Half-Life is Great... Don't Play it
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- Half-Life was incredibly popular in 1998 (and still is I'd say). But you should also try out Black Mesa, as it's just as good, if not better than the original. (But you should still play the original though)
Discord: / discord
Black Mesa is a fan made remake of Half-Life by Crowbar Collective. They really did a lot with this game, and it shows, considering it's been in development for more than 10 years. If you enjoyed the original Half-Life, I really recommend you try out Black Mesa. It can be summed up as: Half Life if it was made in the modern age. Black Mesa has massive changes to the original, and whether you like them or not is up to you. But if you like the changes, then I'd argue that Black Mesa is possibly better than the original.
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Downloads:
Black Mesa: store.steampow...
OBS (what I record with): obsproject.com/
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Music:
(In order of appearance)
.Kevin MacLeod - Sneaky Adventure
.Black Mesa (Soundtrack) - Blast Pit 3
.Solar Flare - I Think I Can Help You
.Opposing Force (Soundtrack) - Planet
incompetech.com/
Most music licensed with:
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommon...
I think the Havok badge in the loading screen is necessary when creating a source mod, because even though Valve uses a modified Havok engine, they still have to acknowledge the original creators (for licensing purposes).
It's not necessary in creating a mod, but for a full game it will have to.
Black Mesa has a license to Source proper, so they use the Havok logo as required by the original agreement from Havok/Intel now Microsoft at the time.
i was about to comment this, thank you
one thing I always wondered is where is the havok api implemented like what dll is it stored within? Because it sure isnt embeded in the client/server dlls that source mods use. I remember it being somewhere possibly in a subdirectly of the game/steam installation whose path was possibly extracted from the steam client install location in the early days before all the steampipe updates. I think I also remember trying to replace it with another physics engine but the way valve chose to initalize its engine dll makes this extremely tough even if you embed the code into the server/client code.
@Hoovy Simulator 2 as of 2022 this is now waived, rejoice!
If you want Black Mesa to play like the original Half Life gameplay, you can turn on the "always run" option in the settings. Its odd the game doesn't ask this when starting for the 1st time, because this feature changes the feeling of gameplay quite alot.
It still isnt the same, HL1 still has its own type of gameplay that BM changes so even with the same controls it still doesnt hit the same.
@@zebitus5731 Well, it allowed me to dodge most enemie attacks and shoot at the same time, aswel as never needing to bother using the stupid sprint button ever again and allow the slide bunnyhop to be more concistent.
So all things considered, I think the gameplay is quite similar enought.
@@lynxovski I have played HL way too much so im gonna go on but in Black Mesa having the original movement doesnt help due to the almost full rework of each enemy, even with similar movement it isnt on par with what HL did and makes NPC's not work well with that old movement style, hope that makes sense.
@@zebitus5731 Them not being able to attack and move at the same time?
Because if thats the thing, Im glad they can do it now. I always ended up cheesing them out of that quirk, so Im glad for the challenge.
@@lynxovski Being able to attack and move isnt the issue, they (mainly marines) react entirely differently most of the time and the first few arenas goes against how you could handle it in the original, instead you have to hide behind cover far away so they cant throw grenades at you and the combat doesnt let you be as free.
i wonder how many unsubscribed because of the title
I did.
@@revolutionstudios5052 that's sad
Well there are 7 downvotes as of right now....
@@KesariForMugen There are zero
@@slickcalf985 Alexa, play Half-Life OST 23. Military Precision.
Admitting to clickbait doesn't make it any better.
Yeah f*ck this video and f*ck this channel.
Your computer lagging out a lot while playing the game is so relatable. Every single other gaming channel I see always seems to have some giga god NASA setup, but seeing a fellow potato PC haver is nice to see. ✊
It feels terrible when I see a 12 year old with a nasa pc and here I am with something that struggles to play Mario 64
@@Duckbusinessman my computer crashes
Black Mesa isn’t well optimized. Where Valve takes great care in culling out geometry that the player can’t see, Black Mesa has MOST of the level being rendered the entire time, even where you can’t see. It’s a shame.
And here I'm like 4K120 maxed out on a 3 year old PC, lol.
@@killcount6534 I mean, it's running the best it can given the team structure and budget.
Xen is brutally heavy vs the Earth parts tho, hardware wise.
I'm not sure if I'd say Black Mesa is a replacement for HL1. It definitely should be a companion piece though. While Black Mesa aims to improve a lot of things, and often does, I find that the result is somewhat bloated. The biggest example is that, while Xen is cool in Black Mesa, it was tolerable in HL1 because it could be completed in 20-30 minutes, and I think this issue in BM ruins the pace a little and makes me exhausted before finishing it, even if the result is fantastic compared to the original.
I'm not even coming from this as someone that played the game in '98 and hasn't played something I liked better since then. I first played in 2017 and even then it became one of my favorite games ever.
I think that a lot of people nowadays that don't tend to play older games won't appreciate Half-Life because there is a lot of jank (Physics of crates is a big one, and On a Rail + Xen), but if you're like me and can appreciate a game based on quality regardless of time released, give the original a go.
@Coração Acidental Yeah, i dislike that people just see it as a replacement even though it's basically a different game with the same story beats. I never got the argument that HL1 would be too old and clunky for first impressions, I first played it in 2020 and it felt completely natural because like every other game since was built on top of it.
@@daph__ some people are just turned off by old graphics. simple as that. Original Half-Life is probably my favorite first person shooter. i played back in 2000 and loved it. But lots of young people won't play a game with 1990 graphics. Hoplefully BL will get young people to get invested in the Half-Life series and incentivize Valve to make HL3.
I didn't even know there were friendly vortugaunts in hl1 until watching this, the fact that you can actually tell that there are friendly ones in black mesa make it infinitely better
There's even an achievement for not killing any vortigaunts in interloper, you just gotta kill the controllers and the vortigaunts stop attacking you
Wait did you attack all of them?!
Valve is actually fine with the usage of the source engine for third party games, however they say that to publish it the game you need to buy a Havok license, so I'd guess that's why they put the Havok logo there :D
well yeah, havok isnt owned by valve, if it was im sure they would allow people to use it freely since they are quite nice with such
Actually if you can rip the Havok engine out, and make your mod entirely with the old Quake physics that are still in the code (Half-Life 1 physics), you don't pay for it. Also someone recently ported a sick open source Havok killer physics engine for the Source engine, so hey.
As of now, you no longer need to buy a Havok license either for third-party source mods. Valve will cover the 25,000$ fee, and will still allow you to put it on steam within reason.
@@BSPNode oh shit
@@BSPNode wait what?
I think that literally the only thing I dislike about this game is the redesign for the HECU combat gear. Like, the Black Mesa event occurred in the early 2000s so the outfits that the HECU wore in the original fit well when compared to the pasgt helmet and vest that real soldiers wore at the time. But in Black Mesa they are wearing what appear to be Skateboarding helmets and Molle Plate Carriers that don't match the early 2000s feel the original was going for. I simply fix this minor gripe by playing Black Mesa with a "Classic HECU" mod and it all works out for me.
I think of Black Mesa the same way I think of REmake. It's a great experience on its own terms but I'm reluctant to call it an outright "replacement" to the original since it's such a drastically different experience despite having the same overall game structure. Personally I like Black Mesa a lot but I still prefer the OG simply because it still retains a lot of classic Doom/Quake/Duke3D era FPS DNA, and the lowpoly graphics and lofi sound design make the enemies creepier. Whereas I like OG RE1 a lot but personally prefer REmake because it's significantly more challenging and atmospheric (which are some of the most important things about survival horror).
Black Mesa's definitely a recommended way to experience Half Life 1's story.
I've seen many newcomers go "ew bad graphics" when I asked them to try HL1.
graphics should be the last thing that matter when it comes to a video game
but that doesn't mean you should intentionally make one look bad
plus, half life probably looked like real life when it released
i cant get it :(
@@slickcalf985 I can assure you it didn't look like real life, it definitely looked good but real life was not blocky
And yet those same kids are fine with playing roblox and minecraft
@Coração Acidental What do you mean by such people not "deserving" to get recommended black mesa. If they dislike Half-Life 1 for its graphics, that doesn't imply that they won't end up liking Black Mesa for its gameplay.
Do you believe there is something wrong in disliking a game because of its visuals?
Black Mesa screwed letting the Marines move and shoot at the same time.
This made repositioning and surprise important, when they can always shoot even when moving your movement doesn't matter, if you're shooting them then they're shooting you.
*screwed up.
People keep thinking it's still the original Doom engine from 1993. It's not. What we're using mostly is GZDoom. It's a port
"hey dude what happens when you press play under half-life?"
"it starts"
bind pressing play to one somehow to have it start with one
My biggest and only problem with Black Mesa is that it, at least for me, doesn't flow well later on. Simply because half my focus goes into finding my way through a visually overstimulating maze.
The fights and looks are super great though.
I respectfully disagree. Black Mesa is an amazing tribute to Half-Life and a giant accomplishment for any fan project, but it *isn't* a replacement for Half-Life 1. It's never that simple. My issue is with many of the odd changes to the level design and enemies. It's obvious that Crowbar Collective wanted to make Half-Life 1 more like Half-Life 2, but that misses the point IMO. It's kinda similar to how they tried to make the Hobbit more like the Lord of The Rings trilogy when adapting it to the movies. It irks me when people say "Oh just skip Hl1, play Black Mesa instead!". That definitely isn't the best way to get into the half-life series, IMO. Both games are amazing, I just prefer Half-Life 1 as a standalone game.
Maybe just... play both? But Half-Life 1 should be first. But for the love of all that is holy, never, EVER, touch Half-Life source.
I respectfully agree with that. Though I didn't say it's a replacement, I said at the end "you should still play the OG. I was more pointing out the compelling changes in Black Mesa I liked. But still yes.
@@LamWarp your video is titled "Half-Life is Great... Don't play it"
@@42kitter 1:19
@@LamWarp that doesn't excuse the title, c'mon man
@IAm-zo1bo the clickbait meta has been the youtube standard for 10 years now
I’m happy to say slide bhopping hasn’t been patched in Multiplayer Deathmatch
“Half-Life is great, don’t play it”
New Mission: Refuse this mission
I played Unreal and Half-Life in a row the first time,because a special EAX sound version of it was in the box of my new shiny Creative
Voodoo 2 card....
To be honest both games realy were just jawdroppingly good for the time. I mean the 2nd half of the nineties was the time when fps realy
tried successfully to be creative. Games like both mentioned and System Shock 2,Battlezone:Combat Comander,UT,Quake 2 and 3 and Deus Ex......
Just wow,what a time that was. And back then it was standart to deliver a free leveleditor/sdk with it. So after you finished the game it was
singleplayer mod time that prolonged the fun way,way longer.
If i look back on those times it was way more expensive to be a pc player because u effectly needed a more powerfull pc every year (!) to be
at least able to play the newest games at a decent framerate (which btw meant back then the laughable low resolution of 1024 x 800....)..
Well,that era was unsoldered by a time when crossplatform was introduced (including the obvious discrimination of the pc player in favour of
the console player which partly continues to this day...).
Although over the years it also meant that the hardware living cycle got way more expanded if you stuck to one resolution (f.e. 1080p) and
not blindly follow the mainstream. I mean resolution above full hd do little in quality enhancement in a desktop environement from the perspective
of a person who started gaming in the early nineties who experienced the advancements in real time and the correct historical order.
I finished Black Mesa a few days ago, with it being the first Half-Life game I’ve ever played. Had a ton of fun with it and it made me immediately want to jump into Half-Life 2, which I just finished today. I was so immersed in both of these games from start to finish, more so than any other game I’ve played in recent memory. The word that comes to mind when I think of these games is “raw”. The experience they deliver is so direct and honest; You’re constantly going from one place to another, left to figure out the way ahead all on your own with little to no guidance, meeting new people and gunning down enemies without ever being taken out of the action. No invasive cutscenes or blocks of text explaining exactly what’s going on; Everything is delivered in such an organic way, whether it be a believable NPC talking directly to you or a change in the environment. I can definitely see why this series is so beloved now.
Now you gotta play Portal 1 and 2, their story lore is connected 👀
@@t77snapshot Already played those many years ago, love them too! Replaying them again recently was what got me to try getting into Half-Life.
You played Black Mesa but not Half-Life 1?
@@wio1 there isn't any problem with that tbh.
i can totaly see how half-life 1 got absolutely no appeal to people that just never played half-life.
so black mesa is just a perfect entry point into the series for anyone who, for what ever reason, never played the original Half-Life.
it's like saying "you played the steam version half-life 1 (NOT Source) but not the WON version?".
don't gate-keep because someone didn't start the series with the OG version.
that just hurts the fanbase.
@@Buttersaemmel No, it's not like saying "you played the Steam version of Half-Life but not the WON version?" at all. Those two games have very small differences. Black Mesa and Half-Life's differences are pretty obvious, and I'm not saying Black Mesa's differences are better.
It starts with one
thing and i dont know why
For those that want to play the og Half Life, there is actually a coop game on Steam called Sven Co-op which lets you play the entire campaign with friends or alone (for free!!) I think theres a few differences, but overall practically the same game!
*which LamWarp made a video on*
Whos LamWarp
@@najaklar6737
⚫ ⚫
__
I really don't think Black Mesa functions as a replacement for the original. I know this is only a personal anecdote, but I've found people who feel the same. Black Mesa was my first Half-Life game, I quit around We've Got Hostiles because I just got bored. A couple weeks later I played the original that I got absolutely hooked on the series and that first game has become my favourite ever.
I've since replayed it after completing Half-Life 2 and it's expansions and it became a far more rewarding experience. It's still not as fun as the original, but it's definitely worth playing.
7:13 I like how this is almost exactly how bhopping in Titanfall 2 works. The sliding "extends" the bhop window and essentially makes it easier to do. It all comes full circle. All we now is a Quake remake with slide bhopping.
Half-Life came out just a couple short years before i was broken, but i was interested in this milestone in gaming history and decided to buy and play it for the first time a couple weeks ago. it's a good game and i can see why it is so important in video game history, but about 2/3rds it just became frustrating and a bit insufferable. i may finish it, but i need a bit of a break first
Broken?
@@madmonty4761 I guess that’s just a wrong autocomplete, I suppose it was meant to be born, not broken
@@ej22_gc86 i thought your comment was about how half life saved your life
As someone who played this game on hard a few times, l can tell you this, the chicks(ninja assassins) can be dealt with the crossbow(getting oneshoted), Lazer traps are also your best friends if they move a around a lot, and if they are close to you, SHOTGUN up close and personal. Great video, you earned a sub ❤️
I never got to play black mesa, but I saw enough reviews to know how great the game is, Too bad Crowbar collective doesn't make the remakes of the expansions, but Tripmine studio works in them
There are two mods being made that aim to recreate Opposing Force and Blue Shift, 'Operation: Black Mesa' and 'Black Mesa: Blue Shift'
Tripmine Studios seem to have a greater grasp on HL1's visual direction than Crowbar Collective ever did.
@@oskar3897operation black mesa is tripmine’s remake of opposing force, the other isn’t and is the mod remaking blue shift in black mesa made by other devs
Not sure why everyone misses this but, in the end of the stealth section, your supposed to run with the guard, not crouch or walk. If you run, you don’t get spotted every time
10:19 “there’s barely any music in half life”
Who needs other music when you got klaxon beat?
Gordon doesn’t need to hear all this he’s a highly trained professional
Black mesa- the almost 2 decades fan made project for half life 1, its purely a labor of love if you ask me. Having been playing all the build from the very first mod version to the retail build on steam and finally the definitive edtion with xen included, i feel like seeing the development of a character in a story, cant describe it but like proud and such moving emotion and its tranfered into the new xen so well. Even after finishing this game, i recommend installing two more workshop mod that made the game much more lively and fresh, being the character expansion pack and chapter overhaul collection/ improved chronographic and a few unused line restoration.
8:25 when it comes to that section, i actually did something counter-intuitive and did the whole route to the exit on my own, instead of waiting behind the security guard, it worked perfectly for some reason
First of all, you should change the clickbaity title but otherwise great video!
Black Mesa is an amazing remake, but I never got around continuing it. It's just missing that GoldSrc charm the original had.
9:41 Suicide Houndeyes had me rolling for some reason.
If you don't know about the Engine this game uses, It uses an Updated Source Engine called "Source 2013" where half of everything in the engine changes. It also uses the "Source 2007" engine update with Shadows, Lighting and others. But Black Mesa is completely different, They made their Own source Engine with 2007 and 2013 and called it the "Xengine" Which is why The engine's limit has been pushed...
For example with the engine, Sources games such as Left 4 Dead and Portal 2 is different was because they use "Source 2007" Which had different Lighting, Textures, sounds and others but the game's Engine is a bit modified than the actual Engine it runs on. Since Portal 2 uses the 2006 Engine, The game is more updated than the Engine itself. Since it was updated, Respawn entertainment uses Portal 2's engine and update it a lot to Create "Titanfall".
This shows that The Source Engine itself is More different than we used to know it for. Plus on console, The orange box uses 2007 Engine. Even though it had HL2, It's the same because they removed some stuff from the Updated engine to keep it the way it used to be.... Except for some stuff...
So, Xengine is pretty much a modern version of the source engine.
All of this was shown in a Video by "qyuetx" Explaining the engine of Source.
Black mesa is really great.
Xen is also *so great* it drastically drops my fps from 60 fps to 20 fps even on lowest settings.
10/10 would play it again.
If we talk about heavy modifications to the Source Engine we can't not look at Titanfall and Apex. At first glance they don't look like they were made on that engine but they FEEL THE SAME as on Source
This guy never fails to make me laugh with that calm, yet sarcastic voice
the HEV zombies gave off survival horror vibes with the sound design and I love it
Something about the glitched HEV voice was always pretty spooky
Personally I like the original half life better. I get that black mess does look great and defiantly has better zen (honestly the price tag is worth zen alone) but I feel like they made some parts of game either to short or overly dramatic. Also I hate the combat in this game, specifically against the marines. They are way to aggressive, don’t stop shooting, and when they do it’s to launch a grenade at you. Also I think the new design of the alien grunts is a crime against humanity and the actual only objectively bad part of the game
''black mess'' I know that was an unintentional typo but it's funny to read contextually
Funny how you say you hated fighting the marines in black mesa while thats easily my favorite parts of the game
I definetly get how one can dislike them though especially when compared to the original
@@sergeantheavyass3471 did you play the original? The marines were better there not that black mesa one was bad
@@sergeantheavyass3471 fighting in black mesa is more serious than the original , as lamwarp said we used to b-hop and shoot all of them and having a god feeling
@@IAm-zo1bo oh i played the original many times
I just prefer them in black mesa
Forces me to actually use cover and use any change i get to return fire
You gotta really be smart about whqt you fo or youll be turned into swiss cheese by them
Hl HECU and bm HECU just require very different playstyles and some people are gonna prefer one over the other
*says this is a normal day in New Mexico
Meanwhile, Walt is teaching another boring chemistry lesson and Jimmy passed the bar exam
When I first got to Xen in Black Mesa and walked to the top of the hill for that initial "yo, check this shit out" view that Crowbar gives you, complete with backing soundtrack, I damn near cried.
only issue i remember having with blackmesa was the fact that barnacle instantly kill npc making it impossible to save them
bro tried to fight Alien Controllers 💀
About bhopping in Black Mesa, you're able to infinitely slide and gain quite a bit of speed, all you need to do is start sliding as you normally would but instead of jumping and strafing you only strafe from side to side *without* jumping.
Damn I was hoping you’d talk about the elevator scene right before the Nihilanth, when I played it for the first time, my god it was an incredible experience, and still is on replays.
14:27 This Nihilanth appearance with that sound made me laugh more than it should
As a huge fan of the original Half-Life since I first played it way back in '98, I was a bit dubious when I heard that some collection of young upstarts were having a go at "Reimagining" the game. Eventually I got a copy of their early released levels and thought it was pretty good, but put it out of my mind because I know that 90% of the headline grabbing game projects we hear about lead nowhere. Most fizzle out after 4 or 5 years of development and end up as unfinished footnotes in gaming history, and this one looked like it was going to be WAY too big a project for any loose band of volunteer independent coders to have a chance to pull off.
Jump forward almost a decade, and suddenly I noticed that this project DIDN'T fizzle out. This handful of "Young upstarts" had evolved into an organised (And large) group of dedicated and talented game developers, and during that evolution, they'd somehow managed to code all the earth based sections of Black Mesa. I got a copy of that, and played all the way through in about a week of evenings. It was amazing. It grabbed me in EXACLY the same way the original game had all those years before.
Many early sections were almost a like for like (but much prettier) remake of the original map layout. There were a few added side rooms to explore, but most of the layout was the same, so you'd follow the route you almost have as muscle memory by now, moving on autopilot, and only really looking at your surroundings in the same way you would when walking through a familiar office block that you haven't been in for years, a lot of the details might have changed, but you still know the general layout, and how to get everywhere......... then you suddenly realise that something hasn't been quite right for a little while. It only dawned on you when you turned a corner, and realised that you expected to see a door into the managers office, but you're infact looking at an entirely unrecognised loading dock that wasn't there last time you were there. You're suddenly entirely lost on where you're heading because the next section has only loosely been inspired by the original game. This experience was perfect. The game was familiar AND new all at the same time.
It was still "Half-Life" enough not to alienate the huge fan base who've been playing various versions of HL for most of their adult life, but still different enough to make them realise this is not just a "HL HD graphics pack", it's a new game to learn and explore. It was also pretty enough to get a lot of new players in who, up to then, had just thought of HL as an old and almost dead franchise.
Black Mesa really is a visually stunning game. Even on my VERY obsolete gaming PC* (on minimum graphics settings) it still runs OK(Ish), and still looks incredibly beautiful. I actually found it surprising how well this runs on my old hardware. It has the occasional jitter as the frame rate dips to single digits, but most of the time it was happily running at between 30 and 60fps. On something this old that's not bad. The Source engine has always been a pretty well optimised lump of code, but it still feels odd that it can be pushed into doing so much more than valve had it do, and STILL run on a potato of a PC !
All in all, it's an amazing game. The goals are the same as in HL1, but how you achieve them has been tweaked so your previous knowledge won't necessarily give you an advantage. It's fresh and exciting, while not feeling disconnected from the original game. It's visually pretty, and imaginative, yet will run on modest hardware. It's about as good as a game has been for several years......... And all this was made by a bloody "INDEPENDENT GROUP" !!!! :D
I've been saying for a while that Valve should give the crowbar collective a wad of cash, and everything they still have on HL3 (The plot, and any code they'd wrote before the project got canned), then get the hell out of their way. Maybe Valve could help by doing things like finding/hiring as many of the original games voice actors as they could still find, but apart from stuff like that, do nothing. Don't contact them, interfere with them, and don't "Guide" them. The CC have proved that they can do an amazing job, and I think with their current people and the skill's they've now amassed, they could most likely deliver the HL3 game that fans have been waiting for in 5 to 8 years. If it was anything like as good as Black Mesa, it would be an instant hit.......... Hell, I personally know at least 5 people who'd still buy HL3 on the DAY it was released, and another 10 to 15 who'd get it the following payday. Even now, this level of franchise loyalty can't be THAT unusual ?
(* My old gaming PC was a "Money no object" beast when I built it something like 15 years ago, but it really is a total dog of a PC now. It's an overclocked Q6600 CPU running at (IIRC) 3ghz, 8gb of PC2-6400 DDR2 ram, and a 4gb HD7950 graphics card that I fitted 10 or so years back, I also swapped in a 1TB Samsung SSD as the main drive a couple years ago, but apart from that the rest of the systems been in a time warp. TBH, It shouldn't even run half the games it does ! :D)
Just went through Black Mesa, HL2, HL2 EP1+EP2, finishing each of them for the first time. Wow, what a games. They are brilliant. Sadly, now we are very rarely getting quality games like them.
But not HL1?
@@wio1 yeah me too
These are absolutely my favorite PC games of all time
2:36 Havok is an engine that must be licensed if you release a Source game. That's also why the new physics engine (Volt) by Josh Dowell and Joshua Ashton is such a big deal - not only does it get high performance but it's also open source! This is amazing news for anyone that wants to make a Source game and release it, but I don't see anyone talking about it
If you can, please make a video about this
Half life: don’t play it because then you’ll join the club of people who’s souls hurt yearning for half life 3 for eternity
Since you mentioned a few of the achievements, let me rant a little bit about this game: Black Mesa is awesome, but what the hell were they thinking with the achievements? Most of them are straightforward and understandable, but the secret achievements are completely absurd. For example, when you get o Xen you start seeing these floating amoeba things. You need to shoot all of them for an achievement but there's absolutely nothing telling you about it. You just follow your gamer gut and hope you are right (but if you miss a single one you would never know). Also in Xen you star finding dead scientists in HEV suits all over. They usually have ammo and power for your suit. INTERACTING WITH THEM DOES NOTHING. Except it does, but only for the 7 ones you find in Gonarch's Lair. For some god forsaken reason you need to interact with those 7, AND NOWHERE DOES THE GAME TELL YOU THAT.
Now, the worst offenders by far are the "carry this item all the way to the end of the game" or similar ones. Carrying the Cyanogen to kill the Gonarch instantly is a freaking mystery (good luck figuring that out without a guide), but the physics engine doesn't really help! Climbing stairs while holding an object in this game is my worst nightmare. But at least you only have to do it for like 2 chapters, right? Right?! Well, no! Because there is a total of FOUR achievements about carrying an object the entire time you are playing. The worst of all is of course the purple hat one (once again, good luck figuring it out without a guide). I understand it's supposed to be a nod to the gnome achievement in Half-Life 2: Chapter Two, but it doesn't make it any better. I got that one. I used a Guide, I found the hat, I carried it all the way to the Nihilanth. 14 freaking chapters. And then the game wants me to do it again, but this time with a random pizza found in chapter 11. WHY. THE. HELL. A PIZZA?!? This is the only achievement left for me to 100% this game and I don't think I'll ever find the motivation to complete it.
Black Mesa had been one among the most iconic remakes. I totally respect the fact they did this not only re-imagining the game, but add the fact they respected the lore and fill in the gaps Valve didn't create, especially in Xen.
Black Mesa is like how Gordon would retell it, everything is cooler and it's a tough journey with tons of shit to do and stuff to gawk at. Action packed story until the very end.
Half-life 1 is how it happened in reality. Nihilistic little event that ends with Gordon just captured by Gman and that's it.
It is a fantastic remake that any Half-Life fan should experience. I bought the game a few months ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Crowbar Collective deserve all the support they can get for this masterpiece. They have put so much work into it and it shows. Nothing like the sloppy copy-paste job Valve did with Half-Life Source.
For Black mesa lovers and hl bshift ones ther is an mod called black mesa blue shift that brings hl bshift in the source engine the game is in development but it have 4 chapter and is 2-3 hours long already and now the team is working at chapter 5 Focal Point.
I still let my friend played Half-Life first and Black Mesa last (after HL2EP2) and yes it impressed him very much
I think they definitely did a great job with a lot of the visuals for BM:S, and really nailed the HL2 style of game.
I still personally prefer HL1 though, the gameplay may be a bit more primitive but it's always fun to start up HL1 and play through it again, I don't really get the same feel with HL2/BM:S.
HL1 gameplay is, for lack of a better word, "crunchy." I just don't get quite the same level of satisfaction in a BM shootout.
@@Crazy_Diamond_75 That makes sense, imo HL1 gameplay is good but there are few good shootouts
Honestly just play the original Half Life. It's still a great game, and not that long either.
I will NEVER EVER FORGIVE Black Mesa for:
1) pistol and MG sharing ammo, and most EVIL
2) THE INSANELY LOW AMMO LIMITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BTW I still love it!!!!
I really don't like Black Mesa, it looks and feels pretty amateur and modernised. There's nothing wrong with liking it, but I really don't think it can serve as an alternative to or replacement for Half-Life.
I think black mesa stands as it's own game rather than a replacement, despite it's called a remake, it definitely isn't a replacement for Half-Life 1 due to how different the gameplay works.
Both games can still be enjoyed, as they both has their own quirks.
It just depends on your preference
"Don't Play it"
"But still play it"
I play both sides so i always come out on top.
I played the original HL first, but when I want to replay it I tend to play BM instead. Even 100%ed the achievements just as an excuse to explore more of the game. I think it works best on the hardest difficulty, it really helps you get in the mind of a random research assistant in way over his head. If you ever get stuck with a puzzle or combat encounter, a bit of quick thinking will almost always lead you in the right direction. It's just so effortless, you can really feel the appreciation for Valvian game design.
8:31 he spotted the guard. Not you.
My major gripe with BM is that the sound design with some of the aliens feels rather lackluster, the BIGGEST offender being the Gargantua who just uses stock monster noises. Thankfully there are mods to remedy this, which you forgot to mention in the video. Speaking of which, I recommend y’all check out the Hazard Course and the On a Rail Uncut mods.
@The Stealthy Nut Thanks for correcting me, even it wasn’t the intent. Changed extended to uncut, I knew the name wasn’t right just couldn’t remember the correct title.
I Iiked the hazard course remake
What about the hazardous course mod
@The Stealthy Nut I love on a rail, it's incredibly underrated and honestly among my fav Half Life chapters
I only wish that the ammo drops for the 357 and crossbow weren't doubled in Black Mesa. This devalues the sensation of finding them immensely, especially considering the smaller ammo reserve. There are other issues but the good outweighs the bad in Black Mesa.
8:40 I exploded in laughter with the sound of the shotgun 😂😂
To be fair, Half-Life Source was not marketed as a remake. It was exactly what it said - Half-Life in the Source engine.
Unfortunately, a lot of mainstream gamers don't understand that engines don't magically make games look different, so they probably were expecting a simple transplant to somehow magically upscale all the textures and increase mesh quality or something silly like that.
Enjoyed the review! Just thought you missed the opportunity to talk about the elevator part with the "Ascension" soundtrack. Besides the terrible performance, that part was insanely badass, almost fit more for Doom instead of Half-Life. It is the pinnacle of why Freeman is feared and respected. It was such a memorable part, especially when the female chorus kicks in.
8:50 I actually felt like the assassins were much easier than HL1, where i swear the second my cursor was on them they had already backflipped to the other side of the map and the only way to kill them was to litter the entire map with tripmines and grenades. _So when I tried that exact same tactic on them on Black Mesa it worked really easily._ The soldiers and assassins were very weak to satchel charges and tripmines since they run around a lot and don't register them in their AI. They were probably useful in HL1 as well but that whole time I was just going "pew pew smg go brr"
STOP SHOWING US XEN THEN
You chose the loudest song in the game for the intro and I was watching this at like 1 AM
I always felt like to really appreciate BM you have to play HL, especially for the Xen chapters.
A part of the experience for me was the comparison between the two.
OHHHHHH so THAT'S how you're supposed to beat Interloper! i had to quit mid playthrough because i was absolutely out of ammo and surrounded by controllers and vortigaunts; i never realized the crystals gave gluon ammo. May be worth a replay!
Say that again
10:27 - the best misleading screenshots of the year. Played the original Xen chapters in HL1 but I would never expect that BM's Xen chapters would be THAT MASSIVE
finally lamwarp uploaded a video
I'm kinda mad that they used the janky 'ragdoll' sound effect when all the other effects are remastered.
imo its better to play Half-Life before Black Mesa
Now they can remake Half Life 2 in Source 2.
im on ultra settings with 70fps
>Doesn't play with always run
My dissapointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
I think if your playing half life for the story, then you should play black mesa.
If your playing because you want a fun game, play half life 1. The gameplay is leagues ahead of black mesa's, but some things don't line up that black mesa eventually corrects.
Ideally you should play both
This ^
Is the correct answer
Don’t play Xen on Half Life, just watch the rest of that chapter because it’s just actual pain when I tried to get through it. The consistency of game design completely drops off the face of the Earth.
As a great fan of the original Half-Life, I can say that almost everything about this game is perfect, as for the chapter Interloper, indeed it is way too long, but the music is super epic and badass and it was what kept me playing
I'm conserning about is how Valve is gonna do the only half life 1 enemy models like the gargantua and alien grunt and alien controller in their future half life games without just coping it from Black Mesa but with high graphic model ( I know snark look different in half life ALYX and is like a high graphic model of the non HD half life 1 snark model ).
3:20 the doom engine is unbelievably great and ahead of its timeso it is no surprise
I actually didn’t know the difference between remaster and remake so thanks
8:56 Peashooters in gw2 be like:
i hope they make a black mesa opposing force because i want to experience black mesa but with a military style
My main issue with black mesa is actually the grunts. Them being able to move and shoot makes them too difficult to predict in battles where there is no third faction involved.
Ive found that it helps to play it a lot more like half life 2.
Not a lot of people know this, but there's a suppression mechanic in these games. If you put rounds into an enemy, it hampers their ability to shoot back or act. So when you're fighting military, run around the map behind cover and only try to keep one enemy in your line of sight, put rounds into that enemy as you move through the map, and weaponswap when necessary
dude, i didn’t even know vortugaunts were friendly in the original, i just shot at each one i saw, maybe if i played this i would’ve known
0:14 oh no mr krabs forgot to download counter strike : source
Lol
It would've been better if Black Mesa didn't market as a Half-Life remake because this doesn't feel like Half-Life at all. Half-Life's gameplay made you use various weapons and solve puzzles without much complexity but Black Mesa just went "fck it let's just make the marines run and shoot like jackasses and make half of the weapons useless most of the time". It just feels more like a Call of Duty than a Half-Life man.
Now we just have to wait for the Blue Shift/Opposing Force remake.
there is a blue shift mod on the black mesa workshop
I played Half Life 1 along with it's dlc's(Opposing Force and Blue Shift) and i also finished Half Life 2 and both episode games, im playing Black Mesa now i must say, im having a realy good time with it.
Black Mesa is better in almost every way than the original, which I agree with that. The reason why I prefer original is because of the old graphics, it has the certain nostalgia charm for me.
3:12. GZdoom is arguably a different engine entirely when compared to the old doom engine.
Simping? Man that's no simping... Black mesa is THAT FUCKING GOOD... I played it some months ago and also got really surprised by the fucking amazing quality of the game...
~My ONLY COMPLAIN, is that it doesn't play the original music when getting the HEV suit... other than that perfect.
i think Crowbar Collective did a great job at remaking our favourite series.
Yep but the xen part was epitome of bad game design, other than that really good.
@@urveeshdadhich9003 Bad game design + severe lore mismatch, since vortigaunta didn't have a language prior to HL2 since they're a hive mind and only invented one to fit in with the humans. Their silly little villages made me laugh, the writer clearly never played a half-life game.
@@lemonov3031 true lol
@@urveeshdadhich9003 agree, i easily get lost in Xen, i mean in the Black Mesa Xen, the original Xen is short