9/10. Now THIS is Half-Life 2's true story predecessor.
If I'm being honest, I respect Half-Life 1, yet I also can't stand it. The controls are slippery, the human models have aged poorly, it has a choppy interface when tabbing out, it's difficulty spikes were incredibly inconsistent, and of course, Xen was just bad.
All of that has been completely overhauled and fixed in Black Mesa, along with a graphical upgrade that puts this roughly halfway between Episode Two and Alyx in terms of how good it looks.
The gunplay, while not quite as tightly attuned as HL2, is very satisfying, with no weapon feeling outright useless (besides maybe the hand thing, never used it) and all having a well defined purpose and potential benefits/drawbacks, as any well dusted FPS should have.
The retcons Black Mesa also makes to fit more in line with Half-Life 2 and the Episodes is also much appreciated, even if I kinda wish we could've seen Kleiner again, given unlike Eli, there would be nothing canonically stopping him from doing so.
Atmosphere and music wise, absolutely top notch. Kelly Bailey's original score is also excellent, but Black Mesa manages to create a score and ambient tracklist that's both unique to itself and faithful to the original.
Finally, there's Xen and the Nihilanth fight. Gorgeous views at the beginning that turn into haunting red and suffocating grays that perfectly demonstrate the cruelty of the Nihilanth and its controllers. Not to mention, being able to save the Vortigaunts and them slowly warming up to you as you ascend closer and closer to their slavemaster is thematically brilliant, and perfectly sets up their gratitude to Freeman in the sequel.
The Nihilanth fight was simply enthralling. After an intense, empowering ascent towards the final portal, where the score just goes all out with making Freeman into THE Freeman, you confront the ruler of the Borderworld in an absolutely sublime final battle that mixes difficulty with intensity, scale, and pure will to fight. By the time the bastard meets his end, I had the wildest "get fucked you slaving, genocidal bastard" smile on my face in ages.
Then of course the Combine comes in and renders this all a bittersweet, hollow victory...
...imma go replay HL2 and the Episodes, it feels appropriate now. Also Crowbar Collective should make Half-Life 3, if Valve can't be bothered, might as well.
If I'm being honest, I respect Half-Life 1, yet I also can't stand it. The controls are slippery, the human models have aged poorly, it has a choppy interface when tabbing out, it's difficulty spikes were incredibly inconsistent, and of course, Xen was just bad.
All of that has been completely overhauled and fixed in Black Mesa, along with a graphical upgrade that puts this roughly halfway between Episode Two and Alyx in terms of how good it looks.
The gunplay, while not quite as tightly attuned as HL2, is very satisfying, with no weapon feeling outright useless (besides maybe the hand thing, never used it) and all having a well defined purpose and potential benefits/drawbacks, as any well dusted FPS should have.
The retcons Black Mesa also makes to fit more in line with Half-Life 2 and the Episodes is also much appreciated, even if I kinda wish we could've seen Kleiner again, given unlike Eli, there would be nothing canonically stopping him from doing so.
Atmosphere and music wise, absolutely top notch. Kelly Bailey's original score is also excellent, but Black Mesa manages to create a score and ambient tracklist that's both unique to itself and faithful to the original.
Finally, there's Xen and the Nihilanth fight. Gorgeous views at the beginning that turn into haunting red and suffocating grays that perfectly demonstrate the cruelty of the Nihilanth and its controllers. Not to mention, being able to save the Vortigaunts and them slowly warming up to you as you ascend closer and closer to their slavemaster is thematically brilliant, and perfectly sets up their gratitude to Freeman in the sequel.
The Nihilanth fight was simply enthralling. After an intense, empowering ascent towards the final portal, where the score just goes all out with making Freeman into THE Freeman, you confront the ruler of the Borderworld in an absolutely sublime final battle that mixes difficulty with intensity, scale, and pure will to fight. By the time the bastard meets his end, I had the wildest "get fucked you slaving, genocidal bastard" smile on my face in ages.
Then of course the Combine comes in and renders this all a bittersweet, hollow victory...
...imma go replay HL2 and the Episodes, it feels appropriate now. Also Crowbar Collective should make Half-Life 3, if Valve can't be bothered, might as well.