BLACK MESA [2015] STEAM PC REVIEW

🏆  MASTERPIECE  🏆

The positive:

💗 A love letter to Half-Life fans that hits the mark

💗 Feels very familiar, but it also feels very fresh

💗 Crowbar Co does an amazing job of retelling the story

💗 The Black Mesa Complex feels like a massive place now

💗 The new voice acting sounds way better than the old voice clips

💗 Xen went from a chain of floating islands into a rich and diverse alien ecosystem

💗 If you have never played Half-Life, you owe it to yourself to check out Black Mesa

The negative:

👎 It took a whopping 15 years to finish the project! 

👎 Took so long to make, that black mesa could benefit from a Graphics remake

👎 The retail release of 2015 did not include the final Xen levels

👎 Had to wait until Early 2020 to experience the full remake

👎 Had some Deja-vu, this was similar to the HL3 situation

Crowbar Collective released Black Mesa on Steam in 2015 to great critical acclaim, as a fan-made remake of the original 1998 Half-Life using the Source Engine created by valve in 2004. Despite the game not being finished, fans would buy the product as a way to help fund the project and to get their hands on Crowbar Collective work. But even with community support and Valve's backing of the project, several delays would make the fans have to wait until early 2020 to experience the Xen levels. And the wait was worth it! All the passion and hard work that was put into the remake satisfied our nostalgic cravings for Alien worlds filled with fun and beauty. 

A LONG JOURNEY

There are many aspects of this project that made Black Mesa unique in the gaming industry. It started in early 2005 as a fan-made MOD that caught so much attention from the Half-Life community over the years that even Valve took an interest. This was unprecedented: Valve gave them the chance to upgrade their work from MOD into an official Remake. It speaks highly both of Valve and Crowbar Collective. How much time it took them to complete the project is also something to highlight as they released the MOD in 2012 but started working on the Black Mesa Source project as early as 2005. If we take into account that the 2015 steam version was not completed and that the XEN levels arrived in early 2020, it's a whopping 15-year project! 

Not many studios can sell gamers an unfinished product, delay several times the complete release, and get away with it by having the community praise them while getting high scores everywhere. I think Crowbar Collective took on a risky gamble that paid off tenfold. I was born in 1985 so by the time I played half-life in 1998, I was only 13, been playing video games for a while by that time, mostly with my friends, but this was something I could experience by myself and I was hooked on this new, life-changing experience! Been trying to come back to it a couple of times, but it's impossible for me. Not only for the graphics, but I'm also used to modern standards -it was revolutionary in 1998- but even so by today's standards, half-life is an unpolished, plain, dated, and boring shooter with almost no gameplay narrative to connect the plot. Which is fine for a game that is more than 20 years old by now. I needed Crowbar Collective to satisfy this nostalgia so I go back to Black Mesa once again and face the Alien invasion.

The 1st time I tried the MOD was in 2013 I believe, it was a blast! I remember writing an email to the guys at crowbar collective to thank them for their hard work, I really appreciate their effort. Then I bought the game when it was released on the Steam platform as a stand-alone game around 2016 and experienced a more polished remake. Man, that was an awesome experience! What a great way to relieve the story that started my deep connection and passion for the games and their lore. But after completing the Lambda Core chapter, like so many gamers, I got ready to jump into that portal to see the credits roll. I was told that the game was not completed yet. I would have to wait for the final chapter to be released! OMG. A few years went by, and then I saw the trailers for the Black Mesa definitive edition including the XEN chapters, it was beautiful. You could see the passion, the love, and the hard work these guys put their back into it. I was finally ready to end the final chapter. I felt the lure of adventure mixed with nostalgia, calling me back to complete the story, become the freeman once again, and fulfill my destiny: to kick the nihilanth ass.

BACK TO BLACK MESA

Black Mesa sticks closely to Half-Life in terms of structure. You take the tram into work, enjoy the much improved guided tour of the facilities, get to that test chamber and trigger the resonance cascade that floods the facility with aliens, dodge head crabs in the office complex, engage in tense gunfights with the Marines sent there to clean up the place, deal with giant tentacles in the blast pit, fight through a warzone on the surface, navigate the radioactive Lambda Core, and finally visit the Xen Alien world. 

There is incredible attention to detail, and everything is as good as you remember, even better! with production values approaching Half-Life 2, which breathes new life into the Black Mesa Incident. Some levels have been remixed too, with slight changes every now and then, or in some cases completely new overhauls, puzzles, and set-pieces. So even if you know Half-Life inside out, there'll still be some surprises here and then.

1998 Half-Life feels increasingly dull and dated as the years roll on. But Black Mesa being built on the foundations of Half-Life 2, borrowing its weapon handling and chaotic physics simulation, makes for a much more dynamic and engaging first-person shooter. It was beautiful, I enjoyed it. Man what a Masterpiece. Great fan service all the way. Wish we could see Half-life III someday.