Rather than my own Black Mesa review, I think the analysis that could be of some interest here would be a breakdown of how it feels to play Half-Life for the first time in 2023. It was enlightening for me to realise how used I am to hand holding in games. I often found myself missing a quest log of some sort, or got lost without a clear goal: I know I have to go to Lambda, but where is that? Should I be able to see it from here? Am I going the right direction? Why am I entering the sewers? Should I really keep trying to reach that ledge? Why can't I remember what the last scientist told me? And so on. These are probably a problem with myself rather than flaws of the game, but still I found a few other issues related to the aging of the original material:
· Lack of exploration whatsoever: 95% of the time, if you can access some place, that is because it is the way to go. Again, this could be a problem with me being used to more modern sandbox games or open worlds, but since very early in the game my location awareness was warped.
· Platforming gets awful at times: narrow spaces and layouts with sometimes unreadable level design gave me more than one headache. It does get better with the tools from the late game, but still I would get stuck or have issues with hitboxes more often than what I would expect in this genre.
· AIs weak spots are common and easy to see.
· Autosaves can happen "anywhere", sometimes even mid-death; it is not really that impactful but lately I am finding that this type of issues triggers me more and more.
· Other technical issues derived from an engine which probably doesn't have much more to give, such as frequent crashes (uncharacteristic for my high-end machine) and a strange bug that kept changing my video settings to literally Potato quality.
A few counterpoints to back up why I can recommend Black Mesa:
· It has the coolest suit up scene in videogames that I can remember.
· It manages to create a feeling of real DISGUST with Headcrabs and Barnacles. Holy shit. Even if I am able to see how plain the instruments are (models, design, animations, audio), the sum of the parts provokes absolute revulsion in me. Brilliant.
· Its soundtrack is 👌.
· I know the hidden hat and pizza challenges get a lot of hate but I genuinely had a lot of fun carrying those items absurdly.
· Lack of exploration whatsoever: 95% of the time, if you can access some place, that is because it is the way to go. Again, this could be a problem with me being used to more modern sandbox games or open worlds, but since very early in the game my location awareness was warped.
· Platforming gets awful at times: narrow spaces and layouts with sometimes unreadable level design gave me more than one headache. It does get better with the tools from the late game, but still I would get stuck or have issues with hitboxes more often than what I would expect in this genre.
· AIs weak spots are common and easy to see.
· Autosaves can happen "anywhere", sometimes even mid-death; it is not really that impactful but lately I am finding that this type of issues triggers me more and more.
· Other technical issues derived from an engine which probably doesn't have much more to give, such as frequent crashes (uncharacteristic for my high-end machine) and a strange bug that kept changing my video settings to literally Potato quality.
A few counterpoints to back up why I can recommend Black Mesa:
· It has the coolest suit up scene in videogames that I can remember.
· It manages to create a feeling of real DISGUST with Headcrabs and Barnacles. Holy shit. Even if I am able to see how plain the instruments are (models, design, animations, audio), the sum of the parts provokes absolute revulsion in me. Brilliant.
· Its soundtrack is 👌.
· I know the hidden hat and pizza challenges get a lot of hate but I genuinely had a lot of fun carrying those items absurdly.