Black Mesa Source is released

[Chrille]

Hope they get some good way for people to be able to play from the Xen off of their save point in the end of this version otherwise I agree, it would be a pretty bad move to release most the game and then overright that with the full version later. Then all those people that played it through before may be much more hesitant to play it again just to go to Xen, but I know I would anyway just because I am a hardcore fan. That reminds me I still need to finnish the original HL 1 cause I stopped on the Interlopers chapter. I am no old fan and played the HL series backward so give me a break.

You should be able to load the save you had from just before Xen

[source-maps]

and blah blah.

yup

[srredfire]

My opinion is that it was an excellent re-imagining of Half-Life, but I disagree with Arma and Wills 100%. I think that the ending was literally the worst ending of a game and/or mod EVER.

The ending is the equivalent of if you were playing Ocarina of Time, and right after you collect all the medallions and the bridge to Ganon's Castle is created, you walk inside the front doors, and the credits start.

[joe_rogers_11155]

and blah blah.

yup

yup

[Dr Evil]

Been playing this the past two days and all i can say is...simply....wow...

[Gary]

I haven't beat it yet. It's quite well done. Though, the Grunts are harder to kill then combine soldiers, I think the AI is the same. Weapon proficiency is obviously higher(perfect?).

Also, the lack of shadow mapping disturbs me. I've only seen it used twice

[joe_rogers_11155]

@gary: I think the idea with the grunts and the hivehand in general is that the little hornet bullets are like seeker missiles, they fly around until they hit you. in BMS they seem to track their target (you) with much better efficiency.

all the barney's are npc_metropolice, i have seen them running with invisible batons in their hands more than once.

my favorite chapter so far is Questionable Ethics. When you get the tau cannon...with the guy's boots just sitting there with smoke coming out of them...EPIC. And such beautiful brushwork and texturing.

[nub]

and now we have to wait AGAIN for God knows how long.

Wasn't there a lot of turbulence during the development though? I think that now that they have their act together, Xen will get developed much quicker. They probably already had some of it developed before they released Black Mesa to us.

Also, my favorite chapter is definitely Residue Processing. Of all the areas to make an amazing transition to Source, it definitely stood out the most to me. Every aspect of the level design just felt so solid.

[MaK]

Best mod I've played hands down.

[Blink]

Just go to "We've Got Hostiles". Great stuff. Some of the level design is top notch. Also like the new areas, subtle character additions and enemy attacks. Feels like HL, but fresher.

[joe_rogers_11155]

I think the only thing I really dislike from the entire mod is about half of all the human ally voice acting, and about half of all enemy sound effects and voice acting. I think the human allies are well written, but there don't seem to be enough people with extra lines of speech, especially in certain areas that could have pulled out another laugh or poignant moment.

It also seems like the level design team's attention to details kind of slipped in the later half of the mod, somewhere around Surface Tension onward and certainly in "Forget About Freeman", where the Lambda Bunker with the snark mines looks only half as good as places like Anomalous Materials or Residue Processing.

Perhaps I am just jaded by having almost played through the whole game with its epic overall feel and polished content, so I'm just going to shut up now. Gonna finish up tonight after work...

[OperationTK]

is there any soruce sdk to this mod? can people reuse texture and models?

[Gary]

It comes with FGDs. So you can map for it.

It would be real cool of them to allow re-use of their content.

[ScarT]

The mod is released under Creative Commons [1] [2].

[Major Banter]

So, I've finished it. I didn't exactly take my time; I know HL1 back-to-front, so I sprinted through most of it.

I've got plenty of goods and bads to talk about, but for now I'm just going to think over it. Maybe play my favourite parts through much more slowly.

Overall though, a crowning achievement of Source modding. This is the pinnacle.