Black Mesa Source

[Vapymid]

Yes, of course, Steam is needed to *run* the thing. But at least I can download the game on one machine and install on any other machine I want (yes, which must have Steam malware on it) without having to ask for anyone's permission.

 

The quality of Black Mesa mod is impressive. Valve should retrospectively hire the developers and give them full back-pay and bonuses for quick release turnaround (by Valve-time standards ).

 

Regards

[Alyxx Thorne]

Yes, of course, Steam is needed to *run* the thing. But at least I can download the game on one machine and install on any other machine I want (yes, which must have Steam malware on it) without having to ask for anyone's permission.

 

The quality of Black Mesa mod is impressive. Valve should retrospectively hire the developers and give them full back-pay and bonuses for quick release turnaround (by Valve-time standards ).

 

Regards

Yeah, what you said.

[Twilight Sparkle]

@ Twilight, what the hell do you mean by untill Gordon figures out to close the other eye when using scope? As far as I saw when using scope you can only see scope and that's it. And I actually really liked the new scope.

 

 

 

 

That's what it looks like for me (it may just be my resolution, for all I know) but either way I can't really use it very effectively. It's probably just a 'me' kind of thing, but I'd definitely prefer a HL2 style crossbow zoom, or a scope that had full tunnel vision at least. And yes, it's a cool idea, I just can't really work with it that well.

[101Phase]

Looking back on it, I actually kind of like the fact that the crowbar is found a bit later on in the level, it actually made that part of the game a lot more tense. Plus I appreciate that first guard a lot more than I would've otherwise and felt a lot more helpless when he inevitably got killed (but then again you get his gun after that so something good came out of it I guess).

 

And unless I missed an earlier one, I found it ironic that the first shotgun you find in this mod is also the first shotgun Freeman eventually gets in the mind series.

[ProHypster]

Spoilers mate!!!!

[Estophelen]

Anybody found "The pizza is a lie" easteregg?

[Alyxx Thorne]

Anybody found "The pizza is a lie" easteregg?

Nope. I'm gonna play through it again to explore more.

[Bravetriforcer]

Spoilers mate!!!!

 

It's Half Life and this is a Half Life-ish forum. If the plot is not engraved in to your mind, then that is your own fault.

[Humin]

I squished headcrabs with office chairs until I got the crowbar. Worked well for me.

[scott155]

It seemed like the best thing to do before the crowbar is to burn everything with flares. Which raises the question as to why every single scientist seems to have several flares on their desks. Maybe G-man put them there.

[101Phase]

I squished headcrabs with office chairs until I got the crowbar. Worked well for me.

 

You can do that?! Must try this later...

[Kirkreng]

It seemed like the best thing to do before the crowbar is to burn everything with flares. Which raises the question as to why every single scientist seems to have several flares on their desks. Maybe G-man put them there.

It's plausible they are scattered around the offices like fire extinguishers are(after all, much of the prospect seems to be underground). And the scientists went to get them when the lights went out after the Cascade.

 

Anyhow I thought it was pretty neat to include that mechanic since I don't think it was used a whole lot in HL2 and the episodes.

[scott155]

It's plausible they are scattered around the offices like fire extinguishers are(after all, much of the prospect seems to be underground). And the scientists went to get them when the lights went out after the Cascade.

 

Anyhow I thought it was pretty neat to include that mechanic since I don't think it was used a whole lot in HL2 and the episodes.

That makes sense. Also, if anyone wants to make a Black Mesa Mod mod, I want a flare-gun, just for shits and giggles.

[Luis]

I truly loved this mod. Just finished the whole playthrough. Here are some thoughts:

 

 

Intense scenes are way more intense than in the original HL. I particularily loved the final lobby section of Questionable Ethics, the ''Freeman? Freeman! --They've set up a trap for him!'' is engraved in my mind, as I played it several times. The scientists amusement/terror when they realize Freeman alone killed more than 15 marines is hilarious ''Look at what you did!''.

 

How everyone starts treating Gordon like a legend felt a lot more like in Half-Life 2, this wasn't present in the original game, not only from the side of the HECUs who hated him to death but the scientists and general Black Mesa personnel felt like that too. I loved it as well.

 

Not having the crowbar in the initial stages of Unforseen Consequences was great, after exploring how I could have fun with the physics of the source engine throwing stuff at scientists and listening to their reactions I discovered I could also use stuff to kill headcrabs. It makes you think a bit more out of the box.

 

As I told Alyxx as I was playing it for the first time, ammo supplies are way more scattered in this game. It creates a much more powerful survival and rationing feeling, I hope I'm not the only one who ran out of ammo several times..

 

Trip mines were useless, you can't even stand on them to boost yourself or avoid other tripmines, like in the warehouse filles with those in Surface Tension.

 

As Twilight and others have pointed out, the guards feel like actual human beings, for example when they see soldiers and just throw themselves at them yelling ''Fight you coward chickenheads!'' (or something like that). It wasn't until the latter stages of the game that I dared to kill them to get some ammo when they couldn't keep going.

 

I sumbled upon bugs too. At the end of Lambda Core, just before throwing myself into the portal number 07, I shot some bees at portal 08 or 09 and was stripped from my weapons. I continued like that just for the fun of it until I came across the scientists that send you to Xen, and their reservoir of guns. (which did not include a crowbar, so i'm now crowbarless).

 

[Twilight Sparkle]

I truly loved this mod. Just finished the whole playthrough. Here are some thoughts:

 

 

Intense scenes are way more intense than in the original HL. I particularily loved the final lobby section of Questionable Ethics, the ''Freeman? Freeman! --They've set up a trap for him!'' is engraved in my mind, as I played it several times. The scientists amusement/terror when they realize Freeman alone killed more than 15 marines is hilarious ''Look at what you did!''.

 

How everyone starts treating Gordon like a legend felt a lot more like in Half-Life 2, this wasn't present in the original game, not only from the side of the HECUs who hated him to death but the scientists and general Black Mesa personnel felt like that too. I loved it as well.

 

Not having the crowbar in the initial stages of Unforseen Consequences was great, after exploring how I could have fun with the physics of the source engine throwing stuff at scientists and listening to their reactions I discovered I could also use stuff to kill headcrabs. It makes you think a bit more out of the box.

 

As I told Alyxx as I was playing it for the first time, ammo supplies are way more scattered in this game. It creates a much more powerful survival and rationing feeling, I hope I'm not the only one who ran out of ammo several times..

 

Trip mines were useless, you can't even stand on them to boost yourself or avoid other tripmines, like in the warehouse filles with those in Surface Tension.

 

As Twilight and others have pointed out, the guards feel like actual human beings, for example when they see soldiers and just throw themselves at them yelling ''Fight you coward chickenheads!'' (or something like that). It wasn't until the latter stages of the game that I dared to kill them to get some ammo when they couldn't keep going.

 

I sumbled upon bugs too. At the end of Lambda Core, just before throwing myself into the portal number 07, I shot some bees at portal 08 or 09 and was stripped from my weapons. I continued like that just for the fun of it until I came across the scientists that send you to Xen, and their reservoir of guns. (which did not include a crowbar, so i'm now crowbarless).

 

On the tripmines, I managed to get SOME use out of them. You know that part in power up where you're going to fix the generator, and the soldiers come down the elevator on the way back up, and also they're waiting at the top for you? Before I went down I dropped a satchel on the elevator and planted tripmines so the lasers would cover the hallways. The satchel worked, obviously, and the laser tripmines actually proved surprisingly useful in another way. They completely limit the soldiers' mobility. Even though the soldiers seemed to spawn in the room itself, they weren't able to retreat without setting one of them off, so they all either blew up when I wounded them enough and they tried to flee, or were just cut down by gunfire. Apparently the tripmines weren't ever really meant to kill them, just make it harder for them to get close to you, which I suppose is realistic, if nothing else. Basically they can be useful, but you either have to know in advance where the enemy is going to be or you have to get really creative with them. And I tried them on aliens as well. They seem completely oblivious to the danger.

 

I also amused myself by planting them one by one on the wall as I ran from the Gargantua on Surface Tension so they'd damage it as it chased me, not that it really helped or anything, I just thought it'd be something that Gordon might do were he in that situation (not necessarily Ross' Gordon).

 

I liked the Guard lines too, both the new ones (My favorite is when they're fighting soldiers. It's something like "Semper Fi motherfuckers!") and the old ("Man, did you see that shot?!")

 

I did notice that you don't get scientist followers very often, as they seem to be somewhat less common and when you do find them they usually refuse to go with you. In fact, I think other than Questionable Ethics the only time I had scientists in my group was on Office Complex. Kind of a shame really, some of their lines were funny.

[Luis]

It's also kind of difficult to get them to heal you, I was able to get a shot only once, and some didn't even try to when I talked to them and pressed E over 15 times, even being at 16 HP.

[Lord Sinister]

It's also kind of difficult to get them to heal you, I was able to get a shot only once, and some didn't even try to when I talked to them and pressed E over 15 times, even being at 16 HP.

 

In the original Half-Life didn't you had to hold your USE key in order to get them to heal you? If so, it might be the same in Black Mesa.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Yeah, that's right. You had to hold USE in order to heal from scientists.

[Luis]

I tried that as well and didn't work. Was I droing it wrong, probably? did it work well for you?

[Twilight Sparkle]

I tried that as well and didn't work. Was I droing it wrong, probably? did it work well for you?

 

I thought they did it automatically if your health was low.