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BLACK MESA: SOURCE RELEASED

Last posted Sep 19, 2012 at 12:19AM EDT. Added Sep 14, 2012 at 10:50AM EDT
31 posts from 18 users

No way…no freaking way….they finally finished!? I thought this day would come only after Half Life 3 came out!

Congratulations to the developers who worked hard all this time despite numerous database hacks, DDOS attacks, thefts, plagiarism cases (So many mods ripped the poor guys off), dramatic schisms, thousands of forum arguments and a few changes in management. And they did it all without getting a single cent for it

Bravo to the BM:S team, Bravo.

And also thanks to Valve for not crushing them under their legal fists their entire time. Valve only asked them to change the name so it didn't sound affiliated with Valve products, other than that they left them alone. Microsoft would have sent a Cease and Desist letter on the first day

NOTE: As of now, their website is down

[edit] No word yet on whether or not they finished the final chapter (Xen), sounds like they are just releasing everything up to the final chapter. Bummer.

Knowing what the team will do with the last chapter has been the most anticipated part of all. And we still gotta wait for it. Still, doesn't detract from what they achieved so far

Last edited Sep 14, 2012 at 11:21AM EDT

I keep getting errors everything I try to install this mod and my brother is already playing it.

Jimmies Status:
Unrustled: []
Rustled: []
: [X]

Last edited Sep 15, 2012 at 04:30PM EDT

The quoted post has been deleted.

I just don't play them.

In retrospect I should, but the series didn't appeal to me than most sci-fi games do.

Blue Screen (of Death) wrote:

Torrent still does not seem to be running and it's my only option.

Any news on whether or not the torrent server will be online?

New torrent should be on their updated website linked in the first post.

Check their Facebook page too.

The torrent seems to be working now. I had to delete the torrent file I had and re-download it from the same location (I'm using the source from Gameupdates)

After I restarted the torrent it began downloading at 1MB/s

Now on to installation. I found a set of instructions here

Apparently you do need Source SDK 2007 which can be easily accessed from Steam

Ok, Black Mesa is out, but just to let you guys know, it's not finished.

There's no Xen yet. That's coming later.

Also, they plan to eventually have this game on Steam.

So my comments on the game itself is that it's very good, but there is so much loading.

Katie C. wrote:

Ok, Black Mesa is out, but just to let you guys know, it's not finished.

There's no Xen yet. That's coming later.

Also, they plan to eventually have this game on Steam.

So my comments on the game itself is that it's very good, but there is so much loading.

They're putting it on Steam green-light, and it's still pending, I believe.

Nikolaki8 wrote:

They're putting it on Steam green-light, and it's still pending, I believe.

It's been 100% Greenlit, and they are waiting for the developers to put together a Steam-ready version.

Blue Screen (of Death) wrote:

The torrent seems to be working now. I had to delete the torrent file I had and re-download it from the same location (I'm using the source from Gameupdates)

After I restarted the torrent it began downloading at 1MB/s

Now on to installation. I found a set of instructions here

Apparently you do need Source SDK 2007 which can be easily accessed from Steam

1 MB/s? Jesus fucking christ, I ran both the BM download and the SDK download at a rough 90kb per second. It took 10 fucking hours. Ugh, I hate my ISP.

Now that the hideously long download and the rather complicated setups are over however, it's a pretty excellent game. The only issues are the loading times for my shitty, shitty laptop, but they're not even as long or frequent as Skyrim's, so I don't mind.

Last edited Sep 17, 2012 at 06:51PM EDT

Katie C. wrote:

Ok, Black Mesa is out, but just to let you guys know, it's not finished.

There's no Xen yet. That's coming later.

Also, they plan to eventually have this game on Steam.

So my comments on the game itself is that it's very good, but there is so much loading.

Course it loads constantly. Source's one weak point is that it can't load very large areas, nor do a continuous load a la GTA. It does make it pretty annoying, though. I had to backtrack to get to a first aid station and it had to load in between both ways.

@Psudo

Ouch man, I feel for you.

I'd just like to note that BM:S is doesn't offer the full Half Life 1 experience. In fact it feels like they cut a lot of things out. The On A Rail chapter is shorter…much, much shorter. They cut it down to size significantly and I noticed a lot of missing obstacles such as gas pipes that no longer explode in your face when they did in the original and absent enemies.

Understandably, they needed to reduce development time so I'm not judging the BM:S team for cutting some things out. On the other hand, they have added new area's and revamped some challenges so they are fresher

Last edited Sep 18, 2012 at 02:50AM EDT

Reticent wrote:

1 MB/s? Jesus fucking christ, I ran both the BM download and the SDK download at a rough 90kb per second. It took 10 fucking hours. Ugh, I hate my ISP.

Now that the hideously long download and the rather complicated setups are over however, it's a pretty excellent game. The only issues are the loading times for my shitty, shitty laptop, but they're not even as long or frequent as Skyrim's, so I don't mind.

Try Port Range Forwarding

I'm about 6 hours into the game… And I have a little to say on it.

They delivered. The graphics are smooth, textures are impressively well-done, and the character models have been revamped quite well. I really have no complaints here- they did exactly what they set out to do, and it's glorious. Vortigaunts, houndeyes (which I always called Guiles because of their sonic booms…), headcrabs, bullsquids… All the enemies are rendered even better than I expected, and the blood spatters on your weapons are a very nice touch. I also enjoyed that not all the scientists were Albert Einstein… There is a bit of diversity in face, hair color, facial hair, and skin color that make it a little more believable. (I feel I should bring up that there's really only two voices for all the scientists, and when NPCs talk to each other and it's not a predetermined conversation, try to listen. It's worth it.)



I'm not a huge PC gamer, I'm a console player. For this reason I thought I might have difficulties adapting to the keyboard, so I went ahead and bought a joystick, because I need peripherals or else my poor casual gamer mind explodes… After about an hour of fiddling, I've decided that either my SDK Source has a malfunction, or Gordon simply isn't supposed to be able to look up when you use a peripheral… I ended up just cutting my losses and using my keyboard like the pleb I am. My biggest complaint is controlling Gordon. If you run and jump, he slides upon landing as if he had the Ocarina of Time hoverboots on… If you're in a puddle, it's the equivalent of standing on ice, too. This would all be fine if it wasn't for a certain part of the game that had me reaching for some aspirin… The part in which Gordon has to hop from cargo crate to cargo crate, 50 feet above the ground. Every time I made it to the penultimate crate, I would just slide off the side with all the momentum I had built. Not to mention, if I tried to change course in the air, I would slide off the other side of the crate. 25 minutes later, I had jumped to safety and could finally continue gameplay, but it was a hollow victory… I could imagine the bodies of Freeman stacked so high up I could simply walk across the crevasse, but I'm digressing further. Aside from the poor jump controls, I was actually quite happy with handling Gordon (…that's what she said).



I have to say, the difference between easy and hard is markedly larger than it should be. When playing on easy, I found myself drowning in health and ammo, whereas in hard mode I couldn't keep enough 9 mil to kill a headcrab because bullsquids became minibosses with the supernatural power of taking SMG fire to the face with ease… I can assure the BMS team that a .357 to the face would not take 3 shots to the face to kill anything. Then again, on normal, the only difference I found between it and easy difficulty was that it was slightly harder to make a shot, adding a bit of realism, considering Gordon is more than likely not used to firing guns as, say, Private Blasé in Modern Battlefield 2; Electric Boogaloo is. It's a nice touch, so I fell it doesn't detract from it. A good thing about the game is they kept the nonlinearity in the game… If you're stuck at a certain part, why not stack a few barrels against that wall and jump to the other side? Boom- you're done with that part. Another great thing is that you can sneak… I once crouched past a platoon, just because I was pushing a box.

Shut up- I don't play too much MGS.

Yet another thing that should be mentioned has already been mentioned. Just as BSOD stated, a lot of the game has been cut out… They might have done this to streamline it, or perhaps to do less work on the game, but whatever the reason, it's noticeable, even for someone like me who hasn't played HL for around 4 or 5 years…


All things considered, I'd give Black Mesa Source around a 9/10… If you're on the fence about getting it, JUST DO IT! You won't regret it.

Last edited Sep 18, 2012 at 07:16PM EDT

The game is pretty good, but it's practically broken for me. The texture settings and aspect ratio is locked at the lowest setting, despite my numerous attempts to bring it higher. Also, the game keeps crashing after I turn on the fan at the part with the giant tentacles.

Maybe it's a faulty installation. I don't know.

BSoD wrote:

The On A Rail chapter is shorter…much, much shorter.

To be honest, I thought On A Rail was the worst part of Half Life.

Last edited Sep 18, 2012 at 09:06PM EDT

@Muffins

Maybe it’s a faulty installation. I don’t know.

Maybe, I had no trouble at all running it. If you can run HL2 fine, you should be able to run BM fine. Try a re-install, make sure you follow the instructions I linked

To be honest, I thought On A Rail was the worst part of Half Life.

I didn't really miss all the chopped out sections of On A Rail either. On A Rail was a frustrating chapter in the original game. It had booby traps that made you pause the train every 10 seconds and it felt so dragged out

I did however miss all the cut out parts from Surface Tension :( That chapter was the best. They even simplified the bomb target puzzle.

But like I said, I understand the slices because those chapters were the biggest and most complicated ones in the original game and the BM team did not have enough time and manpower to remake the whole thing

Last edited Sep 19, 2012 at 12:20AM EDT
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