Black Mesa represents a pretty interesting success story in games development, but that story also rhymes with how many of Valve’s now-flagship franchises got their starts, too: transitioning from lowly mods worked on during free time to full-fledged standalone games published on Steam. All things considered, Black Mesa has earned its seat at this mod-to-game table, and having played Black Mesa in its mod form almost a decade ago, it’s high time that I revisit this title.

Black Mesa launched out of early access in May 2020, but one should temper their expectations for the visuals going in: this is a Source Engine game through and through, and while Crowbar Collective has done some impressive work to get more out of this engine visually, it still shows its age in some respects (i.e., lack of ambient occlusion). That said, Black Mesa only has a few fair points of comparison: the other Half-Life titles, now including Alyx - and more appropriately still, the twenty-plus-year-old original Half-Life, which Black Mesa unsurprisingly blows out of the water. This is a mostly-faithful adaptation of Half-Life, and visually Black Mesa accomplishes what it sets out to do. It does diverge more from its source material toward the latter chapters, however, and it arguably does so to great aesthetic effect. At the very least, the game is a technical marvel, pushing the Source Engine to its limits in order to achieve what it does.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2177937248

Black Mesa’s audio is a bit of a mixed bag - while it’s generally decent, there are some issues that mar the overall experience. Voice acting is competent if not outstanding, though this is to be expected when most of the voices are that of either generic scientists or generic guards. Crowbar’s attempt at voicing the G-Man is admirable, albeit still somewhat noticeably off, and the HECU Marine voiceovers can’t quite compare to the iconic, bass-heavy lines of the original Half-Life soldiers. Weapons generally sound satisfying, and the new music, while stylistically different from Kelly Bailey’s score, does the job and helps to mix things up - and some tracks are nothing short of stellar. My only real complaint is one which unfortunately affects all aspects of the game’s sound design: treble seems to be overemphasized, giving many sounds something of a sharp, piercing quality to them. It’s fine if you’re using speakers, but it can feel like listening to chalk being dragged across a blackboard if you’re wearing headphones.

Performance for the release version of Black Mesa is a bit unimpressive, despite the Source Engine’s age. I haven’t had any issues with stability, but my current system makes for a better high-end benchmark than it does an average player’s. I’ve had no performance issues yet with the game settings maxed out, but your mileage may vary - I would suggest a reasonably powerful desktop if you’re intent on playing Black Mesa, i.e., a GTX 960/R9 380 or better if possible, as opposed to the original Half-Life, which could even be made to run on a Chromebook with a Linux distro.

Black Mesa originated as a Half-Life 2 mod, and it retains some of these roots to this day. Still, the gameplay isn’t straight from 2004, even if many of Half-Life 2’s sensibilities punctuate the design of Black Mesa. Some features are standard fare, such as your ability to carry a veritable arsenal of weapons, lack of regenerating health, low-field of view flashlight, and, of course, physics-based puzzles. But Crowbar Collective has also updated some features, including optional toggles in the settings for quality-of-life improvements and alternate movement options. Thus, it’s left up to the player whether they want to deal with crouch-jumping for themselves, or if they prefer to have a sprinting option at all. Beyond that, the game plays like a well-polished Source Engine title from the era of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - which isn’t a bad thing in my book. This is a fast-paced quasi-old school first-person shooter, with a linear design done right.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2177937400

Black Mesa combines two design philosophies together in its campaign: first, it seeks to faithfully recreate and update the Black Mesa Research Facility using the latest version of the Source Engine; second, it aims to improve on areas of the original Half-Life that were lackluster, whether through minor tweaks or more considerable redesigns. Thus, many areas of the game seem familiar albeit larger than they once were, and many encounters are similarly uncanny. But Black Mesa is not content to simply copy what was done in 1998 and redesign the set dressing, so weapons may be acquired at different points in the game than before, new encounters, set pieces, and pathways can be discovered, the research facility staff are considerably more interactive than before, and the player’s goals are more clear than they were in 1998. Moreover, the latter portion of Black Mesa, the formerly controversial Xen chapters, have been rebuilt from the ground up, to largely good effect. There are some occasional pacing issues, difficult encounters, and elements that aren’t quite up to scratch when compared to a Valve title, but Black Mesa’s campaign is largely a story of design success, taking simple moments from Valve’s 1998 classic and transforming them into truly memorable scenes. The singleplayer campaign is far and away the star of the show here.

The multiplayer component of Black Mesa is, like the campaign, a modernization of what could be found in classic Half-Life - in this case, the classic deathmatch and team deathmatch modes, with a suite of arena-like maps to complement them. This is decidedly a throwback, reminiscent of Half-Life: Deathmatch and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch in both good and bad ways. Unfortunately, there isn’t a sizable community for this multiplayer mode, but as of the time of writing a handful of servers do still have players duking it out, reminding me somewhat of the very small but dedicated following that kept Fortress Forever alive for so long. There are no progression systems, gimmicky game-modes, or similar to be found here, and Black Mesa itself is a fairly niche title compared to mainstream shooters, so I suspect the community for the multiplayer component will remain small.

Black Mesa is a Source Engine game, and it comes with Workshop integration as-is. It’s good to see that a game born of a mod remains true to its roots with support for community content, and a number of maps (both single- and multiplayer), weapon/player models, and enemy redesigns, as well as sound packs and bug fixes, can be found on the Workshop within seconds. By all accounts, Black Mesa is a stellar performer on this front, and I quickly found several mods that improved on some of my few qualms with the game.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2177937562

So this is Black Mesa the game, finally released nearly a decade after Black Mesa the mod. Is it worth having a proper price tag on the Steam store, as opposed to the original mod from Mod DB? Well, for the most part, yes - it’s a very impressive piece of work and a testament to the capabilities of the modding community when the appropriate tools are at their disposal. I don’t know if I would pick it up at full price, but it’s on sale often enough, and whether you’ve played the original Half-Life or not, Black Mesa is worth a play through to experience the halls of the eponymous research facility once more, this time through a different, more detailed lens.

I would recommend Black Mesa, but would suggest waiting for a sale.

[h1][b]Half-Life: Source Remastered[/b][/h1] Black Mesa represents a pretty interesting success story in games development, but that story also rhymes with how many of Valve’s now-flagship franchises got their starts, too: transitioning from lowly mods worked on during free time to full-fledged standalone games published on Steam. All things considered, Black Mesa has earned its seat at this mod-to-game table, and having played Black Mesa in its mod form almost a decade ago, it’s high time that I revisit this title. [h1]Graphics[/h1] Black Mesa launched out of early access in May 2020, but one should temper their expectations for the visuals going in: this is a Source Engine game through and through, and while Crowbar Collective has done some impressive work to get more out of this engine visually, it still shows its age in some respects (i.e., lack of ambient occlusion). That said, Black Mesa only has a few fair points of comparison: the other Half-Life titles, now including Alyx - and more appropriately still, the twenty-plus-year-old original Half-Life, which Black Mesa unsurprisingly blows out of the water. This is a mostly-faithful adaptation of Half-Life, and visually Black Mesa accomplishes what it sets out to do. It does diverge more from its source material toward the latter chapters, however, and it arguably does so to great aesthetic effect. At the very least, the game is a technical marvel, pushing the Source Engine to its limits in order to achieve what it does. https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2177937248 [h1]Audio[/h1] Black Mesa’s audio is a bit of a mixed bag - while it’s generally decent, there are some issues that mar the overall experience. Voice acting is competent if not outstanding, though this is to be expected when most of the voices are that of either generic scientists or generic guards. Crowbar’s attempt at voicing the G-Man is admirable, albeit still somewhat noticeably off, and the HECU Marine voiceovers can’t quite compare to the iconic, bass-heavy lines of the original Half-Life soldiers. Weapons generally sound satisfying, and the new music, while stylistically different from Kelly Bailey’s score, does the job and helps to mix things up - and some tracks are nothing short of stellar. My only real complaint is one which unfortunately affects all aspects of the game’s sound design: treble seems to be overemphasized, giving many sounds something of a sharp, piercing quality to them. It’s fine if you’re using speakers, but it can feel like listening to chalk being dragged across a blackboard if you’re wearing headphones. [h1]Performance[/h1] Performance for the release version of Black Mesa is a bit unimpressive, despite the Source Engine’s age. I haven’t had any issues with stability, but my current system makes for a better high-end benchmark than it does an average player’s. I’ve had no performance issues yet with the game settings maxed out, but your mileage may vary - I would suggest a reasonably powerful desktop if you’re intent on playing Black Mesa, i.e., a GTX 960/R9 380 or better if possible, as opposed to the original Half-Life, which could even be made to run on a Chromebook with a Linux distro. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Black Mesa originated as a Half-Life 2 mod, and it retains some of these roots to this day. Still, the gameplay isn’t straight from 2004, even if many of Half-Life 2’s sensibilities punctuate the design of Black Mesa. Some features are standard fare, such as your ability to carry a veritable arsenal of weapons, lack of regenerating health, low-field of view flashlight, and, of course, physics-based puzzles. But Crowbar Collective has also updated some features, including optional toggles in the settings for quality-of-life improvements and alternate movement options. Thus, it’s left up to the player whether they want to deal with crouch-jumping for themselves, or if they prefer to have a sprinting option at all. Beyond that, the game plays like a well-polished Source Engine title from the era of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive - which isn’t a bad thing in my book. This is a fast-paced quasi-old school first-person shooter, with a linear design done right. https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2177937400 [h1]Singleplayer[/h1] Black Mesa combines two design philosophies together in its campaign: first, it seeks to faithfully recreate and update the Black Mesa Research Facility using the latest version of the Source Engine; second, it aims to improve on areas of the original Half-Life that were lackluster, whether through minor tweaks or more considerable redesigns. Thus, many areas of the game seem familiar albeit larger than they once were, and many encounters are similarly uncanny. But Black Mesa is not content to simply copy what was done in 1998 and redesign the set dressing, so weapons may be acquired at different points in the game than before, new encounters, set pieces, and pathways can be discovered, the research facility staff are considerably more interactive than before, and the player’s goals are more clear than they were in 1998. Moreover, the latter portion of Black Mesa, the formerly controversial Xen chapters, have been rebuilt from the ground up, to largely good effect. There are some occasional pacing issues, difficult encounters, and elements that aren’t quite up to scratch when compared to a Valve title, but Black Mesa’s campaign is largely a story of design success, taking simple moments from Valve’s 1998 classic and transforming them into truly memorable scenes. The singleplayer campaign is far and away the star of the show here. [h1]Multiplayer[/h1] The multiplayer component of Black Mesa is, like the campaign, a modernization of what could be found in classic Half-Life - in this case, the classic deathmatch and team deathmatch modes, with a suite of arena-like maps to complement them. This is decidedly a throwback, reminiscent of Half-Life: Deathmatch and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch in both good and bad ways. Unfortunately, there isn’t a sizable community for this multiplayer mode, but as of the time of writing a handful of servers do still have players duking it out, reminding me somewhat of the very small but dedicated following that kept [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/253530/Fortress_Forever/]Fortress Forever[/url] alive for so long. There are no progression systems, gimmicky game-modes, or similar to be found here, and Black Mesa itself is a fairly niche title compared to mainstream shooters, so I suspect the community for the multiplayer component will remain small. [h1]Community Content[/h1] Black Mesa is a Source Engine game, and it comes with Workshop integration as-is. It’s good to see that a game born of a mod remains true to its roots with support for community content, and a number of maps (both single- and multiplayer), weapon/player models, and enemy redesigns, as well as sound packs and bug fixes, can be found on the Workshop within seconds. By all accounts, Black Mesa is a stellar performer on this front, and I quickly found several mods that improved on some of my few qualms with the game. https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2177937562 [h1]Verdict[/h1] So this is Black Mesa the game, finally released nearly a decade after Black Mesa the mod. Is it worth having a proper price tag on the Steam store, as opposed to the original mod from Mod DB? Well, for the most part, yes - it’s a very impressive piece of work and a testament to the capabilities of the modding community when the appropriate tools are at their disposal. I don’t know if I would pick it up at full price, but it’s on sale often enough, and whether you’ve played the original Half-Life or not, Black Mesa is worth a play through to experience the halls of the eponymous research facility once more, this time through a different, more detailed lens. [b]I would recommend Black Mesa, but would suggest waiting for a sale.[/b]