Can't seem to find a thread for this, so thought I'd do a thing.
So, what is it?
Basically, Black Mesa is a Source mod that re-imagines the world of Half Life, created by a group of modders who were disappointed with the port of Half Life to the Source Engine, due to it not making full use of the Engine's capabilities. Originally started in 2004, it was slated for a 2009 release before being delayed to "when it's done".
Okay then, what's new?
What's new? What's new? HOW ABOUT EVERYTHING!? Yup, the whole thing has been built from the ground up. Every sound, model, map and texture has been completely re-done! Played Half Life before? Well, since this is a re-imagining of the original, rather than a straight up re-make, the modders have taken some liberties with the layout and feel of the world, so the game will still be nice and fresh.
Enemies are now also a lot more challenging to fight, thanks to better AI and tweaks to health and damage.
For example, any given HECU squad will have a commander who leads the rest of the troops. Killing him will result in the other units becoming less organised. Some squads will also have Medics to heal the others in battle.
Weapons have also been given a re-balancing, with ammo counts for the shotgun and grenades being reduced from 125 to 30 and 10 to 5, respectively. Want some more features? This thing's got loads of 'em.
Well then, uh, when is "when it's done"?
Funny you should mention that. At the time of writing this, the game is roughly 6 days away from it's partial release on September 14th. However, it is only partial, as the Xen section isn't quite done yet, and will be patched in later on. Otherwise, the game will be playable up until the portal in the Lambda Core, with the dev team saying "Xen is basically going to be a complete game in it's own right". So don't forget to look forward to that!
Any fancy media?
Yeah sure, here. Everythin' ya need for fancy mediain'.
Videos
Official Trailer
Fairly recent gameplay
Small voice acting preview
There's also plenty of fancy alpha/beta stage videos on the dev team's channel.
Fairly recent gameplay
Small voice acting preview
There's also plenty of fancy alpha/beta stage videos on the dev team's channel.
Images
Music
The lovely Joel Nielsen, maker of the mod's fancy music, has been nice enough to put the OST up for download. Name your price.
Wow, sure does sound fantastic! But surely this requires money, right?
Oh yeah. I nearly forgot.
It's free. Yup.
Gee whiz, that's pretty rad to the mizzax!! But is there any more info to read up on?
Sure is. Head on over to the Black Mesa Wiki, check out the FAQ, or peruse the forums for more of that jazz.
