Long time no see! I really need to stop promising to write about specific games. I get too in my head about it, then I feel obligated to write instead of wanting to write. This is supposed to be a fun personal writing project, not work!

But enough about me. This is a space for discussing games! And as promised, today’s discussion is on Black Mesa, a fan remake of Half-Life that was officially sanctioned by its creator, Valve.

The Black Mesa project was started in late 2004, shortly after the release of Half-Life 2, using Valve’s new Source engine to rebuild the original Half-Life game from the ground up. It would be 16 years before the game was fully completed, although you could play most of it online for many years.

With new advancements in the Source engine over the years, the fan team kept rebuilding and enhancing sections of the game. Eventually, Valve stepped in and allowed them to sell the game commercially so they could afford the commercial license for their newer Source engines. The fan team never intended to make money off this game, but a source of income did help them keep building and improving the game.

Black Mesa is still available on Steam for $20, and I highly recommend supporting the team and buying it over the original game. Valve makes tons of money with their Steam store; they don’t need the income from their old game.

So let’s get into this game. Apologies in advance; I played this in 4K resolution, which resized everything appropriately except for subtitles. If there are subs, they’re really tiny near the bottom of the screenshot. Open the image in a new window to see its full resolution and read the subtitles.

Black Mesa opens with you riding a tram line deep into an underground research facility in the New Mexico desert. You’re playing as Gordon Freeman, a Theoretical Physicist with a PhD from MIT. You’re running late to work today.

Side-note: I always saw Gordon as a much older man (I was a teenager when Half-Life first released), but now in my early 40s, finding out Gordon is only 27 makes me feel super old. He’s so young! >_<

This game’s opening was revolutionary for early games, as it played out like a film. You’re stuck on this single-car tram for a few minutes, just taking in the sights of the research facility while opening credits slowly fade in and out. This was unheard of for a game in the late '90s and really pulled you into the world of the game. And this remake has so much more detail than the original game! Here’s the same scene shown from Half-Life and Black Mesa, respectively:

In a “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” scene, you pass by another tram on the left with a creepy-looking government man, or “G-Man” staring at you. He’s wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. With all the scientists and security guards running around this place, this one G-Man stands out. This mysterious figure is important later in the game, but I’ll let you discover that story for yourself.

If you’re trying to find G-Man in the opening, you’ll see him right before you approach a hazardous chemical spill. If you see this, you just missed him:

Eventually, you’ll reach your stop where a security guard will come to let you off. He’ll make a comment about you running late. If you linger around other scientists and security guards at the beginning of the game, you’ll hear some interesting and funny chats. You can also interact with everyone, although some people won’t have time to chat with you.

You enter the research facility (see main screenshot) and are instructed at the front desk to hurry up and get ready. Everyone’s been waiting on you. You go to the locker rooms and don the H.E.V. suit, or Hazardous Environment Suit. This orange and black suit will protect you from most damage, heal you if you’re injured, and will give you a HUD (Heads-Up Display) with some information about your health and weaponry.

Its protection status is on a scale of 1-100 and you can recharge it at H.E.V. charging stations. You can also find Health charging stations, which will recharge your suit up to 100 health. Think of H.E.V. as armor and Health as… well… health. You’ll be fine if your H.E.V. drops to zero, but the game is over if your health runs out.

After making your way deeper into the research facility, you run into several other scientists who give you more information on today’s research project. You are doing an analysis on a sample and are instructed to go down to the test chamber to get started.

One of the scientists leads the way, where the two of you run into Eli Vance (on the left below). Eli wasn’t in the original Half-Life game, but he is an important character in the sequel who apparently worked alongside Gordon at the Black Mesa Research Facility, so Black Mesa chose to introduce you to him before the game gets rolling.

There’s a malfunction in their equipment, so Eli and the other scientist stay behind to fix the machines. They complain that there’s been so many issues lately and they can’t explain why. They instruct you to go ahead without them.

You run into two more scientists at the giant blast door to the test chamber. They’re eagerly awaiting your arrival, but are also worried about the test potentially going wrong. They have the utmost confidence in your abilities though, and encourage you to do well today. They use dual retinal scanners to open the door for you.

You find yourself in a giant room with a Mass Spectrometer filling the center of the room. Once inside, a voice over a loudspeaker instructs you to get up on the catwalk and start the rotors from a computer so they can get the test going.

The sample is brought into the room through an elevator in the floor and you’re instructed to push its cart into the beam of the Mass Spectrometer.

Once you add the sample to the beam, everything goes haywire! A Resonance Cascade occurs! The scientists feared this was possible, but the chances were so slim, they didn’t think it could actually happen. And yet…

In a flash of green, Gordon finds himself in an alien world. The Resonance Cascade has opened a portal to another dimension!

Some intelligent alien creatures approach Gordon, speaking in an unintelligible language. We’ll later learn these creatures are called Vortigaunts.

In another flash of green, Gordon finds himself back inside the test chamber, which has been destroyed by the Resonance Cascade. People are dead, the lab is destroyed, and all sorts of alien creatures are portaling through the dimensional rift to Earth. You run into Eli and he instructs you to get to the surface so you can contact someone and let them know they’re all trapped deep underground.

As a scientist, you’re not especially trained to fight with heavy weaponry, so you make due with a crowbar you find on the ground, fighting through invading alien creatures on your way to the surface. Along the way, you’ll come across the infamous Headcrab, which leaps at people’s heads and munches on their brain, turning them into walking zombies.

There are also Barnacles, which attach to the ceiling and drop a super-sticky tongue of sorts that will grab you and drag you up to their awaiting mouth. Be careful; their lure is hard to notice if you’re running around in dark hallways.

Then there’s the Houndeye, a multi-eyed alien dog of sorts with a super-sonic bark that will injure you, even from a distance. And many more creatures to find along the way!

If you’re paying attention, you might just run into G-Man again, who observes you curiously before calmly disappearing down a corridor. Who is this man?!

Once you get close to the surface, you learn the military has arrived and has orders to clean the entire site - terminating aliens and humans alike! They’re intent on covering up the Resonance Cascade! If you manage to hold your own against the Marines, you’ll earn yourself a nasty reputation and the military will call in Black Ops to take care of you once and for all. These guys are extremely fast and deadly:

Having nowhere left to go, you fight your way back into the underground facility and search for other survivors…

Why am I playing the fan remake instead of the original Half-Life game? Well, because Black Mesa was built not only to be easier to play through for modern gamers, but it also fixed plot and story inconsistencies, and flows better than the original. It’s not just a visually-improved version of the game, but they rearranged parts of the story and gameplay to better introduce modern gamers to the world of Half-Life.

'Cause let’s be honest, back in the late '90s to early 2000s, before games had standardized controls across platforms, FPS games were kind of the Wild West, with their control schemes varying from game to game. They were great fun in my childhood, but playing them nowadays is difficult and frustrating when there are much better controls in modern games.

So if you want to get into the Half-Life franchise and you’re not sure where to start, Black Mesa is a great introduction to the series! The main games are Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2. The other games in the series are either expansions, multiplayer-only arenas, or spin-offs.

One could argue that the new VR game Half-Life: Alyx is part of the main series, but you spend the entire game playing as Alyx Vance, a side character from the series (and daughter of Eli). However, from what I’ve heard, it does advance the plot of the Half-Life franchise a little bit, so that sounds like it could be main game content to me.

Also, as I mentioned in my last post, the Portal games are set in the same universe as Half-Life. Their Aperture Science company is the competitor to Black Mesa; although the Resonance Cascade led to events that would negatively affect both companies. Portal and its sequel take place after the first Half-Life game.