Black Mesa Source

[Bravetriforcer]

So even if BM decided to make scientists more combat-ready, in the end that would go against Valve's original vision.

 

According to that one Rock, Paper Shotgun interview, Black Mesa is not going to be saying "We shouldn't do this because this admittedly dated FPS from 1998 that we're reimagining didn't do it."

[mehdawg654]

Christ, it was just an idea. I wouldn't want it to be the the default way.

[Alyxx Thorne]

So even if BM decided to make scientists more combat-ready, in the end that would go against Valve's original vision.

 

According to that one Rock, Paper Shotgun interview, Black Mesa is not going to be saying "We shouldn't do this because this admittedly dated FPS from 1998 that we're reimagining didn't do it."

Well, I wouldn't want Black Mesa to be TOO radically different from HL1 to be honest.

[Martin]

g-wfdgpCRXc

Looks pretty fun. The voice acting isn't that good, though.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Yeah, voice acting is a bit on the cheesy side. Otherwise, it looks really good.

[Chuckthe2nd]

Yeah, they focused way to much on getting actors that sound just like the originals, rather than ones who can actually act.

[scott155]

This makes me glad Ross couldn't switch to BM:S. He couldn't make the joke about the microbiologists.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Heh, I guess not. Besides, Vanilla Half-Life will always be best imho.

[Chuckthe2nd]

Is it just me, or is the sound effect for the mounted gun at 2:15 the same sound used for the Assault Rifle in Mass Effect?

[Alyxx Thorne]

Is it just me, or is the sound effect for the mounted gun at 2:15 the same sound used for the Assault Rifle in Mass Effect?

I think it is. Sounds nearly identical.

[The Hamburglar]

One of the soldier sounded like he was trying to imitate Duke Nukem.

 

Seriously that voice acting is ridiculous.

[Pinkie Pie]

Fucking love the music, though.

 

Honestly, the devs never focused on the grunt's dialogue, anyway. All the voice acting I've heard were from the scientists and the security guards (seriously, the guy who plays the guards sounds exactly. Fucking. Like Shapiro) were pretty good. The only grunt dialogue I heard before this were some outtake lines.

 

EDIT: Well, apparently that music is not in the game. Not a problem, I'll make it a part of the game, dammit.

2ND EDIT: Okay, I also heard that some dev on Facebook said it was in the game. I don't know who to believe.

[Vapymid]

I guess the job will be to kill all the soldiers before they can have a chance to say anything and so ruin the game...

 

Also, to me, the music is really awful... tatata tstststs tatatata tstststs (repeat endlessly) - the whole internets is full of it in one flavour or another. Whoever "composed" it must be tried in the Hague for crimes against humanity.

 

Regards

[Lord Sinister]

This should help:

 

http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showpost.php?p=474198&postcount=164

 

There have been too many posts for me to reply to individually, but I'll go over the basic points I've seen crop up a bunch of times. I'll try to address everything as transparently as I can, because there's a lot of misinformation floating around.

 

Is this a leak? Was it released intentionally?

We had always been planning to release gameplay video(s) as part of the social media campaign, and we'd always hinted as such. Unfortunately, we ran into some difficulties while we were wrapping up the build (including several severe FPS drops and crashes) that delayed our plans for the media campaign and any gameplay videos. Once we got those sorted, we started to try to figure out what we could show off; the video that was posted to YouTube was a rough first cut outlining some possible action.

 

Someone showed someone else something they shouldn't have, and that someone else decided to share that something with the internet. And here we are today. Bottom line is that sooner or later, you were going to see what you saw; that's why we haven't tried to cover everything up or get it taken down. There's no conspiracy, we don't have any ulterior motives.

 

How old is the build of the game?

The build featured in the video is between four and five weeks old. The art assets, level design, lighting, sound effects and music, voice acting, weapons, gameplay mechanics, etc. are all basically final. You won't be seeing very many changes between what's in the video and what's in the final product.

 

Is the music actually in-game?

The music in the second half in the video is the actual song from the level, it hasn't been overlaid afterwards. It syncs up well with the action because it's been designed to; the song was specifically written for this area. The audio quality of the YouTube video doesn't do it justice though, and it sounds like the game's music volume was turned up too high while the video was recorded.

 

Why are there iron-sights in the game?

You can look down the sights of the .357 for a slight zoom and increase in accuracy at the expense of your rate of fire. It was a mechanic that was present in Half-Life: Deathmatch, but we've brought it into the singleplayer to help solidify the weapon's role. We've added an option to the main menu to completely disable that functionality, as a result of the feedback we've received from the video.

 

The .357 and crossbow are the only weapons that you can use the sights on, and they're for decent gameplay reasons. We aren't casualising or consolifying the mod; you don't have regenerating health, there aren't chest-high walls, you won't get strawberry jam on the screen when you're hurt, etc.

 

Why does everything look like crap?

The compression YouTube applies has blurred and darkened everything, even at 720p settings. You lose a lot of stuff like the scanlines on the HUD, the stars twinkling in the sky, the moonlight illuminating the launch pad and the hologram illuminating the control bunker, any real texture detail, outdoor characters, etc. I've got the original video at 1080p, and everything looks fine.

 

Why is the voice acting so bad?

Everything is intentional; the soldiers are meant to sound like over-the-top movie bad guys. We're not interested in trying to get you to empathise with the enemies.

 

Will this affect the plans for further media or the release?

It has, we're actually going to be moving some things forward. Time has never been on our side.

[Alyxx Thorne]

I can get past the voice acting really. Definitely does give it a kind of b-movie feel.

[Chuckthe2nd]

One of the two guys actually sounds like Duke Nukem.

[Pinkie Pie]

Yeah I figured the voice acting was intentional. That was WAYY too cheesy to try to sound badass.

 

As for the 'moving things forward' part.

 

 

 

EDIT: Well, it seems the devs and Valvetime are arguing on their forums. Get out your popcorn, folks!

[Delta 757]

I'm looking at the YouTube comments and the comments on Valve Time. lol People saying they are going to pirate this because of X are either horrendously stupid or terrible trolls.

[scott155]

Frankly, I think the voice acting is pretty funny. If this was something that was going to cost money, I might be disappointed, but I think this will be a very fun mod.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Yeah, it's a free mod so I don't see why it's a big deal.