Black Mesa without Xen

>I mean, they did release the game without Xen after all so it can't be THAT big of a deal...?
Yes, it can be. It's literally 3-4 levels, couple boss fights, and the final cutscenes.
Keep in mind that BMS was originally meant to be a free mod, not a commercial game. This is why they originally got "away" with releasing an unfinished version of their project. The fact that they're now jewing on this shit is disgusting.

>I've played Half-life 2 several times and loved it but I've never gotten around to playing the first game.
....why do people like you exist?
Seriously? Do you also skip straight to The Return Of The Jedi ?

That's my point. It was a groundbreaking FPS for its time but seeing it objectively from a modern POV it's not that big of a deal and would benefit greatly from updated graphics, physics etc.

They're actually releasing it this year, for real. There's already like 4 Xen levels (out of 19) available in the open beta. Just tough it out for a few more months.

Black Mesa is just trash compared to original HL.

>tons of gameplay padding that just ruin the tight pace and speed of the original (ie. playing with flares early on).
>need to crouch jump ALL THE TIME, because your jump height is so puny.
>entire sections or levels cut out or shrunken to one or two rooms (on-a-rail, surface tension ...).
>enemy behavior and AI literally worse than in 1997 (insta-waking grunts with laser-accurate aim at all distances ...)
>no Xen
>no training area (last time I checked)
>can't run HL1 mods

Eat shit. I only got around playing HL series as a whole back in 2012, since I never had a computer before, and it was fucking amazing.
The atmosphere is just brilliant, and the way the world "flows" smoothly from one area to another makes it feel like an epic adventure. There's also surprising amount of variety in level and enemy design.

All in all, HL1 easily BTFO majority of modern FPS games by pure creativity and artistry.

I tried playing it once but it just bugged out and crashed all the time so I gave up. Why is everyone so against graphically and gameplay wise improving older games? I'd wager I'm probably older than most who frequent this board and it seems like a global meme when everyone just hates on remakes and mods.

>I tried playing it once but it just bugged out and crashed all the time so I gave up
You're doing something really wrong. Not a single PC on this planet can NOT play Half-Life.

>Why is everyone so against graphically and gameplay wise improving older games?
Why are you so keen on feeding stupid fallacies to other people's mouths?
I absolutely ADORE well done remakes. Resident Evil REmake is one of the greatest games ever created, and *almost* replaces the original RE1.

Yet, BMS is not a good remake. It does not have better gameplay. It has very lackluster art-directing, and tons of design fuck ups + bugs.

>I'd wager I'm probably older than most who frequent this board
Let me guess... you were born in the 1990s, and found out of this site in the 2010s?
If so, you're a pathetic zoom zoom nu-fag to me, and still just trying to project your flaming graphics whoring, hoping that you would not have to look at few less polygons than what you're used to on your PS quadros.

Don't listen to delusional boomers, just play Black Mesa. The Xen levels should be out in a few more months. You can play the rest of the campaign right now, and then just choose Xen from the chapter select once it's out.

store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=362890

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>delusional boomer
I am a pure bred Millennial, and HL1 is still far superior to BM. Not to mention what kind of a faggot would not play BOTH ?
>The Xen levels should be out in a few more months.
This is what you said in 2012, nigger.

>Eat shit
I'm not hating on the game itself. What I meant was that a very large part of its success was that it was technically advanced and pushed boundaries for the FPS genre just like Half-life 2 did with the launch of the source engine that's still better than many modern engines after what, 15 years? The physics were MIND BLOWING and are still impressive after all these years which can't really be said about the first game IMO.

Because Black Mesa isn't a 1:1 remake, there's still value in playing the original Half-Life. if jank physics bothers you along with goldsrc crashing for what ever reason you can play Half Life: Source.

>>need to crouch jump ALL THE TIME, because your jump height is so puny.
are you implying this wasnt in the original, because it was exactly like that

>This is what you said in 2012, nigger.
Xen is already in public beta though. Just click on that news link.

>Why is everyone so against graphically and gameplay wise improving older games?
Would you rather watch the original Ghostbusters, or the 2016 remake? After all, latter is a lot newer, so it must be better! :^)

>Xen is already in public beta though
Still.
Not.
OUT.

And you expect me to PAY in order to WAIT ?
Fuck off, and release the fucking MOD as a whole on MODDB already, jew asshole.

>are you implying this wasnt in the original
No, it seriously WAS NOT like that in the original. You can't even jump on a single rail or tiny box in BMS.

> it was exactly like that
you never even played the game, so fuck off.

>Why is everyone so against graphically and gameplay wise improving older games?
Black Mesa is really good for a fan remake but you can't say it's strictly better than the original

HL made you crouch jump all the time just like the remake
I've played Half Life 42 times, trust me

>Half-Life: Source
Say what now? Is there a 1:1 remake of the game in the source engine? I don't care about Black Mesa specifically and was just interested in it to see an updated version of Half-Life using source but it sounds like there already is such a remake available...?

>And you expect me to PAY in order to WAIT ?
Nigger, like literally everyone already bought BM on some Steam sale like 3 years ago, wtf.

>HL made you crouch jump all the time just like the remake
No, it literally did not. Go play the game again, then BM. You've not played one or the another if you can make such BS statements.

Watching it on a worn out VHS VS. 1080p/UHD Blu-ray would be a more fair and accurate comparison...

Does anyone else get headaches from the camera in this game? I’m completely fine when I play HL, but not Black Mesa

>cut surface tension
So you haven't touched Black Mesa in years.

>Is there a 1:1 remake of the game in the source engine?
....yes, you dumb fuck. It's been out for 15 years.
It's total shit though, but sounds like would please your weird graphics / physics-whoring tendencies better.

Have you played Half Life 42 times?
If not then I think I'm the authority on the subject
Although its still a fucking retarded mechanic that shouldnt exist in the first place

Isn't Xen supposed to be soon? I've been waiting years for this too. I think it was 2017 when I thought it was soon the first time...

>It's total shit
Would you care to go into more detail rather than just spouting that "it's shit"? I can't really understand how the original game brought to a more modern physics engine would be shit but perhaps it's bug ridden or flawed in other ways?

Not him but
>calling someone a “dumb fuck” for not knowing the shitty source version was a thing

>there's no crouch jumping in OG Half-Life
I feel like somebody's going all out ITT lmao

You need to crouch jump to enter like every single vent.

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>Have you played Half Life 42 times?
I have played HL1 nearly annually since the year 2000. I even got the fucking PS2 port on my shelf.
I also used to make silly little MP maps for the game back in my teens.

Unless BMS got a major gameplay overhaul in past couple months, the gameplay is just way more tedious in it.

>shouldnt exist in the first place
nobody cares about your topic switch takes.

Not that guy, but Half Life Source is just the original Half Life on a new engine and it's buggy and literally unfinishable

Half Life Source is a buggy mess that is objectively worse than the original. Black Mesa is its own thing in terms if how the game feels.

If you want to play half life, play the original.

store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=362890

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>Would you care to go into more detail rather than just spouting that "it's shit"?
Bugs and conflicting visual designs everywhere. Source AI is not as smart and nuanced as GoldSource's, and gameplay feels slower and more "floaty", akin to HL2.
It also does not support any GoldSource mods.

BMS is tedious, but not because of crouch jumping
it uses a different movement system with alot of limiters on your speed so it feels alot slower to move about, especially when you jump because it slows you down when you land IIRC

Just play the original half life
Fucking zoomer

The Black Mesa portion of the game is finished. It's pretty polished as is and runs noticeably better than the old mod version. You won't miss out on anything by playing those levels now, except you get a big fat TO BE CONTINUED at the end.
Some of the levels had their layouts modified a bit to make them less frustrating, but for the most part the game is very accurate to the original.

Xen is an alien border dimension and the final few levels of the game. It's generally considered the weakest part of the original game which is why they decided to do a major overhaul of it, rather than keeping close to the original.

Some of the levels in Black Mesa are flat-out worse
Like the first chapter there's alot of shitty padding with throwing flares about at zombies
and Questionable Ethics, one of my favorite maps in the first game, they completely butchered, it's dark, too mazey, too big, it feels like a bad quake level instead of an actual research lab like in the first game
the outdoor environments also look really bad and cartoony too, not up to par with the graphical fidelity of the rest of the game

This, though I'm pretty sure the jump height is shorter as well.
In OG HL1, you move like a bullet train, and hop like a Cricket. Black-Mesa takes the more "modern" approach of gluing you to the ground and not allowing you to Quake-bunnyhop.

While at it, I don't think anyone has mentioned the SOUND DESIGN in this thread yet. The original's echoing, metallic soundscape, combined with that rarely playing but rocking OST, really do set a way more curious mood than the BMS' more muted and calm audio world.

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The imitation voice actors for BMS are fucking on point though

HL1's atmosphere is also more horrific, BMS played up the tragedy aspect more.

>more muted and calm audio world
Did you turn off the music or something?
Or are you the guy clearly judging it based on the 2012 release which I'm not sure had music?

>echoing, metallic soundscape
I hate this so much 2bh. Fucking every single sound effect in HL1 has that annoying reverb.

I always found HL1 to be more comedic than anything myself.

They do OK job for the most part, though I recall one or two lines sounding a bit lower quality than the others, as if recorded on a cheap mic in an echoing mancave. You may not even notice those if you don't play with headphones though.

That's one way of putting it. BMS loves to over-act and dwell in the scripted sequences and destruction. I think it goes a bit overboard.

I am not referring to music. If anything, BM booms soundtracks a bit too often, instead of relying on eerie ambiance like the original.

The devs were really trying to be faggots and not add Xen but it's very important to the story. You can make up all the shit you like about "WELL TECHNICALLY THE GAME IS CALLED BLACK MESA AND SHOULD ONLY TAKE PLACE IN BLACK MESA" shit but imagine if someone fuckin remade crash bandicoot and cut out the last 8 levels. It just doesn't make sense. So now they're begrudgingly adding Xen

>Greetings!
>We are working on final polish for Xen and Gonarch’s Lair
they've been saying that for a decade. how do you fuck up 20 minutes of jumping to platforms into 10 years of "g-g-guys we're almost done." good grief.

You can play parts of it right now you retard

Why do you lie?

They've extended that shit to 19 (!) maps and you can already play 4 of them. All of them should be out in August.

I just replayed the very original Half-Life just recently, for the first time in ages. I was honestly surprised how well it all has aged. Besides the obvious PS2 graphics (assuming you enable HQ models), the art-directing is very solid, sound-directing is amazing at best, and gameplay is very fast paced, varied and overall satisfying. You can never quite tell what's gonna happen in the next area.

Just my 2 cents. Been eyeing on the Black Mesa mod for years now, but I'm not sure if I want to pay money for it. Especially not before it is properly finished, and the famous bugs and issues are properly ironed out. Even then, I'm not sure if the art style quite captures the feeling of the original.

It's been a long time, but it was basically the final levels and I remember them to be pretty short and a bit clunky. You basically do some platforming in an alien environment and kill the final boss, that's it. Felt more like an afterthought, the meat of the game is before Xen imho.

Who fucking cares. It's still not finished, and you keep saying "should be out by XYZ".
No one but fucking zoomers born and raised with Early Access and pre-order scam activities would ever even consider pulling the trigger on an unfinished game. Especially a FAN-GAME, that was meant to be a FREE MOD, and can still be downloaded and played for free.

Xen is way longer than people recall. You also do a couple bossfights there, some teleport puzzling, and obviously the final battle + cinematics.

>They've extended that shit to 19 (!) maps
for what purpose?? this is worse than those retards remaking system shock 1.

The "HD" models in the Steam version are from Blue Shift (which in turn was recycled from the failed Dreamcast version). The real PS2 models (which are much more high poly) are only available through mods.

>remaking system shock 1.
rebooting*
which is probably worse.

Because Xen was shit. Even the original devs agree.

Because xen fucking sucked, user. They wanted to make a good xen.

>The "HD" models in the Steam version are from Blue Shift
yes, I know.
I was not saying "PS2 models", I was saying "PS2 quality visuals", which is more true than calling them "PS1 / N64 era".

OG Xen sucked dick, so now it's a completely new campaign which is based more on the modern day shooters than whatever was in the original. It looks absolutely amazing btw.

youtube.com/watch?v=TAIJich73NY

>which is based more on the modern day shooters
oh great

It's been probably 10+ years since I last played Half-Life. I guess it just shows how little impression Xen made on players if they can barely recall anything about it aside from the bare minimum.
It's quite obvious the majority enjoyed the parts before that more and that's what's Half-Life is remembered for.

>All this Xen hate parroting
You fags are just fucking gay.
Xen was fucking amazing finale. Fight me.

The only okay level is Interloper.

At lease Xen wasn't the first half of HL2

It looks nice, but it doesn't look anywhere near how I remember the original. Might as well make a different game on an alien planet, what's the point of this?

Xen looked awful and the only fun part was the fact that you had the long jump at all. Too bad that got absolutely raped in black mesa, crouch long jumping forward is way better

>Xen was fucking amazing finale
that alien brewery level was something straight out of a bad N64 game

>what's the point of this?
The game is called Black Mesa, not Half-Life HD. It's not supposed to be a 1:1 remake.

I don't hate it, it was just an objectively meh part of an otherwise amazing game.
Honestly, the idea and concept of it (going to another dimension where the enemies come from!) sounds a lot cooler than actually playing the levels themselves.

So then what is it? A reboot?

It's its own thing. They're not the half life team, they aren't making a half life game. It's more of a fan reinterpretation than a half life game, even if Valve did let them sell it.

Just some fans take on what if Valve made HL1 in 2010's instead of late 90's. It's not meant to be a replacement for the OG game.

Then it's basically a HL fan fiction that Valve allowed them to ask money for for some reason?

How did they do that? It feels like someone took SMB1, remade it in Unreal Engine 4, but after 1-1 different leves started to appear, and Nintendo approved it. Weird as fuck.

You really won't play a game because it's kind of old?

So Valve hired this man?

Some companies don't care about their IP

it stared as a simple remake of hl1 (leakfree/hsop) in the then new source engine because hl1 source is a broken hunk of shit that will never be fixed and it would be nice to have higher detail models, higher detail textures, more elaborate level geometry/detail, etc. but instead they got up their own asses and started changing shit for the sake of changing shit and have been doing that with xen for a bloody decade because they can't make up their mind.

It sounds exactly like that lmao.

As someone who played both well after its original release (so not blinded by nostalgia) I would play the original.

Black Mesa's graphics are cool but certain models and textures stick out like a sore thumb and ruin the aesthetic.

Alot of people hate Xen but i honestly found it to be the coolest part of the game. I didn't actually realise Xen wasnt in Black Mesa and was sorely disappointed when the game just fucking ended.

That's kinda what they'd always done up until they stopped making good games

A big part of HL1's success is also that it's a really great fucking game. It's still better than most singleplayer FPS games that come out these days. Superb gunplay, atmosphere, soundtrack, enemies, levels and story. Even all three expansions are top fucking notch.
Play it and you'll see. Not wanting to play a game because you suppose it relies too much on it's technological features is stupid.

Just fucking play the first one zoomer. It's physics are better than most of what you've probably played so far and despite the lower polygon count it will have better art style than the last 10 games you've played with that mindset of graphics=resolution.

But you won't of course otherwise you wouldn't make this thread. This thread is about having anons validate your desire to skip on HL1 and still be welcomed into the "cool videogame kids" club

was anyone really disappointed when they first played through the HL2 chapters that there was no Xen? I was looking forward to it the entire game and instead it was just bland metropolis for 90% of the game

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they cut xen because nobody liked it

Half Life 2 could have used more alien influence. Would have been neat to see the combine homeworld. Fuck valve for not releasing Episode 3.

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Not Xen in particular but I did expect to visit the Combine homeworld, like a homage or throwback to how we visited Xen in the first game. I was disappointed it didn't happen.

>What is the significance of Xen in the original?
It's literally the end of the story.

The Citadel section was pretty much just that.

yes. xen was fun, the alien world was cool (or as cool as the jury rigged quake 1 engine they had could allow) and there was actually a modicum of challenge in interloper. nihilanth could have been better designed though, he was a bit silly looking.

No it isn't on a rail and the waste plant are universally considered the worst.

I don't understand why they made all these changes to gameplay and levels for Black Mesa
Like, I get it, to really improve the graphics it is necessary to add and move some shit around but I don't understand the bigger changes.

>OnAugust 1stwe will roll out the completeXenANDGonarch's Lairchapters to public beta. Soon after (think weeks, not months), we will release the concluding chapters,Interloper,Nihilanth, andEndgameto public beta.

I'm in the same boat as you, at this point I'd say just wait a little bit longer.

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No idea why the spacing got fucked:
steamcommunity.com/games/362890/announcements/detail/1613893608716846079

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Xen is fucking garbage and ruins HL1 by being the last part of the game leaving a shit taste in your mouth. Probably better to not even play it. You just jump on floating platforms and shoot aliens.

Why do hl manchildren get so huffy when you say their game has aged?

Nag Black Mesa is way better than the original game. Give up, grandpa

Because age is a stupid argument.
Imagine how much you'd get called a retard by saying Tetris has aged poorly.

>wahhhh muh platforming
git gud you literal child

>wahhhh muh platforming
huh?

>can't run HL1 mods
You're a retard if you really expected this

then dont play it at all.

WAH WAH THE MONA LISA IS SO OLD
HERE, LET ME DRAW YOU A NEW ONE USING PAINT TOOL SAI

That's only when you use software audio renderer, it's way better when you use EAX or A3D
youtube.com/watch?v=f89bHgD-1G0

have a vanilla one, while the official is on the way
moddb.com/mods/black-mesa-xen-improved-maps-from-half-life/downloads/black-mesa-2012-improved-xen-v0511

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I played Black Mesa and then Blue Shift and Opposing Force just last week, the HL1 engine feels slippery and the guns like fucking pop guns, it has aged very poorly, notice how I haven't said a thing about graphics