I guess.
@@Froxmog The people who have been with Half-Life longer than others tend to shit on Black Mesa more from what I've seen, this feels sort of like a purist acting like Black Mesa is a lot worse, but I find them to be two different works of art, both are just from different points in time.
@@Froxmog Also I think people give HL1 WAYY too much credit with Xen, it is barren, boring, and there is nothing special about it in the slightest compared to Black Mesa.
@@kabeam5643 Thats so true, idk why people think like that. I thought that Black Mesa Xen would be objectively more liked by almost everyone when it came out. But sadly, no. It doesnt make sense
Another HUGE, unbelievably HUGE flaw with Black Mesa's Xen is the continuity between Black Mesa and Half Life 2. At the end of Half Life 2, Breen opens a portal to another world, albeit a combine world, the texture used for the diorama representation of this world seen from a glimpse through the portal was VERY reminiscent of Half life's Xen. The green yellow sky. And Black Mesa completely stripped that look of Xen from the final, Valve said they were rushed with Xen. They didn't say they hated EVERYTHING about it. With the exception of interloper. Nihilinth is another huge problem. He was supposed to be an alien attempting speech with Gordon, sounding more creepy, or unique. Black Mesa's Nihilinth is made in a very deep voice, sounding more like a demon than an alien, like a monster trying desperately with force to kill freeman, when initially in the original, he seemed more like an opponent to Gordon's intellect. Trying to out smart Gordon. Or attempt communicating with him, while still trying to kill him for screwing on his terf. Really disappointed with Xen as a whole, more so than the original, I know they spent a lot of time on it.. and that's the sad part. It just. Doesn't. Feel. Like. Half life.
I love how most of the comments are like “this is so harsh” but uh yeah I kinda agree… but he’s right about the STUPID PLUG PUZZLES AHHHHHH IM GOING TO ACTUALLY PULL MY HAIR OUT!!!
The biggest problem with this: Black Mesa isnt a remake Its said to be a reimagining by the devs, people just treat it like a remake because it was made as a response to Half Life Source, an actual remake.
@@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches incorrect, a port makes a game be playable on another platform i.e. if MGS4 was suddenly put on the computer. Half Life was already on the computer.
I think that black Mesa did weapons a lot better than the original for a few reasons, the primary one being that you get less ammo. In the original half life it’s more or less possible to complete the game with just the SMG outside of segments where you NEED to use something else (helicopter fight, icthyosaurs, etc) but by drastically reducing its ammo and making it worse at longer ranges it makes you use other weapons more. There’s a mod that returns the old ammo caps to black Mesa and it’s fun to use but only as a curb stomp. With the amount of ammo you get it’s possible to scum every fight in surface tension with the crossbow which doesn’t FEEL like the intended experience, and in black Mesa it isn’t. I like the Nialinth fight better in black Mesa too, putting the fight on pause to do first person platforming wasn’t fun, and the BM version kept the teleporter element in by having the Nialinth use portals to throw things at the player instead. I also liked the elevator finale, the shields teach the player about the the shields in the final fight and it’s an epic, showy set piece for the final boss- BM is much more cinematic overall, it’s the same reason why the gargantua chase is better with way more of them- getting to turn back and see how many were chasing you FEELS great. On the note of being cinematic, the fight at the end of questionable ethics is good in black Mesa because it highlights Gordon’s change from a normal guy to what’s essentially a serial killer- the good music and the arena brawl followed by the scientist going “look what you’ve done… I can’t believe what you’ve done!” Is a great way to highlight this arc that never really gets remarked on in the original. I agree that the lens flare is a bit much, that on a rail could be better fixed than cut, that the soldiers are a lot tougher than the original, and especially that the conveyor belt fight takes too long and is way too messy, but ultimately I feel that most of your complaints with the game come from a position of wanting it to change half life while staying the same- if the goal was to make a modern shooter, enemies that only shoot when not moving isn’t that. If the goal was to make a modern game, empty but clean environments don’t fit (admittedly some areas are too cluttered but if it was closer to the original it would be out of place). If the goal was to replace half life, I agree that it failed, but I don’t think that was ever the plan.
I do not think that you are treating Half Life and Black Mesa fairly. Updating the game to modern standards also means adjusting to contemporary expectations. Cluttering the levels with objects might make you disoriented, but it induces exploration and gives a sense of scale that is completely absent from Half Life. The Half Life levels just don't feel real anymore. You can also argue, that using crouch-jump in Half Life was not frustrating, but fighting over-powered enemies by means using try and error is. I think that the taste changed in the recent years, look at the success of dark souls like. And no one uses crouch-jump anymore, so it did not stand the test of times. So this is a very personal perspective and you might have developed a bias because you experienced Half Life before Black Mesa. I experienced Black Mesa before Half Life.
On a rail is a great chapter, you are pretty much just a scrub if you didn't find it enjoyable because the only unenjoyable part were when you weren't in combat and just going forward. Which was like 5% of the chapter.
Black Mesa is a game that is made for Half-life fans, I think playing Half-life 1 makes you appreciate it more. I can't tell you the amount of times new people on Reddit forms that play Half-life 1, for the first time, say it's "generic." I've played and shown a ton of people Half-life: I let my nephew play Alyx through the first two chapters (during the intro, he read out Eil's name wrong and it made me want to jump out of a window). But that's fine, he experienced something Half-life related. What my point is: I have experience with showing new people Half-life, I'm almost an expert at it. I don't think people should play Black Mesa first just because Half-life 2 exists. Think about it, imagine you've never played half-life before, so you play Black Mesa and then you move on to Half-life 2. That's going to be a big decrease in terms of graphics and gameplay that will leave you disappointed, if that's what you care about. I agree with your video, a lot actually... but if somebody likes Black Mesa more, that's fine by me. My same old advice is to play the games in order. Hell I even recommend Gearbox's expansion packs because Opposing Force is just TOO GOOD. But seriously, if my nine year old niece can play all of the official Half-life games in order with no problems over the summer, then you should be able to play them just as fine... Right? (Also yes, she even got through Xen... somehow)
@@kakophonien6514 Or you can be a real HL fan like me and buy a CRT monitor to play it at a really nice 1024x768 (higher than that and it loses some of the CRT aesthetic) with really smooth movement and the black levels the game was intended to be played with. Or don't, because a CRT is epic and I love this thing, but I'm also an autist and most people won't care enough lol.
Overall i agree with alot of things in this video. Black Mesa is a bit to clutterd for its own good and has to much of the GODDAMN PLUG PUZZULES. Plus New Xen is a bit of a mix bag. But i think it does alot of things well. First, I hate MP5 in the original HL. And i think its much better in BM. But they fuck up the shotgun. Now the moment in the video when you talked about ghost busters gun with infinite ammo, I can't help but say that i love that moment. Becasue it gave something that i really wanted in the og game. And man the ending of interloper is such a epic mess and i love it some much.
The penultimate elevator ride is one of the best parts of Black Mesa for me because honestly, you do not get enough time to play with the Gluon Gun. Is it hard? No, and it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to give you just a little bit of room to go nuts. It's fun and it's hilarious. I also have a number of problems with Black Mesa, and they come down to two points made in the video: the telegraphing of "what do I do now" is not nearly as clear in many places as it could be, and some sections are about twice as long as they ought to be (especially in Interloper). I kinda liked the addition of more puzzles and more combat sections though, because I'm a story/puzzle gamer. As frustrating as the battle where you come up from the tunnels was, it was a really interesting problem of how to approach something so overwhelming. I DID often feel like I was making a lot of interesting combat choices--different from how it is in the original but still valid and thematically appropriate in their own right. Finding the switch to continue from that section IS still bullshit, though. It's annoying because the game conveys how to continue just fine 98% of the time. It's just that 2% you're left wandering around wondering where the hell is the next doorway. Other than those points though, I'm not sure I agree with most of the rest of the video. At one point he agrees that the tone of the original is supposed to be a little cartoonish, and then lambasts BM for doing something kinda silly, or being too on-the-nose with its storytelling? Feels like a "it's not precisely what I remember therefore it's not a good change" argument, cause... that's ALL part of the original tone and theme.
the MP5 in HL1 was broken for a long while on the steam version thanks to patches. Recently it has been fixed. I don't mind the Infinite ammo Gluon Gun, but they blew their load WAY too early and as a result it loses its luster.
No, it's not the original half life, but so many of the points in this video seem like nitpicks, while I do agree with the orange fog in the facility being far too prevalent and basically in your face sometimes, everything else just felt like "its not half life 1", like the weapon firing being slightly different or the differentiation of the sprint button, or the scientist voice actors trying to emulate the way the scientists talked in the original, or I guess just not having the actual G-Man voice actor????? The G-Man voice actor thing seemed like a joke but it didn't really hit well because like, what's the joke? That they couldn't just afford a real actor or that the one they got is I guess bad? The game is also not a "replacement" or a "remake" or even a "remaster", the steam page advertises it as a way to "Relive Half-Life" with "Black Mesa is the fan-made reimagining of Valve Software’s Half-Life." (yes it really says "THE FAN-MADE REIMAGINING" as if it's the only one for some reason),
Remaking something will never supersede the original with its pure intent and execution, despite the increase in graphical fidelity. It's just not as sharp, ironically. I respect the effort that went into making Black Mesa as a love letter to a great piece of art, but not respecting the arbitrary changes of a bunch of designs that won Half-Life 1 over 50 GOTY awards. That's not how it was originally designed, so why add it now? This is the George Lucas Special Edition. Might look prettier, but has too many fingers in the original design mucking it up, and you lose out on so much, from the continuity of the original designers, deliberate re-use of sound effects and music, voice actors, and directly controlling what the player experiences in between HL1 and HL2. There's no good reason to ignore Half-Life 1 today in favor of Black Mesa, unless graphics are a make-or-break for your immersion/enjoyment, which would sadden me. It holds up to this day, and frankly Black Mesa could gain to learn more from the art of polished and streamlined simplicity.
Fights against the soldiers in Black mesa felt tiring to play. Your video really puts it into words. The only real strat I found was either rushing them and hoping for a health pack drop or spamming grenades towards hordes. Neither of these strat would probably work on anything harder than medium difficulty tho.
On hard I mostly dealt with them with magnum + SMG headshots and double shotgun blasts while running between/stealing cover. Sit and wait a sec behind cover for specific soldiers to reload, but run before grenades come. Look for the medic in a big group of soldiers before you advance, then you can rush the medic and whoever's right by him (spraying them in the face with the SMG or explosives works best for a rush like this) and grab the medkit as you advance. The shotgun double blast is still instakill on hard, so you can breach a guy's cover with it while he reloads. If you retreat strategically in more open areas you can lure them in and snipe any lagging soldiers with the crossbow/magnum. Hard pretty much requires fast head tracking with the SMG and magnum to survive a few encounters though.
I feel like Black Mesa is a more dramatic and immersive version of Half-Life. The music is more epic (especially in Xen), the scientists express more emotions when the catastrophe occurs, we can see in detail how they enslave the vortigaunts, Freeman begins to hear voices when he is about to enter the Nihilant portal (I guess he is remembering everything he went through) and the elevator part before the final fight gave me intense feelings. In conclusion, in my opinion, Half-Life is like an action movie while Black Mesa is like an emotional one.
@@stankgangsta4105 But it's def way better than original Xen, which not only feel gamey, but also barren and incomplete. Everyone who says that HL1's Xen is more engaging than BM is relying on nostalgia aspect alone.
![Twenty One Pilots - The Line (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Audio]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XCz7WUotXs8/mqdefault.jpg)
My HL1 settings:
Brightness 0.5
Gamma 1.8
and since FOV scaling is messed up for widescreen,
default_fov 106 (Around the same as 90 for 4:3)
gl_texturemode GL_NEAREST will deblur all textures and display them pixelated like in software mode, which I personally don't like, but others do.
Update: I've started using a brightness of 1 rather than 0.5 for videos because it improves visibility while keeping most of that atmosphere.
gl_texturemode GL_NEAREST in your autoexec makes the game not use gl blurring which blurs all the pixels in a texture.
fov can go upto 115 without most the guns showing the invisible faces of the viewmodel.
@@Underqualified_Gunman I prefer the lower fov and I'm not a big fan of the pixelated textures, personally. But I'll add those.
thanks. figured if any video talks about making the game look better it would be handy to have them easy to copy paste.
Thank you so much. I never knew why my game zoomed in so much when I tried to go widescreen. Now I can finally play widescreen
16:37 I laughed to death when I saw the little security guard zoom
When people ask "What is the best way to play the original Half-Life", I answer with "Why choose? Play both. But for the love of God, do not play Half-Life Source."
Yeah but some people rather play one and move on to other games or half life 2 because they don't like playing a remake
@@IAm-zo1bo yes, that's true
I’ve played source :|
Source only requires the unofficial patch to stand up with the rest of the series. Though the other 2 you can play out of the box, so...
What's wrong with source? I only got to play the ps2 version of HL as a kid and I'm only now picking it back up.
I can't really criticize them that much for their voice actor of the Gman. They asked Michael Shapiro, and he politely declined
To be fair, the Security Guard and G-Man were always the same voice actor, so it made sense to have Kevin Sisk voice G-Man at the end.
@Hollow dude i don't think they even knew about him
It's unfortunate they didn't know about JapaneseBushBaby
they should have hired the guy from Hunt Down the Freeman
@@crimsonlanceman7882 Maybe they could've told him how to pronounce Black Mehsa this time
While I appreciate the effort that certainly went into this video, and I see where your criticism is coming from, I think this is overly harsh. Let me start by saying that I grew up playing the original and love it to this day, and it is one of my favorite video games. Still, I really love Black Mesa and while it does feel different, I really agree with many if not most of their changes.
So here are some thoughts after listening to your points. I had to actually split it into several shorter comments:
Combat: HL's combat is not about run & gun. It is about taking fights in a smart way. BMS enhances this aspect in my opinion. The fact that the try to pin you down with others trying to push you is so engaging. You then go on to say "Pray that a grenade doesn't land at your feet", which is what constantly happened in HL - only that you couldn't pick them up and throw them back. Yes, there are a lot more (and bigger) fights but I always felt that when taking them with a bit of strategy, you can turn the odds into your favor. In HL, it was just "wait for the marine to run around without shooting, then charge at them and insta-gib them with the shotgun". Oh and I agree that weapons felt better in the original. Especially the SMG in BMS is really unsatisfying.
Sprint & Always run: You complain about the fact that you can sprint here. One issue I had with the original is the amount of walking long and boring corridors. Adding the sprint mechanics from HL2 was a great way to cut some of these short without changing the familiar layouts too much. Then, you complain about the fact that it isn't standard. But the option which turns it into the standard is also not right for you, because it makes controlling the platforming sections harder. Well, that's why it isn't standard. A minor point in the video but I found this complaint really pointless, sorry.
Puzzles: I personally really liked how they took some puzzle mechanics from HL2 and put them in this game. It fits well with the theme of bringing the two games more in line. I don't think the puzzles "fail to justify their inclusion" since otherwise it would just be a straight run-and-gun shooter, which HL isn't meant to be. Finding the button to press, the valve to turn and - yes - the cable to plug is very much in the spirit of HL, in my opinion. You then go on to critique how they added some extra routes to navigate through and how it doesn't add anything. As someone who played the original so much that I can almost beat it with my eyes closed, I appreciated these extra moments a lot, bringing back some sense of exploration. Then you say that navigation is "often confused by the added detail" and complement HL on its "minimalist design", which clearly is simply driven by the technical limitations of the time. Look at HL2 (or even better, HLA), the environments are messy and cluttered, as is appropriate for the setting. The fact that I had to look around and got a bit lost here and there was very refreshing in that I couldn't just speedrun the game at my first try because I played HL1 a thousand times.
Visuals: You start this section by claiming HL only looks bad because of its default settings. I mean, come on. It simply looks bad by today's standards because it's outdated. And are we sure it's the "intended look" if I have to fiddle around with console commands to get there? Maybe. But still - using this to talk down on the visual advantage that BMS has over HL is so out of place and really feels like you're scraping the bottom of the barrel to make the game look bad for some reason. You go on to claim that HL attempted a cartoonish style. I fail to see that and don't think that the presence of dark humor in HL can be taken as proof of that. I am also VERY glad that BMS didn't try to go for a cartoonish look and went for a graphics style that - to my eyes - looks like a more up-to-date HL2 art style. I think this was the right way to go for the intended atmosphere and I think they absolutely nailed that. The inside sections look fantastic IMO, the color shemes are both true to the original as well as adding what is possible to add with present day technology. I don't have see the issue with the presence of lense flares, I feel they are only added in very specific moments where you're staring into a light source that is much brighter than the surrounding area. You might be of the (perfectly valid) opinion that this might be a bit too much, but your outraged "who asked for this??" is so overblown it had me shaking my head. I somewhat agree with you on the soundtrack. It feels a bit generic and sometimes out of place.
Changes: You have some really good points here. I do agree that some of the added areas are too much. For example, Surface Tension is stupidly long and really repetitive. But then your rant about how they effectively remove crouch-jumping. I don't see why we need this mechanic and why we shouldn't just make the character jump higher, especially since you don't get any advantage from not performing a crouch-jump. Earlier in your vid you actually complain about having to hold down Shift for sprinting all the time. But dare they remove having to hold down Ctrl for every jump! And if it bothers you that much, by all means just disable the option, it's not like it's hidden.
On a Rail: At least you start by saying it's a divisive chapter so I can just say: I hate this chapter in the original almost as much as I hate Residue Processing. I'm glad they cut it shorter. It still feels long, but never as dull as the original one. There's still considerable amounts of "getting lost" in the BMS version. Oh, and the ambience sounds in the BMS versions make the atmosphere so incredible intense. It really feels like you're wandering through dank, dark and abandoned tunnels and it made me feel genuinely uneasy. The chapters before On a Rail are nearly identical to their HL counterparts because those were universally loved, so here's your reason as to why this is the first instance of seeing large changes being made. And honestly, the stuff that they cut from the original wasn't half as memorable as you put it. My biggest complaint would be that they didn't give Residue Processing the same treatment. But maybe I'm the only person in the world that really hated this section...
Interloper: The scene with the grunts beating down the vorts is justified by the fact that the original fails to establish the hierarchy between the creatures on Xen. The vortigaunts are slaves and this scene makes that clear. When I played Interloper in the original for the first time, I wondered why the vorts aren't attacking me and if the game is bugged. The fact that they are slaves and inherently friendly was implied at best. BMS wants to do more storytelling, and I think it does it well with these moments. You obviously disagree, that's fine. Then the technology... Why wouldn't the aliens have technology? They are obviously intelligent. I agree that the visual style is too much of a departure from the original here, though. Another point where I agree with you very strongly: Interloper is much too long. It drags on forever without adding much. There are many sections that introduce little mechanics that are cool the first time you encounter them, but then they get copy&pasted until you can do them blindfolded. One example is the section where you climb the "conveyor tower" and have to shoot red bubbly things to disable force fields. Ugh. I did like the mechanic of the overcharged gluon gun, it felt like paying hommage to the gravity gun in the citadel in HL2.
NIhilanth: The Nihilanth battle was IMO the lowest point of the original game. The fact that he teleports you around is just so weird and disorienting. You end up in another room thinking "Is the battle over? Did I fail it? When I return, is the guy back at full health?" It's poor design. In BMS, the fight is actually really epic. And by the way, the battle still revolves around the Nihilanth's teleport ability, as it spawns in sections of rooms from earth. It was a cool mechanic of resupplying the player with health and ammo during the fight and I thought it really looked cool. The battle as a whole really does the scale of the creature more justice than the original, where it was some weird floating giant space baby that didn't really seem all that threatening. The only conern was really how to climb the chamber. Then the fact that they kept G-Man's ending scene more or less the same. I'm glad they didn't touch it. If they had extended this beyond the original, it would have felt like fan fiction.
You conclude by more or less expressing your anger over the fact that people might view this as a replacement and that some might not enjoy the original because of its dated graphics. But there's a good possibility that someone who plays this game today might not enjoy it so much because they don't share our nostalgia. We grew up with Half Life, it was groundbreaking when it came out and we were awestruck by its atmosphere and scale. It has set a standard back then, but this standard is now outdated. People playing this game for the first time in 2021 might simply not get what's so great about it because the world has moved on. Many moments that, back in the day when I saw them for the first time, gave me the chills and made me feel like "Oh god what is happening here" might be unintentionally comic by today's standards.
My conclusions: While I agree that BMS has issues, I still think it succeeds in being a modern reimagination of Half Life. What really rubs me the wrong way about your video is how you completely skip over some seriously great alterations CC have made and focus almost entirely on what you think its weaknesses are. The way they actually implemented some of the retcons that Valve made, like putting Kleiner and Vance in the game and bringin the Vortigaunts more in line with how they appear in the sequels, is cool. The environmental storytelling is also much better than the original. Many things that we had to infer from the game files or statements from the devs are now actually shown in the game and can be read off the environment - again the example with the "Alien Slave" and "Alien Controller" here. We did not know the names for those back in the day until someone unzipped the game files. And their roles weren't communicated in the game very well. BMS does a much better job of showing you these things and you will understand the lore of Half Life a bit better.
So yeah, that's a lot of text. Cheers.
@@MadMatty01 i just beat half life 1 for the first time ever yesterday at age 22 lmao, it was aboslutely amazing. i went into the game hyping myself up on the history of HL and the impact it had. i went into it also just "expecting" quake (even tho i know its not) just so i can see/feel what it mustve felt like, even if i only felt 10% of what that feeling was. I was FOR SURE caught in moments thinking "what the fuck is happening here im fucked" simply due to the style and way valve tells their stories, very set piece, everything feels skippable or missable which makes those moments even better(thinking of surface tension when the aliens land and the military calls in an airstrike and then you fight mili dudes before going in a building) the pure rawness of the game was something that still to this day is yet to be captured the same. I havent played HL2 or Opposing force or blue shift or much alyx besides shooting a gun, and i still havent played black mesa, but i agree with what you have said, the game always seemed fine and everyone i know has said its a great modern VERSION of HL1 but still cant hold a candle to og, but is still something to play after beating hl1
@@MadMatty01 How is nihilanth teleporting disorienting? You already know when we will teleport you and when you get there you get a little confused but you dodge and shoot, then you get back, HOW THE FUCK IS THAT CONFUSING?!
@@axis1677 calm down dude
The song that plays when you wake up after the resonance cascade is very fitting tho
This is the most critical i have seen someone being on Black mesa.
Well like he said at the beginning, this video serves as a counterbalance for all the praises for this game
Yet black mesa is probably the best remake of any game ever.
Unnecessarily critical.
@@voldy3565 yet right about everything he criticized.
Video was not blind hate. It's like if we gave you the job to remake Max Payne.
You might be tempted to make your inputs and it will show, because you either missed the idea of the original or you lack talent and skill. It can also be mixture of both.
Black Mesa is good, but they really didn't have to go out of their way and put their spins where they didn't have to.
I'd say it is worth playing but after the Valve games.
@@willyn1422 Gmanlives is also a condescending price who a lot of times just fishes for views.
I love how every person on youtube showing their Xen gameplay failed to realize if you hold crouch while landing off the boost jump, you will continue to slide at the same speed. This makes the chase sequence and the Nihilanth fight insanely fun and epic.
I noticed that, but 90% of the time it got me killed during normal platforming (Such as the start of interloper) so I forced myself to unlearn it.
Did you learn how to adjust your trajectory while sliding by using the tau cannon? I found that it made the final boss even more enjoyable for me.
@@PurpleColonel sounds like you're just bad at platforming. i had no problem
@@mvnkycheez The crouch-long-jump glitch is only useful like twice in the entire xen section. The part where you have to jump across the water in which a humongous shark-thing is swimming and the other part in which you have to kill barnacles to get across the platforms unless you wanna die a watery death with none other than the shark thing and his cousin.
@@realCaveJohnson ICHTHYOSAUR?!?!
I completely disagree to the "They worsened the nihilant fight by removing the platforming sections" part, those sections are a really big pain in the ass that make the nihilant fight even worse
He said it was annoying, his point was just that they could've polished that mechanic in Black Mesa and made something truly special.
they did annoy me at first, but i did honestly grow to enjoy it. i think it's a pretty cool mechanic, how the nihilanth shoots portals at you is honestly pretty cool
@@VinVonVoom Idk, I feel like that it was just a fundamentally bad idea at its core. No amount of polish would've made constantly having the pace of the fight broken to do menial platforming any fun.
@@thegreatgonzales6813 By polishing I largely meant to up the pacing of the portal locations, add some time element like rising death liquid and make the platforming more engaging.
@thegreatgonzales6813 at tge very least, I think having the Nihilanth shot portals at you, even if only as one-time phase transitions, should have been kept.
Am I the only one that thinks Black Mesa's Xen is the most beautifully crafted game world in a first person shooter?
Yes.
It's waaaaaay too long.
You're definitely not. They really nailed a modern rendition of Xen. Even the more subtle stuff, like pointless length lol.
I’m absolutely in love with it too.
@@almosthappysandwich I've always disagreed with the argument that Xen is too long. The design significantly makes up for it to me. Each section is just unique and intriguing compared to the next
(Edited for spelling)
@@nathanfish1998 so you wanna say that they placed crystals with infinite ammo for gluon gun because they made godlike game design?
Honestly never had an issue with black mesa.
I'm playing it right now and am honestly enjoying it much more than the original HL. The combat can be a little rough, but other than that I've been having a lot of fun with it.
I overall prefer Black Mesa, but I also generally agree with the criticisms in this video. I can see a lot of potential for improvement if the dev team took criticism like this to heart and tried to implement more of what the original did better into the experience. In particular, I would absolutely love it if the soldier AI was tweaked to be more fair to the player. There's a few sections in Forget About Freeman and Surface Tension that were more frustrating than fun to deal with because of them.
@@Crow_Rising I don't prefer BM. But I really like it, and think this video is right too.
the only problems I had were just a few firefights with the HECU had weird difficulty spikes
For me, by the atmosphere is very well done, just the level designing and tension feels it's lowered. like shortened. Thus, XEN was supposed to feel like a horrific alien world originally, and i liked the organic meat style for the story-wise content. VIsually, new XEN looks like something i would see like Space subnautica or AVATAR
In my opinion I feel like having 41 soldiers between the helicopter makes it feel like a war zone and that the soldiers are in control
yeah I don't get why he's complaining about the soldier's being smarter and there being more of them, It makes it feel like you're fighting trained marines rather than glorified walking turrets. Plus the increased amount of them makes it feel like an actual military force and like they're in control like you said
@@downwindfish1 there's to many of them and if you were playing on hard mode you are fucked
@@downwindfish1 a lot of people prefer half life 1 ai. There's tons of videos on half life 1's ai and maybe 2 complaining about half life 2's ai including me something about half life 1 HECU made fighting them a lot more fun compared to the combine
The soldiers aren't in control they are abandoning the mission a little later on
Just show how Gordon is a badass Chad
We all know Hunt Down The Refund is the BEST way to experience Half-Life.
Lmao
half-life is just a sad ripoff of hdtf, gordon doesn't even have a cool epic voice smh
xD
@@tingliestlasagna2495 this is fangame of Half-Life
thats just factual
"Never play HL-source." Everyone ever
Not me I realy like half life source and I prefer it
@@michaciejka2839 me too
@@michaciejka2839 You heretic!
@@michaciejka2839 I know people have preferences to what version of games they want to play, but i think (and this is my opinion) that HL is definitely the better version over HL Source, since the game breaks alot of aspects of what made the original so good, like that infamous bit when you first meet the HECU.
but people can enjoy what they want to enjoy i guess
I like half Life source
But the HD modelos are so bad
That *System now under military command* voiceline is iconic in my opinion, and evaluates the chaotic situation within the story.
It's just cheesy and tries too hard to sound sinister though. They should have just continued using the normal VOX voice like they did in OG half life.
@@Gameprojordan The original also had some misspelling (could just be 98's limitations) which further emphasized that dumb HECU, sir yes sir, oorah stereotype, showing their charismatic and somewhat comedic side. The announcement also sounded realistic and grounded. They weren't hacking the VOX with some malicious creepy AI, they were just announcing that they had gained access to it, and that the base was under military control.
Does it really have to glitch out though and change voices entirely, like some evil AI hacked into it, imagine Overwatch from HL2 doing that, it's just so unnecessary IMO
Ironically enough the original is more realistic, where it just simply announced the military has control of the VOX now with a deeper voice than normal, with a loud alarm sound ringing beforehand. No glitching or hacking. BM just made it ridiculously cheesy and felt way too try hardy
@@GameprojordanYou say that like the original Half Life wasn't absolutely filled with cheese. From the over the top nerdy scientists to the "SIR. I. FOUND. HIM." soldiers
Don’t ever insult triage at dawn again
Rip my mans winston
@@t--w5203 *triage at dawn intensifies*
Something Secret Steers Us/Nuclear Mission Jam is the best song in both HL1 and HL2, change my mind
@@Turbs94945
credits closing theme - hl1
what kind of hospital is this, vortal combat - hl2
Triage at dawn? More like triage at down as it let me down, am I right?
I'm sick of that being the staple HL2 music and CP Violation or Something Secret Steers Us/Nuclear Mission Jam being just second
"The security guard does his best G-man impression"
...they were always the same voice actor.
Sadly Kevin doesn't do anywhere *near* as good a G-Man as he does Barney, though....
Still: Neat for authenticity's sake, right?
@@ThatGenericPyro gotta get japanesebushbaby to do it loll
@@ThatGenericPyro Idk, his second take sounds pretty fucking dead on to the Half-Life 1 G-man.
@@ThatGenericPyro tbh honest, Kevin Sisk tries to do HL1 Gman which was quite close Barneys. HL1 Gman sounded like a Barney with a speach impediment.
@@ThatGenericPyro Kevin Sisk is perfect for the Security Guards. The G-Man? They could've found someone else.
Can it replace it?
No
Is it a good alternative?
Hell yes it is.
This.
@@Dandy-Man That.
@@vergil2746 Them.
@Dandy-man They.
@@boyzback1618 Thou
EAT LEAD YOU OUTER SPACE OCTOPUS
Sad piano music
Feel sad for tentacle monster?
Or not
@@proctifer9833 yes. It did not belong in our world. It may have been just as confused and scared. And it's death was rather gruesome.
Winston's been hit
:(
If you time it right the sad piano starts when Barney says "Jenkins is at peace now... I can feel it"
In regards to calling games "replacements" in general, I don't really see that as a thing a game can do. No matter how amazing a remake or new game is, it can never undo the existence of an older game or the impact said game had on the industry as a whole. That having been said though, a game can replace a predecessor in regards to being someone's preferred game to play. Someone is entirely valid in saying Black Mesa has replaced the original Half-Life as their go-to first thing to play in a full series playthrough every bit as much as someone who played Black Mesa first is valid in saying the original Half-Life has replaced Black Mesa as their go to first thing to play in such a playthrough.
Such things are strictly a matter of preference, and that's something that simply isn't possible to take away from someone. People are going to do things the way they prefer regardless of what case someone makes against it. Someone could make a video that's the exact opposite of this one, arguing that Black Mesa is somehow superior in every way, but that's not going to stop fans of the original game from preferring it over the remake. For people who do feel as though Black Mesa is their personal replacement for the original, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Them preferring Black Mesa over the original does nothing to stop other people from playing said original.
Rather than recommending to people that they play the games in the order they were released, with Black Mesa after HL2:E2, I would recommend that if it's their first time getting into the series, they look into both games, Half-Life and Black Mesa. Play them back to back, or just pick whichever one seems more their thing based on criticism like in this video. Only go on to HL2 after they are satisfied that they are done with that first chapter of the story. This allows the player to cleanly transition from HL2:E2 into HLA without an awkward flashback section inbetween.
You are a smart person i totaly agree
Bruh you literally just copied *EVERYTHING* that I thought and posted here, wtf now i'm a bit scared
@@audax117 I didn't copy anything. I haven't seen your post, but any similarities there might be are a coincidence. Likely, you and I just happen to share a very similar viewpoint on the matter.
It's actually not the first time this kind of thing has happened to me recently either. Somewhere else somewhat recently I suggested a remake of the Mega Man Zero games with the playstyle of the Devil May Cry series, and someone replied to me mentioning they had just recently posted the same idea on Reddit. I replied to them that I don't even use reddit.
@@Crow_Rising dude i didn't posted anything, i just said you copied my thoughts lol, i was too lazy to write a post about what i was thinking but you kinda did the work for me xD
@@audax117 Oh I see, I guess I misunderstood you.
Idk man, Black Mesa recaptured that feeling I got when I was a little kid playing half life for the first time. All those "next-gen graphics", all those encounters, the story, going back to the original definitely feels home, but Black Mesa manages to fascinate me even through years of experience with many other videogames that beat many concepts to death.
In one word, this would be half life in 2015
The Black Mesa store description does read “relive half-life.”
@@Mightyjack_ not really because Valve would be sensible enough to measure things such as how the movement scheme of HL2 does not fit the level design of HL1, they also had a 10x more talented musician making the soundtrack, Kelly Bailey and his contribution to the game's vibe is so important. The music of Black Mesa pales in comparison. If this game came out like this without the memory of HL1 carrying it, it wouldn't make half the impact HL1 did. To me it's as clear as day how the team of the original game could make much more tasteful decisions.
Triage at dawn is so iconic.. how could you
14:15 Someone really plays stealth in that part?
I'd rather just sprint through to the control room just in time to hear the beat drop during the incineration.
thats what you are meant to do
because when you do the music stops in time when the monster dies
you can not "stealth" as easily ive tried many times
but i all ways get gibbed by that thing
so i just run for it
@@Boomrainbownuke9608 I stealth through it the same way I did in the original, use nades to distract them each time you move.
Stealth is totally an option there, at least in the original.
@@lukkkasz323 Stealth is definitely an option in both versions, i was able to crouch walk through the section in both Half-Life and Black Mesa without being harmed.
@@InMaTeofDeath i played stealth, got noticed at the door, however
I think the reason Black Mesa's combat is criticized so harshly here is that he's trying to play it like it's Half Life 1. However, this game is very different from Half Life, and the combat is no different. In fact, every game's combat is different from each other, so you need to learn the mechanics for each game. Hell, if you try to play Half Life 2 like it's the original, you will get through, but you'll constantly be at low health and loading saves. In Black Mesa, the combat is very Fast-Paced. In Half Life, you could crouch behind cover and wait for the enemies to come to you because they couldn't shoot while they moved. But that doesn't work here. Instead, keeping your distance and moving around as fast as you can is the best strategy I have. Your weapons are far more accurate and do much more damage than those of your enemies, so you can strafe around a group of soldiers and pick them off with your revolver if you need to. And the weapons function a lot better too: The MP5 is more accurate and does more damage, the Grenades actually respond to physics, making them a lot easier to throw, and generally the weapons look and feel a lot better than in Half Life 1. The only one I REALLY don't like is the Tau Cannon, which has been changed in a fundamental way. I found that combat in Black Mesa is built off of 2 pillars: Run Fast, Shoot Faster. And once you internalize that, this game becomes HELLA fun to play.
Edit: And if you're really THAT pissed about the Ammo Values, you can edit the Game Files to change this, or enable cheats to change it. You're not forced to play with those values.
I don't see why he was upset about not having as much ammo. I never once ran out of ammo in both games, at least not places were I normally would. I also much prefer BM combat to HL, but that's more of a person preference.
@@stormhought I like to have not as much ammo in games, makes me feel a sense of progress that I'm using everything I have, but the thing with Black Mesa is that still the same arsenal from Half-Life 1, the arsenal that is almost a sandbox, most weapons are reliable enough that you will have the option to use the ones you want when you want, BM on the other hand tries to do a "You will have to switch to survive" but it doesn't feel as fun in my opinion, I myself like to switch weapons a lot in games, even when not needed, but I kinda agree that Black Mesa does not that good of a job incentivizing the player to do it in a way that feels much rewarding or interesting.
I found the lesser ammo in black Mesa to be better, because it incentivized using more of the Arsenal
In the original half life, honestly. You could get away with just the Mp5 and the shotgun. (And rocket launcher for those parts that needed it)
There was no real need to use anything else cause you’d never eat through your ammo
I just completed black mesa. Throughout the game I found myself using every single weapon, even the Tau Cannon. Even using the Tau Cannon after I had the Gluon Gun (which in the original there was 0 reason to use the Tau Cannon over the Gluon gun)
Hiding in HL 1 is a good way to die by grenade spam. That only really works vs Vorts.
dude what. IF THE WEAPONS ARE MORE ACCURATE, THAT DOESNT TELL YOU TO BE FAST, IT TELLS YOU TO SIT BACK AND SNIPE. have you ever played the original???
"sad piano just doesn't fit half life"
*screams with Guard Down*
when you put some modulation and distortion on it it gets pretty cool. fits the themes of corruption of the natural form in hl2.
Traditional instruments don't make it into HL usually without being drowned in distortion, when they do it's usually used to symbolize the resistance (think Triage at Dawn or a lot of the music in Episode 1). Obviously the resistance does not exist in Half-Life 1.
In my opinion sad piano does fit half life, just not the original. Half life 2 and black Mesa are less about fighting against all odds, and more a survival story about the end of the world, where everyone you knew dies around you.
If you wanna play Half Life, you can easily skip playing the old one. Seriously.
*ending triumph*
Well, what can I say? As someone who's been playing the original Half-life since 1999 on Pentium 2 and Intel i740 Graphics Card, I loved Black Mesa and appreciate it in almost every mindful detail Crowbar Collective added. My only 2 gripes with Black Mesa in its current state are: 1) mandatory escape sequences in Xen which took the freedom of exploration and experimentation from you; and 2) those insta-game-over laser tripmine sections which takes away the fun of embodiment while expose awkward limitations of interaction in the game. Other than those, Black Mesa feels like a love letter written by and for those who understand, appreciate and love HL1. That's just my two cents.
What insta kill tripwire sections, trip mines always killed you instantly
@@amystery2188 Insta game over even if you try to detonate them from a distance, to be precise. Remember that facility full of trip mines? That's what I am talking about.
I absolutely loved the scene in surface tension with the tripmines. The one is Xen is ok but I liked the first one better
@@sunjoexys7251 That was in the first game though.
That part was even more fun than the original too
@@amystery2188 Sure, each HL player has their own subjective experience and preferences. I am not by any means saying others should not enjoy what I dislike in Black Mesa. Although I do think those "dodge all 100 trip mines or game over" sections in Black Mesa are more annoying than that in the original. IMO, those levels make more sense in HL: Alyx where you can handle the challenge with the movements of your real body.
I actually really enjoyed triage at dawn in half life 2. I think it added a nice bit of calm before the storm
I don’t know how anyone could complain about triage at dawn, it’s iconic.
@@mrmr_zoomie its the over use in meme that destroyed it.
@@Zack_Wester understandable
The worst offender in this video ngl
The reason why Triage works so well is the timing and where it was placed in the game. That the Combine raid before it is one of the more memorable uses of the transhuman infantry.
I think everyone should play both games
based
I think everyone should play all THREE. suffering turns me on
@@CaptainSomethin Jokes on you, I play the patched version of HL1: Source!
It definitely isn't a replacement, they're technically very different, we have to love them for what they can make us feel.
yes you are right B
Haha, unplugging the blast shield was the first thing I did with that laser in the remake. I was so conditioned to "see plug, invert state" that I didn't even realise there was a puzzle to be solved
Honestly my favourite part of Black Mesa (that I've played so far, haven't reached Xen yet) is the sort of urban exploration vibe you get platforming in the chemical processing zones etc.
I like how half of the comments are defending triage at dawn
If you insult that song then you deserve a ride to Nova Prospekt
@@semaj00 idk man, i think the only reason it didnt get cut cause some level designer was like what if winston gets hit, i do beleive though, traige at dawn is SO overused, and its not even the best song (in my opinion)
winstons been hit!
1 like = 1 medkit
Good analysis. I kind of want to half-push-back-and-half-agree on the soundtrack, though: I think Black Mesa's soundtrack is one of its biggest successes *because* it changes the tone of the game so much, in a way that makes sense in a greater context.
Half-Life's soundtrack emphasized mystery, horror and alienness. It had quite a lot of variety but always stayed musically unconventional. This is a great choice for a game that's the first of a series and spends much more time asking questions than answering them: You don't understand what you went through, but it was one hell of an experience, sometimes terrifying, sometimes heart-pounding, sometimes just absolutely bizarre. The effect works particularly well if you were a kid first playing the game in 1998.
Black Mesa on the other hand has, besides the action pieces, basically just one tone: Melancholy. And that makes all the story events turn up in a different light. I did feel bad for the tentacles: They'd done nothing to deserve being teleported away from their home and then roasted alive... nor did the Gargantua deserve to be electrocuted (though who knows, maybe it kills people because it's knowingly a huge jerk). I took the title of Questionable Ethics much more seriously than I did the original, too, as well as the thing about the Vortigaunts being enslaved and not your enemies by nature. Even the crashing elevator in Unforeseen Consequences feels like a tragedy in Black Mesa, where in Half-Life it was indeed more of a bit of black comedy.
... And that's not to mention the entire context from the Half-Life sequels released before Black Mesa came out. You're not even saving the Earth, you are at best a small element in a much larger conflict. Nothing about the story is inevitable, but everything, all the death and destruction, happens because of the greed of forces much greater than you. Oh, and on an even more meta level, you, the player, are now 20 years older, and while Half-Life isn't going to scare you anymore, it *can* work as a tragic story, they just had to give it a soundtrack that brings that aspect out.
(Uhh, sorry about the length, I didn't really intend to write a book chapter here, but oh well. This does all add up to the fact that I see Half-Life and Black Mesa as entirely different experiences where one can't replace another or even be compared to the other that well, which is why I found this video's thesis really easy to accept.)
@Damsen feel bad for big mean monsters because they didn’t have a choice (hippie shit).
@Damsen giving you the summary.
I'm perfectly fine with Black Mesa being a sort of loose remake. It does a great job at being that.
i disagree with the statement that the mp5 was less satisfying. Its accuracy, pretty high damage output, THICC tracers and the way blood spatters is something truly beautiful. Half life's smg was in fact satisfying to use, but i wouldnt say it was more satisfying than black mesa's. in my opinion they are equal in being pleasant to use (love the originals reloading animation tho :D)
Me: Huh, he makes some good points.
Purple Colonel: "Piano doesn't belong in half-life."
Me: Die heretic!
EXCELLENT SMASH THE HERETIC
kil heretic triage at dawn rules
to quote from him "when you put some modulation and distortion on it it gets pretty cool. fits the themes of corruption of the natural form in hl2."
how dare you diss triage at dawn and the resistance?
Do you even know what a heretic is?
Triage at dawn is my favorite half life 2 track
It's an epic theme for a decadent ambience, grey sad and lonely situation, like they're still losing the war against combines
thats the point he is making, everyone likes it so its in everything, he is probably sick of hearing it but still enjoys the music, like Christmas carols
Never really listened to Vortal Combat I guess then?
@@scottygg8550 Unfortunately, I asked him in a Livestream last week, and he said he actually hates it :(
You ever heard "something secret steers us"?
This video has a very bittersweet ending, I love it. I don’t agree with everything said, but I respect the opinion of people who don’t like things in black Mesa. Personally I think it’s an absolute gem. I can’t wait to see your video on black Mesa music.
I cannot get enough of Black Mesa's awesome soundtrack
Literally the only track I don't like is Questionable Ethics 2. Nothing can replace Nuclear Mission Jam. NOTHING
@Connor Golsong
Nuclear Mission Jam is great on its own,but I found it didn’t really fit with picking up the Tau Cannon
you are incredible right, Black Mesa's soundtrack is a masterpiece
@@matyfenixcarmine absolutely
@@cambridgebee3239 nah, it fits. Honestly kind of made me wish that new enemies spawned when the beat drops.
The Nihilant on Black Mesa was one of the best experiences for me.. It really made sense that you're actually fighting the main antagonist.
Which he isn't.
@@lemonov3031 Yeah. He was himself a slave of someone.
@@lemonov3031 yes he is the main antagonist of the game lmao, not the main antagonist of the series, just the game
@@zorex. and also nope. Gman is the main antagonist
@@AydarBMSTU No. Who kept the resonance cascade portal open after the satellite closed it? The Nialanth did.
Who has the normally peaceful vortigaunts try to kill us at every moment? The Nialanth.
Suuure, in terms of the overall story of the series (a political chessgame of cosmic proportions) the Nialanth is not really the antagonist of HL1, but in terms of HL1 as a standalone game, it very much is. We don’t know who Gman is by the end of HL1, nor what he wants or what he’s really done. He’s also done nothing directly by this point to stop us in any way, only appearing to watch us at times. How could he be the antagonist of HL1 if he doesn’t antagonize you until the last 5ish minutes of the game?
Surface tension in BM was awesome. You had to figure out each section through pain and blood. And the fight in the end of questionable ethics labs. It was so good. It makes you inventively use cover while shooting back AND laying traps for the guys that get from the ceiling or from the opening door. How they make you ration healthpacks to last longer. And you just call it frustrating? Like the young people say "skill issue".
All you've made me want to do is play Black Mesa again.
thats good for you :)
That's great.
I frankly don't understand the complaint about the game's lighting. The way the "Orange Fog" is spoken about makes it seem like the whole game looks like this. Personally, I don't remember ever seeing this kind of lighting until Blast Pit, where it was all over the place. I think less than half of the Earth-Bound chapters have this kind of lighting, the ones that do being Blast Pit, Power Up, On A Rail, Apprehension, and Lambda Complex. Every other chapter has a distinct look and is instantly recognizable. And each of the Chapters not only really look different from each other, but feel different as well. I particularly love the first half of the game even more than I love Half Life 1. The High-Poly, HD environments are much better on the eyes than Half Life, because they actually feel like real places that people work. It feels like you're in an actual facility instead of the sterile corridors of the Original Half Life. Again, the main thing that resolves most of the complaints is that Black Mesa isn't supposed to be a perfect remake. It's a reimagining of Half Life, which updates and changes the game to make it more contemporary. And I like it.
all of the chapters in half-life are earthbound.
Just play different versions of Half Life what you prefer, it's really that simple.
That yellow fog was added as an update alongside the release of Xen if I'm not mistaken, so it didn't always use to be there.
@@gottagofastfaster именно
@@25inbomeportland Bro doesn't know about Xen, Gonarch's Lair, Interloper, Nihilanth, or prologue
14:35 Triage At Dawn is fucking awesome man
come on
Ikr
no, i agree with him, it's good, but it's an OVERUSED PIECE OF SHI-
the best song in half life is particle ghost!
@@jockeyfield1954 of course fucking not its nuclear mission jam
No
You're forgetting that sad piano only fits when the gaurd dies in on a rail
Fuck yeah I love particle ghost
I love how my Version of Triage at Dawn was used in this 14:32
Don't freak out, I gave the man permission to use it.
*proceeds to freak out anyway*
@@hib7295 why?
@@AbsoluteLambda idk i just thought it would be funny to send something random like that
@@hib7295 proceed to freak out as well
@@AbsoluteLambda So that's where that triage at dawn midi came from.
Don't bother arguing about which is better. Play Half-Life first, then Black Mesa and enjoy both. It's that simple...
As a MASSIVE Black Mesa fan, I have to say that this is a great video. A lot of very well constructed and valid points. While I agree with your message of "Don't call Black Mesa a replacement" though, I will say that as a reimagining I heavily prefer most parts of Black Mesa to the original, even when they feel different (except for the puzzles, which I completely agree with you on). When I play Black Mesa, I don't try to compare it to the original anymore, it's an amazing project in it's own right, especially considering it was built using a very outdated version of the Source engine.
this is the best way to look at both games I feel
@Damsen LOL its your opinion
@Damsen What is it with people shoving their opinions down other peoples throats and insisting that their thoughts are law? Lmao just let people enjoy or pick what they want
@Damsen Yep, that I am lol
@Damsen Ok purist
6:09
For argument's sake, realistically your enemies would want to put you at the highest disadvantage possible.
^
realistically, Gordon would've died a few seconds after the resonance cascade.
@gensokyo boyz then what the hell is the argument that the AI in BM is worse?
I have to disagree about the soldiers. I never found the fights against them fun in the original game. They were too good at tracking Gordon even while he was moving, and too many of the arenas didn't seem to have any thought put in to giving the player a way to avoid hitscan attacks. Aside from a few set-pieces like that one in Surface Tension, I was always reduced to camping at the start of an area and trying to pick them off one by one with the revolver, or save-scumming and hoping that *this* time I'd actually get lucky enough to move more than a couple of feet.
You talk about how they supposedly kept the player moving, but in my experience playing the original game, as soon as Gordon started moving he had about one and a half seconds to live. They may not be able to shoot and move at the same time, but they cover each other well enough that I never had the chance to use that advantage unless the one I was fighting was by himself.
Black Mesa may indeed have changed their behaviour for the worse -- I really don't survive long enough against the originals to comment on that. XD
But just by having more complex versions of the arenas, with more stuff in them, those same fights could sometimes be at least a little bit fun. Which counts as an improvement in my book.
Not once, in ALL of Black Mesa did I ever die of fall damage going where I was supposed to be going like I had to have done maybe 5 times when I played the original half life last summer. I didn’t even finish the Gonarch fight in that game because in the final section with that last drop I would constantly have to hug the wall behind me and try to use it to slide forward so I wouldn’t just fucking die as soon as I hit the ground. Black Mesa instantly surpasses the whole game in that regard. And even outside of that half of these are highly subjective to a degree that makes the almost objective tone of this critique really unfounded. I like that the soldiers in this game use tactics like that to try and pin you down and really make your life hell, it makes them feel like more of a threat, and here your problem with that is one thing you use as part of a statement, not that “for me personally this can’t replace ogHL”, that “this FAILED as a remake”.
8:00 honestly that seemed like a workaround because of how Source deals with object colision, if you try that with a door you'll get a misile thrown at your face in any Source game
Yeah, Source's physics don't like it when you collide objects. Picking up a crate full of bottles in HL2 causes the bottles to go spastic and fly out, for example
@@Kono_Dio-Da Havok physics be like that, man.
not true
They definitely could have done it because there's an example of exactly what happens in the original half-life happening in half-life 2:
At the scene where barney stops you going to nova prospekt at the start of the game, if you're quick enough you can place a suitcase in the gate that barney stops you going through, causing the door to bounce back into it being opened and it will stay like that forever. (unless you're playing the old engine, then you turn the suitcase into a cannon)
@@Gulliblepikmin door physics are different from the actual physics in source, if you put barrels in an elevator or a scripted moving object the barrel turns into a vibrator and noise machine
My main complaint when it comes to black Mesa is how cluttered the game feels putting in some objects to make it feel more alive would’ve been fine (even though I thought with the limited technology they had in hl1 was extremely lively) but it is so cluttered in the early chapters Possible to play the game properly
"Can Black Mesa Replace Half-Life?"
legit the first 3 minutes of the video: "no"
*roll credits*
Thanks Cinema Sins!
first 53 seconds
i almost clicked off cause right then i knew this was about to be partial to the original. nothing wrong with that but its tough to call it a comparison
"This is a counter-balance to the praise"
*Shits on Black Mesa and Crowbar Collective while sucking Valve's dick for 30 minutes*
"Go play Black Mesa"
Purple, the fuck?
PurpleColonel: Don't buy Half-Life Source
Me shoving a scientist ragdoll into a wall with a physics gun: Oh I shouldn't?
Then just play gmod lol
@@KingsNJenssons you need half life source for HL1 content in Gmod
Half Life Source is good for 2 things: Gmod assets and fucking people over with the Gravity Gun
@@connorgolsong290 but the gravity gun isn’t in half-life source?
@@robyn051 MODS
Black Mesa isn't replacing Half Life, it's building on it.
The Xen portion of Black Mesa was where I really started to enjoy it the most. They did a really good job of visually fleshing out the alien world, and the vortigaunt village was especially atmospheric. I love that they incorporated the same glowing graffiti that showed up in Alyx.
I remember when I first played Half Life in 1999 and how impressed I was. I also remember when I first saw some early access videos of Black Mesa. I thought, "even if this does everything perfectly, there will still be a ton of people in the community moaning about every single change." But even back then, I never thought I'd one day be listening to someone complain about the color of distant fog. Few things are as potent as nostalgia goggles. It's odd how you can one moment complain about "needless" expansions to levels making them too long and then complain about "On A Rail" being too short because this amazingly tedious part of the game has actually been streamlined. Black Mesa isn't perfect but for every moment in which I prefer the original, there far more where I'm blown away with how much things have been improved while maintaining the spirit of HL1.
Honestly, I completely agree. This video just feels like he has the nostalgia goggles on too tight.
Yeah this video has it's opinions but can honestly say are ludicrously wrong lol
Just a brief note about the Plug Puzzles, I honestly don't mind them. The way you talk about them makes it seem like they're the only puzzle mechanic in all of Black Mesa. I only remember there being one or two per chapter on Earth. It was just a simple mechanic to update the game with Source Engine mechanics. And I like the redesigns of the maps, I feel that most of them look good. And while yes, the pathfinding can be challenging, this is true for every entry into the Half Life series, not just Black Mesa. It's hard to find where you're supposed to go in all of the games, at least in my experience (Although that may just be my stupidity)
Plug puzzles aren’t even that interesting of a puzzle
“Looks like Combine technology”
Yeah- fun fact: Xen and the Nihilanth are slaves of the Combine.
You'd think literal slaves on the run from their overlords wouldn't have access to technology thats just as good.
@@PurpleColonel You'd think less developed areas in our world wouldn't have modern firearms or ammunition but they do.
Much of the tech is likely stolen and the Nihilanth is likely very old. The armies it built were for whenever the combine would eventually find them. The Vortigaunts were also shown to be very smart in later games with them helping out scientists like Magnison.
@@nesrovlahsurvivalist8399 Less developed nations in the modern world get firearms because other nations are willing to trade with them. And that's very different from an entire factory capable of building soldiers.
@@PurpleColonel While you are right about that, I just realized something. The Combine are way larger than most people think they are. Think about it, the Black Mesa invasion managed to stay contained for multiple days. But the Combine showed up and forced humanity’s surrender in just 7 hours. Not to mention that what was left there in half life 2 was basically a police force. With multiple kilometre high towers looming over city’s.
The Combines power is so large, escaped slaves with factories don’t seem that farfetched in comparison to them.
You aren't entirely correct, Xen are just borderworld. Nihilanth escaped from Combine to Xen as last of its kind, it then enslaved Vortigaunt and copy Combine technology.
I think the biggest misunderstanding of this video is that, yes, it's trying to remake half-life, but it is also trying to be its own thing. Your gripes with the combat are due to the fact that you keep trying to play it exactly like half-life, but the combat is different because of the updated AI and maps. Once you start treating the game as more of a retry at half-life rather than a remake, you'll be able to appreciate it more.
The thing is, the best part about HL1 is the gameplay, which is arguably better than HL2 (specially given that the Hecu AI are more engaging than the combine), so it makes sense to be disappointed with BM.
If you noticed some of the complaints, they were that the maps were made like HL1, but it is using HL2 combat mechanics, meaning that the area is not designed to be played as the combat mechanics intend.
So the biggest misunderstanding is that you don't understand the point of the complaint.
Sadly it fails at both.
Tht shotgun montage in Air Excessive Changes was just perfect. Your editing is inspiring!
My favourite piece in all of Half-Life is definetly _Nepal Monastery._ It is just such an eerie piece while also telling you how to get past the tentacle (even though I was too dumb to understand), when I finally played that section with the sound low enough to hear it I was amazed and genuinely scared because of it.
I'm gonna have to disagree with your point on Nihilanth. While they probably could've went in a different direction, I enjoyed the fight much more than I did in HL1. Other than that, this is an excellent video and I've been waiting a long time for someone to share my sentiments.
yeah, it's generally more fun in terms of presentation. Wish it had just a bit more verticality.
Honestly, I liked how the music was used throughout Black Mesa. Like Surface Tension 1 genuinely influenced the way I played to be more aggressive and fun
Personally, i like that you can choose to sprint. Personally makes me somewhat more immersed cause i choose when i want to run and sometimes i want to move at a walking pace and not a snail pace like what pressing shift did in the original
“Which one should I play?”
Both. Playing both will help you appreciate both.
The better gameplay of black mesa can only be appreciated by playing Half life, and the tiny details of half life can only be appreciated by playing black mesa.
I have no reason to miss the cockroaches while playing Black Mesa, but I do.
"The better gameplay of black mesa"
this videos entire argument:
I like the original, and I like black mesa. I like the more modern take black mesa did on original. And I especially really like the bigger enemy count. Makes the whole world really feel like there's an army going in. But to each their own. I still liked the video and it gave me a new perspective.
Alright now I'm stoked to play Black Mesa. I've got the orange box, the HL anthology and Black Mesa Definitive Edition, so I'm in for a nice tour of nostalgia and new 😁
Great video! Though you did make some compelling points I kinda disagree about the general sentiment about what Black Mesa is. I never got the feeling it was trying to replace Half Life in any way, but instead give a different interpretation of the world and its story. It has a much different vibe than both Half Life 1 and 2, and while the combat steers more towards 2, the way in which it delivers the story is much more focused in the former. The combat is definitely different than 1 and 2, but I don't think that's necessarily bad, I just think the way in which combat is presented to you is a bit more focused on strategical, quick thinking movement rather than constant sprinting like the first, or something more methodical like the second. While it would have been nice if this was displayed a bit more, it would have probably been hard to do so, considering that the expectation of how combat functions is smack dab in the middle of the two games. I also think the level design isn't given enough credit, and I think Crowbar Collective made an incredibly compelling environment that feels lived in, realistic, and natural, and rarely did I really feel lost in the game due to its use of colors, lighting, and sound. You very early on realize what doors do and don't provide any further progression, so it's pretty easy to dictate where the next viable path forward is, and I think Black Mesa uses a lot more landmark level design than the previous games. I also believe that the use of alien technology similar to Combine is intentional, especially with the first giant Xen portal. It is clearly based off of the Citadel core level from Half Life 2: Episode 1, and the use of force fields and sophisticated technology was meant to foreshadow the fact that the Combine was soon to enslave the border world, take their resources and technology, and move onto the next. I do find your points interesting about how Black Mesa stacks against others in the franchise, but I believe the game wasn't meant to compete, but instead give an entirely different experience. But that's just me personally.
I don't know why, but back Mesa is now one if my favorite games I've played. I genuinely can't tell you why
I dunno might be a good game or something
I play it for the music
After reading these comments, there seem to be 4 types of people
People who genuinely have the same complaints as those expressed in the video
Elitists who will find any excuse to hate anything that isn't the original experience
People who have genuine criticisms of the video
People who claim that anyone who agrees with the video is an elitist
Loser
@@Oisincolledge why
@@a_cats idiot
@@Oisincolledge you are not nice
@@Oisincolledge
Wow so edgy.
Whines about lens flares but doesn't mention how they're optional or how GORDON HAS GLASSES??
U wore glasses before? Glasses do not create lense flares in real life.
@@fnutek3720 shitty ones create glare which looks like lens flares
@@abhaybhatt4286 Okay, but that argument is dogshit
"Bro i ate a shit pizza once, thats all pizzas there are now."
@@fnutek3720 well Gordon doesn't really seem to clean his classes at any point, so
@@Vivi-yw1eu well dirty glasses do not create lense flares lol. They make your vision smudgy
Most of the criticism here are either nitpicks or make no sense. It sounds like a lot of it is just. " I wish it was a 1;1 copy of Half Life. "
Come on, you say Half Life 1 was minimalist? It wasn't. It was only very empty because it was 1998. You couldn't add beauty.
Then you say Half Life original looked better than Black Mesa? Nobody cares.
14:10 i'll have to dissagree with that one, that music placement was the best i've heard in a long time, i know it sounds stupid but i used to hate that part of the game because i just wanted to run past the tentacles but i was never able to, maybe my kid mind was too scared or was too shit at running to make it. This time tho, after going through that place twice while crouching, i heard that epic music and thought to myself "what if i just throw a grenade and run like a mf?" So i tried it, AND IT WORKED, with intense rock music and everything, that felt straight out of a movie
Yes! I agree that his criticism of this part makes no sense. You'd already stealthed past the tentacle monster twice (once to get to the oxygen/fuel and once to get to the power generator). You've DONE your stealthing. Now you've got all necessary systems online, and you're heading back past it one last time to kick it's fuckin' ass. That music comes on and it's just EPIC.
I disagree greatly with the plug puzzle when fighting the Gargantua in Power. Pushing the plugs in as the Gargantua starts to sear your back with its flames before you have to climb up and disintegrate it. Whereas in the original you run up to the switch flip it and the gargantua either doesent touch a hair on you or hits you for 40 damage and then piss off. The tension is much more nerve wracking.
pretty much.
You're mistaken about one thing, the scientists were clearly being pulled into the vent by some unseen creature and its a mix of horror comedy with the gratuitous gibs that get thrown out of the vent.
That still haunts me.
Ok so I can agree with a lot of points in this video but your thoughts on the music personally I found the placement of the music to be perfect. Its this heavy full on combat style of music which just goes really well in places like the end of we've got hostile's as well as a deep wavy track like after you kill the boss in power up and I find your example of the end of blast pit to be flawed I mean you can interprate the song and placement of it as you want but personally I found it to be a way to reflect on what you've accomplished this structure of music placement works really well in a level like blast pit because in other levels like on a rail, we've got hostile's, office complex, questionable ethics and so many others you're going from point A to point B where as in blast pit the level is centred around the tentacles with you working tirelessly around them and only them you fall down elevators just to get the power up you almost get you're head chopped off because of a fan for the oxygen so this makes it a very powerful moment when you finally kill off this thing. I don't know how anyone else found blast pit or maybe I'm bad at half life but in my opinion this chapter is long so the feeling of finally killing these giant tentacles needs to be captured and also yes the music turns off for a reason in my opinion because it needs to capture a silent moment where you can just watch all of you're hard work launch into space at hundreds of miles per hour and kill the monster
17:52 Ok I think Crowbar Collective did that on purpose bc well...the military aint sending in just 5 little soldiers to kill everyone in the facility
14:08 i usually just start running through this section once the beat drops, it fits in way more than the funny little crowbar man crawling along the floor to avoid the funny tentacle monster
Yeah the music just encourages you to run, it worked.
Play both, its no brainer. Both are so good.
Yeah purplecolonel acts as if black mesa is completely replacing half-life when it was stated to be a reimagination of the game.
@@bensadfleck9972 You're completely misrepresenting him. He states at the end of the video that despite everything he enjoys black mesa and thinks its a good game, but not a replacement to the original. He is combatting the idea that Black Mesa is a replacement.
Personally, I feel Black Mesa's rendition of On A Rail was great. It still had quite a few puzzles, and the fights were fun and satisfying. While I realize the original point of On A Rail, it never really fit into the fast-paced nature of Half Life. Some of the Mechanics were just a bit too ridiculous for my taste (Shooting signs to change direction was kind of stupid even back in 1998.) Plus, I feel the linearity makes it much better in the long scheme of things, as the OG On A Rail was a bit of a steep learning curve. And the ending was pretty satisfying to me. After fighting my way through all those soldiers and getting the rocket ready to launch, it felt so good to see it fly into the sky. I won't talk about the rest of the game here, this is just my thoughts on On A Rail. The thing I think holds back a lot of people's thinking about this game is that they compare it too harshly to Half Life 1. This isn't a remastering, it's a reimagining. It's supposed to be different from Half Life 1.
Gay mesa
It might sound weird, but i always liked On a Rail. and Power Up chapter as well. It felt like a separate adventure. Getting the cart, trying to find a way through split tunnels, solving puzzles to progress further. I enjoyed the thrill of dark claustrophobic tunnels, squeezing through hazardous rails, shooting signs, launching face first into pits on a crash. I didn't mind getting lost there even. I don't know why, but i still like that chapter more than many other chapters in HL. I kinda wished they would improve and expand on rather than cut pieces of that chapter in BMS. But giving that most people hated it, that was probably for the best.
And i loved airboat and buggy chapters in HL2 as well. Guess that overlengthened vehicle episodes in HL games just vibe with me pretty well:D
@@Dieselous Airboat's great, and the buggy has its moments. Really wished there was more to explore in Highway 17 though.
Short answer: no they are both unique they have different... Everything it's worth playing both of rhem
3:45 I like how the enemies were engineered to be so proficient at their jobs that they were straight up aggravating. That has to count for something.
He's wrong about triage of dawn. Sad demark on a solid video.
I think he just expressed his hatred for the song.
Black Mesa cut like 30-40% of original game, sure it's a good re-release but like 40% of levels are missing in it.
I tried getting a friend into Half Life. He tried the original game but found its mechanics lacking in gunplay. If it wasn't for Black Mesa, he'd never try Half Life 2 and fall in love with the series.
Kinda same for me actually. At first, I wanted to play Half Life in my uncle's pc because I was like "the older the game, the better it is". I mean yeah sure Half Life is the ultimate iconic version and Black Mesa is just a remake (I mean it's a whole game now, but u get the point), but we can't just shit on Black Mesa for being a remake of Half Life. It's just on par with Half Life in my opinion. So, my uncle somehow convinced me to play Black Mesa instead to change my old mind, and it worked. I got into the Half Life franchise via Black Mesa and then I became absolutely obsessed with every part of it. I love everything about every Half Life game ever, especially Black Mesa. I just don't understand why some people shit on BM so much, like, that's some hater energy I guess.
@@Froxmog The people who have been with Half-Life longer than others tend to shit on Black Mesa more from what I've seen, this feels sort of like a purist acting like Black Mesa is a lot worse, but I find them to be two different works of art, both are just from different points in time.
@@kabeam5643 Facts
@@Froxmog Also I think people give HL1 WAYY too much credit with Xen, it is barren, boring, and there is nothing special about it in the slightest compared to Black Mesa.
@@kabeam5643 Thats so true, idk why people think like that. I thought that Black Mesa Xen would be objectively more liked by almost everyone when it came out. But sadly, no. It doesnt make sense
Another HUGE, unbelievably HUGE flaw with Black Mesa's Xen is the continuity between Black Mesa and Half Life 2. At the end of Half Life 2, Breen opens a portal to another world, albeit a combine world, the texture used for the diorama representation of this world seen from a glimpse through the portal was VERY reminiscent of Half life's Xen. The green yellow sky. And Black Mesa completely stripped that look of Xen from the final, Valve said they were rushed with Xen. They didn't say they hated EVERYTHING about it. With the exception of interloper. Nihilinth is another huge problem. He was supposed to be an alien attempting speech with Gordon, sounding more creepy, or unique. Black Mesa's Nihilinth is made in a very deep voice, sounding more like a demon than an alien, like a monster trying desperately with force to kill freeman, when initially in the original, he seemed more like an opponent to Gordon's intellect. Trying to out smart Gordon. Or attempt communicating with him, while still trying to kill him for screwing on his terf. Really disappointed with Xen as a whole, more so than the original, I know they spent a lot of time on it.. and that's the sad part. It just. Doesn't. Feel. Like. Half life.
I love how most of the comments are like “this is so harsh” but uh yeah I kinda agree… but he’s right about the STUPID PLUG PUZZLES AHHHHHH IM GOING TO ACTUALLY PULL MY HAIR OUT!!!
The biggest problem with this: Black Mesa isnt a remake
Its said to be a reimagining by the devs, people just treat it like a remake because it was made as a response to Half Life Source, an actual remake.
I'd say HL:S is more of a port than a remake.
@@Skeletons_Riding_Ostriches incorrect, a port makes a game be playable on another platform i.e. if MGS4 was suddenly put on the computer. Half Life was already on the computer.
@@itstime6974 umm no its an engine port, it doesnt need to be a platform port to be a port
@@Helperbot-2000 there's no such thing as an engine port and if there was I'd be synonymous to remake
@@itstime6974 wow really? so what exactly do you call counter strike 2?
I think that black Mesa did weapons a lot better than the original for a few reasons, the primary one being that you get less ammo. In the original half life it’s more or less possible to complete the game with just the SMG outside of segments where you NEED to use something else (helicopter fight, icthyosaurs, etc) but by drastically reducing its ammo and making it worse at longer ranges it makes you use other weapons more. There’s a mod that returns the old ammo caps to black Mesa and it’s fun to use but only as a curb stomp. With the amount of ammo you get it’s possible to scum every fight in surface tension with the crossbow which doesn’t FEEL like the intended experience, and in black Mesa it isn’t.
I like the Nialinth fight better in black Mesa too, putting the fight on pause to do first person platforming wasn’t fun, and the BM version kept the teleporter element in by having the Nialinth use portals to throw things at the player instead. I also liked the elevator finale, the shields teach the player about the the shields in the final fight and it’s an epic, showy set piece for the final boss- BM is much more cinematic overall, it’s the same reason why the gargantua chase is better with way more of them- getting to turn back and see how many were chasing you FEELS great.
On the note of being cinematic, the fight at the end of questionable ethics is good in black Mesa because it highlights Gordon’s change from a normal guy to what’s essentially a serial killer- the good music and the arena brawl followed by the scientist going “look what you’ve done… I can’t believe what you’ve done!” Is a great way to highlight this arc that never really gets remarked on in the original.
I agree that the lens flare is a bit much, that on a rail could be better fixed than cut, that the soldiers are a lot tougher than the original, and especially that the conveyor belt fight takes too long and is way too messy, but ultimately I feel that most of your complaints with the game come from a position of wanting it to change half life while staying the same- if the goal was to make a modern shooter, enemies that only shoot when not moving isn’t that. If the goal was to make a modern game, empty but clean environments don’t fit (admittedly some areas are too cluttered but if it was closer to the original it would be out of place). If the goal was to replace half life, I agree that it failed, but I don’t think that was ever the plan.
9:21 you do know that interactable doors in black mesa look different right?
the lobby battle was one of the best moments of the game
I do not think that you are treating Half Life and Black Mesa fairly. Updating the game to modern standards also means adjusting to contemporary expectations. Cluttering the levels with objects might make you disoriented, but it induces exploration and gives a sense of scale that is completely absent from Half Life. The Half Life levels just don't feel real anymore. You can also argue, that using crouch-jump in Half Life was not frustrating, but fighting over-powered enemies by means using try and error is. I think that the taste changed in the recent years, look at the success of dark souls like. And no one uses crouch-jump anymore, so it did not stand the test of times. So this is a very personal perspective and you might have developed a bias because you experienced Half Life before Black Mesa. I experienced Black Mesa before Half Life.
On A Rail was cut because almost everybody hated it.
On A Rail in HL was shit from start to end. Black Mesa made it actually good.
On a Rails great Yall just suck lmao
@@DinnerForkTongue no
You could just admire the level and run through, ignoring the rails
On a rail is a great chapter, you are pretty much just a scrub if you didn't find it enjoyable because the only unenjoyable part were when you weren't in combat and just going forward. Which was like 5% of the chapter.
Black Mesa is a game that is made for Half-life fans, I think playing Half-life 1 makes you appreciate it more. I can't tell you the amount of times new people on Reddit forms that play Half-life 1, for the first time, say it's "generic."
I've played and shown a ton of people Half-life: I let my nephew play Alyx through the first two chapters (during the intro, he read out Eil's name wrong and it made me want to jump out of a window). But that's fine, he experienced something Half-life related. What my point is: I have experience with showing new people Half-life, I'm almost an expert at it.
I don't think people should play Black Mesa first just because Half-life 2 exists. Think about it, imagine you've never played half-life before, so you play Black Mesa and then you move on to Half-life 2. That's going to be a big decrease in terms of graphics and gameplay that will leave you disappointed, if that's what you care about. I agree with your video, a lot actually... but if somebody likes Black Mesa more, that's fine by me.
My same old advice is to play the games in order. Hell I even recommend Gearbox's expansion packs because Opposing Force is just TOO GOOD. But seriously, if my nine year old niece can play all of the official Half-life games in order with no problems over the summer, then you should be able to play them just as fine... Right?
(Also yes, she even got through Xen... somehow)
@@kakophonien6514 You don't need to thank me for anything, just told my experience and opinions. But hey, thanks anyways!
@@kakophonien6514 Or you can be a real HL fan like me and buy a CRT monitor to play it at a really nice 1024x768 (higher than that and it loses some of the CRT aesthetic) with really smooth movement and the black levels the game was intended to be played with. Or don't, because a CRT is epic and I love this thing, but I'm also an autist and most people won't care enough lol.
Overall i agree with alot of things in this video. Black Mesa is a bit to clutterd for its own good and has to much of the GODDAMN PLUG PUZZULES. Plus New Xen is a bit of a mix bag. But i think it does alot of things well. First, I hate MP5 in the original HL. And i think its much better in BM. But they fuck up the shotgun. Now the moment in the video when you talked about ghost busters gun with infinite ammo, I can't help but say that i love that moment. Becasue it gave something that i really wanted in the og game. And man the ending of interloper is such a epic mess and i love it some much.
The infinite ammo gluon has the same feeling of the super charged gravity gun in hl2
@@themackie2763 exactly man! it's supposed to hype you up for the finale
The penultimate elevator ride is one of the best parts of Black Mesa for me because honestly, you do not get enough time to play with the Gluon Gun. Is it hard? No, and it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to give you just a little bit of room to go nuts. It's fun and it's hilarious.
I also have a number of problems with Black Mesa, and they come down to two points made in the video: the telegraphing of "what do I do now" is not nearly as clear in many places as it could be, and some sections are about twice as long as they ought to be (especially in Interloper). I kinda liked the addition of more puzzles and more combat sections though, because I'm a story/puzzle gamer. As frustrating as the battle where you come up from the tunnels was, it was a really interesting problem of how to approach something so overwhelming. I DID often feel like I was making a lot of interesting combat choices--different from how it is in the original but still valid and thematically appropriate in their own right.
Finding the switch to continue from that section IS still bullshit, though. It's annoying because the game conveys how to continue just fine 98% of the time. It's just that 2% you're left wandering around wondering where the hell is the next doorway.
Other than those points though, I'm not sure I agree with most of the rest of the video. At one point he agrees that the tone of the original is supposed to be a little cartoonish, and then lambasts BM for doing something kinda silly, or being too on-the-nose with its storytelling? Feels like a "it's not precisely what I remember therefore it's not a good change" argument, cause... that's ALL part of the original tone and theme.
the gluon gun without infinite ammo is pretty useless anyway, burns through ammo in a few seconds
the MP5 in HL1 was broken for a long while on the steam version thanks to patches. Recently it has been fixed.
I don't mind the Infinite ammo Gluon Gun, but they blew their load WAY too early and as a result it loses its luster.
No, it's not the original half life, but so many of the points in this video seem like nitpicks, while I do agree with the orange fog in the facility being far too prevalent and basically in your face sometimes, everything else just felt like "its not half life 1", like the weapon firing being slightly different or the differentiation of the sprint button, or the scientist voice actors trying to emulate the way the scientists talked in the original, or I guess just not having the actual G-Man voice actor????? The G-Man voice actor thing seemed like a joke but it didn't really hit well because like, what's the joke? That they couldn't just afford a real actor or that the one they got is I guess bad?
The game is also not a "replacement" or a "remake" or even a "remaster", the steam page advertises it as a way to "Relive Half-Life" with "Black Mesa is the fan-made reimagining of Valve Software’s Half-Life." (yes it really says "THE FAN-MADE REIMAGINING" as if it's the only one for some reason),
Remaking something will never supersede the original with its pure intent and execution, despite the increase in graphical fidelity. It's just not as sharp, ironically.
I respect the effort that went into making Black Mesa as a love letter to a great piece of art, but not respecting the arbitrary changes of a bunch of designs that won Half-Life 1 over 50 GOTY awards. That's not how it was originally designed, so why add it now? This is the George Lucas Special Edition. Might look prettier, but has too many fingers in the original design mucking it up, and you lose out on so much, from the continuity of the original designers, deliberate re-use of sound effects and music, voice actors, and directly controlling what the player experiences in between HL1 and HL2.
There's no good reason to ignore Half-Life 1 today in favor of Black Mesa, unless graphics are a make-or-break for your immersion/enjoyment, which would sadden me. It holds up to this day, and frankly Black Mesa could gain to learn more from the art of polished and streamlined simplicity.
i more view black mesa as a good fan game that's endorsed by valve
than the way to experience half-life.
Actually, the lowered MP5 capacity is more in line with reality, as it is how much the MP5 mag used holds IRL
Fights against the soldiers in Black mesa felt tiring to play. Your video really puts it into words.
The only real strat I found was either rushing them and hoping for a health pack drop or spamming grenades towards hordes. Neither of these strat would probably work on anything harder than medium difficulty tho.
On hard I mostly dealt with them with magnum + SMG headshots and double shotgun blasts while running between/stealing cover. Sit and wait a sec behind cover for specific soldiers to reload, but run before grenades come. Look for the medic in a big group of soldiers before you advance, then you can rush the medic and whoever's right by him (spraying them in the face with the SMG or explosives works best for a rush like this) and grab the medkit as you advance. The shotgun double blast is still instakill on hard, so you can breach a guy's cover with it while he reloads. If you retreat strategically in more open areas you can lure them in and snipe any lagging soldiers with the crossbow/magnum. Hard pretty much requires fast head tracking with the SMG and magnum to survive a few encounters though.
I feel like Black Mesa is a more dramatic and immersive version of Half-Life. The music is more epic (especially in Xen), the scientists express more emotions when the catastrophe occurs, we can see in detail how they enslave the vortigaunts, Freeman begins to hear voices when he is about to enter the Nihilant portal (I guess he is remembering everything he went through) and the elevator part before the final fight gave me intense feelings.
In conclusion, in my opinion, Half-Life is like an action movie while Black Mesa is like an emotional one.
It really feels like a tribute to Gordon's first adventure
I would agree, but they made xen feel so gamey. So many, "this is a video game" mechanic moments
@@stankgangsta4105 But it's def way better than original Xen, which not only feel gamey, but also barren and incomplete. Everyone who says that HL1's Xen is more engaging than BM is relying on nostalgia aspect alone.
@fadhil7959 It isn't better but it isn't as bad. Old Xen took 40 minutes. This one way out stays its welcome.
This was the original video that hooked me to the channel but coming back for a rewatch the Xen edit is so damn clean
On a rail is unironically my favourite chapter of HL1, I look forward to it every time I play it. I admit that I have bad taste.
on a rail is a great chapter and people who dislike it dont appreciate high art