HALF LIFE BLACK MESA OUT NOW!

Yes, and it's slow! Much slower than HL2. And so many physics objects getting in my way. Arrrgghh! Definitely needs some fixes to gameplay. But the atmosphere it creates is top. And since I'm German it's the first time I play HL with red blood and human soldiers

But I can't beat the ninjas with 6fps, so my short trip to black mesa has ended

I can confirm your issues Micha but for me it´s not that bad performance-wise (using a nvidia GTS250 which isn´t such a power machine tbh). It stutters only sometimes but that´s not a real big problem. Also those duck-jumps quite annoy me, I mean, why? Why do I have to make a special trick to perform such a simple thing like jumping?

Anyway, the game is really good for a fan project, it would beat most of the commercial games nowadays imo.

I'm going to download it tonight is my plan. Having just played HL1 I want to see it as a comparison. I remember when HL2 came out and I completed it on the 4th day of release on hard and finding it one of the best yet most frustrating games I'd ever played so want to see how it goes.

Concerning difficulty I can say that it is much harder than HL1 and 2. Most Enemies are just going crazy now when they attack. I don´t want to know how difficult it will be playing at "hard" (I play "normal" and it´s quite challenging).

Oh yes that duck jump. Try to do it while holding down shift for running. And try running and jumping around the corner on a wet ledge over the pool with 2 Ichtyos. Or that triple jump across the squishers. Quicksave is your friend

This morning my wife asked me if I'm mad about her, but I said no I'm just playing that new game. Very frustrating but I just couldn't stop playing because everything looks so great. The good thing is I remember most of the well hidden switches and valves from the original HL, where I spent hours running around without a clue.

I love it and I hate it, like HL1 and HL2

I wish someone did this kind of remake for Q1.

Oh yes that duck jump. Try to do it while holding down shift for running. And try running and jumping around the corner on a wet ledge over the pool with 2 Ichtyos. Or that triple jump across the squishers. Quicksave is your friend

Do you think I´m daft? Dude, I know these things... It´s still awkward to duckjump EVERY single time.

I wish someone did this kind of remake for Q1.

Thaaat would be nice!

I wish someone did this kind of remake for Q1.

Thaaat would be nice!

We're already half way in some ways. The engine is open sourced and has been modified adinfinitum, texture replacements have been around for years, id open sourced the maps themselves, so what remains is all of the sound and gamecode to be redone.

Quake 3 has in some senses already been remade in OpenArena and now again with baseio.

Abouyt the duckjump - do you mean jump in midair to get to a higher place or the running-boosted-jump that lets you jump way far? I remember I needed the boosted jump only a few times in the original HL1.

Biggest thing of note I have so far is that it's a 3Gb download, extracts to 7Gb and then you also need the Source SDK installed, another 1Gb. I got to the point of thinking I was going to run it and then came up against the Source SDK needing to be installed and have just left it to download some other time. It is quite big.

Yeah, I would download it but I have limited usage a month (40gb) and I might as well wait for bug fixes and stuff. Still, if I have enough free download space by the end of this month I might download it.

kinda annoying that desura says it requires hl2 ... when it doesn't ...

looks like im getting it the hard way

:3

...

I got it the hard way (which is still ridiculously easy)

this ... is ... AMAZING ...

it has the carry-anything mechanic thats in portal so you can pick up a roll of paper towels and carry it around like a pet rock ...
and the breakable glass is much improved too ...
and there are more that 4 scientist models ...
and highres textures ....
and
its
purty
:3
...

Having got to the office complex it seems alright. I can't say I have FPS issues even running at 1920x1200 with just about everything maxed out, the loading times are frustrating though. Maybe it's intended as part of the authentic HL1 experience?

I gather this is available for free? Is there a (legal) way to obtain this WITHOUT having to register a steam account?

(yes, I DON't have one and am not interested in creating one)

The installer added a selection to my steam ... but it is really just a shortcut to the actual application ... I assume you dont need steam...

I dont see what you have against steam though ...

... and yes ... the loading times are annoying ... its not an essential part of the half life experience ... its a side effect of the game not having distinct levels ...

You need the Steam SDK, so yes, you need Steam unless you want to hardcode some workaround in UNIVAC SLEUTH, walking 20km each way in the snow, uphill both ways with nothing more than a towel to keep warm and fight off honeybadgers.

Edit: and for those in the UK, anyone notice the Chuckle Brothers mug?!? To me, to you!
http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www...K_4PTlqVnw

Ah those are the guys! Now I understand.

Haha, I used to watch The Chuckle Brothers!

It's pretty awesome, some bugs but nothing bad. I liked the first part of the game more, later its just "find a button".
There are also Linux mugs.

OMG, thanks for the news !

As a big Half Life fan, I just want to download Black Mesa Source this week-end and play it all night long ! =D

It's worth playing just for the ARG hidden in it by the developers

http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showth...hp?t=13735

Think I might end up going back to do some of the easter eggs and achievements. Brownian Motion is a good one...

Having played through the whole game, there's a lot fo good things in it but I do also hope they continue to do work on a few areas of the game.

In terms of reimplementing an old classic there does seem to be a bit of a split between design goals. Some of the chapters are almost identical and I'm sure you could an old walkthrough guide if ever you got stuck - the gameplay being near identical. Blast Pit is a good example and if anything it's improved over the original. Some of the chapters are entirely different though. Another concerning area is that some parts, notably Questionable Ethics, seem rather flippant and this doesn't fit in with the serious nature of the original game. It somehow cheapens the experience and makes it seem like they're making fun of the original.

The chapter I have most problems with is Lambda Core. From a gameplay perspective the original leaping between teleporters in a big rotating reactor core is still there and it was one of the most annoying parts of the original game. It's just platforming and there's no need for it to be there. My biggest probalem with Lambda Core though is that the design of it seems to b built around a totally different performance level than the rest of the game meaning it performs way out of spec with the rest of the game. Most of the parts of this chapter suffer from this with very high levels of geometric detail and I just can't see it being playable on the same level of hardware as the rest of the game, advertised as P4 3GHz, 1Gb RAM, Radeon 9600. The worst part of all is the final room trying to jump for the teleporter. I found it unplayably slow (E8200, 2Gb RAM, Geforce 9600GT) even with turning all of the settings down to lowest. I'm sure 12 year olds everywhere will say "lol u should upgrade ur comp!!!1111" but when one scene performs at 10% of the speed of the rest of the game, that scene needs fixing. This would not be major work.

Enemy wise I like what they've done with 2 exceptions. The assasins were always frustrating but now they've become much easier. Not easier by standing still more or being more visible, they just don't seem to shoot enough instead spending all of their time prancing around. They're annoying rather than threatening.

My biggest criticism though is the soldiers. The AI is still as flawed as the soldier AI in any HL game so you can shoot someone and as long as they can't see you, they won't respond. There's also a fantastic bit on Surface Tension where soldiers and alien grunts can be standing right next to each other but won't attack each other unless you are visible to them. This however pales in comparison to the terrible voice acting for the soldiers. They spend half of their time grunting like sex pests and the other half screaming into their distorted mics like HP Baxter from the popular German Eurodance band Scooter. I'm half expecting them to shout "How much is the fish?"... It would be better if they just stayed quiet.

whats half life??

is that like a nerd that plays for 50% of the time?

and a nerd that plays for 100% of the time is a no life??

how dare you people say nasty things like that , omg

and whats a black mesa? , is that like a black miso soup?

i thought we were talking about xonotic :p

( i miss tzork already)
(i need a new drinking buddy btw)

t


:^

chooksta ... half life is a classic single player fps game ...

black mesa is halflife with modern texture, models, music, and other changes ...

I hope you understood Chooksta's sarcasm Hutty.