For those of you unfamiliar with Black Mesa, it’s a fan created remake of the original Half-Life aimed at updating the first-person shooter classic with new graphics and overall “shiny-ness”. Although Black Mesa has yet to officially be finished/released, the game has been green-lit on Steam’s new Greenlight Program and a large section of the game was released to the general public this past Friday to show people that things were coming along. I, like many of the Half-life fans I know, couldn’t wait to give Black Mesa a try and zipped home to download and play the game as soon as I could. My first impressions after playing the game for a few hours? Video Game Gold.

While it might be tempting to dismiss Black Mesa as just a high-definition re-skinning of the first game, that would be a painfully lacking description of just how much love was put into this game. I mean, yes, at a conceptual level Black Mesa pretty much is just a high-definition remake of Half-life. That’s what it is and that’s pretty much what it sets out to be. But the beauty of it is that the (obviously talented) people behind the game didn’t just cop-out and re-skin the game; they actually re-made it. I know that might be a confusing, but I mean is that Black Mesa is a whole new game, from the ground up. Oh sure the story is a classic and the levels play out pretty close to the original; but at no point are any of the maps/models/textures/soundtrack/voice actors ever re-used from the first game. Black Mesa serves as a retelling of the original Half-life story, but in a whole new (yet utterly familiar) game.  And I gotta say, even just a few hours into the game, that Black Mesa simply oozes with wonderful “Valve-like” quality. This game isn’t just a better looking Half-life, it’s a better Half-life game in general. Their secret? Detail.

I cannot express enough how much this game is oozing with details otherwise lacking from the original game. Especially in light of all the new information we are given in Half-Life‘s sequel, Half-life 2; which retcons quite a few events and characters from the first game. Characters like Eli Vance & Isaac Kleiner, who were just nameless scientists (who looked like everyone else in the first game) suddenly became full-blown characters in Half-life 2. And the aliens that had been attacking you the whole game, the Vortiguants, were suddenly your allies in the sequel as well. Of course this was all explained and given more detail as the Half-life series progressed; but since these elements weren’t important at the time the original Half-life game was made, they get next to no focus in the first game [see: none].

This is where Black Mesa comes in…

Doctor Vance? Doctor Kleiner? No longer are they just names given to ambiguous scientists, they are actual characters who stop and chat with Gordan Freeman like you’d expect them too. Although their appearance is brief, it’s all you need to see to establish their roles in the Half-life Universe; and set them up for Half-life 2.

Likewise, while the Vortigaunts in Half-life did technically have “slave” collars around their necks, it was something I personally never noticed in my playthroughs of the game due to the low detail on their character models. In Black Mesa though, with the enhanced graphics, it’s quite obvious that these basic alien foes have been enslaved and are under the firm rule of some greater power. Which makes the eventual news (in Half-life 2) of you having freed them and them looking up to you make a lot more sense.

I’m also not 100% sure how detailed the maps/textures were in the first Half-life (due to not having played it in so long); but I’m fairly certain that a number of small details have been added to all the whiteboards and lab notes sprinkled around the Black Mesa Research Facility. Sure these notes are nothing but fluff; but I’m a fluff kinda guy. So I loved being able to read about the biology of the Bullsquid…

Or about the acidic properties of a Snark. You gotta love those cute little guys…

It’s also quite refreshing to see more than just three skins for all the scientist you help throughout the game! Some of them are female now too!

As you can see, the team behind Black Mesa really went the extra mile in crafting this game. I’m not even through half the game and it is already proving to be one of the best contributions made so far to the Half-life universe; and it’s not even made by Valve! Obviously the game is not without its fair share of minor hick-ups, I’ve noticed a few graphical glitches and had it crash on me in my limited play-time so far; but such is the reality of gaming.

All I know is that if this level of polish continues through to the end of the project, then Black Mesa is going to seriously re-define how we look at “big name” releases. Because if this team of about 50 people, without any backing or support from a major publisher or studio, can manage to make the biggest contribution to a AAA series in years… than we need to take a good long look at how this industry functions. Because clearly there is more talent out there then is being used.

In summary; Black Mesa is awesome and you should probably go download and play it right now.

No seriously, go do it.

Also, enjoy this…

And have a good day!