Black Mesa

HALF LIFE - a real classic one. Released in 1998, it was really mindblasting and became worldwide game of the year with more than 50 awards.

If you call yourself a gamer, you should not miss this pearl of game-history

Thanks for info, Walker, looking forward to the new look and some new content and going 15 years back in time.

Downloading... :gr

Thanks for the info, Walker!!

Looking forward to give it a shot.

You know, I was really impressed with the mod during the first hour or two. The opening on the tram was beautifully recreated and walking around the laboratory talking with the scientists, hearing the extra dialogue they recorded, instantly brought back so many nostalgic memories of the original. But as the level design began to diverge a bit and seeing several attempts to "fix" the problems the original had only reminded me that Half-Life was not perfect.

Even though Half-Life is is one of my favorite games and games series, it had its fair share of problems, many of which were because it was Valve's first game and they had not developed the experience they have today to root out some of those flaws. Your first time through, some of the chapter's level design could be rather confusing and not in the fun exploring-and-getting-lost-in-a-maze way that early FPSs like Doom did. And though I enjoyed the platforming, it was not perfect and those imperfections were made even more evident during the infamous Xen and final boss sections.

While it is tempting for people to skip over the original Half-Life and play Black Mesa instead, I believe they still should experience the original first before playing this admittedly very well done and faithful fan remake. For at the very least as a history lesson in Valve and to see how far they have come since then.

Just when I was thinking why Episode Three isn't out yet as I really loved HL series. In fact, Half Life was my favorite until recently. I played all parts of it except the Half Life 1 which I didn't finish as I didn't have the nerve to keep playing with those graphics, even better so that Black Mesa is released now!

Thanks for this useful info bit, Walker. Really appreciate.

Can you also post a link to a verified source where I can download the SDK as well?

The game seems to be 100% free to play, kudos to Valve.

Want to work for Valve? Check this out - valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf

Haha!! i lived for 3 years thinking i had finished Half-life, only to find out that there was still more to go, in some random walkthroughs. I reached the part when we have to launch the rocket, and i just assumed it was over due to the "victory" song!! Anyway, great game, nice to hear about this!!!

Sorry for a late reply.

I just figured out after checking for all requirements that I need Steam. yep, Steam the only client I really don't like at all (the store is great though) and don't use. I tried installing it many times, it would crash, it wouldn't launch sometimes, just to name a few, and the only time it worked well was back in the day when HL2 was launched, the only time I properly used Steam to play the game.

Is there a way to play this free game without Steam client or new registration? If not, then that's really sad.

Thanks a lot Walker. I'll give it a try. It appears to be in German, anyone willing to translate what are requirements for this release to run properly?

It appears to be in German, anyone willing to translate what are requirements for this release to run properly?

Info
Black Mesa: Source (BMS) is a pure fan project, i.e. it's a F2P game. Why this release? Because neither Steam nor the Steam SDK is needed to play, simply install and play. There are a few features: the game can be updated always. Simply download the newest release from the website, unpack the .zip file and copy the .7zip into the .\BlackMesaSource folder. This means as soon as the last 4 chapters are released you can install them at once using this installer.

For further details see the readme.txt in the .\BlackMesaSource folder. [Hope this one is english ]

In case the message "Node graph out of date. Rebuilding..." appear, use the fix-tool provided with this download.

In case you have steam installed: the steam client must be shutdown before you start the game. Otherwise you won't be able to load savegames.

It appears to be in German, anyone willing to translate what are requirements for this release to run properly?

Info
Black Mesa: Source (BMS) is a pure fan project, i.e. it's a F2P game. Why this release? Because neither Steam nor the Steam SDK is needed to play, simply install and play. There are a few features: the game can be updated always. Simply download the newest release from the website, unpack the .zip file and copy the .7zip into the .\BlackMesaSource folder. This means as soon as the last 4 chapters are released you can install them at once using this installer.

For further details see the readme.txt in the .\BlackMesaSource folder. [Hope this one is english ]

In case the message "Node graph out of date. Rebuilding..." appear, use the fix-tool provided with this download.

In case you have steam installed: the steam client must be shutdown before you start the game. Otherwise you won't be able to load savegames.

Thanks mate