Half Life thread - Discussions about Valve's FPS magnum opus(es) and any related content (spin offs, expansions and etc)

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HL 3...is it still happening?

  • No and anyone that still thinks that it will is delusional

    Votes: 239 47.8%

  • Yes, they just need a few more years to perfect it so it can another game changer in the industry

    Votes: 133 26.6%

  • Shouldnt it be called "Two Lives and a half" instead?

    Votes: 81 16.2%

  • Half life is overrated, you neckbeard homos

    Votes: 47 9.4%
  • Total voters
    500
Slav Power said:
Black Mesa changed so much about HL1 that it's a separate experience, only worth playing if you played the original Half-Life at least once to have the right point of reference. Just because it's a fan project doesn't magically absolve it of the sin of not being faithful to the original, for which any other commercial remake or remaster would be crucified and burned at the stake.

I've ranted about it in this thread before. Black Mesa is a good experience on it's own, but it's not a substitute for HL1. Don't be the guy.
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I played the original Half Life. I finished the game. Black Mesa is just a remake of Half Life. I didn't notice any major changes. The few I did seen I thought they were improvements.
 
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BradeRunna said:
I played the original Half Life. I finished the game. Black Mesa is just a remake of Half Life. I didn't notice any major changes. The few I did seen I thought they were improvements.
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Black Mesa also:
-referenced Gordon's ponytail which was just a small development tidbit and presented it as part of the lore
-injected Kleiner, Eli and Barney based on what was implied in HL2 and Blue Shift even though they didn't exist when HL1 came out
-injected the whole Freeman prophecy bullshit with the Vortigaunts which were nothing but generic enemies when HL1 came out
-completely redesigned Xen to the point where it holds zero resemblance to what it was in HL1

And before you pull any excuses, stop. Recommending mods like this as someone's first experience with a series is what led to the demise of the DOOM community (before DOOM 2016) and the STALKER community (before the war/STALKER 2). Brutal Doom caused an infestation of COD idiots that didn't understand DOOM and Anomaly/GAMMA caused an infestation of milsim idiots that didn't understand STALKER, and both started judging DOOM/STALKER as if they were long time fans and understood what the series was about.

By promoting fan mods as the first experience with a series because "they're totes like the OG's and like better in every way dude", and excusing this behavior, you are the very cancer that destroys this hobby, and I can only wish for the same destruction to happen to your beloved series.
 
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Slav Power said:
Black Mesa changed so much about HL1 that it's a separate experience, only worth playing if you played the original Half-Life at least once to have the right point of reference. Just because it's a fan project doesn't magically absolve it of the sin of not being faithful to the original, for which any other commercial remake or remaster would be crucified and burned at the stake.

I've ranted about it in this thread before. Black Mesa is a good experience on it's own, but it's not a substitute for HL1. Don't be the guy.
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It used to be somewhat of a faithful remake back when the demo first released in 2012/2013 and it was the original goal. Feels like they just handed the project off to some newfag discord jannies at some point with all the unfunny inside jokes around the pizza ARG that was never in the original project. Let alone the original game. It really was not as clever as portal 2's Potato ARG.
 
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Miller said:
Riccochet 2 confirmed.
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ricochet.jpg
 
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Men in Black said:
I really like how Black Mesa made the facility feel more alive, like it actually had been operating for years and had hundreds of employees. But I think the game took itself too seriously and shouldn't have changed the level design or the cartoony aesthetic from Half-Life.
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You've pretty much nailed my thoughts on Black Mesa. It's a fun mod but I'd never recommend it unless you've played OG Half Life.
 
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Slav Power said:
Black Mesa also:
-referenced Gordon's ponytail which was just a small development tidbit and presented it as part of the lore
-injected Kleiner, Eli and Barney based on what was implied in HL2 and Blue Shift even though they didn't exist when HL1 came out
-injected the whole Freeman prophecy bullshit with the Vortigaunts which were nothing but generic enemies when HL1 came out
-completely redesigned Xen to the point where it holds zero resemblance to what it was in HL1

And before you pull any excuses, stop. Recommending mods like this as someone's first experience with a series is what led to the demise of the DOOM community (before DOOM 2016) and the STALKER community (before the war/STALKER 2). Brutal Doom caused an infestation of COD idiots that didn't understand DOOM and Anomaly/GAMMA caused an infestation of milsim idiots that didn't understand STALKER, and both started judging DOOM/STALKER as if they were long time fans and understood what the series was about.

By promoting fan mods as the first experience with a series because "they're totes like the OG's and like better in every way dude", and excusing this behavior, you are the very cancer that destroys this hobby, and I can only wish for the same destruction to happen to your beloved series.
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All those things were changed in Black Mesa because that's the direction that Valve went with Half Life 2. In saying that they are wrong you are saying the people that made the games are wrong. I don't think they wrong. Like I said Black Mesa is just a remake of Half Life 1. It's the superior way to play the game at least if you want a modernized version. If not, you can always go play the original that's on Steam. Half Life Source is still a broken mess which is why I said Black Mesa is the best way to experience Half Life.

Also, the Xen portion of Half Life was the worst part of the game IMO and I have heard other people express that exact same sentiment. Black Mesa just took the worst part of an old game and improved it. Especially the boss fight as the end against the Nihilanth.

Your post reminds me of the way Doom autistes go around claiming that Doom Eternal isn't really Doom because Doom 3 and Doom 2016 were their first Doom games. Your last bit about being cancer and hoping something I like gets destroyed tells me you are the type who needs to take a shower get out of your mom's basement get some sunshine some fresh air and touch some grass.
 
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BradeRunna said:
the Xen portion of Half Life was the worst part of the game IMO and I have heard other people express that exact same sentiment. Black Mesa just took the worst part of an old game and improved it. Especially the boss fight as the end against the Nihilanth.
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The xen portion of Black mesa is the worst part of black mesa imo. It is essentially the same kind of thing people complained about with Power up and On a Rail. It goes on and on. It becomes the thing theyre so proud if it ends up being longer than the original.

Also the hitscan feel of source will never be as good as goldsrc. Yeah its cool to have no fal damage with the longjump. No it isnt cool that the mp5 is still weak but carries less bullets. Its funny how some things get fixed while other things that could be better like the pistol and mp5 are still weak and inaccurate. This is why Half-payne and Brutal Half Life are so great.
 
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AnOminous said:
Xen was the worst part of HL1 and changing it improved it.
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until the improvement was probably worse than the original, black mesa xen is mostly a glitchy slog that relies on its abundance of puzzles and mazey level design to finish, (and there's also the cancerous pre-final boss elevator fight and i fucking hate it so much) add the incessant self-fellation (everything needs to be EPIC AND DEEP!!!!!) about the effort they've put in those three fucking levels and it gets really easy to understand why it's not really an improvement over the simple shittiness of the original xen.

e: oh yeah, since the talk is about mods, i did try out brutal half life and i have to say that it's not worth playing, a simple case of bloating the game with:
  1. spawning weapons like the DE and magnum/crossbow and sniper rifle in the same campaigns
  2. custom weapons that are also redundant to their original counterparts, the m16 doing the same thing as the mp5 but you use m249 ammo instead, or the USAS-12 basically doing the same thing as the M249, but you use shotshells instead
  3. unnecessary and unfitting content, ranging from doom, quake, duke3d and blood campaigns which adds reference weapons that can also appear in the main game like blood's dynamite and RCTW mp40
  4. adding unwanted mechanics like ADS, akimbo and looting from the backpacks of dead HECU bodies...
  5. which relies on glitching the game with either gib and prop physics, and it piles up with shoddy enemy placement and new npc behavior that fucks up interacting with all kinds of npcs
 
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My only issues with Black Mesa is that enemies get gibbed way too easily, and how bright and colorful Xen is. It's like they were designing some RTX demo instead of making it feel truly otherworldly.
 
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