The prevalence of “this is how GTA: SA looked to me as a kid” style of memes indicates that many players experience games as a gestalt rather than as a strict set of mechanics, visuals, or levels. I’d imagine that people who played Link’s Awakening in 1993 remember the game more vibrantly than the muted colors of the Game Boy actually conveyed. If games exist in the minds of those who play them, the added colors of DX mostly seem to bring the visual presentation of the game more in line with how players subjectively experience it. Now one could argue that the added dungeons change the form of DX enough to distinguish it from the original, but if that were the case then any game with the dlc installed is a separate game from the base game, which to me seems unreasonable. So my opinion is that Link’s Awakening DX is the same game as Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy. Oh man that was hard to put into words lol. I can’t imagine how much research and effort went into writing this entire video
I can assure you, that back in 1993, while playing on a slowly dying monochrome screen (vertical lines on the screen in the original run would gradually die) that had next to no contrast, we realised exactly how crude (despite being revolutionary) the technology was 🤣
Not to diminish it, but it's possible to auto-generate subtitles from a script. No idea if that's what he did, but I hope so, because that's a loooot of work otherwise
I've seen every video about these damn games on this website and it's so nice to have someone give a perspective other than "Skeletal animation Mark Laidlaw over 50 Game of the Year awards do you know who ate all the donuts" Really compelling watch so far
Using The Last Supper and Half Life & Black Mesa as examples is just genius and so interesting. My favorite thing about this channel is how it really treat video games as any fine art form, worthy of deep analysis. Showing how a classic painting and classic video games can raise similar considerations around the nature of art, aging, and reproduction, is such a service to art criticism and scholarship.
I’ve honestly never understood where people are coming from when they say HL1 has aged poorly visually and sight it as an off putting factor. It’s probably one of, if not, the most officially maintained 90s shooters. If it didn’t natively support modern resolutions or was locked to 30fps to prevent engine issues I’d kind of get it, maybe. If anyone is able to elaborate on specifically what about it makes it near unplayable for them please give your two cents because I’m genuinely curious.
For me, it’s that certain titles like the original Half Life seem to trigger a very bad simulation sickness for me. It’s not specific to older games, nor to Source games specifically, but it’s something about the way the camerawork manifests in these games (e.g., Half Life, The Talos Principle, Jazzpunk, Infra to some extent, etc) that makes me have to put them down I don’t remember having the same reaction to Black Mesa but I’ve had it every time I’ve played Half Life, and occasionally with Half Life 2 as well
@@kettleworksidk what you're talking about with half life 2 but if you have problems with half life 1 just sv_rollangle 0 and cl_bob 0 in the command console with ' maybe
yeah half life and it's shooting and story are something. why i will always play cs just feels so fast and raw. i will always come back for half life its in my roots what a mad dream.
25 mins in and yeah this goes way deep. your vocab and understanding of art and half life just sung a song in my heart. this game and art, words and what it means to recall. i don't even recall how i played half life as a kid, the setup the mouse the version. how blind and inept we all are as we drone on but something is always lost. wonderful video your work is gold.
It was gladdening to hear of your improving health, and I'm excited to see another upload from you. I credit your work with reinvigorating my interest in philosophy, literature, and criticism as a form of interaction with media (rather than the punitive cudgel it is treated to be in common discourse) that I have otherwise neglected since high school, and so news of your illness somewhat increased my appreciation for your output to date. I'm no scholar, but it's always a thrill to be presented with a digestible breakdown of thought on subjects like this. I propose a toast. To your valor, my engagement contributions, and our dubious epistemic position. Long may the sun shine!
Huzzah the king has returned! And with the philosophy I love it. I love all the videos of course! But I always be rewatching those philosophy videos Joy for the return of the Gemsbok!!!! 🎉🥳🤠
Should I feel priveledged that I played the version of HL that is on the CD in my shed, on my Cyrix 586/3dfx? I've played the other versions again too, but enough time has passed between playings that I've turned into another entity in each of the intervening years. Was I still me?
Salience truly is the only metric for this, because as you said, no person will ever have access to a perspective that is not subjective. "...One must defer to the guidance of experience, emotion, or preference." Glad to have sat through another one of your wonderful productions. They truly expend my mind like very few media ever do, especially within such a short, yet densely packed, amount of time. I feel that the only point I can refute is that, sometimes, Updates of a game may vary the product enough to be considered a completely different experience. From my experience this is especially visible in "Games as a service" where Update can introduce large over-arching mechanics that affect the intire game and its meta (see Warframe replacing Coptering with BulletJumping, or Warframe before Transference), or where Updates even removed content as part of a 'narrative push' (see Destiny2's Sunsetting.) In such cases, the community addresses the game by the season-name to explain specifically which version of the game they are referring to, kind of like how WorldofWarcraft's fans only address the game by the DLC name for that time-period.
Between his remark about mmo players and him saying "nearly" every official update in the later part, I don't think he would disagree with you about that one point.
I'm only just starting, but I'll say that.... with less resources at their disposal, every assett, every scripted moment, every little textured object or signage etc etc.... had to all be extremely purposeful. Designed and placed by the artists with intention. I think as you go into Black Mesa, and the volume of highly detailed objects increases, where MANY objects in a scene are being given that same treatment as opposed to the few they wer limited to...... it does change the meaning of it as a piece of art. It's not the same. I love Black Mesa though
Links Awakening DX is not the same game. In fact, I would argue that other than the colours and music, it is a significantly worse game due to changes to make it significantly easier.
This is everything I look for in video essays, spectacular work. Side note- any chance you’d consider privating 4 of your oldest 6 videos to fix that well designed blue yellow pattern lol? With the type of detail oriented viewers you’re bound to attract with content of this caliber I’m sure I won’t be the only one to notice it haha.
This is a really, really great video that scratched so many of my itches! I must confessed, that I listened to this while trying to fall asleep (it was so good, it kept me awake) so I cannot guarantee that I maybe had missed a remark; I feel like it cannot be overstated how much the experience of original vs reproduced art matters. Seeing a photograph of an art work in a book or a on a screen is a fundamentally different experience than observing it physically, in real life. But not only the place - or rather space - matters, but also the time. An art work will resonate differently with you depending on the times you live in. If we want a 100% purist preservation of the original experience, we need to travel back in time, be engulfed in the Zeitgeist, have the experience of the previously released games and their technological advancements, play on contemporary hardware with contemporary operating systems that feel mundanely familiar to you because you use them every day, and not have any knowledge about later releases. And I'm sure even in that hypothetical scenario you can find "impurities". At the end of the day, I believe: You had to be there. :) I played through Half-Life 1 in what must have been around 2003 and even then it felt ancient to me...
As an avid watcher of MandaloreGaming, I find his reviews often involving how to even get a game to work on modern hardware adds an interesting angle to this video. He's stressed here and there how the fan patches or mods he prompts the use of stick to the vanilla games or at the very least the original intentions of developers who had to rush their games. There's always going to be that question of how "authentic" these mods are. If they truly stick to the intended or even historical experience of playing these games, of preserving their "essence". This isn't to criticize Mandy though. I love how much he helps to keep these old games alive through his cataloguing and recommendation of preservation and--I guess one could say--restoration efforts by fans.
Only 30 minutes in and this is so fascinating. It's making me think a lot about how my playing Half-Life on day 7 and the cultural milieu of its release is both different to, and the same as, you playing Half-Life in 2011, and how they are both the same, and so fundamentally distinct. Such a good video. Thank you so much.
Wow, I really appreciate your takes on this one. It really does force the viewer to challenge their own meaning of the word original. You also make me consider that the reasons I prefer one version a game over another are not so objective for everyone, oftentimes majority opinion is viewed as objectively. Great video!
HL is great, BS is my favourite, OF is also good. HL Source is skipable. Black Mesa is it's own game by now, that is based on HL I think. I did play all HL (+BS+OF) multiple times, mods, spinoffs, HL2 HL Source, Alyx, and Black Mesa. I actually spent 2000 New Year's Eve replaying HL1 :)
Love the video. Kinda puts all the confusing thoughts about this topic into coherent words. Ngl, I fucking hate the Nsane Trilogy. The music changes are such dogshit. Makes me want to puke. Also the hitboxes are all fucked up. For me Crash Bandicoot was never about the graphics. It just worked. It didn't age for me the same way Half Life did. But still... I do love the original
Half-Life is product of its time, made with limited knowledge and technology. Its not a piece of art, which should be worshipped "as is". Black Mesa did very good job, keeping original HL story and providing more realistic approach.
a year or two back, i watched donnie darko for the first time-my partner had suggested that we watched the director's cut first, as she insisted that it retained the "original intention" of the film; whatever that meant, i followed along since i figured it wouldn't be that different, and i don't usually make much of a fuss about authenticity unless it's grievous to some degree. unfortunately, i found myself coming out of the film feeling completely unimpressed-this wasn't anything with the film itself, mind you; rather, the director's cut turned the film into something too aware of itself for its own good: it was as if i had the entire messaging or authorial intent of the movie bashed against my head repeatedly. particularly heavy-handed with all the new transitions throughout the film that served to explain what was happening, rather than let me sit in my own discomfort. it's a good movie, just had a really disgusting director's cut. i figured i'd bring this up since you mentioned donnie darko in the later half of this video, and i felt it was similar to the general discourse around half life and black mesa; clearly, black mesa is nothing like the donnie darko director's cut in terms of quality, but if you were looking to play Half-Life, you are playing something so similarly departed from the original source material, that you may gain a worse impression than if you had encountered the original that being said, i do personally enjoy half life a lot more than black mesa. not like black mesa isn't good, it's great, i just see it as a bit, well-michael bay-ified. the whole half life phrase of "run, think, shoot" loses its axiomatic touch and more becoming of a action movie tagline with black mesa-which isn't far from its advertising origins i guess, but it's funny to see.
What a fantastic video, it's so refreshing to see a game analysis that doesn't boil down to "this is good, this is bad, therefore play this". I'm glad you brought up the point of dubbing and localizing, as when I originally played Half-Life, I did so in my native language, and would consider that to be transformative enough as to be its own experience. When I play the original Half-Life in its English version, that's not my Half-Life, and yet it is Half-Life for all intents and purposes. Like you said, in the end it's all subjective and you can't impose that subjective reality on anyone else. Thanks for making this
When you uploaded this, I was in the middle of watching your Dark Souls and Demon's Souls analyses from the depths of my Watch Later list - crazy coincidence! This was a superb comparison. I loved the presentation, and how by its nature there was always a twist around the corner. Subscribed and looking forward to more!
There's no way to perfectly experience something even when seeing it in the purest most original form possible, people have different qualities of eyesight, different hearing, different cognition, even if you relax those requirements people watching movies might miss certain parts or be distracted by something else or be unable to understand dialogue, people listening to music for the first time aren't usually understanding and analysing the lyrics and meanings, when you look at something again and again you find something new every time, the perfect experience doesn't exist. So... you get as close as is reasonable, does playing Half Life in widescreen significantly change the experience? I don't think so, does listening to Michael Jackson's Thriller via RUclips change that experience? Not really, an audiophile would demand you play it on Vinyl or FLAC in a perfectly balance room made for audio with beautifully preserved vintage speakers or studio monitors but that's unreasonable, and even then i don't think that would change how most normal people hear the song, also i have tinnitus and am partially deaf in one ear, nothing is perfect.
I have always recommended people play the original Half-life before playing Black Mesa. They are both amazing and incredible games but, they certainly are not the same.
Such a great video. Since it comes down to subjectivity, I essentially opt for the "reasonable doubt" or "reasonable person" pseudo-legal definitions to help differentiate. The reason you or I might count the Wind Waker remaster AS the original Wind Waker is because a "reasonable person" would look at its graphics, mechanics, and story and everything that comprises it and would conclude "yeah, that's reasonably the same game." Those changes are usually subtle enough that even when presented with said differences, one could conclude that the lighting effects are essentially a filter overlaid atop the original that doesn't drastically alter the original; it's the equivalent of the Last Supper restorations or shining a light at the TV as you watch a movie (or the act of watching a film on a TV screen instead of theatre projection itself). Perhaps not necessarily the most ideal conditions to watch, but you're still watching (or playing) the reasonably same thing. A good faith restoration like you said. However, regardless of one's personal thoughts on its quality, a "reasonable person" could not, in good faith, say that Halo Anniversary with the Anniversary graphics & music toggled on is the same as Halo CE, because a "reasonable person" would not look at the two drastically different graphical fidelity & aesthetics as being identical to one another. Yes, its gameplay is technically, under the hood, "the same" (insofar as a reasonable person can conclude) but if a thing is that thing because of the sum total of its parts, then Halo Anniversary's graphics which are built from the ground up or sometimes the result of reusing assets made for wholly different games (e.g. Halo 3 & Reach), then its obviously different by any reasonable & general metric. However, if one is to toggle OFF those clearly altered graphics, then a reasonable person could conclude that playing Halo Anniversary is playing the original Halo game even with its minor technical/graphical issues not originally present, because unless presented with 1:1 comparisons, said differences are typically subtle. Dark Souls & Black Mesa are even further differentiated than Halo Anniversary because they are wholly built from the ground up meaning now there is even *less* shared between the two things. ---- Subjectively, Black Mesa is NOT Half-Life. It was built from scratch with wholly different tools. All other HL variants and forms, be they the original NTSC disc release, the version currently on Steam, the PS2 release, etc. are all on GoldSrc, the same engine, and any changes are technically subtle enough for reasonable persons -- even HL Source, though in a different engine, is still all GoldSrc assets first, then ported through to Source... but any "reasonable person" would also reasonably conclude that HL Source is reasonably a big pile of steaming doodoo, no matter how many grains of doodoo you remove from it lol. A reasonable person, in good faith, cannot look at Black Mesa as being literally the same game. Again, if a thing is a thing because of the sum total of all of its parts and aspects, then we have to remember that beyond its internal elements, Half-Life was a revolutionary and immensely influential title that helped guide first person shooters *like* Halo and beyond after it, that spawned another massively influential sequel to itself, both of which are still to this day considered some of the all time greatest video games by both fans and critics alike. Black Mesa cannot BE Half-Life, because Black Mesa was inspired BY Half-Life. Black Mesa is an amazing mod based on Half-Life and infused with gameplay and design principles similar to that of HL2, but it will never be the same entity that influenced it and so many others, that helped create a noticeable divide between older shooter games and shooters emerging at the turn of the millennium. However... Black Mesa CAN be subjectively good enough to constitute a replacement for the original Half-Life in some ways. A replacement is, by definition, not necessarily the same entity as before, but could ostensibly fulfill the same or similar role or function. Black Mesa does that exactly. As I said, it's not the original and can never truly be that hugely influential game. But for me, it has effectively replaced the original Half-Life when it comes to LORE. Because of Kleiner and Eli Vance's appearances, the better outlined/explicit freeing of the Vortigaunts, etc. Black Mesa arguably segues better into HL2. Now, Kleiner is literally one of the scientists from Black Mesa rather than an amalgamation of the Generic Scientist NPCs. Now, Eli Vance is literally the one that sends you up for help as mentioned in HL2, instead of being another Generic Scientist. Now, the Vortigaunts demeanor toward you in HL2 is given a stronger catalyst. ---- For me, Black Mesa is Canon to the Half-Life universe because of all of its more in depth & fleshed out elements better linking it to HL2. But It is NOT actually Half-Life itself and I would always encourage people to seek out a good faith version of the original (e.g. the one just as readily available as BM) first and believe that going "it's older, just play BM" does a disservice to games as an art form. Considering how widely disliked the Star Wars Special Editions are, at LEAST the whole "Han Shot First" thing, the fact that a not insignificant portion of gamers are so readily willing to abandon older games for comfortably modern reinterpretations is sad, even if you personally prefer it over the original (which is also totally fine!)
Not joking, quoting Walter Benjamin means an auto-sub from me. Haven’t finished this but thanks for actually grappling with games as an art-form. Games Journalism could stand to learn a lot here.
Tbf, casual players getting into shooters are definitely going to struggle with og HL1, and it's possible the jank would overshadow any of HL's positives for them, thus making BM a better way to get into the series. Trust me, I've tried to get new players into Half-Life with the og game, even with practical tips and guidance. It isn't pretty, and they don't have fun. They tend to enjoy it a lot more when they have some of the other games under their belts
@@themindfulmoron3790 FWIW, that definitely reflected my experience with HL1, and I'll recommend BM over HL1 for that reason. Exceptions are that I'll recommend HL1 to someone who I know is interested in actually seeing the historical version, and that I'll also give a HL1 recommendation with a lot of caveats. The reason Is I *really* don't want someone to have a bad HL1 experience -- like mine -- and then either go into HL2 and have that bad experience color their HL2 experience or just not even play HL2 at all. ("He said HL1 is good and I didn't like that, so why should I trust his HL2 recommendation?") Granted I only played an early, very incomplete version of BM, but I have enough trust in what I've seen in videos and such that I think it's a good *enough* substitute for HL1 and is a much more "safe" recommendation in general. As for my experience... I'm not going to dump my "credentials" here, but suffice to say that I am a big fan of the HL series. HL2 is one of my favorite games, and was also an important game in my own gaming experience. And after playing HL2 and the Episodes, of course the natural next thing to do is to go back in time to play HL1. And... I never finished it. I got too frustrated by it and stopped playing. In the end it was combat difficulty that's why I stopped (I made the mistake of choosing hard for a first playthrough), but I think by far the biggest single factor was moving boxes. The controls for that are so infuriatingly terrible that I almost ragequit the game multiple times at box "puzzlets." Add to that the general... I dunno, quake-esque skatey feel of movement and the controls of the game just made it not work for me. I would like to give it another go someday, but I don't play video games much right now, and I have quite a list. So who knows when it'll happen.
Great video. I really respect that you didn't make any value judgements on Black Mesa compared to Half-Life; I sometimes dismiss Black Mesa as overrated, but that attitude obviously doesn't convince anybody of the virtues of the original Half-Life
@@MyScorpion42Black Mesa is at its core, derivative. Perhaps preferable for me to play today so I can look at prettier visuals, but Half Lfe 1 is hardly "ugly"; in fact I wish modern indie games would be released with its visuals and gameplay style. That aside, the original will always hold more sway in any franchise, there isn't ever an example in media where a remake or remaster is superior to the original (a similar argument can be made for most sequels) because it is the stuff from which the art is born, presumably in its most vitalistic and raw form. Half Life 1 IS Half Life. Black Mesa is a spawn of Half Life, but not the same as the original.
@@RingworldTyrant I love the low poly models and pixelated textures of Half-Life. Damn shame how Phantom Fury turned out given they were going for a similar style.
@@RingworldTyrantI think it more depends on how you think of the idea of "great". I personally don't see either HL or BM as greater than eachother. I tend to consider how influential the game is to be separate from perceived "greatness". It's all about the subjective for me. Do you prefer a more clearly conveyed story, more accessibility, and smoother rough edges? Well, Black Mesa might just be the better experience for you. If you prefer a more quiet discomfort in your atmospheres, HL might be your jam. Sometimes it's just the way they play. I started with HL but I honestly just prefer BM gameplay to either HL or HL2, but I love them all. I think we're all getting way too hung up on this idea of which game is greater than the other. That's a pointless measure. If you're talking about which game had more impact on the medium, just say that. If you're talking about conveyance, just say that. If you prefer the OG because of its beautiful rough edges, just say that. The idea of greatness here, I feel, disrupts the conversation more than it adds. Both games have tons of merits, so focus on *which* merits matter to *you*. If you like focusing on the history and impact of an art form, congrats, you know which game is superior for you. Myself, I just love them both for different reasons. The idea of superiority here is misplaced. Nobody should be claiming BM is an adequate replacement to the original, but the idea that one is greater than the other simply due to being the one that started the trend doesn't work for people who don't value that. Value is subjective, so bask in the beauty of subjectivity, people! Rant over
here's my attempt at a spectrum to describe the degree of sameness between two works/versions of a work: [more simillar >> less simillar] update >> port >> remaster >> remake >> reimagining(aka reboot) >> "spiritual succsessor" >> "inspired work"
Wonder what you'd think of Death Stranding, which did have a newer release which made the base game "easier" by giving the player special items earlier in the starting section, lowering the tedium basically. Does that ruin the intended experience?
This is an absolute amazing video! I just have one question: why do you think the Redux Cut of Apocalypse Now is worse for first time viewers? Is it because the added stuff makes the movie slower paced and seem a bit random with for example the french house scene? When it comes to Apocalypse Now the Redux is my favorite version.
The plantation sequence is well-composed and undoubtedly worth watching eventually by fans of the movie. But, yeah, I agree with the community consensus that its placement, tone, and duration form a significant blow to the pacing and momentum of the film.
When I saw the thumbnail, I expected a side by side visual comparison of Half-Life and Black Mesa. I was pleasantly surprised by this philosophical video essay, and I believe it may be my favorite RUclips video. Well done!
I love this analysis Benjamin applies to well to games and it feels as if that connection is rarely discussed. One concept you brought up that I bounced against was the notion that a remaster by its nature can’t really exist for games because the “master” textures and sounds cannot be meaningfully changed without replacing them. I understand this line of thinking but would argue that a key part of a remaster for video games should be that it uses aspects of the original’s source code. So long as the original gameplay remains intact I would consider it a remaster while something like Crash, while extremely faithful mechanically technically uses nothing from the original and is therefore a remake.
The true experience of any work imo is a person of the time it was created experiencing it. I'd argue the observer has a huge role to play that is lost over time.
I took a philosophy of art class my freshman year of college as a gen-ed that I absolutely loved. Felt like it expanded my horizons greatly and influenced my relationship with art for the better permanently. That being said, I've always struggled with parsing philosophical writing and despite how much growth I felt from that particular experience it's rare in my many attempts since to read or watch other philosophical works that I get much from it. Then along came your video in my feed which couched a genuinely intriguing premise under a specific hyper interest of mine and I loved it! I think we sorely need more video game criticism that approaches the medium from an academic slant and I'm so happy to have another channel to throw in that category. On the subject of your ultimate conclusion, I've always thought a remake of a game is still that game if they're the same game, but its not if it isn't. Which is obviously weak rhetoric but was the best way I could think to phrase something that I just *felt* to be self evident. So I'm really grateful that your video demonstrated a much more convincing argument towards, and more sensical way of phrasing, something I've told my friends for years: Battle for Bikini bottom Rehydrated is battle for Bikini Bottom, but Resident Evil 2 is not Resident Evil 2.
The comparison between the limitations of technology from a digital art work and a traditional one such as Frida Khalo is stupid and you know you're lying when you compare the two. More than a philosophical analysis or a comparison this is nothing but a false argument with false comparisons that could only make sense if you're not paying attention. You really went if the glove doesn't fit you must abide with this.
Oh, Milano :) I like that city. And that particular place is nice. What I found exceptionally funny in there - was a small kiosk-like stand with soccer fan merchandise. AC Milan is a popular and strong soccer team, so yeah, it has some fans. Nice contrast with all these overpriced stuck-up snob brands in that galleria. Prada, Dior, Coco Chanel? Get the heck out of there, I know you assemble this crap in Bangladesh using modern-day slavery. I'd rather buy an AC Milan scarf from the dude running that kiosk stand.
The philosophical aspect was very interesting, what people said in the past, even if you'll probably get a lot of replies saying "duh obviously it's subjective". It's good and satisfying to thoroughly make the case. I think there's more to dive into about what games a game more or less authentic, and how a remaster can sometimes be the "definitive" version despite not necessarily replacing the original. Is Quake 2 remaster "Quake 2"? The intro is remade, and some models are updated, but visually it's the same game. Except they also tweaked damage numbers and some enemy behavior to make it more balanced, so it's iffy. Doom is "Doom", but what's more authentic; keyboard-only (how most people played it back then), or keyboard+mouse (how id software designed and played it). There's no single answer. Is GZDoom "Doom"? Visual differences and _some_ gameplay differences can be fixed in settings, but the gameplay differences that cannot be fixed are intentionally kept that way to keep GZD viable as a retro game engine (for non-Doom games). So if a game is only 5-10% different, does it matter if it's due to a lack of "good faith"? Are Halo CE/2 Anniversary campaigns same as CE/2? Aside from obscure bugs, both Anniversary games are a superset of the originals, so ultimately it's up to the end user how authentically they want to experience their game. What about a remake like System Shock, where it's undoubtedly *not* the same game, but on the other hand it remains authentic enough that even veterans will prefer it over the original. Does it matter that a "different" game has become the definitive version compared to the original? How much does the hardware matter? 4/5/6th gen 2D games had their art done specifically for CRT screens, and indeed enthusiasts today will at least get a CRT shader for their emulators. However even without CRTs/shaders you're undoubtedly playing the original game, so hardware doesn't matter right? But what about light guns? Those are a core part of the gameplay loop that can't be replaced with joysticks/mice. Or, to give a more extreme example, what about VR games? Surely playing Alyx on flatscreen, or playing e.g. Half Life 2 in VR- makes them essentially different games to the originals. It's all interesting to think about.
You know you're a professional 'man of citations' when you can yap about philosophy, proving/discussing said views from all angles, (definitions and all) without brakes for an hour strait in literary format. All to argue and counterargue to yourself so you can present your absolute accuracy to another, or anyone who could last long enough to listen.
Great job. Succinctly argued and not at all circumlocutive, but still enough content to fuel a nice and long white guy video essay. How have I not discovered this channel yet
Regarding "the matter and form of half life" section - I do not understand the premise defining what an individual IS. We intuitively know what we mean when referring to "Things Fall Apart." Why have intellectuals attempted to translate this knowledge into language? Language is limiting. You will lose information. It is akin to copying lossless data into a lossy format for the sake of it. What is the point when the information / data is already present and accessible?
Awesome video! One counterargument to defining a game by the salient details, and then saying a version is the same if it preserves those while making minimal changes, is that the salient details are the beats you remember, and memory has a tendency to act as a low-pass filter, or an amplifier; unimportant details and small inconveniences are forgotten, the graphics that would now look outdated are remembered how revolutionary they were relative to the technology that existed when the work was first experienced, et.c. Playing the same game again, on the same hardware, can leave it feeling radically different from how you remember simply because you've changed and the times have changed. Thus, a version that changes graphics and removes annoyances et.c. to make it more in line not with how it was, but how you then experienced it was, can be, in how you experience it now being, more similar to how you originally experienced the original version, than what the original version experienced now would be. Does that make the original not the same as the original? Does that make the new version more like the original than the original? I'm not sure.
I honestly hate the art direction they decided on for Xen. It misses the point of the original Xen's art direction on top of being more derivative. Same goes for the soundtrack, which I felt was surprisingly pretentious and uninspired, and that was especially disappointing given that some of Joel Nielsen's earthbound tracks are my absolute favorite pieces of music out of any Half-Life game. I also hate how their approach to """fixing""" the levels people have whined the most about over the years is to gut large chunks of them and then fill in the sections they gutted with even _longer_ new ones that are generally less interesting from a gameplay perspective. My god, the plug puzzles...
@@Republicofswisscheese Well Half-Life 1's Xen had the excuse that it had to be built from the ground up within an extremely short amount of time by pretty much just one guy, and had no real chance to be properly iterated upon or playtested. Being something original that people hadn't seen before, it also had to be entirely thought up in the first place. Black Mesa's Xen has no such excuse. Quite the opposite, really, in that they had _many_ years to figure out what they were going to do on top of having the original Xen to use as reference and a bunch of cool stuff cut from the original game they could have drawn upon. Black Mesa's Xen especially lacks an excuse for somehow being more derivative and uninspired in terms of things like art direction or music than the original was. I really think the Black Mesa team must've changed their mind way too many times throughout development about the scope of what they wanted to do and ultimately went _way_ overboard in trying to "wow" people. I think their unfortunate design philosophy of "if fans have whined about something in the original game over the years, we need to totally throw that thing out the window for our version" also played a very large role. I guess that misguided approach ultimately did really pay off for the Black Mesa team, though, seeing as the majority consensus among fans seems to be that Black Mesa's take on Xen is the best thing ever. It's just a real shame for the minority of people who see the glaring issues with the direction they took and the massive wealth of wasted potential.
Hmm. I think it's useful to frame the conundrum in social terms. How do you prove to someone that you are the same you that they met yesterday? You aren't, strictly speaking, the same person at all! The answer is fairly intuitive: both you (the subject) and your counterpart (the audience) must mutually consent to the notion that there exists an unwitnessed continuity between the two temporally isolated individuals who are, at once, you. This maps 1:1 onto our model of game continuity: the subject (the game) and the audience (the player) must mutually recognize the new unit as existing on a continuous, yet unwitnessed spectrum of canonical continuity. On the macro scale, the resulting "truth" is a continuous negotiation between the singular stance of the game and the multitudinous stance of the broader audience. A successful unit of continuity is one which achieves a harmonious agreement between these two things. Taken to its logical conclusion, this model effectively asserts that whether a unit exists in continuity with the main canon is a flexible matter which shifts over both time and locality. It's not subjective, but rather relative in the Newtonian sense.
Alright let's see if I'm with you here... so what gives the Ship of Theseus its singular identity from shore to shore despite having no matter whatsoever in common from launch to desitination is its reasonably trusted continuity of doing and being what it is - its embodiment of instantiated form - during the whole voyage?
You've been working on your video script for 7 years? My g, that means even the version of your video we watched isn't the original. Mindblow
Dang, this video got TWISTS
The prevalence of “this is how GTA: SA looked to me as a kid” style of memes indicates that many players experience games as a gestalt rather than as a strict set of mechanics, visuals, or levels. I’d imagine that people who played Link’s Awakening in 1993 remember the game more vibrantly than the muted colors of the Game Boy actually conveyed. If games exist in the minds of those who play them, the added colors of DX mostly seem to bring the visual presentation of the game more in line with how players subjectively experience it.
Now one could argue that the added dungeons change the form of DX enough to distinguish it from the original, but if that were the case then any game with the dlc installed is a separate game from the base game, which to me seems unreasonable. So my opinion is that Link’s Awakening DX is the same game as Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy.
Oh man that was hard to put into words lol. I can’t imagine how much research and effort went into writing this entire video
I can assure you, that back in 1993, while playing on a slowly dying monochrome screen (vertical lines on the screen in the original run would gradually die) that had next to no contrast, we realised exactly how crude (despite being revolutionary) the technology was 🤣
type of video you’d see in 5 years with either 50 views or 30+ million
props to you for giving full subtitles to a 1 hour video
Holy shit, didn't notice, damnnn
Not to diminish it, but it's possible to auto-generate subtitles from a script. No idea if that's what he did, but I hope so, because that's a loooot of work otherwise
@@gianni50725 all the subtitles are on time and include misc things like [MACHINE GUN FIRE] and [DOUBLE BARREL SHOTGUN BLAST]
I've seen every video about these damn games on this website and it's so nice to have someone give a perspective other than "Skeletal animation Mark Laidlaw over 50 Game of the Year awards do you know who ate all the donuts"
Really compelling watch so far
Using The Last Supper and Half Life & Black Mesa as examples is just genius and so interesting. My favorite thing about this channel is how it really treat video games as any fine art form, worthy of deep analysis. Showing how a classic painting and classic video games can raise similar considerations around the nature of art, aging, and reproduction, is such a service to art criticism and scholarship.
I’ve honestly never understood where people are coming from when they say HL1 has aged poorly visually and sight it as an off putting factor. It’s probably one of, if not, the most officially maintained 90s shooters. If it didn’t natively support modern resolutions or was locked to 30fps to prevent engine issues I’d kind of get it, maybe. If anyone is able to elaborate on specifically what about it makes it near unplayable for them please give your two cents because I’m genuinely curious.
every person I've got an answer out of just say it "looks ugly" or "hurts their eyes" and it saddens me
they just want every model to be dipped in olive oil
For me, it’s that certain titles like the original Half Life seem to trigger a very bad simulation sickness for me. It’s not specific to older games, nor to Source games specifically, but it’s something about the way the camerawork manifests in these games (e.g., Half Life, The Talos Principle, Jazzpunk, Infra to some extent, etc) that makes me have to put them down
I don’t remember having the same reaction to Black Mesa but I’ve had it every time I’ve played Half Life, and occasionally with Half Life 2 as well
@@kettleworksidk what you're talking about with half life 2 but if you have problems with half life 1 just sv_rollangle 0 and cl_bob 0 in the command console with ' maybe
I say, to enjoy Black Mesa you have to play Half Life first
To see the jump in technology and how original Half Life was groundbreaking.
yeah half life and it's shooting and story are something. why i will always play cs just feels so fast and raw. i will always come back for half life its in my roots what a mad dream.
25 mins in and yeah this goes way deep. your vocab and understanding of art and half life just sung a song in my heart. this game and art, words and what it means to recall. i don't even recall how i played half life as a kid, the setup the mouse the version. how blind and inept we all are as we drone on but something is always lost. wonderful video your work is gold.
It was gladdening to hear of your improving health, and I'm excited to see another upload from you. I credit your work with reinvigorating my interest in philosophy, literature, and criticism as a form of interaction with media (rather than the punitive cudgel it is treated to be in common discourse) that I have otherwise neglected since high school, and so news of your illness somewhat increased my appreciation for your output to date. I'm no scholar, but it's always a thrill to be presented with a digestible breakdown of thought on subjects like this.
I propose a toast. To your valor, my engagement contributions, and our dubious epistemic position. Long may the sun shine!
Man, the editing in this one is tight . Very nice
The pan-out to reveal the DS version of Chrono Trigger at the moment of relevance, chef's kiss
Huzzah the king has returned! And with the philosophy I love it. I love all the videos of course! But I always be rewatching those philosophy videos
Joy for the return of the Gemsbok!!!! 🎉🥳🤠
Should I feel priveledged that I played the version of HL that is on the CD in my shed, on my Cyrix 586/3dfx? I've played the other versions again too, but enough time has passed between playings that I've turned into another entity in each of the intervening years. Was I still me?
What makes YOU?
man, i did not click on this video expecting to gain new insights about the Fate franchise but here i am
thanks for that i guess lol
Salience truly is the only metric for this, because as you said, no person will ever have access to a perspective that is not subjective.
"...One must defer to the guidance of experience, emotion, or preference."
Glad to have sat through another one of your wonderful productions. They truly expend my mind like very few media ever do, especially within such a short, yet densely packed, amount of time.
I feel that the only point I can refute is that, sometimes, Updates of a game may vary the product enough to be considered a completely different experience. From my experience this is especially visible in "Games as a service" where Update can introduce large over-arching mechanics that affect the intire game and its meta (see Warframe replacing Coptering with BulletJumping, or Warframe before Transference), or where Updates even removed content as part of a 'narrative push' (see Destiny2's Sunsetting.) In such cases, the community addresses the game by the season-name to explain specifically which version of the game they are referring to, kind of like how WorldofWarcraft's fans only address the game by the DLC name for that time-period.
Between his remark about mmo players and him saying "nearly" every official update in the later part, I don't think he would disagree with you about that one point.
@@journeration1 True, he did mention.
Legit *delicious* for my brain
I can't believe you tricked me into learning about philosophy with the bait of Half-Life lol
Fantatsic video! I'll have to do myself a massive favor and check out the rest of your catalog. Consider myself subscribed!
Like all good philosophical discussions, leaves me thinking and completely unable to make up my mind.
I'm only just starting, but I'll say that.... with less resources at their disposal, every assett, every scripted moment, every little textured object or signage etc etc.... had to all be extremely purposeful. Designed and placed by the artists with intention. I think as you go into Black Mesa, and the volume of highly detailed objects increases, where MANY objects in a scene are being given that same treatment as opposed to the few they wer limited to...... it does change the meaning of it as a piece of art. It's not the same. I love Black Mesa though
So true!
Great video! Been looking for something like this about Half-Life and Black Mesa for a while.
Extremely cool video.. Think I understand almost everything, but will def rewatch soon to fill in the last gaps.
This video had me completely locked in. Love your writing style
Damn, I think I'll have to watch this multiple times to properly digest it. Great video, fascinating topic.
Links Awakening DX is not the same game. In fact, I would argue that other than the colours and music, it is a significantly worse game due to changes to make it significantly easier.
At least it's not green
This video was quite pleasant and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope that you continue to make content of this quality, even if infrequent.
Happy to sub!
This is everything I look for in video essays, spectacular work.
Side note- any chance you’d consider privating 4 of your oldest 6 videos to fix that well designed blue yellow pattern lol? With the type of detail oriented viewers you’re bound to attract with content of this caliber I’m sure I won’t be the only one to notice it haha.
This is a really, really great video that scratched so many of my itches!
I must confessed, that I listened to this while trying to fall asleep (it was so good, it kept me awake) so I cannot guarantee that I maybe had missed a remark; I feel like it cannot be overstated how much the experience of original vs reproduced art matters. Seeing a photograph of an art work in a book or a on a screen is a fundamentally different experience than observing it physically, in real life. But not only the place - or rather space - matters, but also the time. An art work will resonate differently with you depending on the times you live in.
If we want a 100% purist preservation of the original experience, we need to travel back in time, be engulfed in the Zeitgeist, have the experience of the previously released games and their technological advancements, play on contemporary hardware with contemporary operating systems that feel mundanely familiar to you because you use them every day, and not have any knowledge about later releases. And I'm sure even in that hypothetical scenario you can find "impurities". At the end of the day, I believe: You had to be there. :)
I played through Half-Life 1 in what must have been around 2003 and even then it felt ancient to me...
Wow, I checked your channel like, yesterday for a new vid, and today you upload! Heck yes. Excited to watch this!
As an avid watcher of MandaloreGaming, I find his reviews often involving how to even get a game to work on modern hardware adds an interesting angle to this video. He's stressed here and there how the fan patches or mods he prompts the use of stick to the vanilla games or at the very least the original intentions of developers who had to rush their games. There's always going to be that question of how "authentic" these mods are. If they truly stick to the intended or even historical experience of playing these games, of preserving their "essence".
This isn't to criticize Mandy though. I love how much he helps to keep these old games alive through his cataloguing and recommendation of preservation and--I guess one could say--restoration efforts by fans.
Only 30 minutes in and this is so fascinating. It's making me think a lot about how my playing Half-Life on day 7 and the cultural milieu of its release is both different to, and the same as, you playing Half-Life in 2011, and how they are both the same, and so fundamentally distinct.
Such a good video. Thank you so much.
I was playing Abiotic factor recently, and this video made me realize just how half-life inspired it is.
Just wait till you play Half-Life!
brother why you playing that if you haven't played half life
@@tokeshed because it was a cool concept and a fun survival game to play with my friend?
Liked & subscribed within first 2 minutes. Good luck when algorithm finally boosts your channel 👍
Everyone tell your friends about the return of the gemsbok
Loved seeing The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now pop up, hadn't seen a lot of the games shown in a while either, great collection of footage
Great vid, first time watcher here
So glad I had the bell notification on
close enough, welcome back aristotle!
Yayyyyyy a new podcast on something I never thought about to play ds1 to!
Wow, I really appreciate your takes on this one. It really does force the viewer to challenge their own meaning of the word original. You also make me consider that the reasons I prefer one version a game over another are not so objective for everyone, oftentimes majority opinion is viewed as objectively. Great video!
omg this is one of my favorite articles glad to see the yt remake xD
Good video
Yes
You just agreed with yourself?
Uh no what no...
HL is great, BS is my favourite, OF is also good. HL Source is skipable. Black Mesa is it's own game by now, that is based on HL I think. I did play all HL (+BS+OF) multiple times, mods, spinoffs, HL2 HL Source, Alyx, and Black Mesa. I actually spent 2000 New Year's Eve replaying HL1 :)
Love the video. Kinda puts all the confusing thoughts about this topic into coherent words.
Ngl, I fucking hate the Nsane Trilogy. The music changes are such dogshit. Makes me want to puke. Also the hitboxes are all fucked up. For me Crash Bandicoot was never about the graphics. It just worked. It didn't age for me the same way Half Life did. But still... I do love the original
I had an inkling that Peirce was going to show up
Half-Life is product of its time, made with limited knowledge and technology. Its not a piece of art, which should be worshipped "as is". Black Mesa did very good job, keeping original HL story and providing more realistic approach.
a year or two back, i watched donnie darko for the first time-my partner had suggested that we watched the director's cut first, as she insisted that it retained the "original intention" of the film; whatever that meant, i followed along since i figured it wouldn't be that different, and i don't usually make much of a fuss about authenticity unless it's grievous to some degree.
unfortunately, i found myself coming out of the film feeling completely unimpressed-this wasn't anything with the film itself, mind you; rather, the director's cut turned the film into something too aware of itself for its own good: it was as if i had the entire messaging or authorial intent of the movie bashed against my head repeatedly. particularly heavy-handed with all the new transitions throughout the film that served to explain what was happening, rather than let me sit in my own discomfort.
it's a good movie, just had a really disgusting director's cut. i figured i'd bring this up since you mentioned donnie darko in the later half of this video, and i felt it was similar to the general discourse around half life and black mesa; clearly, black mesa is nothing like the donnie darko director's cut in terms of quality, but if you were looking to play Half-Life, you are playing something so similarly departed from the original source material, that you may gain a worse impression than if you had encountered the original
that being said, i do personally enjoy half life a lot more than black mesa. not like black mesa isn't good, it's great, i just see it as a bit, well-michael bay-ified. the whole half life phrase of "run, think, shoot" loses its axiomatic touch and more becoming of a action movie tagline with black mesa-which isn't far from its advertising origins i guess, but it's funny to see.
I love your videos, thank you.
this is insanely awesome
What a fantastic video, it's so refreshing to see a game analysis that doesn't boil down to "this is good, this is bad, therefore play this". I'm glad you brought up the point of dubbing and localizing, as when I originally played Half-Life, I did so in my native language, and would consider that to be transformative enough as to be its own experience. When I play the original Half-Life in its English version, that's not my Half-Life, and yet it is Half-Life for all intents and purposes. Like you said, in the end it's all subjective and you can't impose that subjective reality on anyone else. Thanks for making this
When you uploaded this, I was in the middle of watching your Dark Souls and Demon's Souls analyses from the depths of my Watch Later list - crazy coincidence! This was a superb comparison. I loved the presentation, and how by its nature there was always a twist around the corner. Subscribed and looking forward to more!
There's no way to perfectly experience something even when seeing it in the purest most original form possible, people have different qualities of eyesight, different hearing, different cognition, even if you relax those requirements people watching movies might miss certain parts or be distracted by something else or be unable to understand dialogue, people listening to music for the first time aren't usually understanding and analysing the lyrics and meanings, when you look at something again and again you find something new every time, the perfect experience doesn't exist.
So... you get as close as is reasonable, does playing Half Life in widescreen significantly change the experience? I don't think so, does listening to Michael Jackson's Thriller via RUclips change that experience? Not really, an audiophile would demand you play it on Vinyl or FLAC in a perfectly balance room made for audio with beautifully preserved vintage speakers or studio monitors but that's unreasonable, and even then i don't think that would change how most normal people hear the song, also i have tinnitus and am partially deaf in one ear, nothing is perfect.
I have always recommended people play the original Half-life before playing Black Mesa. They are both amazing and incredible games but, they certainly are not the same.
Wow, really interesting ideas put forward here.
Such a great video.
Since it comes down to subjectivity, I essentially opt for the "reasonable doubt" or "reasonable person" pseudo-legal definitions to help differentiate.
The reason you or I might count the Wind Waker remaster AS the original Wind Waker is because a "reasonable person" would look at its graphics, mechanics, and story and everything that comprises it and would conclude "yeah, that's reasonably the same game." Those changes are usually subtle enough that even when presented with said differences, one could conclude that the lighting effects are essentially a filter overlaid atop the original that doesn't drastically alter the original; it's the equivalent of the Last Supper restorations or shining a light at the TV as you watch a movie (or the act of watching a film on a TV screen instead of theatre projection itself). Perhaps not necessarily the most ideal conditions to watch, but you're still watching (or playing) the reasonably same thing. A good faith restoration like you said.
However, regardless of one's personal thoughts on its quality, a "reasonable person" could not, in good faith, say that Halo Anniversary with the Anniversary graphics & music toggled on is the same as Halo CE, because a "reasonable person" would not look at the two drastically different graphical fidelity & aesthetics as being identical to one another. Yes, its gameplay is technically, under the hood, "the same" (insofar as a reasonable person can conclude) but if a thing is that thing because of the sum total of its parts, then Halo Anniversary's graphics which are built from the ground up or sometimes the result of reusing assets made for wholly different games (e.g. Halo 3 & Reach), then its obviously different by any reasonable & general metric. However, if one is to toggle OFF those clearly altered graphics, then a reasonable person could conclude that playing Halo Anniversary is playing the original Halo game even with its minor technical/graphical issues not originally present, because unless presented with 1:1 comparisons, said differences are typically subtle. Dark Souls & Black Mesa are even further differentiated than Halo Anniversary because they are wholly built from the ground up meaning now there is even *less* shared between the two things.
----
Subjectively, Black Mesa is NOT Half-Life. It was built from scratch with wholly different tools. All other HL variants and forms, be they the original NTSC disc release, the version currently on Steam, the PS2 release, etc. are all on GoldSrc, the same engine, and any changes are technically subtle enough for reasonable persons -- even HL Source, though in a different engine, is still all GoldSrc assets first, then ported through to Source... but any "reasonable person" would also reasonably conclude that HL Source is reasonably a big pile of steaming doodoo, no matter how many grains of doodoo you remove from it lol. A reasonable person, in good faith, cannot look at Black Mesa as being literally the same game. Again, if a thing is a thing because of the sum total of all of its parts and aspects, then we have to remember that beyond its internal elements, Half-Life was a revolutionary and immensely influential title that helped guide first person shooters *like* Halo and beyond after it, that spawned another massively influential sequel to itself, both of which are still to this day considered some of the all time greatest video games by both fans and critics alike. Black Mesa cannot BE Half-Life, because Black Mesa was inspired BY Half-Life. Black Mesa is an amazing mod based on Half-Life and infused with gameplay and design principles similar to that of HL2, but it will never be the same entity that influenced it and so many others, that helped create a noticeable divide between older shooter games and shooters emerging at the turn of the millennium.
However... Black Mesa CAN be subjectively good enough to constitute a replacement for the original Half-Life in some ways. A replacement is, by definition, not necessarily the same entity as before, but could ostensibly fulfill the same or similar role or function. Black Mesa does that exactly. As I said, it's not the original and can never truly be that hugely influential game. But for me, it has effectively replaced the original Half-Life when it comes to LORE. Because of Kleiner and Eli Vance's appearances, the better outlined/explicit freeing of the Vortigaunts, etc. Black Mesa arguably segues better into HL2. Now, Kleiner is literally one of the scientists from Black Mesa rather than an amalgamation of the Generic Scientist NPCs. Now, Eli Vance is literally the one that sends you up for help as mentioned in HL2, instead of being another Generic Scientist. Now, the Vortigaunts demeanor toward you in HL2 is given a stronger catalyst.
----
For me, Black Mesa is Canon to the Half-Life universe because of all of its more in depth & fleshed out elements better linking it to HL2. But It is NOT actually Half-Life itself and I would always encourage people to seek out a good faith version of the original (e.g. the one just as readily available as BM) first and believe that going "it's older, just play BM" does a disservice to games as an art form. Considering how widely disliked the Star Wars Special Editions are, at LEAST the whole "Han Shot First" thing, the fact that a not insignificant portion of gamers are so readily willing to abandon older games for comfortably modern reinterpretations is sad, even if you personally prefer it over the original (which is also totally fine!)
Not joking, quoting Walter Benjamin means an auto-sub from me. Haven’t finished this but thanks for actually grappling with games as an art-form. Games Journalism could stand to learn a lot here.
Never clicked on something so fast. Reeeeeeeally hoping you’ll do HL2 + its episodes at some point too!!!
Was literally just wondering when you were gonna upload again
a thoroughly fantastic video
We're so back!!
Oh man thank you for this, that garbage about everyone skipping Half Life and just playing Black Mesa is *all over* the Black Mesa steam reviews.
They think half-life games exist for the story. Half-life games exist to show off technology
Tbf, casual players getting into shooters are definitely going to struggle with og HL1, and it's possible the jank would overshadow any of HL's positives for them, thus making BM a better way to get into the series. Trust me, I've tried to get new players into Half-Life with the og game, even with practical tips and guidance. It isn't pretty, and they don't have fun.
They tend to enjoy it a lot more when they have some of the other games under their belts
@@NKL3085I disagree strongly. Half life games exist to be very good videogames
@@SunsetBear that's why valve left the series on a cliffhanger for 13 years until coming back for a vr exclusive
@@themindfulmoron3790 FWIW, that definitely reflected my experience with HL1, and I'll recommend BM over HL1 for that reason. Exceptions are that I'll recommend HL1 to someone who I know is interested in actually seeing the historical version, and that I'll also give a HL1 recommendation with a lot of caveats. The reason Is I *really* don't want someone to have a bad HL1 experience -- like mine -- and then either go into HL2 and have that bad experience color their HL2 experience or just not even play HL2 at all. ("He said HL1 is good and I didn't like that, so why should I trust his HL2 recommendation?") Granted I only played an early, very incomplete version of BM, but I have enough trust in what I've seen in videos and such that I think it's a good *enough* substitute for HL1 and is a much more "safe" recommendation in general.
As for my experience...
I'm not going to dump my "credentials" here, but suffice to say that I am a big fan of the HL series. HL2 is one of my favorite games, and was also an important game in my own gaming experience. And after playing HL2 and the Episodes, of course the natural next thing to do is to go back in time to play HL1.
And... I never finished it. I got too frustrated by it and stopped playing. In the end it was combat difficulty that's why I stopped (I made the mistake of choosing hard for a first playthrough), but I think by far the biggest single factor was moving boxes. The controls for that are so infuriatingly terrible that I almost ragequit the game multiple times at box "puzzlets." Add to that the general... I dunno, quake-esque skatey feel of movement and the controls of the game just made it not work for me.
I would like to give it another go someday, but I don't play video games much right now, and I have quite a list. So who knows when it'll happen.
I have always found the idea that Half-Life is obsolete because of Black Mes to be rather tasteless, so I will be interested to watch this video
Great video. I really respect that you didn't make any value judgements on Black Mesa compared to Half-Life; I sometimes dismiss Black Mesa as overrated, but that attitude obviously doesn't convince anybody of the virtues of the original Half-Life
@@MyScorpion42Black Mesa is at its core, derivative. Perhaps preferable for me to play today so I can look at prettier visuals, but Half Lfe 1 is hardly "ugly"; in fact I wish modern indie games would be released with its visuals and gameplay style. That aside, the original will always hold more sway in any franchise, there isn't ever an example in media where a remake or remaster is superior to the original (a similar argument can be made for most sequels) because it is the stuff from which the art is born, presumably in its most vitalistic and raw form.
Half Life 1 IS Half Life. Black Mesa is a spawn of Half Life, but not the same as the original.
@@RingworldTyrant I love the low poly models and pixelated textures of Half-Life. Damn shame how Phantom Fury turned out given they were going for a similar style.
@@RingworldTyrantI think it more depends on how you think of the idea of "great". I personally don't see either HL or BM as greater than eachother. I tend to consider how influential the game is to be separate from perceived "greatness". It's all about the subjective for me. Do you prefer a more clearly conveyed story, more accessibility, and smoother rough edges? Well, Black Mesa might just be the better experience for you. If you prefer a more quiet discomfort in your atmospheres, HL might be your jam. Sometimes it's just the way they play. I started with HL but I honestly just prefer BM gameplay to either HL or HL2, but I love them all.
I think we're all getting way too hung up on this idea of which game is greater than the other. That's a pointless measure. If you're talking about which game had more impact on the medium, just say that. If you're talking about conveyance, just say that. If you prefer the OG because of its beautiful rough edges, just say that. The idea of greatness here, I feel, disrupts the conversation more than it adds.
Both games have tons of merits, so focus on *which* merits matter to *you*. If you like focusing on the history and impact of an art form, congrats, you know which game is superior for you. Myself, I just love them both for different reasons. The idea of superiority here is misplaced. Nobody should be claiming BM is an adequate replacement to the original, but the idea that one is greater than the other simply due to being the one that started the trend doesn't work for people who don't value that. Value is subjective, so bask in the beauty of subjectivity, people!
Rant over
here's my attempt at a spectrum to describe the degree of sameness between two works/versions of a work: [more simillar >> less simillar]
update >> port >> remaster >> remake >> reimagining(aka reboot) >> "spiritual succsessor" >> "inspired work"
MORE GEMSBOK LETS GO
I love this guy
A RUclips essayist with a competent vocabulary range. Never thought I'd see the day.
Wonder what you'd think of Death Stranding, which did have a newer release which made the base game "easier" by giving the player special items earlier in the starting section, lowering the tedium basically. Does that ruin the intended experience?
HES THE GOAT
This is an absolute amazing video!
I just have one question:
why do you think the Redux Cut of Apocalypse Now is worse for first time viewers?
Is it because the added stuff makes the movie slower paced and seem a bit random with for example the french house scene?
When it comes to Apocalypse Now the Redux is my favorite version.
The plantation sequence is well-composed and undoubtedly worth watching eventually by fans of the movie.
But, yeah, I agree with the community consensus that its placement, tone, and duration form a significant blow to the pacing and momentum of the film.
When I saw the thumbnail, I expected a side by side visual comparison of Half-Life and Black Mesa. I was pleasantly surprised by this philosophical video essay, and I believe it may be my favorite RUclips video. Well done!
LET'S GO!!!
its been a while, gemsbok
This guy arts
*"...in the tes-t chamberrrr."*
cool video
love the video
The Video Game of Theseus
it was actually a Philosophical Comparison. damn lol
I love this analysis Benjamin applies to well to games and it feels as if that connection is rarely discussed. One concept you brought up that I bounced against was the notion that a remaster by its nature can’t really exist for games because the “master” textures and sounds cannot be meaningfully changed without replacing them. I understand this line of thinking but would argue that a key part of a remaster for video games should be that it uses aspects of the original’s source code. So long as the original gameplay remains intact I would consider it a remaster while something like Crash, while extremely faithful mechanically technically uses nothing from the original and is therefore a remake.
Id say the links awakening example you put forward are the same games
I played Black Mesa first because it just looked better. Big mistake, it was so hard it was not enjoyable for a noob
The true experience of any work imo is a person of the time it was created experiencing it. I'd argue the observer has a huge role to play that is lost over time.
Half-Life is Half-Life, Black Mesa is Black Mesa.
I think it really is as simple as that.
Finally a video essay channel that while intelectual does not shy away from the usefulness of the subjective
I took a philosophy of art class my freshman year of college as a gen-ed that I absolutely loved. Felt like it expanded my horizons greatly and influenced my relationship with art for the better permanently. That being said, I've always struggled with parsing philosophical writing and despite how much growth I felt from that particular experience it's rare in my many attempts since to read or watch other philosophical works that I get much from it. Then along came your video in my feed which couched a genuinely intriguing premise under a specific hyper interest of mine and I loved it! I think we sorely need more video game criticism that approaches the medium from an academic slant and I'm so happy to have another channel to throw in that category.
On the subject of your ultimate conclusion, I've always thought a remake of a game is still that game if they're the same game, but its not if it isn't. Which is obviously weak rhetoric but was the best way I could think to phrase something that I just *felt* to be self evident. So I'm really grateful that your video demonstrated a much more convincing argument towards, and more sensical way of phrasing, something I've told my friends for years: Battle for Bikini bottom Rehydrated is battle for Bikini Bottom, but Resident Evil 2 is not Resident Evil 2.
The comparison between the limitations of technology from a digital art work and a traditional one such as Frida Khalo is stupid and you know you're lying when you compare the two.
More than a philosophical analysis or a comparison this is nothing but a false argument with false comparisons that could only make sense if you're not paying attention.
You really went if the glove doesn't fit you must abide with this.
play both. Kelly Bailey's music is absolutely amazing and the vibe of the games is different due to no in small part to music
Oh, Milano :) I like that city. And that particular place is nice. What I found exceptionally funny in there - was a small kiosk-like stand with soccer fan merchandise. AC Milan is a popular and strong soccer team, so yeah, it has some fans. Nice contrast with all these overpriced stuck-up snob brands in that galleria. Prada, Dior, Coco Chanel? Get the heck out of there, I know you assemble this crap in Bangladesh using modern-day slavery. I'd rather buy an AC Milan scarf from the dude running that kiosk stand.
This video has genuinely changed the way i view all art
based on its contents, this should be a 15min video
The philosophical aspect was very interesting, what people said in the past, even if you'll probably get a lot of replies saying "duh obviously it's subjective". It's good and satisfying to thoroughly make the case.
I think there's more to dive into about what games a game more or less authentic, and how a remaster can sometimes be the "definitive" version despite not necessarily replacing the original.
Is Quake 2 remaster "Quake 2"? The intro is remade, and some models are updated, but visually it's the same game. Except they also tweaked damage numbers and some enemy behavior to make it more balanced, so it's iffy.
Doom is "Doom", but what's more authentic; keyboard-only (how most people played it back then), or keyboard+mouse (how id software designed and played it). There's no single answer.
Is GZDoom "Doom"? Visual differences and _some_ gameplay differences can be fixed in settings, but the gameplay differences that cannot be fixed are intentionally kept that way to keep GZD viable as a retro game engine (for non-Doom games). So if a game is only 5-10% different, does it matter if it's due to a lack of "good faith"?
Are Halo CE/2 Anniversary campaigns same as CE/2? Aside from obscure bugs, both Anniversary games are a superset of the originals, so ultimately it's up to the end user how authentically they want to experience their game.
What about a remake like System Shock, where it's undoubtedly *not* the same game, but on the other hand it remains authentic enough that even veterans will prefer it over the original. Does it matter that a "different" game has become the definitive version compared to the original?
How much does the hardware matter? 4/5/6th gen 2D games had their art done specifically for CRT screens, and indeed enthusiasts today will at least get a CRT shader for their emulators. However even without CRTs/shaders you're undoubtedly playing the original game, so hardware doesn't matter right? But what about light guns? Those are a core part of the gameplay loop that can't be replaced with joysticks/mice. Or, to give a more extreme example, what about VR games? Surely playing Alyx on flatscreen, or playing e.g. Half Life 2 in VR- makes them essentially different games to the originals.
It's all interesting to think about.
You know you're a professional 'man of citations' when you can yap about philosophy, proving/discussing said views from all angles, (definitions and all) without brakes for an hour strait in literary format. All to argue and counterargue to yourself so you can present your absolute accuracy to another, or anyone who could last long enough to listen.
I was just looking for a video to watch before sleep...
Great job. Succinctly argued and not at all circumlocutive, but still enough content to fuel a nice and long white guy video essay. How have I not discovered this channel yet
Regarding "the matter and form of half life" section - I do not understand the premise defining what an individual IS. We intuitively know what we mean when referring to "Things Fall Apart." Why have intellectuals attempted to translate this knowledge into language? Language is limiting. You will lose information. It is akin to copying lossless data into a lossy format for the sake of it. What is the point when the information / data is already present and accessible?
Something I wish you had brought up and discussed is Doom as coded by John Carmack and say GZDoom
This video is DEEP
I love how something that might seem stupid, like games. Can be explored in such interesting ways.
Incredible work! 👍
Awesome video! One counterargument to defining a game by the salient details, and then saying a version is the same if it preserves those while making minimal changes, is that the salient details are the beats you remember, and memory has a tendency to act as a low-pass filter, or an amplifier; unimportant details and small inconveniences are forgotten, the graphics that would now look outdated are remembered how revolutionary they were relative to the technology that existed when the work was first experienced, et.c. Playing the same game again, on the same hardware, can leave it feeling radically different from how you remember simply because you've changed and the times have changed.
Thus, a version that changes graphics and removes annoyances et.c. to make it more in line not with how it was, but how you then experienced it was, can be, in how you experience it now being, more similar to how you originally experienced the original version, than what the original version experienced now would be. Does that make the original not the same as the original? Does that make the new version more like the original than the original? I'm not sure.
im here just to say i hate black mesas version of Xen because they overdid it
I honestly hate the art direction they decided on for Xen. It misses the point of the original Xen's art direction on top of being more derivative. Same goes for the soundtrack, which I felt was surprisingly pretentious and uninspired, and that was especially disappointing given that some of Joel Nielsen's earthbound tracks are my absolute favorite pieces of music out of any Half-Life game.
I also hate how their approach to """fixing""" the levels people have whined the most about over the years is to gut large chunks of them and then fill in the sections they gutted with even _longer_ new ones that are generally less interesting from a gameplay perspective. My god, the plug puzzles...
The moldy mario 64 levels from the original game weren't ideal
in short, both half-life 1's xen and black mesa's xen have their fair share of flaws
@@Republicofswisscheese Well Half-Life 1's Xen had the excuse that it had to be built from the ground up within an extremely short amount of time by pretty much just one guy, and had no real chance to be properly iterated upon or playtested. Being something original that people hadn't seen before, it also had to be entirely thought up in the first place.
Black Mesa's Xen has no such excuse. Quite the opposite, really, in that they had _many_ years to figure out what they were going to do on top of having the original Xen to use as reference and a bunch of cool stuff cut from the original game they could have drawn upon. Black Mesa's Xen especially lacks an excuse for somehow being more derivative and uninspired in terms of things like art direction or music than the original was.
I really think the Black Mesa team must've changed their mind way too many times throughout development about the scope of what they wanted to do and ultimately went _way_ overboard in trying to "wow" people. I think their unfortunate design philosophy of "if fans have whined about something in the original game over the years, we need to totally throw that thing out the window for our version" also played a very large role.
I guess that misguided approach ultimately did really pay off for the Black Mesa team, though, seeing as the majority consensus among fans seems to be that Black Mesa's take on Xen is the best thing ever. It's just a real shame for the minority of people who see the glaring issues with the direction they took and the massive wealth of wasted potential.
@@RepublicofswisscheesePersonally, I think the original's Xen levels were fine and in-line with the Earth based levels.
Hmm. I think it's useful to frame the conundrum in social terms. How do you prove to someone that you are the same you that they met yesterday? You aren't, strictly speaking, the same person at all!
The answer is fairly intuitive: both you (the subject) and your counterpart (the audience) must mutually consent to the notion that there exists an unwitnessed continuity between the two temporally isolated individuals who are, at once, you.
This maps 1:1 onto our model of game continuity: the subject (the game) and the audience (the player) must mutually recognize the new unit as existing on a continuous, yet unwitnessed spectrum of canonical continuity.
On the macro scale, the resulting "truth" is a continuous negotiation between the singular stance of the game and the multitudinous stance of the broader audience. A successful unit of continuity is one which achieves a harmonious agreement between these two things.
Taken to its logical conclusion, this model effectively asserts that whether a unit exists in continuity with the main canon is a flexible matter which shifts over both time and locality. It's not subjective, but rather relative in the Newtonian sense.
Alright let's see if I'm with you here... so what gives the Ship of Theseus its singular identity from shore to shore despite having no matter whatsoever in common from launch to desitination is its reasonably trusted continuity of doing and being what it is - its embodiment of instantiated form - during the whole voyage?