Black Mesa is that remake of the cult classic FPS, Half-Life. Which took around 3 more years of development time than the actual game in order to deliver us a enhanced experience of the resonance cascade that took place at the facility in-universe, all while trying to fix all the rough patches that was the story of the game presented in its first iteration.
Now, its not any news that the original Half-Life had a few inconsistencies and overall narrative points that jump back and forth and eventually end up in a really big let down of an original end scenario(this being Xen), and this is mostly seen in retrospect because the original game was revolutionary for its time and, it did give free way in order for the genre to advance its environmental storytelling techniques. Then the sequel came and that's all history.
But, they've never really come back to the first one in a while, didn't they? That's how in 2012, after the infamous release of Half-Life: Source made people feel like they deserved an actual remake of the original, the very first Black Mesa: Source (this was the original title of the free mod) came together to reinvent and mostly reimagine the story and art of the original Half-Life.
And that's how 8 years later, Black Mesa was officially released! And the game is pretty damn cool, it's come so long from so many changes and the very awaited final chapter that honestly it reeks of polish everywhere you go. Everywhere in the facility and the surface looks so good and have a very neat art direction, coupled that with modernized sections of the game that go along with the original design philosophy of this one and one that reinforces the idea of subtlety telling you how things are going down in the facility through environmental storytelling. It's great and very well done.
Only complaints about it would be the fact that sometimes the detail is so much that it can be confusing and kinda hard to difference things that you can actually interact with (be it buttons or doors) compared to the decoration in the many different rooms of the Black Mesa facility, a case of so much detail that it actually got harder to go through some chapters, but nothing too fatal. The stability of the game is a worse problem that is just due sometimes because of the engine being almost 10 years old supporting such graphical effects as it does with this game, so I'll give them that one.
Xen is very good in this version. They actively made the place look like an actual planet and ecosystem something could live on. It now actually look like a breathing place instead of just chunks of rocks suspended in the air, and while the puzzles are alright they at least give you more things to do than just walking through Interloper like nothing.
Overall, the game is great. I especially like that it's just made to fit in with what Half-Life 2 shows us in the story making the game make sense entirely, and I think I would recommend everyone playing this over the original Half-Life if they so pleased, it's deserved.
Now, its not any news that the original Half-Life had a few inconsistencies and overall narrative points that jump back and forth and eventually end up in a really big let down of an original end scenario
But, they've never really come back to the first one in a while, didn't they? That's how in 2012, after the infamous release of Half-Life: Source made people feel like they deserved an actual remake of the original, the very first Black Mesa: Source (this was the original title of the free mod) came together to reinvent and mostly reimagine the story and art of the original Half-Life.
And that's how 8 years later, Black Mesa was officially released! And the game is pretty damn cool, it's come so long from so many changes and the very awaited final chapter that honestly it reeks of polish everywhere you go. Everywhere in the facility and the surface looks so good and have a very neat art direction, coupled that with modernized sections of the game that go along with the original design philosophy of this one and one that reinforces the idea of subtlety telling you how things are going down in the facility through environmental storytelling. It's great and very well done.
Only complaints about it would be the fact that sometimes the detail is so much that it can be confusing and kinda hard to difference things that you can actually interact with (be it buttons or doors) compared to the decoration in the many different rooms of the Black Mesa facility, a case of so much detail that it actually got harder to go through some chapters, but nothing too fatal. The stability of the game is a worse problem that is just due sometimes because of the engine being almost 10 years old supporting such graphical effects as it does with this game, so I'll give them that one.
Xen is very good in this version. They actively made the place look like an actual planet and ecosystem something could live on. It now actually look like a breathing place instead of just chunks of rocks suspended in the air, and while the puzzles are alright they at least give you more things to do than just walking through Interloper like nothing.
Overall, the game is great. I especially like that it's just made to fit in with what Half-Life 2 shows us in the story making the game make sense entirely, and I think I would recommend everyone playing this over the original Half-Life if they so pleased, it's deserved.