Blackmesa: its out!

[Bikerdude]

do you mean the forward key..? easy just go into to keyboard control and assign it there. I have mt forward set to mouse 2 and shift as sprint.

[Psychomorph]

do you mean the forward key..? easy just go into to keyboard control and assign it there. I have mt forward set to mouse 2 and shift as sprint.

 

The walk key does barely change the speed (to me at least), I would like to make the walk much slower in the game. I can do this in hl2 with the console command "hl2_walkspeed ...", but it has no effect in BM.

Edited September 15, 2012 by Psychomorph

[Bikerdude]

I can do this in hl2 with the console command "hl2_walkspeed ...", but it has no effect in BM.

You'll have to ask in the BMS forums then Im afraid, as I haven't a clue.

[woah]

This has to be one of the best mods I've ever played and one of (if not *the*) best remake I've ever played. The attention to detail and the consistency of the quality is just amazing. While I do replay Half-Life 1 every so often (once every 4 years or so), this mod will certainly take HL1's place this time around and maybe even a few times in the future. The number one fear die hard fans have with remakes is that the developers of the new rendition end up deciding to throw the character of the original out the window and do their own thing (or, even worse, perhaps they never really "got" the character of the original to begin with), but there are almost no traces of that in this remake. They've managed to both substantially upgrade upon the original and retain the Half-Life 1 atmosphere.

 

To be clear, I'm not saying this will replace the original for me--nostalgia makes that impossible, but from what I've played so far it is so good that I wouldn't feel the least bit uncomfortable recommending this version to a Half-Life 1 newbie over the original (indeed, most Half-Life newbies give up after only a few levels in due to the graphics). That's saying a lot, and since this mod has been "greenlighted" on Steam, I can only seeing it coming closer to perfection with further updates. The fact that I can now share the Half-Life 1 experience with all of those friends that couldn't tolerate the graphics of the original is just awesome.

 

Now, I'm not saying it is perfect. For example, I still prefer the grunt voices and vortigaunt sounds from the original (the vortigaunt character change and their becoming allies in HL2 were kind of turn offs for me in the first place), and sometimes the "transition" music is a bit out of place (yet most of the time it does work very well), but these criticisms are no more than nitpicking.

 

And that resonance cascade scene ... it seriously felt like it was 1998 all over again (well, actually that would be 1999 for me).

 

Also, just so everyone is clear, they're releasing the zen portion of the single player some time in the future. What has been released so far includes everything up to zen.

 

 

EDIT: Have to come back and comment on the latter part of the game. The quality seems to go down hill during "On A Rail" and thereafter. While it's still good, it doesn't live up to the original IMO. It starts to feel like your average HL2 user-created level. I'm guessing somewhere along that 8 year period people got burned out ... and you can almost sense it as the levels progress. The passion is no longer there.

 

Not that I blame them ... spending almost a decade of your life on a remake has got to wear on you at some point.

Edited September 16, 2012 by woah

[7upMan]

I Under stated just how totally and utterly useless the jumping and climbing is, its even worse than HL2. For the love of all things holy, I cant even fucking jump over a chair, or onto a pipe that I clearly need to be able to to get across the huge drop in front of me..

 

I dunno about climbing (I'm not that far into the game), but for jumping, you are forced to crouch-jump. Just press jump and crouch at the same time. It's horribly inconvenient, especially since there is no way to map both actions to one key, but it's possible. Same thing when you play Counter-Strike: Source. There you are constantly forced to crouch-jump to get to high(er) places.

[Bikerdude]

Just finished playing this awesome mod, cant wait for the next instalment.

[7upMan]

Where does the mod end atm? I heard that the Xen part is still missing. Is that all that's left?

[Bikerdude]

yeah pretty much..

[stumpy]

am about half way through it.

[STiFU]

I always thought that I had reached a certain age, where shooters simply bore me to hell and that I only liked those shooters back in the days, because I was very young when I played them. BM showed me otherwise! I am loving it! It's simply the modern shooters that are boring and pose no challenge at all with their recharging health and ammunition-oversupply!

 

@Biker: Did you play HL1? Duck-Jump should really be no problem to any gamer being born before the modern console generation... The movement in BM is perfectly true to the original!!

[Sotha]

Finished Black Mesa tonight.

 

Years ago, when HL1 was something totally new, it basically revolutionized the fps genre. For me personally, HL1 was among the of the most important games ever. I had never played a game where the background setting could be felt so strongly, the world felt real and alive.

 

Black Mesa was astonishing. The way it reproduced everything that was in HL1, yet intelligently fitted into modern viewpoint. It did not only capture the mood and the spirit of HL1, it enhanced it. The fact that all this work was done for free by hobbyists is mind staggering. It should send a clear message: you do not need commercial grade facilities to produce an excellent game.

 

I should bottle my tears of joy and send it to the BM team with my regards. They have done simply amazing work!

[Melan]

Where does the mod end atm? I heard that the Xen part is still missing. Is that all that's left?

If they did it that way, they ended it where the original HL did: Gordon Freeman was lost in some foreign dimension after entering a teleportation gate, and never returned (until HL2).

 

...

 

What, there was something after that? Lies!

[lowenz]

Finished Black Mesa tonight.

 

Years ago, when HL1 was something totally new, it basically revolutionized the fps genre. For me personally, HL1 was among the of the most important games ever. I had never played a game where the background setting could be felt so strongly, the world felt real and alive.

 

Black Mesa was astonishing. The way it reproduced everything that was in HL1, yet intelligently fitted into modern viewpoint. It did not only capture the mood and the spirit of HL1, it enhanced it. The fact that all this work was done for free by hobbyists is mind staggering. It should send a clear message: you do not need commercial grade facilities to produce an excellent game.

 

I should bottle my tears of joy and send it to the BM team with my regards. They have done simply amazing work!

+1

 

But for me the atmosphere of Unreal remains unmatchable

[Melan]

Yes. HL was probably the more groundbreaking game, but Unreal had a real spirit of discovery to it, and felt epic - I think it was that thing about bumping into immensely large fallen spaceships in the wilderness, and the floating isles, the large maps and the sheer length of the game.

 

Operation: Na Pali was a great (fanmade) sequel.

[STiFU]

That was fanmade??? I got it in a professional cardboard box at home...

 

I still remember the day Unreal was released. I had just recently gotten my first own computer (A Pentium 2 233 MHz, with a Voodoo 1 graphics acceleration card and a Matrox mystique graphics card) and I was really happy that I could run that "photorealistic" game in full detail and resolution! I was flabbergasted about the graphics and loved every part of the game! Simply amazing! I always preferred it over HL 1. Let's hope there will be a remake of this game one day, too. I read that Cliff Bleszinski is dreaming about an open-world remake with rpg-elements. He allegedly said something like that at the Video Game Awards 2011.

[lowenz]

Men, so you look at this!

Black Mesa Source quality!

 

http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/867739-Legacy(Vortex-Rikers-v1-1-PC-PS3)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztDrr15iM8g

Edited October 1, 2012 by lowenz

[lowenz]

(A Pentium 2 233 MHz, with a Voodoo 1 graphics acceleration card and a Matrox mystique graphics card)

We are from all countries all over the world but the "1997 PC system" is the same

Matrox Mystique+Voodoo 2 = REAL Unreal

Edited October 1, 2012 by lowenz

[lowenz]

That was fanmade??? I got it in a professional cardboard box at home...

"Operation: Na Pali" is not "Return to Na Pali" from Legend S.H.

 

This is RtNP:

[Melan]

Yeah, they are different things. ONP has questionable voice acting, but it is really an excellent single-player campaign. Here is a review I wrote about it back in 2006:

Operation: Na Pali is a free single-player addon to Unreal Tournament. UT was one of those games that got modded a whole lot, and where there was a very creative mod culture around - not as vibrant as the community of the Thief games (which boasts hundreds upon hundreds of free single-player missions and complete campaigns, some much better than commercial games), but impressive enough. Most of these were single player maps; well, ONP is something different.

 

ONP is an unofficial sequel to the original Unreal game. Set on a low-tech planet inhabited by the peaceful Nali race and cruel, genocidel alien invaders called the Skaarj (insectoid, and pretty similar to Predators), Unreal was one of the best pre-Half Life FPS games. There was very little actual innovation (Duke Nukem 3D had way more in its time), but the interplay of great graphics, great music and flawless, compelling level design created a great experience that’s still enjoyable today.

 

Operation: Na Pali, a fan project apparently created by a bunch of bored German teenagers, is one of those rare labours of love that could have easily been sold as mission disks, or even a complete game. There are 36 levels from moderate to long length, all but a few built very well; with great architecture and good flow. In the grand Unreal tradition of mixing together a lot of weird crap, there are ancient fantasy temples, underground Skaarj bases with profoundly ugly technology, picturesque valleys and floating islands. Most are unique creations, but there are also a few “revisits” to Unreal locations - always given enough twists to make these encounters entertaining. There are a whole lot of grandiose places, like huge canyons and immense halls - clichéd, but certainly impressive.

 

Beyond architecture, programming deserves a lot of praise. There are enough scripted sequences and cutscenes to make the game more entertaining, but not enough to draw too much time away from action (all cut scenes use the ingame engine). Unlike Unreal, ONP uses UT bots, meaning that on several levels, you can have several allies fighting on your side, armed with weapons from pulse guns to rocket launchers and razor blades. On the other hand, the Skaarj also have access to the same, making for some tough, tough battles. There are also levels where you must commandeer a small skaarj flying vessel and avoid obstacles - one is good, while the other is freaking impressive.

 

Finally, on feel. Unreal had a very characteristic and particular style (created by throwing together a lot of different cool stuff). ONP’s creators got it perfectly. The mod plays exactly like Unreal (but with the aforementioned updates); it links levels seamlessly and captures the wonder and mystery it had in addition to intense action. There is even a touch of melancholia, a sentiment notably absent from computer games. That’s no small feat, and worth lauding.

 

All in all, ONP is a great game. It is much better than your average mod, much better than even the majority of commercial titles, and a worthy successor to Unreal. Check it out and have fun with it - it makes for about two days of play if you don’t rush it. You will need a copy of Unreal Tournament, the most recent patch, something called the “OldSkool mod” that adds Unreal weapons to UT, and the main package itself.

The original team site is dead, but you can get it here.

Which reminds me, Unreal also had great, great music.

[Melan]

So I finally installed this and started playing. Nice and atmospheric so far, and some of the new mechanisms like setting zombies on fire are a lot of fun. Things look great too. But crouch-jumping... not only is it counter-intuitive, you can't even remap the jump and crouch buttons! That is unpleasant and makes the jumping portions very frustrating.

[nbohr1more]

I setup a keybind in the autoexec.cfg (it's weird that Source has one too...) to set all jump to crouch-jump. I'll post when I get home

 

Edit:

 

Here it is:

 

alias "+cjump" " +jump; +duck"
alias "-cjump" " -jump;-duck"
bind space +cjump

Edited October 2, 2012 by nbohr1more

[STiFU]

I setup a keybind in the autoexec.cfg (it's weird that Source has one too...) to set all jump to crouch-jump. I'll post when I get home

HL 1 was actually the first one to have that (IIRC), so it's no wonder Source has one too.

[STiFU]

doublepost

[Melan]

I setup a keybind in the autoexec.cfg (it's weird that Source has one too...) to set all jump to crouch-jump. I'll post when I get home

 

Edit:

Here it is:

Thanks! This made the experience much better. Arrived at the surface now - mean stuff, although the sound effects of the marines are weaker, making them less threatening even if they aim better.

[nbohr1more]

Yeah, I'm up to Questionable Ethics.

 

I got stumped on Blast Pitt (where to find the O2 supply) and Apprehension (how to escape the water area)...

Both had frustratingly hidden passage areas that required you to repeatedly replay the area or methodically

comb every nook.

 

If it weren't for Youtube walk-throughs I would probably give-up for a month or so on each.

 

I'm sure if I were a teenager, I'd just keep bulldozing at the problem till past the witching hours every night.