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Black Mesa Source |OT| Do you know who ate all the donuts?

Mr Cola

Brothas With Attitude / The Wrong Brotha to Fuck Wit / Die Brotha Die / Brothas in Paris
Love the game so far, tremendously fun, seemless and well voiced. One complaint is the marines, their god aim can make some situations feel pretty shitty, causing alot of quicksaving.
 

bbyybb

CGI bullshit is the death knell of cinema
Just finished it, I was very impressed at how it finally turned out even with the last section incomplete.

Sure there are some quirks with enemy ai and some other minor points but overall it doesn't detract too much from the final package.

Looking forward to the complete game, hopefully we don't have to wait too long.

An interesting note about Surface Tensions length from the forums

http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showpost.php?p=497026&postcount=12

According to OnboardError, one of the reasons why many of those Surface Tension scenes got cut was because one of their mappers quit halfway through the project, so they had to cut everything between the vent-shooting and the Garg chase due to manpower/time constraints.

I wonder if that will be changed in a future release.
 

Rufus

Member
Another complaint about the Marine AI: they are also alerted by you even when their back is turned to you while you sneak around the corner from 50 feet away. 360' no-scope.
Yeah, I think this especially made the first time you encounter a tank much more difficult. The tank sees you from everywhere, too, so I don't even know how anyone is supposed to take advantage of the rocket launcher at the end of the catwalk.
 
Just beat it. Fantastic update to Half-Life and didn't feel like a mod at all outside of the VA in some spots. Retained the spirit of Half-Life while bringing it into the 21st century.

I have a question when you encounter headcrabs later on in the game

Did they always burrow in the ground? Or was that something they brought over from HL2? If it was brought over from HL2 I really liked that little addition in terms of connecting the games

In regards to the Aperture and Black Mesa feud at first I was hoping to see Aperture stuff around Black Mesa, but in the end I'm glad they left it out. The world of HL1 was Black Mesa going to hell and that corporate stuff just wouldn't have. It worked well in Portal because the whole corporate side of science was there. I do recall you went into more of the office complex of Black Mesa in Opposing Force and it would be interesting if they did make mention of Aperture in that mod, whenever it gets released. It seems like it would work in some of those environments.
 

Rufus

Member
Really don't know where the hate of first person platforming is coming from?! I kinda like it, in most games.
It's screwy, especially when you can see (or don't have) feet. Judging distances in first person is also difficult. You rely on a jump making sense more than you do by knowing how far you can jump, at least in the beginning. Then there's the sliding forwards when you don't let go of W and other idiosyncrasies that can make it hard. I don't mind it too much here, and you can always save scum your way through, but I can see why people hate it.
 

Rufus

Member
I wish the Soldiers would at least reel from being shot at. I don't mind them flanking me like suicidal hounds if they didn't act like terminators. I'm the one in the invincible science suit. >:c

Did they always burrow in the ground? Or was that something they brought over from HL2? If it was brought over from HL2 I really liked that little addition in terms of connecting the games
They always did.

In regards to the Aperture and Black Mesa feud at first I was hoping to see Aperture stuff around Black Mesa, but in the end I'm glad they left it out.
Well, there's still the one very interesting enemy type
in the warehouse where you get knocked out. Same leg attachments as Chell.
 

Mr_eX

Member
This is my first time playing Half Life 1. So far everything is great except for the platforming, which is terrible.
 

tpax

Banned
How do you finish that hat achievement? If I carry the hat through the teleport, and it lands on one of that moving platforms I can't pick it up again. Messing around with that hat for almost an hour.

EDIT: Ok, got it. Pretty tricky stuff.
 

Fireblend

Banned
I honestly thought before playing this that I'd have a hard time going through it and I would abandon it at some point, since I remember the original HL taking me ages to finish, but now I'm up to Apprehension and I'm absolutely enjoying the mod; platforming is great, enemies are great (I do recognize the AI issues you guys mention tho), the graphics are breathtaking (even installed HL again to compare) and the flow is flawless; I even remember hating On a Rail, and was very very pleasantly surprised to see it was completely reworked. Definitely going to finish this.
 

Kuroyume

Banned
Haven't checked the mod out yet but I played through the HL series (HL1, 2, ep1, ep2) for the first time earlier this year and I want add a comment to the discussion on the platforming in the first game: It's terrible. Like, it really almost killed the game for me. Platforming in FPS is just bad.

Also want to mention that the game has a lot of really bad trial and error moments. Like, oh a base/building is getting nuked by jet fighters and the ceiling collapses on you... Well, you better be on the right spot or you're dead. Like, how the hell are you suppose to know where to stand?
 

kodt

Banned
Played just the first 30 minutes or so. So far it is all very well done. I'm impressed. Feels good to be playing HL again.

Did anyone have some obscenely long load times at the beginning? It took about 5 minutes to load the initial menu screen, and then the first load point during the train ride took another 3 minutes or so. After that it has been fast. (this is on a Core i7 920, 6GB ram, 7200rpm drive).
 

gabbo

Member
Also want to mention that the game has a lot of really bad trial and error moments. Like, oh a base/building is getting nuked by jet fighters and the ceiling collapses on you... Well, you better be on the right spot or you're dead. Like, how the hell are you suppose to know where to stand?

That bunker has signs on the wall saying where to go I believe.
 

nan0

Member
Played just the first 30 minutes or so. So far it is all very well done. I'm impressed. Feels good to be playing HL again.

Did anyone have some obscenely long load times at the beginning? It took about 5 minutes to load the initial menu screen, and then the first load point during the train ride took another 3 minutes or so. After that it has been fast. (this is on a Core i7 920, 6GB ram, 7200rpm drive).

Yeah, but I had that in almost all Source games. It gets faster the more you play.
 

Sibylus

Banned
Just finished it, I was very impressed at how it finally turned out even with the last section incomplete.

Sure there are some quirks with enemy ai and some other minor points but overall it doesn't detract too much from the final package.

Looking forward to the complete game, hopefully we don't have to wait too long.

An interesting note about Surface Tensions length from the forums

http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showpost.php?p=497026&postcount=12

According to OnboardError, one of the reasons why many of those Surface Tension scenes got cut was because one of their mappers quit halfway through the project, so they had to cut everything between the vent-shooting and the Garg chase due to manpower/time constraints.

I wonder if that will be changed in a future release.
This is one of the reasons why you don't assemble a gargantuan mod team of unfamiliar faces for multi-year projects, things like this will happen (it's not a question of if). The story has been repeated so many times amongst modding circles it's a wonder these massive projects ever get done.
 

Razek

Banned
I had fun with it. I must have because I dreamt about it last night haha. It was a good game overall.
[General spoilers about the game]
The game gets a lot easier once you get the alien gun that has infinite ammo. You can just sit behind corners and shoot the homing shots in rooms to clean them out, and the AI will never trigger. The final assassin encounter in the warehouse was the best part. They didn't even get to move since they never knew I was in the room. The most powerful gun is that beam thing you get at the end of the game, but the best overall was the revolver. So versatile!


One thing I wish they made was the dead ops coop side story. That was an absolute blast on the PS2!
 
Played a bit of it yesterday and damn they did a great job. The levels and pacing of HL are probably the best ever designed and the little touches added with BM (as well as the slight bump in difficulty) is making this play through as good as I remembered. I only wish more modern games were as well designed as HL was 14 years ago.
 

-BLITZ-

Member
Replaying and I notice that in We have hostiles, the first security room, imediatly after you get out from the elevator, the door is blocked[red] yet on the other side another door[green] but I can't find the path to the other door since all the other doors don't open.

I think they have forgot to script a door because I clearly remember that I could get there after the security guy is killed by the zombie. Anyone manage, the Spas12 is there and I need it.
 

McNum

Member
Replaying and I notice that in We have hostiles, the first security room, imediatly after you get out from the elevator, the door is blocked[red] yet on the other side another door[green] but I can't find the path to the other door since all the other doors don't open.

I think they have forgot to script a door because I clearly remember that I could get there after the security guy is killed by the zombie. Anyone manage, the Spas12 is there and I need it.
No, you just have to take the long path. The really long path. We Got Hostiles starts and ends in the same room.
 

Dance Inferno

Unconfirmed Member
I get random lag spikes and crashes whenever I'm in a room that has water, and I almost always get crashes when I jump into water. Is this a known issue, or is my laptop just terrible? I have a 2.5 GHz dual core processor and integrated Intel HD graphics. The game runs great on pretty much max settings, but water completely destroys my performance.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Black Mesa reminds me that, like the Zelda formula, the level design style of a continuous, first person campaign of interconnected levels taking place in one big 'world', versus compartmentalised 'level selection', is a bafflingly underused concept in today's games.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Replaying and I notice that in We have hostiles, the first security room, imediatly after you get out from the elevator, the door is blocked[red] yet on the other side another door[green] but I can't find the path to the other door since all the other doors don't open.

I think they have forgot to script a door because I clearly remember that I could get there after the security guy is killed by the zombie. Anyone manage, the Spas12 is there and I need it.

You clearly remember wrong. The only way you could do that was by glitching a scientist which to my knowledge is not possible in BMS.

You gotta earn the Spas 12, son :)

I get random lag spikes and crashes whenever I'm in a room that has water, and I almost always get crashes when I jump into water. Is this a known issue, or is my laptop just terrible? I have a 2.5 GHz dual core processor and integrated Intel HD graphics. The game runs great on pretty much max settings, but water completely destroys my performance.

Try turning water settings down to their lowest if you haven't. Reflect All is the highest setting and acts like an angled mirror. The lowest setting is a little ugly and doesn't reflect anything but it's worth it to play through the game!
 

Sibylus

Banned
I get random lag spikes and crashes whenever I'm in a room that has water, and I almost always get crashes when I jump into water. Is this a known issue, or is my laptop just terrible? I have a 2.5 GHz dual core processor and integrated Intel HD graphics. The game runs great on pretty much max settings, but water completely destroys my performance.
Knock reflections down as far as they go if you haven't already, might help.
 

gwarm01

Member
Is anyone else noticing slight performance issues? I'm running an i5, HD5850, with 8GB of RAM and yet I'm dipping into sub-60fps quite a bit. It's shocking for a Source game to do this. Maybe I just have someone configured wrong in my settings.
 

DocSeuss

Member
Just finished it, I was very impressed at how it finally turned out even with the last section incomplete.

Sure there are some quirks with enemy ai and some other minor points but overall it doesn't detract too much from the final package.

Looking forward to the complete game, hopefully we don't have to wait too long.

An interesting note about Surface Tensions length from the forums

http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showpost.php?p=497026&postcount=12

According to OnboardError, one of the reasons why many of those Surface Tension scenes got cut was because one of their mappers quit halfway through the project, so they had to cut everything between the vent-shooting and the Garg chase due to manpower/time constraints.

I wonder if that will be changed in a future release.

Massive Bummer. I'm not there yet, but Surface Tension is, aside from Blast Pit, one of my favorite levels.

Replaying and I notice that in We have hostiles, the first security room, imediatly after you get out from the elevator, the door is blocked[red] yet on the other side another door[green] but I can't find the path to the other door since all the other doors don't open.

I think they have forgot to script a door because I clearly remember that I could get there after the security guy is killed by the zombie. Anyone manage, the Spas12 is there and I need it.

The room where the security guy is killed by his zombie friend now has a revolver in it, not a shotgun. The first Spas (and why'd they have to make it look like Half-Life 2's model? Ew) you get is in the room where the guy gives his "you can trust me; you can trust all of us" speech.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I'm up to Residue Processing, and I'm reminded that it's probably my least favourite chapter in the game. Too much industrial for my taste.
 
Gave up at the first bossfight (giant tentacles), really do not like scripted stuff like that and it was just awkward.

I turned on the reactor and went back to the control room but still couldn't launch the rocket(?). Is this a bug or is there something else I'm supposed to do?
 

GraveHorizon

poop meter feature creep
An interesting note about Surface Tensions length from the forums

http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showpost.php?p=497026&postcount=12

According to OnboardError, one of the reasons why many of those Surface Tension scenes got cut was because one of their mappers quit halfway through the project, so they had to cut everything between the vent-shooting and the Garg chase due to manpower/time constraints.

I wonder if that will be changed in a future release.

That whole thread (Is BM's Xenian Invasion Sufficiently FUBAR?) makes me hope they'll take a good long look at the game before wrapping it up.

I concur that it doesn't really feel like a war in Black Mesa. Although I do like the additions of the planes flying around attacking the Manta Rays and the smoky sky, it really does feel like the HECU has everything under control. There weren't many scenes showing the Xenians having the upper hand or slaughtering the Marines, storytelling I feel a lot of the cut Surface Tension scenes would have provided. I remember the point where the radio announced they were pulling out and thinking to myself... "why?"

Granted, I love Black Mesa and all the new things they've done with it. I was in awe most of the time. However, I do sincerely hope someone on the team will pick up the pieces left out by the developer who quit and add in all those missing parts. It would definitely benefit the storytelling.

Does anyone share that opinion of the late game? Who's winning in Black Mesa?
 

Revenant

Member
Just started, still in Unforeseen Consequences, but man I'll give these guys their credit. They did a great job with this remake, Sure there is some nostalgia present but man it still just feels fun to play Half-Life.

Classic Half-Life with a modern look. Fantastic.
 
Black Mesa reminds me that, like the Zelda formula, the level design style of a continuous, first person campaign of interconnected levels taking place in one big 'world', versus compartmentalised 'level selection', is a bafflingly underused concept in today's games.

While this type of level design does lend itself to a greater feeling of immersion, what most game today are missing is the feeling of a journey. This type of level design does make it a little easier to pull off but really no matter if the structure is linear, hub world, or open world, creating a sense of a journey is what makes a game special. It's something that Valve nails with every single player game. It really doesn't work with the COD formula of hopscotching across the globe from place to place and character to character.
 
Gave up at the first bossfight (giant tentacles), really do not like scripted stuff like that and it was just awkward.

I turned on the reactor and went back to the control room but still couldn't launch the rocket(?). Is this a bug or is there something else I'm supposed to do?

IIRC from the original game, yes, there's two or three separate things you have to do to be able to fire the rocket.
 

-BLITZ-

Member
You clearly remember wrong. The only way you could do that was by glitching a scientist which to my knowledge is not possible in BMS.
You gotta earn the Spas 12, son :)

Confusion I made, I had to play a bit more to revisit the place after I got rid of those rockets coming from sky to kill me outside the derert erea. Oh well, first I thought something went wrong with the game.
 

Alienups

Member
Gave up at the first bossfight (giant tentacles), really do not like scripted stuff like that and it was just awkward.

I turned on the reactor and went back to the control room but still couldn't launch the rocket(?). Is this a bug or is there something else I'm supposed to do?

There are two boarded up doors.
 

The M.O.B

Member
Gave up at the first bossfight (giant tentacles), really do not like scripted stuff like that and it was just awkward.

I turned on the reactor and went back to the control room but still couldn't launch the rocket(?). Is this a bug or is there something else I'm supposed to do?

Throw grenade at tentacles center to make them back off for a bit, then sprint for the boarded up doors. There are 2.
 

DieH@rd

Banned
How can I get out from here? I got there right after that
crazy train ride. Cant find exit underwater, no way to jump across....
2012-09-17-00002.jpg


EDIT - GOT IT
 

wrowa

Member
One of the only game to handle movement right ... in an FPS. It's not so hard... but everybody else fails.

I don't particularly like the jumping mechanics, to be honest. It's hard to judge the distance properly and my hands quietly start crying in pain every time I have to crouch jump...

The only first person game I can think of right now where I thought the jumping mechanics were spot on was Metroid Prime, honestly. Never had a problem with the plattforming parts in that game... and that Samus actually looks down a little while jumping is a pretty good idea too.
 

Jackpot

Banned
Gave up at the first bossfight (giant tentacles), really do not like scripted stuff like that and it was just awkward.

it detects sound and motion. throw a grenade at floor above or below you and crawl to the boarded up doors.

How can I get out from here? I got there right after that
crazy train ride. Cant find exit underwater, no way to jump across....
2012-09-17-00002.jpg

HL2 puzzle.
 
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