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.
