Black Mesa
Andy Kelly really doesn’t want to go back to the Linux Format Test Chamber, but The Management are quite insistent…
One morning in the New Mexico desert, a 27-yearold theoretical physicist turns up late for work. The next thing he knows monsters are spilling out of portals from another world, turning his colleagues into zombies, and generally making a mess of the top-secret Black Mesa Research Facility. The Half-Life series is really just one long bad day at work, and Black Mesa is a Valve-approved, fanmade chance to relive Gordon Freeman’s disastrous morning – but with prettier visuals, combat and physics lifted from Half-Life 2, bigger levels and other upgrades.
Black Mesa sticks to Half-Life in terms of structure. You take the tram into work, watch in horror as the resonance cascade floods the facility with aliens, dodge headcrabs in the office complex, clash with the HECU Marines, deal with giant tentacles in the blast pit, fight through a warzone on the surface, navigate the radioactive Lambda Core, and finally visit Xen. But everything is bigger, more detailed, and more dramatic, with production values approaching Half-Life 2, which breathes new life into the Black Mesa Incident.
Some levels have been remixed too, with redesigned, or in some cases completely new, puzzles and setpieces. So even if you know Half-Life inside out, there’ll still be some surprises here. However, purists may question some of developer Crowbar Collective’s design and aesthetic choices – and some things are so detached from the source material that it occasionally feels like an entirely new game. Black Mesa is not a 1:1 remake, so it’ll never feel as authentic as revisiting the original. But it’s a fresh, modern and lovingly made take on a landmark moment in PC gaming.
Black Mesa is built on the foundations of Half-Life 2, borrowing its weapon handling and chaotic physics simulation. This makes for a much more dynamic and engaging first-person shooter than the original. And thanks to an abundance of movable and breakable objects, and devilish traps that often cause explosive chain reactions, the stricken research facility has never felt more reactive, unpredictable or dangerous.
X marks the Xen
But let’s talk about Xen, because this is where Black Mesa makes its biggest statement. In the original HalfLife, Freeman’s arrival on Xen was something of an anticlimax. But after years in development and several delays, Black Mesa achieves the impossible and makes Xen one of the best parts of the game. What was once a rather lifeless, dreary place now sizzles with colour and detail, and the contrast between the comparatively banal computers, concrete and vending machines of the facility has even more impact.
The new Xen levels loosely follow the original game’s theme and structure, but they’re also a radical departure. The platforming is more fun, and there’s a lot more to discover in terms of world-building and environmental storytelling. Some locations have even been transformed entirely. The fight with the Gonarch is vastly more exciting too, with some incredible animation and visuals, which elevate Half-Life’s lamest boss battle to something quite extraordinary.
It’s amazing that something as elaborate and well made as Black Mesa is, essentially, a fan project. And doubly so that Valve allowed it not just to make it, but sell it on Steam, too. This is a professionally made game, and arguably the best way to experience the events of the Black Mesa Incident on a modern gaming PC. For some the original will always be the best version of HalfLife, but this is a superb reimagining that uses the underlying systems of Half-Life 2 to great effect.