Black Mesa: 8 years in the making

After 8 long years Black Mesa: Source has finally been released ... well, kinda.  Black Mesa is a fan based remake of the first Half Life game, created using the Half Life 2 source engine.

Black Mesa is available to download for free from the Black Mesa Website and anybody that bought a copy of Half Life 2 for PC can play it.  This version is not totally finished as the game does not (yet) include the Xen chapter from the original Half Life.  The game has been one of the first among nine other titles to be chosen by fans for release on Steam's new 'Greenlight' service (where gamers help Valve choose what games they would like to be made available for purchase on Steam).

According to Black Mesa's Steam Greenlight page, the Xen chapter will be added when the game is released on Steam.  At the time of writing, even though the game has been greenlit, there is no word of a release date, so it could be a while before the Xen chapter is implemented into the Steam version.  Although, the Xen chapter was probably the most frustrating part of the first Half Life experience, it was a very interesting setting; I just hope that the Black Mesa version is less frustrating.

The new Black Mesa reception area

Half Life's original Black Mesa reception area

So far, I have only played up to the Blast Pit chapter of Black Mesa, but I am finding it too be an incredibly enjoyable experience.  My memory is a little fuzzy regarding the original Half Life, as I have not played it from start to finish in many years, but Black Mesa seems to do things differently, the areas seem to be bigger and some things have been changed a little from the original Half Life, but Black Mesa still manages to feel like a Half Life game.

The voices in Black Mesa, seem to be a lot more varied than they were in Half Life, which helps the story feel new again.  Conversations can be overheard by scientists making in-jokes about the long and varied development of the game.  Black Mesa is a game that is also slightly self-aware, as one Non Playable Character (NPC) may say to another NPC that: "you repeat yourself a lot."

The voices may seem more varied than the original Half Life, but unfortunately the faces of NPCs are less varied.  Similar to Half Life, the player will encounter the same faces on different scientists and security guards.  It is a small gripe, but I would have liked to see more unique faces during my time in the game.

The experiment going wrong (Black Mesa version)

The experiment going wrong (Half Life version)

The gameplay overall is very fun to play, but the only negative in the gameplay is the jumping mechanic, both the Control button and the Space Bar have to be pressed in conjunction with each other, in order to jump successfully.  Jumping was also a little annoying in the original Half Life, but most of the time the player was only required to press the Space Bar.  There were occasions in Half Life, where the player was required to use both Control and Space Bar to jump, but only when the player is required to enter a high crawl space.  Black Mesa seems to use the two button jumping mechanic a lot more than the original Half Life did.

Playing Black Mesa feels like playing Half Life for the first time, when it was originally released all those years ago.  The guys that developed Black Mesa have achieved something really special, as it has to be remembered that Black Mesa was created by fans in their spare time and they have managed to capture the feel of the original Half Life, while also improving and adapting it for the modern era.