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TL;DR - This remake is the definitive Half-Life game. Improving on everything that made the original great, and fixing or retooling some of it's least appealing features. Crowbar Collective has utterly outdone themselves with this game and I couldn't be more excited.


LENGTHY REVIEW FOLLOWS!



Half Life Classic(HLC for short.) Remains a cultural touchstone of gaming, and is arguably one of the most influential FPS games, and if there were elder gods for this category, it would stand with Doom and Quake to be a triumvirate. Despite it's shortcomings in the last four chapters, the infamous Xen, the game is otherwise and exemplar of video game perfection.

So after all that ruthless fellatio I just gave the seminal game in the Half-Life series, where do I stand on Black Mesa? Well, it's hard to argue with the boss when they give it their blessing. I'm not sure who was responsible for greenlighting this total remake, but either give that man a medal or tell GabeN to step down. Because this was a masterstroke of good faith, Valve continues to demonstrate what can be done when you harness the power and passion of your friends.

Everything that HLC was, Black Mesa has improved upon in just about every way. Using the post CSGO source engine, though a refresh of the original Source 2, is still pumping iron even today. And let me tell you, this game could well be it's own technical demo for it. Black Mesa harnesses modern graphics techniques along with some fairly ancient ones to pull as much detail and as many immersive visuals as possible. Almost every set piece has been given a fresh coat of paint and their effects turned up to 11. From the dank dark halls of the lower complex, to the sun scarred mesas of the surface. The new Xen chapters quite frankly blow almost everything else out of the water and absolutely must be seen to be believed.
This game is running on an engine series that is approaching the 15 year mark and the Black mesa team wrings the old mule for every ounce of power she's got, and in spite of all that beauty, there are moments where it's age begins to show. The Xen chapters particularly seemed to tax my 5 year old system running an i7-6700K series and my 980Ti, but I chock this up to the fact that the devs wanted to pack the previously maligned chapter with as much fresh content as possible and the price of admission is worth every byte.

The sound design is something that is pretty key to an FPS game, and HLC reliably delivered. Every enemy was identifiable, the headcrabs telltale screech as it leaps to devour your head or deceptively adorable chirps of houndeyes gave you all the information you needed to know what was coming your way. Not only that, the ambiance of the levels and the music that accompanied them were quite excellent for the time. Even here, Black Mesa improves upon the foundations of it's predecessor. Weapon sounds have been beefed up and made to be more realistic while staying true to the unique muzzle reports of some, the Gluon Gun still has its memorable vacuum cleaner wind up sound that always gives me a giggle fit when I hear it.

Where HLC was good on ambiance and music, Black Mesa takes it to the next level. Most levels have an accompanying sound track that puts you right in the mood, or provides ambient audio to immerse you in the world of Half-Life. This is particularly important in the surface chapters namely "Surface Tension" and "Forget about Freeman" Where you hear the sounds of chaos and warfare ripping through the complex and the desert beyond. The radios you find strewn about the surface complex help set the scene and to establish the lore(More on that later.)

Gameplay and Story telling are what made HLC as good as it was. Forsaking everything else, these two elements are pretty key to most games. Like I said before, Half-Life was a proof of concept that you can have a game tell a story without sacrificing the gameplay. Compared to modern games, Half-Life is the Hobbit to the Lord of The Rings that we could consider the story and lore of some of today's biggest game titles. While not hugely expansive, HLC managed to convey a story to us as we traversed each chapter. If you linger long enough, or explore every nook and cranny of every chapter, you will see that the devs put a mountain of love and care into not only staying true to lore, but deepening it as well, especially in the Xen chapters.(For me the most powerful stuff was the radio broadcasts throughout the game, from the initial local evacuation to the eventual evacuation of the whole of New Mexico.) And When it came to gameplay, it was a pioneer in combining elements of platforming, puzzle solving and dungeon crawling all into one neatly wrapped FPS. Black Mesa simply takes that formula, and improves only what needs improving, or replaces it with it's own.

Powered by havok physics and the source engine, Black Mesa brings a new level of immersion with a cleaner UI, new movement effects such as inertia, and even switches up some of the key weapon pickup events like the crowbar to provide an experience just slightly different enough to feel like a whole new experience. The biggest quality of life improvement offered comes at the game's penultimate chapters. the Long Jump Module was a wonderful idea, but it is one of the only pieces of the game that may have been sloppily executed. Requiring you in HLC to crouch just before jumping, combined with Xen's frustratingly low gravity, the long jump was hard to master and small mistakes were greatly punished. In Black Mesa, you simply need to doubletap your jump key, and you are launched in the direction you are moving. Add in the three charges, and the BM team has completely revitalized a key game mechanic and made it even better.

Finally, we come to the conclusion, a blurb about the game length and lastly what the game means to me.

HLC is a game with Gargantuan(pun intended) shoes to fill. It is hard to imagine the personal, financial and historical pressure Crowbar Collective was under to really make this game a true remake. And as my final verdict... I would say they have done more than just remake Half-Life, theyve pushed the envelope in just about every way imaginable. It is not every day you get a game developer to okay a third party remake of their seminal title. Black Mesa is such an utter home run of an attempt that it's hard to even take umbrage with some of it's flaws. Which brings me to really the only one I have: Length.