Minhoca
Reviews
Black Mesa (Windows)
Blast of the past
The Good
Black Mesa enhances almost every aspect of the original Half-Life game, not just the graphics. Every major thing Valve intended to do in Half-Life but couldn't because of technical limitations is done in this game and it really shines because of it. I especially enjoy how some details in the original game that I was only able to catch up after watching videos about it were shown much clearer in Black Mesa.
In my opinion the largest improvement from the original is the music. While Half-Life had some cool songs, I never saw myself listening to them a lot outside of the game with the exception of the badass heavy rock ones. Black Mesa's soundtrack, though, shines EVERYWHERE. Fear, calmness, tension, relief, it's almost as if the music conveys the emotions of Dr. Freeman himself.
The Bad
The game has a few annoying bugs. One of which completely stopped my progress and I had to load the last save. Quicksaving also sometimes glitches out creating useless corrupted loads.
There is a bit of inconsistency in some of the graphics, as many assets are taken from Half-Life 2 and others are new, combining models and textures from 2015 with ones from 2004. Surprisingly, most of them blend together pretty well, but at some specific situations (particularly the very last cutscene) are pretty jarring because of it. Unfortunately, a few details from the original game are also lost in this remake, but they are so minor that most players will likely not notice them.
The Bottom Line
Absolutely a banger game and I highly recommend it for both people who never played Half-Life and those who did. Just remember to save twice in a row in case your load gets corrupted.
By Minhoca on June 23, 2022