In 2004, Valve would release one of the biggest hits they every made: Half-Life 2. Not only was it the sequel to their first breakthrough title, but the engine behind it named "Source" was already doing things most modern games of the time could only dream of with muscle skeletons and light sources. But they also listened to a request of their fans to port the then 6 year old original game to this amazing new tech.... maybe just a bit too literally.
Valve's way to grant this wish was to take the maps, models, and graphics from the original game and just push them through the new engine with little effort to take advantage of what could be done, and the results were about as underwhelming as you would expect. But if you can count on the PC gaming community for one thing, it's to take what is and create what they wish out of it and to force a merge between Half-Life and Source to live up to the potential they saw would be no exception. Over the years, this game would be developed, releasing initially as an ever-developing mod for Half-Life 2. But eventually it would evolve into it's own complete remake. And now, after a decade and a half of the kind of love and passion only a fandom can produce, Black Mesa has been finished. And while some complain the game isn't true enough to the original level designs, it definitely hit the nostalgia mark as I played, nailing a lot of the set pieces I remembered playing through myself... maybe even some that would have been better left behind in the past. Step on inside.
Story: Welcome to Black Mesa, a massive scientific research facility buried in New Mexico. Here many scientific experiments and breakthroughs happen every day. You will assume the roll of Gorden Freeman, and today you are assisting with the analysis of an unknown material sample. You are also running late. Still, this should be a fairly routine event before you go home and relax. At least this is how it should have gone.
But if you have played Half-Life before you already know this is not the fate awaiting our favorite video-game Theoretical Physicist. Rather the massive machines used for this fail spectacularly, causing an event known as a resonance cascade. As a result, it also rips a hole between dimensions and causes alien beasts to appear seemingly at random.
Despite the odds, Gordon survived but now he has the normal problems of a man who survived a massive disaster: Getting out and getting help, and this is where you come in, guiding the unfortunate scientist in his escape of the now ruined complex. However, the story is not going to remain this simple. It isn't long till you find out the aliens are not the only thing that want your head. In fact the military you thought was here to help is here to scrub the area of all evidence to what happened, including the survivors!
Nor is this the end of what you will discover. Black Mesa is a pretty direct interpretation of the events revealed in the original game, and tells them in much the same way. Admittedly that game is old having been released way back in 1998, but it was a trail-blazer as one of the first games to not use cut-scenes or to stop the game in any way at all (outside of necessary pauses to load anyway). Rather the dev team had chosen to let the world and the characters interacting with and around Gordon tell the story. Black Mesa does much the same. As a plus side, this means the details are yours to observe, look for, or outright ignore if you desire... though I recommend paying attention when you can. This is not a game that will let plot get in your way, but it's very smart in just what it gives you to figure out for yourself if you look for it.
Not that it is going to answer all your questions about what is going on, mind you. After all, this is a game from the point of view of a survivor, not someone reading a narrative. Rather, you are going to get the details that Gordon Freeman could observe and find out only. Not everything will be clear by the end, but you will see enough to know more happened here then you were both lead to believe and just enough to suspect a much bigger picture... exactly as the original intended and perfect for a game that treads along the line of government conspiracy and cosmic horror in the same breath.
9/10
Graphics: It is arguable that this category right here is one of the main reasons we even got this update to the original Half-Life game at all. In essence, Half-Life 2 launched using a new engine Valve had developed called Source, and it was light-years beyond the "Goldsrc" engine that powered the first game. But around the same time, the aptly named "Half-Life: Source" would push the original game to run on this hot new tech... and that is just about literally what we got. No model updates, few bitmaps updated (if at all), and really only adding physics and particle/light effects that the engine defaulted to specific objects within the maps already, it just left most gamers who wanted a remaster feeling ripped off.
But PC gamers have always had a defiant streak in them, and when the developers refuse to make what they want to play, there is usually someone in the audience to take up the call. To this end, I would have to argue the devs have done an amazing job. Yes, they used a now aging engine and it does show, but the work done with it for the most part just shows how much love and attention these fans of the original game wanted to give it.
Much like the original, all of Black Mesa is shown from a first person perspective, but you can expect this game to push what the Source Engine can do about as far as possible. From the shadow work (most notable when you turn on your flashlight) to the detail in just about every panel (or bit of alien goo), this game's world looks absolutely stunning once it gets going. And I have to put it that way due to the opening areas before the action begins. Now that is not to say the game looks bad or even gives a bad first impression. It just looks a bit empty for a number of these early rooms. And do not get me wrong, I think that was done by choice since this is a secret lab kept white-room levels of clean, so I wouldn't expect a lot of things strewn about these pristine and clinical hallways. No if there is any blame here, its in the moment that happens even as soon as you begin: the railway ride into the facility.
The world you ride by looks fantastic at this point, but you have to look from a blocky tram with overly dated and blocky looking seats and windows. You have to kinda press yourself against the window to avoid seeing the space you are locked in or do your best to ignore it. Still this rather disappointing start in the looks department only gets better as the game progresses, culminating in some of the absolutely breathtaking scenes you will be basically guided to towards the end.
Ironically this seems to also play out with the characters you interact with as well. While the scientists don't look half-bad, they do appear dated due to the limitations of the engine and facial expressions it can handle as well as the fact that the dev team started all of this with the stock characters as they appeared in the original Half-Life 2 which is itself getting to be an old game at this point. But you run into less and less of them as you progress, relinquishing to the more alien cast who's complete lack of need for human facial expressions lend themselves more to the strengths of the old game and it's engine without using it's weaker points. Again, as you play things only go up, from descent to straight up phenomenal.
7/10
Sound: If you remember the original game, there is not a lot of places it used any real music, and in fact the game only relied on its (admittedly descent for the time) music tracks at key moments, leaving the rest of the world to rely on it's ambiance. This both kept you on your toes as you could hear anything going on around you that much better, as well as primed you for the moment specifically when the game needed that little extra push. The devs at Crowbar Collective remembered how this felt and kept the same delivery for the music you will hear through this game as well.
When they do, at least early on, expect it to stand out most when it takes on an industrial metal form, most likely when about to go toe to toe with military who have laid a trap for you, or you have clearly moved to a new and more hidden part of the labs. It sounds great and usually plays very well into the mood of the area/event unfolding.
And then you get to the end when you are no longer on earth, and the music becomes more hit-and-miss. On the one hand, the awe and wonder in the atmosphere is enhanced greatly by these musical and almost religious tones, but they also feel off when playing along some more action intense areas late in the game. It still sounds pretty good on it's own, it just seems off in that moment.
And while sound effects are generally nothing to write home about either way, I would like to spend a little time talking about the voice acting involved. The devs made this game to both update an old-school classic for modern gamers as well as preserve what made the original so good in it's day, and to this end it seems like they kept as much of the original voice-work as they possibly could... either that or their actors were absolutely spot on to recreate the feel of the original and I must commend them extensively. Either way the authenticity is here and I can only tip my hat to the devs and their dedication.
8/10
Gameplay: This is a lot harder to judge then the rest of this review by far. Black Mesa is a complete and loving remake of a 90s shooter who's notoriety came from pushing the FPS genre and it's ability to tell a story well ahead of it's time. To this end, you will play through the events of the Black Mesa Incident through the FPS eyes of Gordon Freeman as he explores the ruined complex looking for a way out and fighting off the hoards of aliens teleporting in as well as the literal US Army showing up to expunge the place when the shit hit the fan.
This will involve everything from arena battles to first-person platforming, to escorting (and being escorted by) NPCs so they can open doors and even help you fight, to even sneaking around forces you are simply ill equipped or even not able to fight head on. This is not the standard "shoot everything that moves" first person shooter one would expect of the era, even though it has moments for that too. The rather amazing part is that for large swaths of the game, this variety of activity works exceptionally well and has you looking eagerly to your next challenge and just what you are going to do to get through it, be it guns blazing or something more subtle. If the whole game kept up to the standard the first half or so had, I would have to argue this one of the greatest games I ever played.
However, this was not meant to be, as they preserved many of the stand out moments, for better and for worse. You will have many moments like the opening to the offices where you need to jump around on furniture floating over the flooded and electrified room to proceed or the first time you encounter a marine and watch him gun down your fellow scientist, proving their calls for questioning to just be a way to get the cleanup done faster, or even the fight with the tentacle plant under the rocket engine. These moments all highlight memories from the late 90s of an overall amazing time. And then it reminds you of the not-so-good moments you fought through as well, like the trip-mine maze where one wrong move will blow up the building with you in it. It was not fun, but a lesson in tension you now need to repeat. In this way, the game is like a nostalgia roller-coaster for those who played the original and for better or worse it does this extremely well.
But new to the game or not, the last 3rd or so of the game is brand new as Gorden's adventure through the alien world has been expanded from a few paths and bosses to a whole living breathing world, but I am not so sure this is a good thing. Where the rest of the game they had both fond memories and the actual game to pull apart and rebuild, at best they might have gotten plans Valve wanted to do with the other world if they had had the time. As a result, the gameplay here suffers.
For starters, the original's low-gravity jumping has been replaced by a "vertical jump" which basically boils down to a double-jump that goes in the direction you are moving rather then behave like an actual second jump. The benefit of this is that when you need to clear large gaps to proceed, you can do just that as your second jump will propel you forward. But this means you will need to use it, and quite early after you head out there. The problem is that with almost no practice the game will begin to demand pixel perfect distance control, making the introduction to this other worldly place both amazing to behold but incredibly frustrating to play. But this mechanic also has use in combat as well to give you a way to dodge faster enemies and bosses in this alien world, but it takes a lot to un-train from modern games that make such actions involve double-tapping your direction instead of the jump key and as such a very awkward mechanic to use this way.
And while it gets better, it doesn't ever get to be particularly good from here on out or stay at any particular high. In fact, for many (myself included) this is where the game wears out it's welcome between rather crappy design from time to time and just plain leading you to believe you are reaching the final boss time and time again only to have yet another chunk of uncalled for map sitting in your way. By the time you finish, you will be just thinking "thank god it's over" rather then looking back at the epic fight to get there.
6/10
Bugs: And unfortunately I can not say this experience was bug free either. Thankfully most of these were rare, but they can easily ruin your session if they happen.
- What happened to my frame-rates? This happened to me all of twice, but randomly my frame-rate while playing went from smooth to a slide-show. The first time I thought the game was actually challenging my PC due to the sheer volume of boxes I was breaking, but looking back, I can not be sure as there is a scene that by that logic should have been chop-city as the garbage compactor did it's thing, and yet that too was smooth as hell. The second time was randomly when jumping between treadmills feeding material around the base for one of the more annoying areas and rendering the moment unplayable. Thankfully reloading the save just before this point fixed it but I have no idea what caused it.
- The AI is not always that bright: Normally this is not so much a bug as something to note in the gameplay, but in this case, I saw bosses do things I can only describe as buggy. Most of the time I saw this with the Gonarch (giant head-crab) boss where to make sure a sequence of events could occur, it would just sit there and stair at me within range that I could it it with the crowbar. Only after going past a point would it try to attack (while I was now safe). These are not major issues but seeing it really takes you out of the moment
- BAD auto-save functionality: This one is more likely to hit you when you get back or after an unfortunate death, but the game's placement of auto-saves can be pretty bad. They wont always mess you up, but they can often start you in a position where you are simply gonna die when you load in... assuming you can at all. While playing and starting a chase sequence, I have had the game auto-save only to have it crash to the desktop literally every time I tried to load that game. Do not rely on these.
- No save game management: But even as you should save often, you have to be careful with your saves, at least if you plan to use the Steam Cloud with this title. To explain, in Steam every game that supports cloud saves will on quitting the game match your save files on the cloud to the save files on your local machine so that if you install the game somewhere else on another PC, the saves can follow you. Steam will allow you to have up to 1 GB of data for just this game alone, but you can still easily run out if you do not manage your own saves. You will want to either turn this feature off or take time after you finished for the day and cut down the saved games you will not need. But be warned... this process is slow and monotonous, especially as you not only have to delete them individually (assuming you dont want to just delete them all at the file level), but each time you delete one from the load game menu, it will blank out the list of saved games requiring you to leave and come back to it.
Overall: When all is said and done, this game is very much a mixed bag fueled by nostalgia. The memories you may have of the original Half-Life will come flying back as set pieces are lovingly recreated or even enhanced while holding on to the old feeling of that moment. If you never played the original, you will still find a lot here to love for the first time. But in either case, you will get some heavy lows in the time you spend as well as highs... and this is especially true for the new material added to the final act.
Score:
System Requirements:
- 2.6 Ghz dual core processor
- 6 GB RAM
- Anything with 2 GB VRAM or better
- 20 GB hard drive space
- Windows 7 or Vista (32 or 64 bit)
- Broadband connection required
- Ryzen 7 (2700) 3.2 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce 1660 (6GB VRAM)
- Windows 10 (64 Bit)
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