official Black Mesa

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

Amazing, the level of detail in Black Mesa is immense! To be honest i find it hard to believe its not an official remake.

Everyone involved with it should be very proud, its an amazing achievement and well worth the years put in to it.

Also Black Mesa reminds my why i loved PC gaming in the last 90's and early 2000's, i really need to get back in to PC gaming.

[shakey]

Well, I haven't played it yet, but I did start the train ride.. customers started actually coming into my business :p

It seems a little stuttery on my system. Not sure if it is just the audio with Voice that is causing it, or if I will need to turn something down. Game looks great though, and I'm only 15 seconds in :p

[richardsim7]

This is absolutely amazing! A couple bugs here and there, but WOW!! :D

[RadishTM Veteran]

Also Black Mesa reminds my why i loved PC gaming in the last 90's and early 2000's

This (Y)

I'm halfway downloading the torrent, can't wait to fire it up! :)

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Merged

I usually use an external framerate limiter, as v-sync often interferes with mouse responsiveness. In this case I had v-sync enabled but thought it might be interfering with performance, so I disabled it and used the console to bring up the framerate for diagnostic purposes. As you can imagine, I'm not used to framerate drops in Source engine games.

I've completed Half-Life several times over the years and I've also watched all the Freeman's Mind episodes on YouTube, so I'm very familiar with the game. Already I've noticed some relatively significant - but well done - changes.

Here are a few screenshots I took earlier:

[image 1]

[image 2]

[image 3]

Those are some great screenshots. Thanks for posting them. I'm glad I downloaded the game (and backed it up) before I formatted my hard drive.

[Ambroos]

I have never ever properly tried HL2. I used to always quit after ten minutes because I got scared and freaked out :p I'm a little over an hour in Black Mesa now, I like the freedom and interactivity in the world, but I get stuck all the time and already died five times. And that's on easy.

[+virtorio MVC]

I'd love to play it, but all this talk of performance issues on computers much faster than my fairly old laptop makes me think I shouldn't even bother wasting the time and bandwidth.

[+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹]

just started and loving it already

i was replaying hl2 + ep1 + ep2 with cinematic mod. great fun, but not the same - since i already played it.

i never played hl1 - so this is a totally new experience.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

I have never ever properly tried HL2. I used to always quite after ten minutes because I got scared and freaked out :p

Boy are you ever going to have fun if you ever make it to Ravenholm!

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Those who have not played Half Life 1 yet are truly in for a treat. I just have to stress, please imagine what it was like to play this at the time it was released. There was truly no First Person Shooter like it yet. Some came close, but the level of immersiveness and story-telling through the environment and lack of text really had not yet been done yet to this level. The game was truly ground breaking. I just hope that translate some in this version of the game. I'm really looking forward to checking it out.

[theyarecomingforyou]

They've done a really good job of updating the gameplay mechanics. For instance, there are now some physics puzzles which are well implemented. And the bullsquid are now formidable enemies, as their attack obscures your vision and has a shock value. I know this mod took a long time but it actually manages to live up to expectations, which I didn't think was possible. The graphics really are top notch and in terms of production values it comes across as a proper game. My hope is that Valve will take notice and bring some of these guys on board.

A classic scene from the game:

And a random scene I liked:

[ViperAFK]

can't wait to play this! gotta wait till I get home from work though :(

The screenshots look great, looks like they've done an excellent job.

[+E.Worm Jimmy Subscriber¹]

hey guys i am stuck,

must be something simple. it is after you get the gun and you drop down with some "suckers" in underground tunnel. there is a valve i open that lets the water flood the tunnels... but i am not sure where to go and i keep dying.

please help - i am sure i am missing something obvious.

[Noir Angel]

I'm not far in yet but I'm very impressed with what I have seen so far. The voice acting is far better than I thought it might be, the character models are fantastic as are the visuals. And the level of detail put into the environments is simply stunning. Initial indications are it was well worth the wait.

[richardsim7]

hey guys i am stuck,

must be something simple. it is after you get the gun and you drop down with some "suckers" in underground tunnel. there is a valve i open that lets the water flood the tunnels... but i am not sure where to go and i keep dying.

please help - i am sure i am missing something obvious.

Remember the door where your dropped down? There's a ladder/hole on the other side, keep looking, you'll find the exit :)

[Max Norris]

I can't even find a decent place to download. Most want a subscription. gamershell was downloading at like 30kb/s. Gamefront got to 700mb and just stopped and aborted itself. AHH!

Grab the torrent, it's well seeded now and downloads fast.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I can't even find a decent place to download. Most want a subscription.

gamershell was downloading at like 30kb/s. Gamefront got to 700mb and just stopped and aborted itself. AHH!

Download the torrent from here and take a look at InsaneNutter's post. (Y)

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

I can't even find a decent place to download. Most want a subscription.

gamershell was downloading at like 30kb/s. Gamefront got to 700mb and just stopped and aborted itself. AHH!

Get the torrent. Took about 30 minutes to get going, but once it was going it was quick. Maxed out my connection the whole time, although with >30,000 seeds, that's kind of expected :p

[ViperAFK]

I'm really stumped early on... that hallway near the beginning with the lasers and mirrors and the door that won't open, what the hell do I do?

[Lewism]

The door won't open but you can crouch and get through the broken glass

[tsupersonic]

Well, I haven't played it yet, but I did start the train ride.. customers started actually coming into my business :p

It seems a little stuttery on my system. Not sure if it is just the audio with Voice that is causing it, or if I will need to turn something down. Game looks great though, and I'm only 15 seconds in :p

I have noticed it's stutters on my system too, and I think it does have something to do with the audio. I'm playing on the recommended graphics settings:

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

I have not checked it out yet but historically speaking with the source engine every single time I encountered stuttering, it was audio related.

Especially when I used to use onboard sound. Specifically Realtek onboard sound actually. So if anyone is using onboard sound and is encountering audio issues, check to see if there are drivers available for your sound.

Honestly even if you are not using onboard sound and using a dedicated sound card, there may be issues there. But literally it was always sound related. In fact I still have the same issue I have had over the years, in Counter Strike whenever I change any setting, the sound skips 3-5 times then the changes I made kick in. Has never gone away.

There was also some kind of trick with changing the Hz of the sound quality IIRC. I honestly do not remember what it was, but going to Google it now and see if I can find it. If I find it, I will post back.

EDIT - I did find this...

Note that changing the speaker configuration here may also change your default Windows speaker configuration under Control Panel>Sounds & Audio Devices, so keep this in mind if you notice your sound output sounds different for other games or in your media player for example. Also note that you should disable any special effects in your sound card's control panel. On the Audigy range of cards for example this involves going to your SoundBlaster AudioHQ, opening the EAX Control Panel and clicking the 'All Effects Off' button to disable additional EAX effects ? these can cause audio glitches and problems in Half Life 2. Finally, if you experience audio looping or stutters, see Stuttering under the Troubleshooting Tips section of the guide.

So this jogged my memory a little, play with the EAX settings of your sound, regardless if it is onboard or dedicated.

Found here...

[NateB1]

I'm over halfway through the game, and I'm blown away by the polish and the attention to detail - it's stunning. The voice actor for Dr. Kleiner sounds extremely close to the original actor - whoever did that did a fantastic job. The music fits right in - sounds like HL music, and comes in at all the appropriate points. My jaw dropped when I was riding the tram at the very beginning - all those open spaces, all the complexity for something they could have easily skimped, especially considering this is a *free* mod. Definitely lived up to my expectations, can't recommend it enough.

I have encountered the occasional glitch and crash, but considering that it's a free mod, I can't complain. :)

Oh, and yes, download it via torrent - plenty of people are seeding it (including me) so the download speed should be great.

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

Playing it right now and it really is nothing short of amazing. It's more polished and refined than 95 percent of games that receive a retail release (I honestly don't think that's an exaggeration in any way). The audio work is easily the most impressive aspect. The voiceovers are fantastic, and the sound effects are top notch as well. Animation work is fantastic, too. I've only seen a few bugs, but nothing more than any retail release would have seen (probably even less than most retail releases, in fact).

I think the gameplay and other things they've modified have worked out for the better. I was never a massive fan of the original Half-Life (I liked it, but didn't love it), but I loved Half-Life 2. The gameplay in this is more like a mix of the two (leaning more toward the sequel, however).

This is probably the best single-player FPS I've played since Half-Life 2 and its episodes or Crysis. It's easy to see why it's taken them this long to release it.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Unfortunately I've had several crashes now. The first was the typical "HL2.exe has stopped responding", the second was a locked screen with the sound looping (requiring Task Manager to close it). I also had my framerate drop into the 20s (

the part where the female assassin's appear; after killing the first one my framerate jumped back to 200fps

) and when I opened the console I noticed lots of red text to signify assets that hadn't loaded properly. Considering this is a free mod it's still a very impressive feat and I'm hoping a lot of the issues will be addressed.

The graphics continue to impress me and I thought I'd post a few more scenes: