Black Mesa

It's not, there are many redesigned areas. Watch a video.

No, it would have been better if it was.

It redesigned a lot of areas and even gutted a few segments at least in the pre-Steam release, though I'm not sure if they readded any of the latter back in.

It doesn't have Half-Life's GOAT soundtrack, so no.

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>>387984953
Valvenerd here

They're releasing the Xen update in December, although it sounds like they've heavily altered it from the original (which might be a good thing)

Other than that it's pretty close to the original, just a few design changes to make it more realistic and fix tiny issues of the original. The only big change I can recall is in the beginning when you get the crowbar, the offices seemed quite a bit changed from the original. If you've never played Half-Life I would recommend you play it first (dont get the Source version, its ugly and glitchy and barely actually "better"), but if you dont wanna bother with an old game and get something that better flows into HL2 this game will do the job really well
>>387985291
They cut a chunk from the old railway chapter and the outside canyon chapter, but the latter has been added in now and you can optionally download a mod that adds the former too.

>>387985413
doesnt really have any signifcant tracks outside the one theme when you get the laser gun, the only thing i miss in black mesa is those short spooky alien tracks that play very occasionally (also that terrifying screaming noise that plays in the railway chapter for some fucking reason)

black mesa has a much more memorable soundtrack overall, and the music on blast pit alone lifted it from a weaker chapter to one of the most atmospheric parts of the game

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The super human marines with aimbots pretty much ruined this remake for me.

Play the original. If you really really like, then go for BL.

>>387984953
It is slower, has worse level design, and worse enemies. Worse in almost every way besides graphics.

I just replayed all the HL1 games, BM, and all the HL2 games (in that order) a few months back. First of all, HL2 is NOT the worthy successor it felt like when it first came out. I guess we were all blinded by the tech and the resurrection of the franchise. Second, BM is *almost* as good as the first HL. The first half or so of BM suffers from the (unnecessary) changes it made to HL's levels. The second half, on the other hand, is actually slightly better at times. I guess the general trend in BM vs HL is that it cut away all filler (parts of On A Rail come to mind), simplified janky segments (Power Up felt way better in BM), and replaced/simplified things that wouldn't work with todays standards of realism and physics (e.g. the fast-moving platform in the Blast Pit power section). Here's hoping BM-Xen will be better than HL1 Xen...

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>>387984953
>>387985557
Supposedly Black Mesa Xen is basically a whole new additional game, in terms of scope and scale of totally original content.

Personally I've always thought that there was probably much more significant Valve input on Black Mesa than they've let on, and that BMS Xen will be an ARG trailhead for 'The Next Half-Life'. I think the timing of the ORIGINAL BMS paid release and planned Xen release lines up with a planned 'Next Half-Life' release which got delayed due to how badly Paid Mods crashed (which BMS itself was supposed to be one of the first games using, pushing multiplayer maps through the service).

>>387986995
>extending interloper

My favourite part of Black Mesa is that it actually feels like a real-life environment inhabited by real people now. I loved little touches like notes in the science labs detailing info about their research, finding a guard's office and seeing family photos and a half empty coffee mug in it, or when you have several scientists together in a room they'll say things to each other instead of just you. That's where Black Mesa really shines

I would still play the original if you've never though, simply to witness how fucking amazing the game was for its time
>>387986614
Level design is pretty tight, a lot of it is almost identical to the original game and the parts they did change are usually for the better

>space shuttle room in original is just that, one room with an enemy shooting from a direction you cant find him in
>black mesa upgraded this into an actual whole segment that's really fun and adds to the tension and plot of the chapter

>/v/aggots complaining they changed the outside area of the space shuttle launchpad
>now an actually exciting battle in a realistic environment instead of being dropped in basically a pit of enemies

The only real fuckup they made was the marines, went from the best enemies to annoying aimbot-tier

>>387985028
second post best post

>>387984953
Last time i played it, it was worse than the original, gimped level design & worse Ai

It may have been improved by now & im very curious about Xen, which was always really shit in the original

>>387984953
>xen still isn't released
lmao

>>387987160
Supposedly they've expanded all of it, to that degree, and added totally original stuff.

Gabens recent comments about Half-Life being a personal disappointment to him, due to everything they had to cut, particularly from Xen (which was, in the 'vision', supposed to be a full half of the game), seem to hint at what's really going on with BMS Xen.

>>387984953
No, it's Half Life except with a worse engine

Best place to download it? Most links on their site are dead and the torrent has no seed

>>387987587
goddamn that sounds interesting, interloper was always a level i really liked the premise of but hated the gameplay itself.

>>387987772
Buy on Steam, it's the only version they're supporting now.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/

The old version is still available here tho:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/black-mesa/downloads/black-mesa-part-1zip
http://www.moddb.com/mods/black-mesa/downloads/black-mesa-part-2zip

(You'll need to own a Source game to play it.)

>>387987587
Gaben is a smart man, and I'm sure as long as he's alive and in good health, Valve ain't gonna touch the HL franchise with a 10 ft pole. The fanboys are rabid, no way in hell you can please them.

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>>387987514
it was supposed to come out at summer then they delayed to december.

They fucked all up. It could be a great thing if came out 5/7 years ago. Now it's a remake of an old classic made with an old engine. And it's not even free. Why should i pay 30 dollars for a shitmade amateur work?

>>387985887
That shit was the worst.
If you checked the configs they had something like .1 of a second reaction time and no spread.
Pretty sure the retail one fixed them but I haven't checked. Still waiting on xen to try it again

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On one hand I like the touches and details they added to levels, on the other I don't like shit they changed just for the sake of changing like that sequence with flairs at the beginning before you actually get the crowbar or that they gutted some of the levels because mmuh community consensus that they are shit. Fuck you, I actually unironically like On a Rail.
Oh, and goldsrc shooty enemy ai > source shooty enemy ai. I don't think I've been noobtubed or grenaded once in my BM playthrough, they either laser kebabed me from afar or mindlessly rushed me while I peeked around same corner over and over, that looked so fucking surreal.

>>387984953
Black mess does not have half lifes neural network AI and as a result it plays nothing like HL.

>>387988330
>old engine
it's not. it's still in use for other 'AAA' professional productions, eg. Titanfall 2.

>shitmade amateur work
it's not. the only amateurish thing about it is being an early access game with a stupidly protracted development schedule (original version released 2012!), but that's increasingly just the norm in PC gaming, anyway.

>>387988805
To be fair, there's a pretty big difference between the HL2 era Source engine and the modern Source 2.0 engine. A fucking huge difference.

>>387988805
BM's source engine and titanfall's source engine are really two different things at this point.
>it's not
>the only amateurish thing about it is that it's being made by a literal bunch of amateurs with a development schedule so incredibly bad it puts valve to shame.
yeah okay
>>387988761
>neural network AI
HL never had anything like that.

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>>387988560
>Pretty sure the retail one fixed them
No.

I've checked. Fucking waste of money.

>>387988805
didn't know titanfall 2 used sorce, that's impressive! Maybe i didn't use the right word, but in videos and screenshot it's looks like Half Life 2, that's an old game (even if it aged well). I'm not saying it's a pile of trash, just i will came out too late. 2012 was the perfect moment

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>>387984953

A lot of things are different, some parts are very different, enemies act differently, it's essentially a completely new experience. Not bad at all though, that shotgun is fucking amazing.

>>387988683
As someone else pointed out the only part still cut from it is On a Rail, and theres a very popular mod that adds it back in

>>387988761
eeyep, at least in half-life 2 things are usually designed so the fucking god-mode AI doesn't get too much of an advantage but in black mesa it can be a pain. i usually feel like i need to just rush right in and take them out as soon as possible, when hl1 usually provides several ways to tackle them which makes it so fun

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>>387988994
well fuck

It's a nice way to revisit the original game but the original is still the best.

>>387987306
>The only real fuckup they made was the marines, went from the best enemies to annoying aimbot-tier
Not to mention their voice acting is shit compared to the memorable, pieced together radio chatter.

>>387989263
WE
WILL
KICK
YOUR
ASS

>>387988167
Maybe that's just it. Hire these modders to make the game, giving them "inputs" on how to actually do Xen the way they intended, then when it's released, they receive none of the blame. If it's a hit, talk about all the influence they had.

It's a pretty major remake, which basically follows the structure of HL1, but expands on the design, balance and atmosphere quite significantly. Most of them are level design tweaks and improvements, small balance adjustments (you'll get a crowbar little later than in vanilla, forcing you to be more creative in the Unforseen Consequences chapter for a bit, you'll get revolver before shotgun etc...). Most of these are just unquestionable improvements over the original.
Bigger changes involve shortened levels, specifically:
On the rail and Surface Tension.
Now - the On the Rail cuts I'd argue weren't detracting from the experience.
The cut Surface Tension, on the other hand, was the only big pacing/narrative change that was just flat out BAD. Black Mesa generally makes the story aspect of the game much more pronounced (in Office Complex, you actually feel like you are leading bunch of survivors out of the complex, for an example), but the cuts to surface tension completely forgot to show that Soldiers are loosing the war.

Luckly, both have been restored by third-party moders. Both of these moders then joined Black Mesa. I'm not sure if these mods are not part of the commercial release officially.

The biggest change however (and the one most controversial) is the change Mesa does to Soldier A.I. and behavior. They just behave COMPLETELY differently. Most people got really pissed about it.

Personally - it took a bit of adjusting to me, but I eventually grown to like it. Not more than the original, but not less either. They are now SIGNIFICANTLY deadlier - less mobile than in HL1, less prone to fuck-ups too.

It requires a very different, and much more careful, methodical approach. You basically need to plan very carefully every single encounter if you don't want to lose significant health. Save-scumming is also pretty much unavoidable.
That said, it's really fun to finally pull off that ambush cleanly. It forces you to use more weapons, think ahead more.

>>387988294
Technically, December is Australian summer......

>>387989408
It's not like valve are strangers to outsourcing their shit. There were like episodes 4 and 5 and what have you in development by third party studios during that time valve still cared about single player games. I'd be okay with a third party half life game under "supervision" at this point.

>>387988560
>If you checked the configs they had something like .1 of a second reaction time and no spread.
That is really not true. In fact, the one thing about the soldiers is that they are pretty slow to wake up. Once they do, they lock on to you and then it's pretty difficult to deal with them without taking at least some damage. And one of the things that is weird is how immune they are to assault rifle. Assault rifle used to be the best basic weapon against Marines in original HL, but in Black Mesa, unless you use the grenade launcher it's the WORST choice.

But their reaction time is a lot slower than you think. It's easily their biggest weakness. The trick is usually to either set up a trap to lure them into, OR just exploit their weak reaction time and use whatever on-shots them.

Everyone whines about the Soldiers, but I personally found the fucking Heli's FAR more of a problem. Jesus, both of the heli segments were easily the worst parts of the game save for the very final battle in the teleporter.
They were an absolute shitshow, because the heli can accurately shoot you even when you SPRINT. It's literally impossible not to get hit as long as it has a line of sight. The wind-up is short, the burst long, and on lower health it starts to SHOWER you with missiles.

Those were easily the absolute worst of the entire game. The second chopper fight took me about a fucking HOUR to get through.

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>>387988054
Any reason why should I spend money on the new version when I already have the old version for free?

>>387989518
>It requires a very different, and much more careful, methodical approach. You basically need to plan very carefully every single encounter if you don't want to lose significant health. Save-scumming is also pretty much unavoidable.

Honestly, it's not just the soldiers, bullsquids for example also spit acid on you the very moment you're in their line of sight, it's almost impossible to dodge. Playing BL feels like constantly taking damage, then finding that pile of medkits in a corner, saying whew, and doing it all over again it.

I didn't enjoy it to be honest, apart from the "gee, this area looks kinda cool with modern graphics" moments.

>>387990056
Workshop mods (including some restored maps), multiplayer (if you give a fuck about that) and yes, the Xen chapter is really coming out this year and will be Steam exclusive.

>>387990056
Minor improvements and Xen eventually.

>>387990069
All of these things can be (and are pretty easy to) get around though. I don't remember ever having a real problem with bullsquids. But yeah: BM's damage in general is a bit harder to avoid. It takes a lot of planning ahead and using the complete rooster of tools to do so. Which of course also often requires savescumming to know what exactly lies ahead.

That said, I enjoyed the fact that I can't just cycle shotgun/assault-rifle/revolver through out 2/3rds of the game and breeze through it without any damage.

You know what REALLY pissed me off though?
That "soldier places a bomb in a pipe" in surface tension segment, where you have to out-run the fireball?
In BM, you CAN'T kill the soldier while he is placing the bomb. In original, if you were fast enough, you could just shoot him as soon as he opens the doors.
Now you can't, he is immortal, the fucking fuck.

>>387988167
>in good health

>>387986995
Won't this possibly make the game feel too long and drawn out? HL1 was decently lengthy already, and Xen's main problem definitely wasn't the length or scale

>>387988937
Titanfall 2 was on a heavily modified Source 2013 (mostly modded by Respawn themselves). Black Mesa is currently on an unreleased Valve-official Source version which is basically Source 1.5 (they are gradually migrating all their long-term-support Source engine products to Source 2 by backwards-porting specific individual engine components one at a time).

>Love HL1 to death
>honestly prefer to play Black Mesa on my replays.

Am I a bad person?

I feel like it's how 12 year old me saw HL1 when I first played it.

>>387988984
The delay of Xen is because of it becoming tied to 'The Next Half-Life' somehow. It IS Valve-time.

>>387992234
No. BM is flat out an improvement on multiple levels, a questionable (but not inherently bad) departure on some, and only objectively weaker than original on a very few things.

>>387992234
Nah. I'm the same way. I don't really see a reason why you'd play HL1 with BM being a thing. It's the same thing just better.