izigame.me

Introduction
Half-Life forever changed the way I play and appreciate first-person shooters. While it wasn’t the first FPS to feature a (good) story, I was impressed by how you get to experience the entire narrative from first-person perspective, by its scripted events, and by its deliberate pacing. HL1 was intense, cinematic, suspenseful, complex, and fun. It raised the (crow)bar of excellence very high.
Nowadays, some developers remaster or remake their hit titles for modern gaming systems. Valve did port HL1 to run on the Source Engine in 2004, but the resulting product -- Half-Life: Source -- was generally considered inadequate. Consequently, a group of dissatisfied fans, branding themselves as Crowbar Collective, decided to volunteer their time to remaster HL1 properly. It was in this way that the Black Mesa project began.
Achievement Unlocked: 15 Years in the Making
Black Mesa started out as a fan-made mod of HL1 for Half-Life 2. Released in 2012 after 7 years of development, it’s still available to download for free at the time of this review. However, the mod only goes up to the end of the “Lambda Core” chapter. The developers spent an additional 8 years converting the mod into a standalone game powered by the Source 2013 engine, adding more details to many of the levels, and re-imagining and completing the Xen levels. The final product of that Herculean effort is Black Mesa: Definitive Edition.
BM: DE is a notable achievement. The developers essentially remade HL1 so that the story and aesthetics align with those of the sequels. Because of that, the game’s narrative is more cohesive with the Half-Life lore. This includes formally introducing players to Dr. Kleiner and Dr. Vance at the Black Mesa Research Facility, and showing the Vortigaunts being enslaved on Xen. I believe these changes will not only satisfy many long-time fans, but also ease unfamiliar players into the Half-Life game series.
Half-Life 1 for Modern Times
My memory of HL1 isn’t as exact as those of players who play it on a regular basis, or who have played it recently. What I remember most about HL1 is the general thrill from playing it, and being in awe of a few prominent set pieces (e.g., stepping out of a drain pipe onto the cliff of a mesa as a fighter jet zooms by). What BM: DE successfully accomplished is letting veteran players experience similar excitement, suspense and tension when playing it, as if they are playing HL1 for the first time.
The original graphics of HL1 haven’t aged well. Even the level designs, which were ahead of the curve back in 1998, are rudimentary by today’s standards. To remake HL1 properly, the developers couldn’t simply insert models with higher polygon counts, slap on new, high-definition textures, and call it a day. The challenge of remaking a game like HL1 is that it needs to feel contemporary, but also deliver the spirit of the original. I was very happy to see that despite the new visual presentation, BM: DE is similarly paced and subversive as HL1.
The developers interpreted the original material, remixed level designs to make them feel more modern and less rigid, and spruced everything up with advanced lighting and water effects. They did such a good job with the visuals and elaborating on the levels that I was convinced that HL1 had always looked and played this good. It took me watching playthroughs of the original game to snap myself back into realizing how rudimentary HL1 looks in comparison, and how much work the developers had put in into making BM: DE.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2607538984
Yet, the developers did show restraint on the interpretation and remixing. They couldn’t and didn’t rearrange the layout of Black Mesa Research Facility too radically, and didn’t add new elements that are too disparate from the original concepts. Some levels are likely easier to contemporize (e.g., “On a Rail”, “Surface Tension”), and some harder (e.g., “We’ve Got Hostiles”, “Lambda Core”). What we end up getting in BM: DE is some unevenness throughout the many levels, which may be an unforeseen consequence of modernizing a classic game while staying faithful to the source material.
Xen
Let’s address the elephant (or Gargantua if you will) in the room: how are those re-imagined Xen levels? For those unfamiliar with HL1, the original Xen levels were not very good to say the least. Even my co-worker who enthusiastically recommended HL1 to me back in the day advised me stop playing upon arriving at Xen. I didn’t listen, and got to experience first-hand how mechanically and tonally different those last levels were. I believe that many people still hold HL1 in high regard only because the first 85 to 90% of the game was so good.
Crowbar Collective did a really great job re-imagining Xen. They expanded the scope of each level visually and structurally. In fact, the new designs bare very little resemblance to what Valve delivered back in 1998. Instead of sticking with the original pukey yellowish-brown shades, the developers assigned each level its own colour scheme. There’s tranquil, mysterious purple in “Xen”, followed by earthy orange and brown in “Gonarch’s Lair”, and finished off with dangerous red and alien green in “Interloper”.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2609848370
Significant changes were also made to the terrain and flora, with “Xen” partly inspired by the forests of Pandora from the movie, Avatar, “Gonarch’s Lair” featuring an elaborate underground labyrinth reminiscent of Shelob’s lair in The Lord of the Rings, and “Interloper” having an industrial look that reminded me of DOOM. The expanded variety of colours and environment is a much welcome change.
In spite of the creativity and effort, some purists will not like how these newly designed levels greatly deviate from the original. I didn’t mind it, but my biggest complaint about the new levels is that they’re just too long, so much so that I found they overstayed their welcome. Plus, these levels are much more challenging than what the first 70% of BM: DE presented. Ironically, Xen in this game feels very much like an afterthought as in HL1.
In the end, Xen is Xen. Despite Crowbar Collective’s best efforts, these last few levels just don’t fit well with the first part of BM: DE. The transition from Black Mesa Research Facility to the alien world is still as jarring as before. Xen feels like it belongs to a different type of game, like ones that star alien-killing space marines, who make their enemies tremble with fear. You can’t fault the developers too much though, because a remake of HL1 just isn’t complete without these divisive levels.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2609847645
Final Thoughts
I love BM: DE, and I will enthusiastically recommend this game to anyone interested in the Half-Life game series. Coincidentally much like the co-worker who recommended HL1 to me, I love this game up to the end of the “Lambda Core” chapter only, for I’m rather apathetic about the Xen levels. Yet, I recognize that no matter how you slice it, Xen -- in its original or remastered form -- will be divisive among Half-Life enthusiasts. So who knows, you may actually enjoy them more than I did! No matter what, the creativity and hard work that Crowbar Collective had put in into modernizing HL1, and redesigning Xen from scratch are praiseworthy. And for that, they deserve not only our thanks, but also our financial support.