What is the half-life of Half-Life? I might have way back described Valve’s first-person shooter as my favorite game, however revisiting it final month in preparation for Half-Life: Alyx made clear what number of elements of its design have aged.
Enter Black Mesa, a fan-made remake of the unique Half-Life, inside Half-Life 2’s Source engine. Over eight years since we first reviewed its earliest release, the undertaking is now full. It is a triumph on many ranges, and by way of scale and polish, probably the most spectacular fan game ever made. But it stays, beneath, Half-Life – with all that that entails.
If you’ve by no means performed Half-Life earlier than, each it and Black Mesa solid you as Gordon Freeman, a 27-year-old scientist arriving for work at an underground analysis facility. You’re there to conduct an experiment, which works fallacious in typical B-movie fashion: portals open, alien monsters are unleashed, and the ability descends into chaos. You should combat your manner again to the floor, contending with aliens and army clean-up crews, each of that are equally decided to kill you and each different scientist within the facility.
To be clear: Half-Life might need aged, however it’s nonetheless a great game. Its setting design continues to be evocative regardless of its visible shortcomings, its shotgun continues to be fabulous at right-click-exploding enemies in satisfying showers of alien physique elements, and its storytelling strategies are nonetheless the template for the twenty-two years of first-person shooters that adopted it. As you weave via Black Mesa’s warehouses, railways and sewage programs, combating ninjas and flipping switches, it’s going to develop into clear that the world of game design has moved on, however that Helf-Life’s comparatively easy horror story holds up much better than most of its friends.
Black Mesa follows the beats of the unique game precisely, via every of its now-famous moments. The opening tram experience is prolonged and refreshed with bigger, fancier surroundings. The sluggish stroll via the Black Mesa laboratory has the identical sights and jokes, however with the newly-added presence of Eli Vance. The resonance cascade, which is what unleashes the mardy aliens from Xen, is enlivened by precise physics interactions, and plenty of extra particle and lighting results than the unique Half-Life may handle. Beyond that, there are the identical scripted sequences, the identical relentless dedication to the first-person digital camera, and the identical eventual journey to Xen itself on the finish.
Each of those parts as soon as made Half-Life phenomenal, however in each case, a part of the preliminary thrill has been dulled by time. I’d by no means seen something like that opening tram experience in 1998, or the sluggish moments of pre-disaster exploration that comply with. “Scripted sequences”, wherein scientists would animate and discuss and meet their grisly demise as you came across them, had been a revelation that made Half-Life’s world extra alive than any first-person shooter’s earlier than it. We don’t name these moments “scripted sequences” anymore although, as a result of they’re so commonplace they don’t want a reputation. It’s weird to keep in mind that “things happen” was as soon as a back-of-the-box characteristic.
Black Mesa’s meticulous recreation doesn’t return any of those moments to their former glory, as a result of to take action could be unimaginable. You can’t see one thing for the primary time twice. As a consequence, moments just like the tram experience now really feel overly lengthy, even boring, as they lock you in a small field to ship explosion and worldbuilding I’d count on a contemporary game to parcel out extra elegantly.
What Black Mesa presents as a substitute is a visible refresh that efficiently drags 1998’s best stage design to a visible commonplace principally set in stone round 2010, utilizing a 2004 engine. It does so with grace and aptitude. Often, visible remasters do a horrible disservice to the unique art work of older games, jamming polygons, high-resolution textures and greebles onto each floor with little consideration for authentic intent. To its huge credit score, Black Mesa doesn’t try this: the spirit of every location is maintained, whether or not the early labs, the wood-panelled workplaces, or the cavernous bowels of the ability. It by no means appears like the extent designers are utilizing the elevated constancy obtainable just because they’ll.
The familiarity of all of it presents some benefits, too. If, like me, you’ve performed the unique game a number of instances, you may discover you bear in mind every twist and switch over the course of the game’s first 3-5 hours. There are some adjustments – a quick part the place you set zombies on hearth with flares, earlier than discovering the crowbar, for instance – however in any other case it’s moment-by-moment unchanged from the unique game. I sped via the game’s first eight chapters, blasting aside houndeyes, vortigaunts and army grunts whereas barely pausing to assume.
It falls aside solely when one thing breaks this circulate state. There are leaping challenges which can be no extra enjoyable now than they had been the primary time round. There are moments in ranges the place it’s straightforward to lose sight of the place you’re meant to be going, or to search out the exit from a fight enviornment. These issues could be solved in a really fashionable game through participant testing and format adjustments, or by a pleasant NPC buzzing in your ear to level you in the suitable path. Or even by an enormous quest arrow pointing to the place to go. Your goals additionally make progress a slog for the game’s third quarter, from the chapters ‘On A Rail’ via to ‘Lambda Core’. There are memorable moments inside, together with the big Garg, and being thrown in a trash compactor by enemy troopers, however the remaining feels repetitive. But then, did combating the Alien Grunts and army ninjas ever really feel good?
In retrospect, Half-Life represents a type of mid-point between completely different eras of motion game design. The first-person shooters that got here earlier than it had been outlined by Doom and Quake: working and gunning in comparatively static worlds, divided by locked doorways, with enemies who needed nothing however to fill you with bullets. The games that got here after, and that are made at the moment, share extra in widespread with Half-Life 2, with set-piece design structured round giving gamers a brand new toy all through a single stage. For instance, Half-Life 2’s Ravenholm, which supplies you sawblades with which to slice zombies in half, after which you by no means see one other sawblade for the remainder of the game.
Black Mesa sits within the center between these two poles. There is extra to its world than simply enemies who need to kill you, however you’ll nonetheless be working and gunning for many of your time. You’re by no means in search of a blue keycard to open a blue door, however neither are you being supplied novel toys, and issues particularly designed to be solved by them. You’ll as a substitute spend a variety of time heading down one hall to revive energy, then backtracking and heading down a second hall to revive the auxiliary poisonous sludge pipe, so you’ll be able to ultimately press an enormous button marked “progress”.
When you might be given one thing new to play with, such because the hornet hand, snarks, or crossbow, there’s an preliminary thrill. Even after twenty years, the weapons really feel bizarre and thrilling, and the brand new animations for the hornet hand are notably pleasant. Such a broad arsenal of weapons is uncommon as of late, and I discovered actual pleasure – reduction, even – in all the time having a dozen death-dealing choices in my pocket, moderately than being restricted. And but, they’re additionally of restricted use in most conditions. I defaulted to the Magnum and the shotgun time and again, and even when a weapon was highly effective, such because the gluon gun, I usually averted utilizing it as a result of it didn’t really feel highly effective. The gluon gun is an especially loud and lethal hose with a considerable charge-up time, however it solely causes small pink splotches to seem on enemies to suggest they’re being harm – after which they merely burst.
The distinction to all of the game’s cautious historic reenactment is Xen, the notorious muck-coloured alien homeworld which kinds Half-Life’s final act. I really feel like I’ve dedicated quite a few acts of sacrilege up to now by criticising different features of the unique Half-Life, so let’s spherical it out by saying: Xen was by no means as dangerous as individuals say. Sure, it writ giant the rubbish leaping puzzles from the game’s earlier sections, and befell throughout a number of, small, disc-shaped turd islands, however it was nonetheless a welcome change of tempo. I preferred the little mild bulbs which recoiled whenever you got here close to, the ecosystem of recent wildlife, and the Gonarch’s thundering testicle.
Black Mesa retains these three issues, however adjustments practically all the things else – and virtually fully for the higher. Xen is Black Mesa’s stage designers unleashed, revelling within the freedom to create one thing of their very own. The brown islands are gone, and of their place is lush, vibrant terrain. There are a number of attractive vistas to gawp at, and even distinct-feeling biomes, from alien jungles, to encroaching human outposts, to the Gonarch’s community of caves. It nonetheless feels Xen-like, and in line with the game’s total fashion, however it’s Xen because it might need been made at the moment. Even the bounce puzzles are now not terrible – the awkward and difficult leaps between islands have been changed with extra easy traversal utilizing a long-distance bounce transfer. It’s correctly enjoyable.
Yet it’s not good, both. One of the unique complaints about Xen was how divorced it felt from the remainder of the game. The new Xen doesn’t have that drawback – however then, I by no means thought that was an issue to start with. Remember what I mentioned earlier than, about how Half-Life chapters usually boil all the way down to trudging backwards and forwards to energy equipment and unlock progress in a central hub? Hey-hey! That’s what Xen is about too, now, with Half-Life 2’s energy cables making an look as you employ them to wire up alien crystals to supply electrical energy to doorways, or discover methods to blow up different crystals as a way to flood chambers and swim up in direction of new corridors. After following this routine for therefore many hours, it appears like a slog to do all of it once more in Xen.
The Gonarch, in the meantime, continues to be extra memorable for her visible design – she’s an enormous bollock, ain’t she – than for the precise combat. That combat takes place over a number of levels, together with a number of segments the place you’re being chased, throughout which the Gonarch is seemingly invulnerable to break. It’s not any extra enjoyable for being longer. There’s nonetheless not sufficient seen suggestions when taking pictures at her, both. It left me questioning whether or not I used to be lacking one thing, and feeling as if I used to be making no progress till, ultimately, she burst.
Finally, there’s the Nihilanth, Half-Life’s equally notorious massive child boss. Gone is the portal-based chicanery of the unique combat, changed with an easy three-stage pounding. It is suitably epic, as the massive child wrenches rocks from the bottom, pummels you with missiles, and even spawns vans and jeeps to throw at you. For your half, it nonetheless boils all the way down to blasting the massive child bullet sponge until, once more, it bursts. But at the very least it appears to be like good doing it.
So, Half-Life, then. I used to say it was my favorite game of all time. Now, I’d say it’s a first-person shooter that’s often nice, principally good, and generally charmingly crap. Black Mesa smooths out many of the crap, and maintains the nice and the nice. It doesn’t modernise the antiquated design – however then, it wouldn’t be Half-Life if it did. As it’s, it’s one of the simplest ways to play Valve’s authentic design should you haven’t finished so earlier than, and it’s a superb method to retread these previous air flow shafts, you probably have.
