Black Mesa (computer game)

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Black Mesa
BLACK MESA.svg
Studio Crowbar Collective
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 5th March 2020
platform Windows , Linux
Game engine Source Engine
genre Ego shooter
Game mode Single player , multiplayer
control mouse and keyboard
system advantages
preconditions
  • 2.6 GHz dual core processor
  • 6 GB RAM
  • Graphics card with 2 GB
  • 20 GB hard disk space
medium Download
language English with multilingual subtitles

The computer game Black Mesa (originally Black Mesa: Source ) is a fan remake of the first-person shooter Half-Life released in 1998 . The title refers to the fictional, secret research station Black Mesa, which one explores in Half-Life.

The game was initially developed by a mod group around Carlos "cman2k" Montero and was first published on September 14, 2012. The original version is available for free and does not require a main game, only the (also free) Source SDK 2007 must be installed.

On May 5, 2015, a further developed version of the game was offered for a fee as an independent early access title on Steam , almost 5 years later version 1.0 of the game was released, leaving the early access phase.

Currently the game is only available in English, subtitles and more. a. for German, however, are available.

action

As in Half-Life, you play the physicist Gordon Freeman, who works in the Black Mesa underground research station and conducts an experiment with alien crystals there. The experiment goes wrong and causes hordes of strange creatures to appear in the research station. There is chaos in Black Mesa, so Freeman is sent to the surface for help. Freeman is not only confronted with aggressive aliens, but also with the military and units of a special command, which are supposed to contain the alien invasion and are tasked with killing all living things.

Eventually Freeman meets scientists who open a portal to the world of origin of the aliens. Freeman receives the order to enter the alien world and to close the portal there in order to end the invasion. The storyline in the alien world Xen, which was rated rather critically in Half-Life, was completely redesigned in Black Mesa and finally published in December 2019 after a long development period.

history

In 2004 Half-Life was ported by Valve under the title Half-Life: Source ( HL: Source for short ) to the source engine developed for Half-Life 2 . Half-Life: Source was originally considered a feasibility study for porting Half-Life mods to the Source engine. Fans criticized the result as a "loveless one-to-one copy" with outdated textures .

As a result, fans of the series began independently to work on their own new version in their spare time. Two separate mod projects came together to work together on Black Mesa: Source . The content of the game is based on Half-Life , with textures, graphic models, sounds, animations and levels being completely recreated. In contrast to its predecessor, the source engine allows better lighting, reflection, postprocessing effects such as explosions or HDR rendering and physics simulation . Hand grenades can now be thrown or rolled as new functions ; the revolver has a target mark and you can use phosphor torches.

In 2005, Valve asked the mod team to remove the word "Source" from the title; from now on the game was called Black Mesa .

The first teaser video was released on January 26, 2007. The 1-minute teaser shows some of the revised levels. The second teaser video appeared on November 30, 2008.

On September 11, 2012, Black Mesa was accepted on Steam Greenlight . Three days later, Black Mesa was released as a free game based on the 2007 Source SDK .

On May 5, 2015, a revised version including a multiplayer mode was released for a fee on Steam. The retail version is based on a more up-to-date version of the source engine (from Team Fortress 2 ) and, thanks to additional adjustments by the developers, offers improved shadow effects through the use of Cascade Shadow Maps . Linux has been supported as the operating system since October 28, 2016.

The so far missing last game section in the alien world Xen should be submitted for the paid version by an update in summer 2017. Since this deadline could not be kept, the publication was first postponed to December 2017, later indefinitely. In November 2018, the release for the second quarter of 2019 was announced. The first release of a pre-release version of Xen did not take place until December 24, 2019.

After a total of 15 years of development, the finished game finally appeared on Steam on March 5, 2020 in version 1.0, leaving the early access phase.

reception

Black Mesa received mostly positive reviews after its first release in 2012, with many critics praising the game for its high quality and comparing it to that of an official Valve title. Destructoid praised the game for the improvements it made over Half-Life and wrote that Black Mesa felt “very familiar” but also “very fresh”.

The final version, published in 2020, received similar positive praise from critics. PC Gamer wrote that the whole project felt like professional work and that the adjustments to the original level on the source engine were "well done". In particular, the redesigned sections in the alien world Xen meant that the end of the game would seem more like a worthy conclusion than in Half-Life.

Eurogamer described Black Mesa not as a simple remake, but rather as a further development of Half-Life. The shortening of some game sections, but also the new features, would make the title feel more like a survival horror game than a first-person shooter .

Award ceremony category result date
Mod of the Year Awards 2005 Top Unreleased Mod Won January 22, 2006
Mod of the Year Awards 2006 Top Unreleased Mod Won January 13, 2007
Mod of the Year Awards 2012 Mod of the Year Won December 25, 2012
Indie of the Year Awards 2013 Indie of the Year Nominated December 27, 2013
Indie of the Year Awards 2015 Indie of the Year Nominated December 29, 2015

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Black Mesa: Re-visit the world that started the Half-Life continuum ( Memento of the original from March 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / release.blackmesasource.com
  2. ^ Black Mesa. (No longer available online.) September 16, 2012, archived from the original on March 19, 2015 ; Retrieved September 27, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / release.blackmesasource.com
  3. ↑ Black Mesa download and installation tips
  4. ^ Black Mesa. (No longer available online.) September 22, 2012, archived from the original on September 17, 2012 ; Retrieved September 28, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / wiki.blackmesasource.com
  5. ^ Black Mesa. (No longer available online.) September 22, 2012, archived from the original on September 20, 2012 ; Retrieved September 28, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / wiki.blackmesasource.com
  6. ↑ a b Black Mesa, a Half-Life Fan Fantasy, Finally Comes to Life. Wired , March 5, 2020, accessed on March 12, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Half-Life 2 Interview. (No longer available online.) October 19, 2004, archived from the original on October 23, 2004 ; accessed on March 31, 2020 .
  8. ^ Black Mesa. November 29, 2008. Retrieved September 28, 2012 .
  9. ^ Black Mesa. November 30, 2008. Retrieved September 28, 2012 .
  10. ↑ Halloween update. October 28, 2016. Retrieved February 17, 2017 .
  11. ↑ TextFAMGUY1: Summer Update. In: Black Mesa Community Forums. June 20, 2017, accessed March 14, 2019 .
  12. ^ Bad News, Good News. In: Black Mesa Community Forums. November 26, 2017, accessed March 14, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Half-Life is 20! - Xen trailer! In: Black Mesa Community Forums. November 19, 2018, accessed March 11, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Xen Released. In: Steam. December 24, 2019, accessed December 26, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Black Mesa will be available on Steam March 5th. February 26, 2020, accessed February 27, 2020 .
  16. ↑ Sven Bauduin: Half-Life 1: Remake Black Mesa will be released on March 5th. Retrieved February 27, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Joshua Derocher: Review: Black Mesa. Destructoid , September 23, 2012, accessed March 22, 2020 .
  18. ^ Andy Kelly: Black Mesa Review. PC Gamer , March 5, 2020, accessed March 22, 2020 .
  19. ^ Rick Lane: Black Mesa review - a masterful remake that improves upon a classic. Eurogamer , March 5, 2020, accessed on March 22, 2020 .
  20. ^ Mods of 2005. In: Mod DB . January 22, 2006, accessed March 26, 2018 .
  21. ^ Mods of 2006. In: Mod DB . January 13, 2007, accessed March 26, 2018 .
  22. ^ Mod of the Year 2012. In: Mod DB . December 25, 2012, accessed March 26, 2018 .
  23. ↑ Indie of The Year 2013. In: Indie DB . December 27, 2013, accessed March 26, 2018 .
  24. ↑ Indie of the Year 2015. In: Indie DB . December 29, 2015, accessed March 26, 2018 .