Download Game Half Life Black Mesa

Eight years in the making, Black Mesa is finally nearing its full release. Initially developed by a passionate team of hobbyist developers, this remake of the original Half-Life—fully backed by Valve—has bloomed into something more ambitious. With the help of Steam’s Early Access platform, the team has found itself with the resources to remake and overhaul the original’s controversial Xen chapters, bringing them more in line with the quality of the rest of the game. And when it’s done, this will be the best way to relive the Black Mesa incident. I spoke with project leader Adam Engels about the incredible journey so far.

'The world of Half-Life is a detailed painting, where the more you look, the more you see,' says Engels, speaking on behalf of the Black Mesa team. 'Even though all the events were scripted, it felt like you were affecting the world. You could find hidden paths, make NPCs react to you.' It was, he says, the perfect balance of letting the player create their own experiences and 'a summer action movie'.

'I think a lot of people thought Half-Life: Source was going to be an HD remaster,' he says. 'In actuality, it was a demonstration of how easily projects could be moved to the new Source engine.' As a response to this, two teams—Leakfree and Half-Life: Source Overhaul Project—decided to create their own remakes around 2004. 'But once they realised they were working towards the same goal, they merged and started the adventure that is now simply called Black Mesa.'

Relive Half-Life in this highly acclaimed, fan-made recreation. “Making a game with the scope and scale of Black Mesa is a massive undertaking. Back in 2012.

Today, Black Mesa is available to buy on Steam, and I ask Engels if the team ran into any legal troubles with Valve. 'Nope,' he says. 'Valve actually came to us to see if we wanted to sell the game and become an official licensee to get access to the full game engine.' It was a big decision, he says, but something the team couldn’t refuse. 'It gave us so much more resources to develop the game with.'

In November 2015 the team even visited Valve’s HQ in Bellevue, Washington. 'A number of past and present developers were able to make it,' says Engels. 'It’s hard to speak for everyone at Valve, but the company must like us a little if it’s allowing us to do this project.' Not many game companies would allow something like Black Mesa to exist, let alone be sold on its own distribution platform. But the quality, polish and passion of Black Mesa obviously won Valve over.

Black Mesa is currently in Early Access as the team works to complete the Xen chapters, a massive overhaul of arguably the worst bit of the original Half-Life. 'This enabled us to actually go out and hire people, and acquire talent we otherwise wouldn’t have,' says Engels. 'We got a huge amount of talent simply by having a project people were excited about, but having a budget let us seek out and hire specific developers.'

The Black Mesa team doesn’t work in one office, which can make orchestrating such a huge project difficult. 'We use chat programs and online forums,' says Engels. 'We try and use chat to work out specific problems, then use forums to document what we talked about so we can refer to it later.' Time zones are one of the biggest hurdles for such a disconnected team, and it’s basically impossible to get everyone together at once. 'We try to schedule a few meetings or playtests where everyone can get involved. We’ve been using Google Docs recently and they’ve been a huge help.'

Engels thinks history has been crueller to Xen than it deserves. 'I think the dislike of those levels might have grown in our minds as time has gone on,' he says. 'We see a lot of support for the old Xen on our Steam forums.' The consensus in the community, he adds, is that Valve ran out of time and wasn’t able to iterate on the alien levels like they did with the rest of the game. 'We can tell you from our own experience that taking your game to a new world is more challenging than it looks on paper.'

The Black Mesa team’s main goal for Xen is adding the same level of worldbuilding seen elsewhere in Half-Life, while retaining its alien, otherworldly feel. 'Valve does a wonderful job of introducing mechanics, letting you get used to it, then using that mechanic in an unexpected way,' says Engels. 'We’re not looking to reinvent the game with our take on Xen, but it will be much more than just get key, open door.'

In the original game, what most refer to simply as ‘Xen’ is actually five chapters: Xen, Gonarch’s Lair, Interloper, Nihilanth and Endgame. They’re all being remade and expanded, and some sections Valve had to cut out are being reintroduced. 'We made the design with these in mind,' says Engels. 'In the end we hope to have built a world that is bizarre but contiguous. We want the border world to feel like a place that exists, even if we humans don’t have the capacity to understand it.'

When Valve created Xen, technical and time limitations had an impact on how it looked. 'With the earth-based assets, even if they were super vague due to technical limitations, we at least had an idea of how Valve wanted them to look,' says Engels. 'But with Xen, we had little to go on. Even if we built a 1:1 replica of the old levels (which we haven’t), we still have to ask ourselves: how was this supposed to look?' It’s unclear whether the planet was supposed to be as barren as it is, or if Valve had intended it to be much more elaborate and detailed.

'Our biggest challenge has been designing the Xenian technology,' says Engels. 'It’s both mechanical and organic, which is a difficult balance to strike. Our team is talented, but it’s vastly different to modernise hallways than to create an alien world completely from scratch.'

As for the Black Mesa facility itself, the team went above and beyond merely remaking the existing levels. 'I think you could argue that the main character in Half-Life is Black Mesa itself,' says Engels. 'We wanted to modernise the game, so we had to really dive into Half-Life 2 and the episodes to look at how they were designed.' The team adopted Valve’s philosophy of creating games that are 'simple on the surface but complex under the hood'.

Some areas, particularly the dam in Surface Tension, have been hugely expanded, feeling a lot more dramatic than in the original. 'We used real-world reference to get things looking as realistic as possible, then built the game on top of that,' says Engels. 'When you make your way through Half-Life, what made it feel real was how the facility existed beyond what you could see. A simple closet or the hint of a sprawling complex through a window was enough to create that illusion. And the Source engine really helped us capitalise on that in Black Mesa.'

But while Black Mesa largely remains loyal to the source material in spirit, the team did change quite a few things. 'The biggest example of what we changed was the chapter On a Rail,' says Engels. 'We made the player path much clearer at the expense of having it feel a lot more linear.' They also updated the game’s archaic crouch-jump function. 'The player automatically crouches when they jump now, which makes it feel a bit more modern. Crouch-jumping was cool back in 1998, but these days it feels overly complicated.'

When you play Black Mesa it’s remarkable to think that it’s a passion project developed by, at least initially, a small team of volunteers. I ask Engels about the challenges of working on a project like this. 'Communication has historically been a big challenge for us,' he says. 'Developers can feel pretty isolated. If the whole team has their heads down, working away on their tasks, despite the fact a large amount of work is being done, you have no idea unless they make a post about it or discuss it in the chat.' Sharing work takes time, he says, but is ultimately worth it to keep the team motivated.

'And let’s be honest,' he adds. 'Deadlines are a huge challenge for the team, too. Transitioning from a team of volunteers to a team working on an Early Access project, with a responsibility to the customers who spent money on it, is a really big commitment.' Engels also mentions that, because people with skills specific to the Source engine are getting rare these days, it’s becoming more of a struggle to recruit people. But the team gets by. 'Sometimes we’ll go out and find developers we like or post a job opening, but often they’ll contact us and their resumes will be so good we can’t say no.'

Audio is another area Black Mesa excels in, with professional sound, music and acting. The voices, particularly that of the scientists and ‘Barney’ are impressively close to the original game. 'We had some auditions in 2006 where we found Mike Hillard for the scientists and Kevin Sisk for the security guards,' says Engels. 'Audio is often undervalued in projects and we were super thankful to find people who not only sounded like the originals, but really took the audio portion of the project onto their shoulders.' Engels singles out composer Joel Nielsen for his music and work on the game’s audio. 'He deserves a lot of credit for all the work he did on the music and sound effects.'

Over the years, Black Mesa has attracted a lot of attention, and a large, vocal community has grown around it. Xen has been delayed a few times as the team strives to make it the best it can be, and while some have reacted badly to this, most people have been surprisingly encouraging. 'Our community continues to astound me,' says Engels. 'Through releases and updates we get great feedback. It’s a large-scale testing effort that we just wouldn’t be able to do otherwise and it is insanely valuable.'

Engels has been working on Black Mesa for close to 11 years now, and it’s been a large part of his life. 'It’s easy to get isolated in development and it can be hard to stay motivated. But comments that say something like, ‘I love your work, keep going!’ are life-savers. The online world can seem like it wants everyone to fail, and to have a community that wants us to succeed… well, we never take it for granted.'

For someone so invested in Half-Life, I wonder what Engels feels about the third game. 'Personally, I’m not eager for Half-Life 3, but nor do I want it to fade away,' he says. 'So much anticipation has been built up that it couldn’t come close to living up to it. I’d love to see more games in the Half-Life universe, even if the title doesn’t contain the number three. I’d love to see Valve, or another developer, take it on.' Black Mesa is due to leave Early Access, complete with the overhauled Xen levels, in December this year. It’s been a long road for the team, but the quality of the finished product will hopefully make all that effort worth it.

Game Information

Screenshots

Overview

Black Mesa Full PC Game Overview

Black Mesa download free. full Game (originally Black Mesa: Source; stylized as BLλCK MESA) is a third-party total remake of Half-Life, Valve Corporation's critically acclaimed debut title, on Valve's Source engine. The 40-person volunteer development team says they hope to create a more engrossing in-game world with more varied, complex environments; and more challenging, realistic gameplay.[citation needed]

During its eight-year development period, Black Mesa has been featured in several video game publications and received direct attention from Valve. Due to its long development time, the modification became notable for its delays, and dwindling updates on the status of its completion. The delays led to Wired awarding Black Mesa high spots on their «Vaporware Of The Year» lists in 2009 and 2010.[4][5]

The first part of Black Mesa, which included remakes of chapters «Black Mesa Inbound» to «Lambda Core», was released as a standalone download on September 14, 2012.[6][7] Valve, through public voting on the Steam Greenlight program, has approved Black Mesa for distribution on Steam.

Gameplay

See also: Gameplay of Half-Life

Black Mesa is a first-person shooter that requires the player to perform combat tasks and puzzle solving to advance through the game. The core gameplay remains unchanged from the original Half-Life; the player can carry a number of weapons that they find through the course of the game, though must also locate ammo for most weapons. The player's character is protected by a hazard suit that monitors the player's health and can be charged as a shield, absorbing a limited amount of damage. Health and shield packs can be found scattered through the game, as well as stations that can recharge both. Black Mesa Free Download.

The primary difference in gameplay from the original Half-Life is the ability to use the Source engine's physics to influence gameplay elements. The original Half-Life engine based on the GoldSrc engine, lacked such physics, with certain events or situations instead hard-coded as animations, such as a toppling stack of boxes. With the Source engine, these physical effects can be handled directly by the engine and on-the-fly, allowing the player to initiate such actions to their advantage, or to make certain challenges more difficult such as jumping across a number of crates suspended by cable from a conveyor system.[citation needed]

Plot

The plot of Black Mesa is almost identical to Half-Life's storyline, playable through the «Lambda Core» chapter.[10] As in the original game, the player controls Gordon Freeman, a scientist working at the Black Mesa Research Facility. He is tasked to place a sample of a strange material into an electromagnetic instrument, using the Hazardous Environment Suit Mark IV to do so safely. However, the sample material causes a «resonance cascade», devastating the facility and creating an interdimensional rift to an alien dimension called Xen, bringing its alien creatures to Earth. Freeman survives, finds other survivors, and makes his way to the surface with the protection of his hazard suit to get help. Upon reaching the surface, however, he finds that the facility is being cleansed of any living thing — human or alien — by armed forces. From other scientists, Freeman finds the only way to stop the alien invasion is to cross over to Xen and destroy the entity holding the portal open. Black Mesa Free Download PC Game.

Development

With the release of Half-Life 2 in 2004, Valve Corporation re-released several of its previous titles, ported to their new Source game engine, including the critically acclaimed 1998 game Half-Life named Half-Life: Source. The Source engine is graphically more advanced than the GoldSrc engine used for the original versions. Half-Life: Source features the Havok physics engine and improved effects for water and lighting. The level architecture, textures, and models of the game however, remained unchanged.

Half-Life: Source was met with mixed reviews. IGN liked the new user interface and other technical features but noted that it did not receive as many improvements as Valve's other Source engine ports.[11] GameSpy said that while it was a «fun little bonus», it was «certainly not the major graphical upgrade some people thought it might be».[12] Valve CEO Gabe Newell is quoted as saying that a complete remake of Half-Life by fans of the game using Source was «not only possible…but inevitable».[13]

Black Mesa began as the combination of two independent volunteer projects, each aiming to do just that: completely recreate Half-Life using Source. The Leakfree modification was announced in September 2004. Half-Life: Source Overhaul Project was announced one month later. After realizing their similar goals, project leaders for both teams decided to combine efforts; they formed a new 13-person team titled Black Mesa: Source.[13] The «Source» in the project's title was later dropped when Valve asked the team to remove it in order to «stem confusion over whether or not [it was] an endorsed or official product», which it at the time was not.[14]

The team now consists of 40 volunteer level designers, programmers, modelers, texture artists, animators, sound engineers, voice actors, and support staff.[15] They have stated they want Black Mesa to be similar to Half-Life in gameplay and story, but changes will be made to take advantage of Source's more advanced features. Changes to the story will not divert from, or alter, the overall storyline of the Half-Life series.[13] Level designers have shortened or modified some areas of the game that «didn't make any sense», or were «tedious» in the original. Maps will also be of a larger scale, for instance the hydro-electric dam, which is now «twenty or thirty times» larger.[16]

Originally based on the version of Source released with Counter-Strike: Source in 2004, the project switched to a more recent version released with Valve's The Orange Box in 2007. This new version included more advanced particle effects, hardware-accelerated facial animation, and support for multi-core processor rendering among other improvements.[17][18][19] The team recently stated that they have moved Black Mesa to Valve's new 2013 version of Source, with faster load times and Mac OS X and Linux support.[20]

Marketing and release

The developers released a teaser trailer in 2005, and a full-length preview trailer in 2008. They also released images, videos, and concept art during the project's development. Black Mesa was given an official release date of «late 2009» in the spring of 2009, but this date was changed to «when it's done» after the development team was unable to fulfill this date. Black Mesa for PC.

On June 10, 2012 the Black Mesa development team announced that new «media» would be released once their Facebook page reached 20,000 likes.[21] This goal was reached on June 11, 2012 when 8 new screenshots were released, along with an announcement of the start of a «social-media campaign» towards their first release.[22]

On September 2, 2012, project leader Carlos «cman2k» Montero announced that the first Black Mesa release would take place on September 14, 2012.[23][24][25]

The first section of Black Mesa was released on September 14, 2012,[6][26] distributed as a free download.[27] It has been confirmed that Black Mesa will also be distributed via Steam; the remake was among the first ten titles whose release on the platform was approved using Valve's crowdvoting service Steam Greenlight.[8] The initial release consists of remakes of all Half-Life's chapters except those set on the alien world «Xen», which the team intends to expand for inclusion in a future release.[25] The development team estimates that the initial release of Black Mesa gives players eight to ten hours of content to complete.[25] In November 2013, the team confirmed they have been given the go-ahead from Valve to release a commercial version of the Black Mesa product via Steam. The team plans to use the additional funds to improve the game's implementation in Source and to include additional features; the free version will continue to be offered.

Modifications

In Surface Tension Uncut, an unofficial mod for Black Mesa, the «Surface Tension» chapter was expanded to include certain areas of the chapter from the original game that weren't released with the remake as a result of the developer working on that part leaving before his work was finished.[30] The developer, Chon Kemp, known on the Black Mesa: Community Forums by the pseudonym TextFAMGUY1,[31] is also planning to work on modifying the «On a Rail» chapter.[32]

Reception

Prior to release

During its development, Black Mesa has received attention from several video game publications. It has been featured in articles from Computer Gaming World, PC PowerPlay, and PC Gamer UK magazines. Valve published a news update about the modification on their Steam digital distribution platform in 2007 saying that 'We're as eager to play [Black Mesa] here as everyone else.[33]'

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The project was awarded Top Unreleased Mod by video game modification website Mod DB in 2005 and 2006.[34][35] Mod DB gave the project an honorable mention in their choice of Top Unreleased Mod in 2007.[36]

After receiving a development version of Black Mesa in December 2009, PC PowerPlay magazine said that the game's setting «looks, sounds, [and] plays better than ever before». The «subtle» changes from the original Half-Life were said to have a «substantial» overall impact. They also noted the project's «frustrating» then-five-year development time, and current lack of release date, but added that the developers were making progress. Black Mesa Download Torrent.

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