
Fans resurrect Half-Life video game - anons2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19463712
======
aaronbrethorst
Here's a video of the game: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n54ILGwO68c>

Looks fantastic, especially considering that YouTube's compression apparently
did some bad things to the visual appearance[1].

[1] <http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?t=12124>: _The
compression YouTube applies has blurred and darkened everything, even at 720p
settings...I've got the original video at 1080p, and everything looks fine._

~~~
unavoidable
It does look great. I'm glad the project got out of vapourware hell. Any
longer and the whole thing would have become completely dated itself. Also
great that Valve is allowing projects like this that are using their assets
without asking for royalties or suing everyone in sight.

~~~
magicalist
For those that are wondering: they're allowed to release this because it's a
mod (so you can only play it if you have a Source engine game installed) and
they aren't charging anything. It's higher profile than most, but it's just
like any other mod in that respect. They did drop the "Source" from the game
title for trademark concerns from Valve.

What's funny is that now Team Fortress 2 is free to play, and counts as a
Source engine game, so you don't have to pay Valve any money to play Black
Mesa. Of course, now you have Steam with all its sales installed, and the
likelihood of you wanting to play it without having purchased any of their
other games is pretty small...

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dmix
Looks like there won't be OSX/Mac support

<https://twitter.com/BlackMesaDevs/status/242317444880928768>

~~~
zyb09
will probably run fine in Wine though, all Source-Engine games tend to.

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knodi
HL2:EP3

Still waiting...

~~~
jiggy2011
Would it even make sense to release a HL2:EP3 now, rather than a new game
called HL3?

It's been so long since EP2 was released and I'm sure the new game will
feature vastly updated graphics as well as some new gameplay mechanic (like
that gravity gun did to HL2).

~~~
mwilcox
Valve have already stated multiple times that they are done with the episodic
model, so yes, the next Half Life release should be HL3 rather than episode 3.
Which is likely why it's taking so long.

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Argorak
For those that cannot wait:

Have (immature) fun with their 404 page:
<http://www.blackmesasource.com/404.php>

The soundtrack is released ahead of time for your pleasure:
<http://www.blackmesasource.com/soundtrack.html>

~~~
pbhjpbhj
The referenced "fun" appears to be jokes about anal rape?

~~~
jlgreco
It looks like it is serving up random quotes from some sort of fortune file
compiled from irc logs or forum quotes or something.

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gwern
So how is this working legally? Has Valve blessed it explicitly or something?
(One would assume so since it's going through Steam.)

~~~
Havoc
Given that this is free, community driven and effectively celebrates HL1 I
don't think Valve will rain on their parade. Besides, Valve tries to support
the mod community as best as they can.

If they tried to sell it for profit I'd imagine there would be some very
pissed Valve lawyer breaking down doors though - because I don't think its
officially & legally blessed.

~~~
phaus
When someone makes something that's marketable out of one of Valve's games,
Gabe Newell normally gives them a job or a publishing deal. That's how all
video game companies should operate.

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johnchristopher
Why the heck do I learn of this from the BBC and not from nofrag (kudos to my
french-speaking fellows ;)

This is a mod I have been waiting for a loooong time. Can't wait to dust off
my fps skills while enjoying the game.

A long time in the making, I hope the devs are proud of their work and that
their work is going to give them pride.

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brokenparser
There was a mod for HL1 which allowed you to play as the alien race, similarly
to what blue shift and opposing force did for Barney and corporal Shephard
respectively. However, I haven't been able to find it on the web for quite
some time now. Does anyone know this mod and where it lives nowadays?

~~~
dfhsdfghsdfh
It was called "Point of View". You should be able to find it on moddb.

~~~
brokenparser
Yes, that's the one! Thank you!

<http://www.gamefront.com/files/files/9006174/pov.exe>

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aaronbrethorst
_Half-Life creator Valve released an updated version of the game in 2004 that
was built around its Source game code or engine. That official update of Half-
Life was generally regarded as unsatisfactory and led to the Black Mesa
project which aimed to do a better job._

Citation needed. Load times aside, Half-Life 2 was a spectacular game, and one
of the best-reviewed games of all time. Metacritic's score for it was a 96
with 81 positive reviews: <http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/half-life-2>

edit: OHHHHHHHH. My bad. Thanks for pointing out that they were referring to
Half-Life: Source.

~~~
unavoidable
They're not talking about HL2 but instead Half-Life: Source which was a port
of the original to the Source engine. Although they ported it to the Source
engine, they didn't update graphics or gameplay (unlike, for example, CS:
Source), so fans felt they could do better.

~~~
jlgreco
In addition to failing to update graphics (I suspect upgrading gameplay would
actually piss more people off), the experience was, at least in my experience,
actually degraded. The game handled differently with the Source engine
compared to GoldenSrc, and not in a good way. The original had a much crisper
"quake-ish" feel that was lost.

Additionally in Source there are (or at least were, I played it years ago)
several places where there are graphical glitches. Textures missing from
certain surfaces and whatnot. Each of those little things really built up a
general feeling of "they did not really care about this".

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johnchristopher
The 14th release isn't the complete project but it plays all the way until
lambda core chapter:

[http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?p=480683#po...](http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?p=480683#post480683)

> _This will include our re-envisioning of Half-Life all the way up to Lambda
> Core. We believe this is a great way to provide a complete-feeling 8-10 hour
> experience with a solid ending, make our fans happy and help us make the
> best overall game possible.

>We are still working hard on Xen and BMDM, but instead of making you wait we
are giving you Black Mesa as soon as it's ready!_

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jiggy2011
Looking good.

Hopefully I can recommend this to a friend who hasn't played HL at all. He
isn't really into games but recently bought a laptop with a decent graphics
chip. I told him that if you are only going to try one PC game then it should
be HL but the graphics of the original look very dated now and don't work well
on 16:9 and jumping straight to HL2 may be a little confusing without
understanding the context.

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kevinh
I remember when they promised it would be out by 2009 [1]. I guess it's to be
expected when you're working on Valve time. I was starting to wonder if the
project would get released before Valve either dumped or completely renovated
the Source engine.

[1] <http://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?t=2416>

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antihero
Oh my word, this is finally happening? I've been looking forward to this for a
LONG time.

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dfischer
I still have yet to play Half-Life. Should I play Half-Life original or Source
or This?

~~~
estebank
Play this. The original Half-Life is great and much fun, but it is going to
look dated, and not just the graphics.

This mod aims at making the experience have the same feeling, while updating
the gameplay, graphics and architecture of the environments to more closely
match the original designs that had to be scaled back because of performance.

~~~
magicalist
I think we'll have to wait and see. It's awesome that they're updating
mechanics and gameplay (as it allows them to be game designers, not just
stenographers), but it does mean that it could end up a terrible gameplay
experience.

The original half-life is very dated when it comes to graphics, and the
pathing of the AI is sometimes hilariously bad, but other than that it's still
extremely fun to play and gets a decent little story out of the tiny amount of
time actually spent on narrative.

~~~
JonnieCache
_> gets a decent little story out of the tiny amount of time actually spent on
narrative._

This is the real genius of half-life: it doesn't go down the awful Hideo
Kojima route of 45 minute "LOL HERE'S THE STORY!" cutscenes, rather the story
is simply there in the game, it happens around you. It is possible to pretend
you're playing quake and blast through without taking any notice of it, and
it's also possible to play it a bit more slowly, and upon consideration the
story is actually quite deep.

Disclaimer: the above opinions lifted wholesale from the recent
zeropunctuation retrospective review. They're still true though.

------
Centigonal
FINALLY.

~~~
marshray
_Maybe you'll find someone else to help you. Maybe Black Mesa THAT WAS A JOKE.
HAHA. FAT CHANCE. Anyway, this cake is great._

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI>

