Uplink and Lost Coast aren't really part of the story anyway. Uplink is just a demo with some levels that aren't in Half Life proper, and Lost Coast is a cut area from HL2 that was reused to demo HDR in the Source Engine.
Both are pretty fun though, and can be completed pretty quickly (especially Lost Coast).
While playing through the first Half Life, don't forget to grab the official HD Pack for the models (unless you want the originals), and Half Life Source has a community made HD Pack that is pretty impressive as well.
And I prefer to go "Au Natural" when it comes to playing Half-Life; straight up ass-tacular graphics; no HD pack for either Half-Life or Half-Life: Source.
I find the newer models in HL kinda start approaching the uncanny valley areas where they're more detailed, but not quite "lifeful" enough for the detail. Plus there's a lot of incongrency with Opposing Force where all the models from HL get updated, but the new stuff like Op4 doesn't. Easier to just go without, for me at least.
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MongerI got the ham stink.Dallas, TXRegistered Userregular
I still haven't played Decay. I should do that sometime.
Half-Life and Half-Life: Source are the same thing, by the way, no need to play them both
Thanks, but I knew that. I wasn't planning on playing them both because they're radically different. I'm playing them as the two eras of Half-Life. The original goldsource era of multiple takes on Black Mesa; and the new source era that directly follows Gordon's journey from start to finish.
We want to make sure all of you are ready for the big day. If you don't already know, Black Mesa will require the FREE Source SDK Base 2007 to run. If you are not too sure that you have Source SDK Base 2007 installed or you don't own any source based games, please click here (steam://run/218) to download and install the Source SDK Base via Steam for FREE.
I know many of you loyal Half Life fans are planning on taking a vacation day from work, calling out sick for school, or even both. We are working very hard to ensure your day off does not go in vain, and that every person trying to download Black Mesa will undergo a smooth and fast downloading experience. The approximate download size will be 3.03 GB, 8 GB uncompressed. At launch, a launch pad will be available offering multiple mirrors and options for download. These options shall be revealed during launch. So go ahead, take that day off and join us!
We know you all are very excited and we want to you share your gameplay experiences as soon as you finish playing. We also want to make sure to collect any bug reporting and get any resolved as quickly as possible. With that being said, the forums shall be moved to it's own separate server. So when you are finished re-visiting Black Mesa, we'll be here to hear all about it.
We are very excited and we are counting down the days right along with you!
Almost done with my playthrough of Half-Life.. Game is not nearly as hard as I remember, but that's probably due to me knowing where every enemy is, and abusing the AI. I just killed the Gonarch and I'm not looking forward to the rest of Xen. :S The island sucks. The refinery area sucks. And the factory REALLY sucks. Interloper in general just sucks.
Must push on though.
EDIT: Okay, cleared out the rest of Xen (fuck that factory). Now to move onto decay. I toyed with the idea of finding someone to co-op it with, but I think I'll just go it solo so I can do it at my own pace (I got a schedule to keep )
Also, the Black Mesa guys put their mod up on Steam Greenlight (Link) and it already has a whopping 24%!
So Black Mesa is now the #1 game on Steam Greenlight, with 33% of the necassary votes. Pretty impressive.
Played the first few levels of the decay mod version.. Man there's some annoying crap about it that's almost making me dig up a PS2 to play the console version.
My biggest beef is that because the coop nature is shoehorned into the PC version, it isn't as smooth as the console version: which results in the biggest problem.
Previously, when you played Decay in singleplayer, you would swap between the two characters and the non-player character would point the way you left her and shoot anything in her line of sight (often wasting ammo doing so) but in this mod, because of how they had to implement the system, when you leave a character, it resets their direction to the same orientation every time, often 'causing them to be pointed at a wall or otherwise pointed away from potential threats. I wound up with a dead character in the fifth level because I kept having to swap between the two and whenever I did, the other one would wind up in a bad position to shoot things with. Oh well, four levels down, 8 to go.
EDIT: Hmm.. I didn't realize this is my third post in a row over the past four days. I guess I'll make it my last one unless people start posting again.
First post in a long-ass time, probably nobody remembers me, but HEY GUYS
Half-Life didn't start me on PC gaming, but it got me beyond just playing the first four levels of Quake 2 on my dad's work computer when he took me with him. Also I was like 9. I bought HL2 the day it came out and stared at the box every day while I saved up enough money to build a computer that could run it (with the help of this very forum!)
I've been following BMS since the announcement but after a while I learned not to follow it so closely, taking more of a "valve time" approach. Hadn't checked on it since last year, then I had to move and when I was unpacking all my books I stumbled on Raising the Bar. Halfway through reading that, I remembered the mod, and lo and behold it was 8 days to go.
I think I might start posting again, some good times had with you homps.
I guess you're before my time here, but I too was a youngster when HL2 came out. I bought it and was less than satisfied with its performance on my 500mhz Pentium 3.
Beat it on there anyway. Kind of ruined the ending.
ti i i i i i i i i i m m m m m e e e e, d d d o o o c t t t t o o o o r r r r r r f r e e e e e e m m m a a a a a n n n n ?
How many liberties are taken and whether they're improvements or not will vary a lot from chapter to chapter, LDs were designated a chapter each (sometimes a few, like the same guy doing Anomalous Materials did Unforeseen Consequences and some other stuff).
I still find it amazing that HL2 is getting closer and closer to being a decade old, yet I still find that it looks amazing.
I really don't see why graphics need to advance past HL2 really, it looks beautiful without the uncanny valley effect.
Good art design goes a long way, but it only goes so far. The Source engine has great facial animation and doesn't have that plastic look like so many recent engines seem to have, but it could always look better.
I still find it amazing that HL2 is getting closer and closer to being a decade old, yet I still find that it looks amazing.
I really don't see why graphics need to advance past HL2 really, it looks beautiful without the uncanny valley effect.
Good art design goes a long way, but it only goes so far. The Source engine has great facial animation and doesn't have that plastic look like so many recent engines seem to have, but it could always look better.
HL2 is an amazing looking game even now, still graphics have improved and its only natural that they do so.
Anywho, I beat the rest of Decay last night (It was shorter than I remembered) and went through all of Blue-Shift just for good measure.
Decay's PC port could have used some more work, since I frequently had the game freeze up on me (usually when using a health station while reloading or swapping weapons), and the glitchyness with the singleplayer setup kinda sucked. Still, was fun
Blue-Shift wasn't as good as I remembered it. Originally I felt it was a short, but concise chunk of the Half-Life experience, but it doesn't feel like that so much now.
Onwards to my favorite expansion of all time, Opposing Force. Tons of new monsters, new weapons and new allies! Woo!
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NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
When does Decay take place in the timeline? I know Blueshift is roughly started at the same time (maybe at most an hour before HL1 starts, start being when Gordan gets on the train/first start playing) and OpFor is well after the Cascade.
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Pretty much concurrently. The characters in Decay suit up around the same time as Freeman, and from there events play out pretty much simultaneously, and there's plenty of overlap with the original game; you're responsible for calling in the military in Decay, for instance.
Decay starts more or less when Half-Life starts, as was said. It ends exactly at the same time in Blue Shift when Calhoun is transported back to Earth from Xen, which should be about the same time Freeman is either in the rail system, or the old industrial era right after it. (The end of decay sets up the purpose of launching the rocket, and Blue Shift ends right during Freeman being dragged along by the two soldiers after getting captured.)
How many liberties are taken and whether they're improvements or not will vary a lot from chapter to chapter, LDs were designated a chapter each (sometimes a few, like the same guy doing Anomalous Materials did Unforeseen Consequences and some other stuff).
Yea.. from what I have seen it's going to be a wholly new game that just happens to have elements from Half-Life 1. It's meant to to honor the memory of the game its imitating, not recreate it. Following the game for so many years, I know that much.
I wonder how many people are going to download BM thinking its a room-by-room HD remake of HL.. despite the game being free, I expect some internet whinebabying about the changes.
A few years ago there was a preview of that sort of reaction on the official BM forums. A group of posters were known as the "purists" and were angryfaced about most, if not all alterations to the game. They gave up eventually after they realized the game would be better for it, but yes. It will be interesting to see the reaction upon release.
Eh, I suspect we'll see altered versions of the mod pop up eventually to bring in any egregious changes. (And I wouldn't be surprised to see someone build a more traditional Xen either.)
So it's not a room by room remake? That makes the constant, Phantom console- esque delays a bit more understandable
HL1, if you put all its maps together, could not exist as a physical space, because it loops back on itself a number of times. Pretty sure that Black Mesa is actually architected such that its maps never do that. I know they've said that all the landmarks are there, but a lot of individual rooms have been either trimmed down or expanded to improve the game's pacing or make the facility more believable as a functional place. If you compare the leaked footage in the OP to that section in HL1, you can see the kinds of changes they've made.
Also, at some point, they apparently built a full face generator so that every NPC (marines included) can have a unique face. Because why not?
Man, Op4 is balls hard. I forgot just how hard it was. Gearbox pretty much just took Half-Life and pushed it to 11. Thought the grunts in Half-Life were hard? Now here's some Black Ops, who are completely silent, have like 3 times as much health, and all carry mp5's with grenades. Thought the aliens in Half-Life were cannon fodder? Well, here are the Race-X Shock Troopers, complete with the soldier AI and crazy amounts of health. Giant zombies, a tunnel filled with huge monsters, and suicidal soldier teammates.
Eh, I suspect we'll see altered versions of the mod pop up eventually to bring in any egregious changes. (And I wouldn't be surprised to see someone build a more traditional Xen either.)
I wouldn't be surprised if the BM team never release an interpretation of Xen, this "first episode" being basically everything up to that point.
They'll release it. They have already been working on it for some time. The team was just sick of working on the game without much reward/respect/adulation so the lead developers had a meeting and decided to release the part of the game they were no longer working on (only beta testing for bugs etc) to inject some much needed energy into the project -- energy they believe they need to not only finish.. but to make Xen into a memorable and enjoyable experience all its own.
Yeah I know all about it, I'm pals with a few of the devs. Still think they're all probably too burnt out on it to sign up for more after the initial release. For a lot of these guys their entire level design portfolio is tied up in an unreleased project, I imagine that's a lot of the motivation right now.
Woo, Op4 is now in the bucket. Only took me around 4 hours to complete (Compared to Half-Life which took about 7.5)
Looking back, I see why I was so enamored with the game back when it came out (Over 12 years ago? Yikes) but I'm not sure it holds up as well. The game is basically Half-Life with the dials turned up real high; so enemies have ridiculous amounts of health, which makes all the HL1 era weapons less powerful in comparison, but then you have the new Op4 weapons which are ridiculously powerful; so half the time the game is pretty much the same as it was in HL1 (when you have ammo for the superguns) and the other half of the time you are just trying to survive long enough to dump enough ammo into an enemy.
Still, it's probably one of the most content-rich and quality expansions I've ever played in an FPS, and maybe in any game ever. Shame the expansion concept is dying out versus smaller DLC's that are often pretty pricey compared to the base game.
My favourite thing in OpFor was probably the teleporter gun whose alt-fire takes you to a random place in the facility or on Xen. Since they couldn't easily just switch maps when you did that, every time there's a map change after you get that gun you have a new teleport destination to check out. Best thing.
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Both are pretty fun though, and can be completed pretty quickly (especially Lost Coast).
While playing through the first Half Life, don't forget to grab the official HD Pack for the models (unless you want the originals), and Half Life Source has a community made HD Pack that is pretty impressive as well.
And I prefer to go "Au Natural" when it comes to playing Half-Life; straight up ass-tacular graphics; no HD pack for either Half-Life or Half-Life: Source.
I find the newer models in HL kinda start approaching the uncanny valley areas where they're more detailed, but not quite "lifeful" enough for the detail. Plus there's a lot of incongrency with Opposing Force where all the models from HL get updated, but the new stuff like Op4 doesn't. Easier to just go without, for me at least.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Thanks, but I knew that.
Must push on though.
EDIT: Okay, cleared out the rest of Xen (fuck that factory). Now to move onto decay. I toyed with the idea of finding someone to co-op it with, but I think I'll just go it solo so I can do it at my own pace (I got a schedule to keep
Also, the Black Mesa guys put their mod up on Steam Greenlight (Link) and it already has a whopping 24%!
Played the first few levels of the decay mod version.. Man there's some annoying crap about it that's almost making me dig up a PS2 to play the console version.
My biggest beef is that because the coop nature is shoehorned into the PC version, it isn't as smooth as the console version: which results in the biggest problem.
Previously, when you played Decay in singleplayer, you would swap between the two characters and the non-player character would point the way you left her and shoot anything in her line of sight (often wasting ammo doing so) but in this mod, because of how they had to implement the system, when you leave a character, it resets their direction to the same orientation every time, often 'causing them to be pointed at a wall or otherwise pointed away from potential threats. I wound up with a dead character in the fifth level because I kept having to swap between the two and whenever I did, the other one would wind up in a bad position to shoot things with. Oh well, four levels down, 8 to go.
EDIT: Hmm.. I didn't realize this is my third post in a row over the past four days. I guess I'll make it my last one unless people start posting again.
Also, god damn you Black Mesa why must you pass me on Greenlight.
Half-Life didn't start me on PC gaming, but it got me beyond just playing the first four levels of Quake 2 on my dad's work computer when he took me with him. Also I was like 9. I bought HL2 the day it came out and stared at the box every day while I saved up enough money to build a computer that could run it (with the help of this very forum!)
I've been following BMS since the announcement but after a while I learned not to follow it so closely, taking more of a "valve time" approach. Hadn't checked on it since last year, then I had to move and when I was unpacking all my books I stumbled on Raising the Bar. Halfway through reading that, I remembered the mod, and lo and behold it was 8 days to go.
I think I might start posting again, some good times had with you homps.
Beat it on there anyway. Kind of ruined the ending.
ti i i i i i i i i i m m m m m e e e e, d d d o o o c t t t t o o o o r r r r r r f r e e e e e e m m m a a a a a n n n n ?
I really don't see why graphics need to advance past HL2 really, it looks beautiful without the uncanny valley effect.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
It's Half Life 1 remade in the Source engine.
Everything rebuilt from scratch.
Dunno how much liberty they've taken with things, though, so I can't tell you how faithful a recreation it is going to be.
Good art design goes a long way, but it only goes so far. The Source engine has great facial animation and doesn't have that plastic look like so many recent engines seem to have, but it could always look better.
when I run the world they will teach this at school
HL2 is an amazing looking game even now, still graphics have improved and its only natural that they do so.
Decay's PC port could have used some more work, since I frequently had the game freeze up on me (usually when using a health station while reloading or swapping weapons), and the glitchyness with the singleplayer setup kinda sucked. Still, was fun
Blue-Shift wasn't as good as I remembered it. Originally I felt it was a short, but concise chunk of the Half-Life experience, but it doesn't feel like that so much now.
Onwards to my favorite expansion of all time, Opposing Force. Tons of new monsters, new weapons and new allies! Woo!
Yea.. from what I have seen it's going to be a wholly new game that just happens to have elements from Half-Life 1. It's meant to to honor the memory of the game its imitating, not recreate it. Following the game for so many years, I know that much.
I wonder how many people are going to download BM thinking its a room-by-room HD remake of HL.. despite the game being free, I expect some internet whinebabying about the changes.
A few years ago there was a preview of that sort of reaction on the official BM forums. A group of posters were known as the "purists" and were angryfaced about most, if not all alterations to the game. They gave up eventually after they realized the game would be better for it, but yes. It will be interesting to see the reaction upon release.
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
Also, at some point, they apparently built a full face generator so that every NPC (marines included) can have a unique face. Because why not?
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Good stuff.
Just to clarify, Xen is not coming this year,, and it will be an expanded version of the original chapters. Spring 2013 at the earliest, and it will likely be released along with BM: Deathmatch and Developer Commentary.
Looking back, I see why I was so enamored with the game back when it came out (Over 12 years ago? Yikes) but I'm not sure it holds up as well. The game is basically Half-Life with the dials turned up real high; so enemies have ridiculous amounts of health, which makes all the HL1 era weapons less powerful in comparison, but then you have the new Op4 weapons which are ridiculously powerful; so half the time the game is pretty much the same as it was in HL1 (when you have ammo for the superguns) and the other half of the time you are just trying to survive long enough to dump enough ammo into an enemy.
Still, it's probably one of the most content-rich and quality expansions I've ever played in an FPS, and maybe in any game ever. Shame the expansion concept is dying out versus smaller DLC's that are often pretty pricey compared to the base game.
I needed some health and ammo, dammit! Not a faster way to get killed.