Reliving Gordon Freeman's Worst Day

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

Reliving Gordon Freeman's Worst Day

Yahtzee takes a look at the fan-made Half-Life remake, Black Mesa.

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[Bindal]

Play Black Mesa and to be honest - as good as it looks, as bad became the gameplay compared to the original Half Life. Mentioned jumping puzzles turned from a bit annoying but easily doable after a few jumps into "falling puzzles" because I couldn't bloody jump! Sure, when I hit space, I made something that moved me vertically up and down. But that wasn't a jump, that looked more like Gordon decided to stand on his toes for a moment. I remember how I could easily jump over half of the handrails in the original Half-Life. In Black Mesa, I get barely over one even with the crouch jump.
Then there are also some of the added effects. Most aren't even optional. A good bunch can be disabled with console (like the blood on weapons - it just looks ugly imo) but a few I just can't turn off. Like when going near radioactive waste, my screen starts to scramble, which just makes it harder to see! I got the feeling that I am a freaking robot! (That would at least explain the lack of proper jumping).

And a lot of things were already mentioned: The unfair difficulty, the changes at puzzles for no reason, ect.

Overall, I didn't even bother with it and unless the Xen-Update contains the line "made the gameplay and balancing fun like the original Half Life, like it's supposed to be", I won't even bother downloading it again - or finishing it. (Didn't even finish the current version)

 

[Angry Camel]

The difficulty is really the only thing putting me off. The soldiers seem to have x-ray vision and sniper-like aim half the time. Speaking as someone that has never played Half-life, I don't know all the tricks and traps and have to rely on quicksaving and quickloading too much. As for the jumping, why not instead of crouch-jumping, just let Freeman automatically tuck his feet up when jumping onto higher things?

I browsed the Steam forums to see what people had to say there, but people that made complaints were often just shot down as being bad at the game, so not much help there.

 

[Angel Molina]

I can just imagine:

From the maker of Zero Punctuation, Guild Wars 2 has achieved massive success, here is the praise that our notorious critic has uttered:

"Um. It's alright. Check it out."
-Yahtzee

(Isn't context just the best thing ever xD )

OP: As for Half-Life, I only played the second one and the episodes that came with it...

 

[Yellowbeard]

I honestly don't know how people can be having trouble with the ladders. They're EXACTLY like they were in Half-Life 2: climb near the spot you want to be and press "E". That's it. You're safely dismounted.

A good bunch can be disabled with console (like the blood on weapons - it just looks ugly imo) but a few I just can't turn off. Like when going near radioactive waste, my screen starts to scramble, which just makes it harder to see!.

The option for that is "noise-shader" in the "Black Mesa" tab of the menu.

 

[Covarr]

What really grabbed me about this game is all the additional dialogue they added to the game. Even before the resonance cascade, I spent about an hour just wandering around listening to everyone I could. Everyone was having an inane conversation about something, and a lot of it was quite funny. If that doesn't capture the spirit of modern-day VALV[sup]E[/sup], I don't know what does.

P.S. Thanks

 

[TAdamson]

Guild Wars 2 anyone?

Or maybe DayZ?

Remenber how XtraPunctuation used to be a reflection on ZeroPunctuation? A more elaborate diatribe on what they did right and wrong and what they could do better?

 

[Yellowbeard]

Yeah....
I'm not the one who said that -_-

Apologies. Edited.

Anyone else hate how the "Quote" button seems to have migrated north?

 

[Bindal]

A good bunch can be disabled with console (like the blood on weapons - it just looks ugly imo) but a few I just can't turn off. Like when going near radioactive waste, my screen starts to scramble, which just makes it harder to see!.

The option for that is "noise-shader" in the "Black Mesa" tab of the menu.

Tried just that - nothing happened. And the game doesn't even save those settings most of the time.

 

[duchaked]

aw I think he liked it c:

well enough anyway

 

[maninahat]

Ah, Black Mesa was going alright for me, but there are times were it can be vvery unintuitive about how to progress. I've temporarily abandoned the game, because I've gotten stuck at a point and can't see how to progress.

For those interested in responding to a thinly veiled request for a walkthrough, I've gotten stuck in a big flooded area, right after the "on the Rails" section. It's a big, circular room with a partition down the middle, cutting off two flooded areas. There's a broken ladder, an underwater tunnel that leads to seemingly nowhere but a pointless, flooded garage, and a Gordon Freeman who has no idea where to go next. What the fuck should I be doing?

Otherwise, its a nice remake. I don't think it beats the original, but it makes for a welcome excuse to return to Black Mesa.

 

[maninahat]

The difficulty is really the only thing putting me off. The soldiers seem to have x-ray vision and sniper-like aim half the time. Speaking as someone that has never played Half-life, I don't know all the tricks and traps and have to rely on quicksaving and quickloading too much. As for the jumping, why not instead of crouch-jumping, just let Freeman automatically tuck his feet up when jumping onto higher things?

I browsed the Steam forums to see what people had to say there, but people that made complaints were often just shot down as being bad at the game, so not much help there.

No, you're correct. I don't have a clue why the duck jumping has become so much more prominent in Black Mesa. Did they really care so much about realism that the tucking of the legs became crucial to immersion? In a game about radioactive, teleporting monsters? Soldiers aren't too bad, you just have to rely on weapons that kill them quickly (point blank em with shotties, snipe em with the magnum) rather than play them at their own game with mid-ranged pea-shooters (pistols and machine guns).

 

[Stomperchomper]

The difficulty is really the only thing putting me off. The soldiers seem to have x-ray vision and sniper-like aim half the time. Speaking as someone that has never played Half-life, I don't know all the tricks and traps and have to rely on quicksaving and quickloading too much. As for the jumping, why not instead of crouch-jumping, just let Freeman automatically tuck his feet up when jumping onto higher things?

I browsed the Steam forums to see what people had to say there, but people that made complaints were often just shot down as being bad at the game, so not much help there.

No, you're correct. I don't have a clue why the duck jumping has become so much more prominent in Black Mesa. Did they really care so much about realism that the tucking of the legs became crucial to immersion? In a game about radioactive, teleporting monsters? Soldiers aren't too bad, you just have to rely on weapons that kill them quickly (point blank em with shotties, snipe em with the magnum) rather than play them at their own game with mid-ranged pea-shooters (pistols and machine guns).

Yeah, a simple change to jumping would have made a certain mine filled room far less rage inducing...

 

[Darth_Payn]

Reading Yahtzee's opinion on Black Mesa got me thinking of Metal Gear Solid : The Twin Snakes from Gamecube; The 1st game rebuilt with the 2nd game's graphics and gameplay features (lockers, aiming AND shooting in 1st-person, dragging bodies around, hanging on ledges, Caution mode between Evasion and All Clear Modes, mouths moving in cutscenes to speak in stead of pixelated head-nodding) and it felt to me like an improvement!

captcha: "It's Super Delicious"
says the zombie about brains

 

[Yellowbeard]

For those interested in responding to a thinly veiled request for a walkthrough, I've gotten stuck in a big flooded area, right after the "on the Rails" section. It's a big, circular room with a partition down the middle, cutting off two flooded areas. There's a broken ladder, an underwater tunnel that leads to seemingly nowhere but a pointless, flooded garage, and a Gordon Freeman who has no idea where to go next. What the fuck should I be doing?

Have you tried putting the floaty (orangey-brown, IIRC) barrels underneath the catwalk that's drooping into the water?

In the original you had to break the lock on an underwater crate, releasing floaty barrels. In BM they changed it to be more like that airboat jump in Half-Life 2, except the barrels aren't nearly as eye-catching.

 

[Denizen]

Black mesa really surprised me on all fronts. I loved the way the difficulty ramped up, there's no better feeling than overcoming odds placed in front of you. You are playing as the "free-man," after all.

What I was shocked by and I think is a real shame is that people no longer give respect for a challenging game, much less a shooter which nowadays are complete cake-walks. The same goes for platforming in these environments. To this day since I played the first game, platforming never bothered me in a FPS. I guess this was a real treat for the old-school where challenge was expected and gratification was only found by overcoming it.

Overall, The Black Mesa team gave us more than an hd skin pack, they delivered a fresh look on what half-life is in today's gaming world and I might be too bold saying this but something that Valve needs to take note of.

Time for my 3rd playthrough.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Too many jumping puzzles for my liking, but a decent game still.