Black Mesa

[DonIago]

I'm having a blast. It really is like visiting an old friend after many years. They're the same person in general, but have been altered, sometimes in surprising ways, by their newer experiences.

This would have been worth it just for the new tram ride AFAIC.

[Reverend]

I think my favourite change so far is the part where they made 'On A Rail' about a third as long and one tenth as complicated. Damn that chapter bugged the crap out of me in the original game!

Something else that's been bothering me; it might just be that I'm playing on "Normal" difficulty, but I'm finding the weapons a bit underpowered. It's most noticeable with the SMG as it appears to take a whole magazine just to take down one squaddie. Maybe my being more familiar with HL2 is skewing my perception, but it's a bit much when I can unload both barrels of the shotgun into a zombie's headcrab at point blank range and it's still coming!

[Rowan Sjet]

DonIago wrote:

---

I'm having a blast. It really is like visiting an old friend after many years. They're the same person in general, but have been altered, sometimes in surprising ways, by their newer experiences.

This would have been worth it just for the new tram ride AFAIC.

That's pretty much how I feel. I spent the whole tram ride rushing from window to window so I could catch glimpses of everything new. And then I spent the next 10 minutes giggling like a schoolboy throwing books and telephones at the scientists (and yes, I pressed the alarm and ruined the microwave. Apparently there was a laptop I missed though, I'll have to get that on the next run).

Also, took me a while to figure out what the flares were for!

One niggle is that the crowbar does feel a bit odd.

[Geckothan]

Some of the replacements for the old SFX (e.g. the bleepy bloopy error sound that the retinal scanners and some buttons had, the siren at the start of 'Unforseen Consequences' and at the rocket launch, the houndeye attack cry, the metal clanging sounds, etc) take away the Half-Life atmosphere for me, some of the new textures seem a bit too different to the originals (especially in the office complex and the old parts of the complex that used the 'fifties' texture set, which had a retro feel that hasn't really been retained), some of the weapons don't entirely faithful (not necessarily a bad thing, as they're very good regardless), there are a few physics and enemy AI glitches, some of the transitions between animations on friendly NPCs are a bit abrupt (especially when they die), and some of the voice acting is a bit off and/or doesn't fit the physical appearance of the characters (though 99% of the voice acting itself is brilliant); I'm sure that some of the imperfections will be patched out in the near-future or whenever they get around to releasing Xen, anyway.

I like some of the changes they've made to some of the puzzles to take advantage of the physics, and the fact that they've trimmed and tweaked some of the most annoying parts of the game to actually make them enjoyable while still remaining faithful.

Overall, it's quality work. I'd happily pay money for it.

[Owain Taggart]

The one peeve I have with it is the overuse of crouch-jumping. It's used a lot more now to jump onto things that didn't originally need it. Almost like they designed things a tad too high and barely reachable when it looks like it could be reached with a normal jump. Jumping onto boxes or barrels is an example. It feels awkward.

I'm almost inclined to feel that the physics actually act as a detriment so far. There's nothing inherently designed about the game taking advantage of the physics, unlike say HL2, which I thought would be one of the things they'd be taking advantage of in the redesign of the levels, but when you do come across it, it's frustrating as you can't manipulate objects like in HL2, ie boxes and barrels.

[NCC-1701-B]

Started playing this last night, and I got up to the one bit which always got e stuck for a while, the damn huge claw monster. It does look and feel amazing. I also hate the crouch jump though, it does seem to be overused

But when playing it, I thought it looked like this back in 1998! haha it's amazing how perceptions change :P