When I’d finished the excellent Half-Life remake mod Black Mesa I was a bit discombobulated. I looked at the clock and realised that my allotted ten hour slot for playing it had come up short. I was a full 53 minutes early. What was going on? The only explanation was there was a time slip while I was hopping around being Gordon. I put it down to a rogue CERN test and moved on with my life. But now I’ve been made aware of Surface Tension Uncut, a mod that restores the Surface Tension section from the original Half-Life to its full glory in Black Mesa.
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Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Posts Tagged ‘black mesa’
Mod A Mod: Surface Tension Uncut Beefs Up Black Mesa
By Craig Pearson on January 9th, 2013.
Gordon Bennett
Wot I Think: Black Mesa
By Alec Meer on September 21st, 2012.
Half-Life is back. Back in Black Mesa, the fan-made, Source-powered remake that’s been years in the making. It was never going to happen, and then suddenly it did. After all that, is it a polished recreation of Valve’s beloved shooter, or an awkward perversion? I’ll be waiting for you, in the word chamber.
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So Anyway, Black Mesa’s Out Now
By Nathan Grayson on September 14th, 2012.
We now bring you this transmission, directly from alternate universe evil (or are they the good ones?) Bizarro RPS:
John: Goodness, what a boring day it’s been. Probably the least exciting in recorded history.
Jim: Here’s an idle musing for you: joy is dead. And so is God.
Adam: Wouldn’t it be amazing if a spiritual successor to Total Annihilation just made $2 million, a thinly veiled follow-up to Planescape: Torment was just announced, and an agonizingly long-awaited Half-Life remake finally launched – all in the same day?
John: Well, I mean, Ubisoft just announced its new always online double-DRM. If you disconnect from the Internet, it kills you. That’s something, right? Something that kills you, I mean.
Alec: [Says nothing. Still on vacation. Evil vacation.]
Me, under the iron grip of the Neo-British Colonial Extermination Empire: Can I… ? Can I eat now? It’s been days.
All: No.
Greenlit: Black Mesa, Zomboid, McPixel, More
By Nathan Grayson on September 12th, 2012.
The saga of Steam Greenlight has, thus far, been packed with unexpected surprises, whiplash-inducing twists, and sudden bursts of lava-like sensuality. Unfortunately, hardly any of it has been related to actual, you know, games. Instead, Greenlight itself and its (in some cases, not-so-well-explained) policies have hogged the spotlight, with Valve doing its best to tweak and modify the system as it goes along. Now, though, the first batch of community-tested, Valve-approved games is getting its chance to shine. Also, one of them is Half-Life.
Powering Up: Black Mesa Screenshots
By Andrew Smee on September 10th, 2012.
Black Mesa is coming this Friday. THIS FRIDAY. Can you believe it? I still can’t believe it. And yet, so it has been written. To whet your appetite for all things Lambda, the Black Mesa Modification Team (really guys? That’s your name? You’ll be writing yourself into a corner after you finish Xen) have released seven new fancy pants-sized screenshots of iconic moments and locales from throughout the fan-made reboot of Gordon Freeman’s original adventure, including a glimpse of both a Gargantua and a distinctively creepy looking Bullsquid. Those tentacles…
Black Mesa Invites You To Look At Its Bowels
By Alec Meer on June 11th, 2012.
There’s a big, big part of me (which may or may not be my conscience) that feels grumpily determined to not ever post about the e’er-delayed fan Half-Life remake Black Mesa. I’ve been a member of the never gonna happen club for a long time now, but in the interests of OBJECTIVE, SOBER REPORTAGE I will pretend to take the devs at their word when they tell us they’ll be finally releasing something ‘soon-ish’ and show you these new screenshots which purportedly “really give you the first glimpse into the gameplay of Black Mesa.”
They come via the Source-powered mod project’s Book of Faces page, which just did that ‘give us 20,000 Likes and we’ll continue our marketing campaign’ business to ‘unlock’ them.
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Polishing the polish?
What Happened To Black Mesa: Source? Part Two
By Nathan Grayson on May 10th, 2012.
The rumors of Black Mesa‘s death have been greatly exaggerated. It has, however, been over three years since Gordon Freeman went for an all-too-brief jog in his shiny new hazard suit. No, gaming’s favorite man of zero words and 1000 crowbar swings per minute hasn’t suddenly affixed a chainsaw to his gun or moved his adventures to an unnamed wartorn Middle Eastern setting, but a lot’s changed.
Once upon a time, this was Valve’s firstborn with a fresh coat of paint. Now, though, the Black Mesa team’s pouring its own blood, sweat, and tears into one of gaming’s most sacred holy grails – for better or worse. Only time will tell. But how much time? One more year? Two? Half-Life 2: Episode 3 (aka, a billion)? And what state is the remake in now? I spoke with project lead Carlos Montero about all of that and more.
Crowbarring Out The Answers
Interview: What Happened To Black Mesa: Source? Part 1
By Nathan Grayson on May 9th, 2012.
The universe has a weird fondness for improbable coincidences. Name your franchise Half-Life, and it takes half a lifetime to come out. Create a robust mod based around a game in that franchise, and its development mirrors that of its crowbar-wielding, hazard-suit chic father series nearly one-to-one. The lofty promises, the incredibly lengthy periods of radio silence, the incessant cries of “vaporware” and “it’ll probably be a huge letdown” – all of it.
Maybe, though, that part’s not such a coincidence. To hear project lead Carlos Montero tell it, Black Mesa‘s an obsessively redesigned, rebuilt-from-the-ground-up love letter to Valve’s opus. The goal, then, is to improve on something already considered by many to be perfect. And that, as it’s turned out, has been a lot harder than Montero and his constantly fluctuating team first assumed. So, first up, we’re delving into what exactly has taken so long – especially in light of 2008′s rather stunning trailer that promised a release date of, er, three years ago.
Black Mesa Trailer
By Jim Rossignol on December 1st, 2008.
Just in case you missed the comments linked trailer for the Black Mesa Source mod:
Respond to our gibber
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- Paul : “Thanks guys, just bought crysis 3 and it was 12 pounds. Acceptable price.” on The RPS Bargain Bucket: Extreme Precision
- Liudeius : “Not really. I just did the tutorials to evaluate them (I learned to play without tutorials or tutorial videos before they even existed), and those ...” on (Not) Rocket Science In Kerbal Space Program
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- golem09 : “google borderlinx. It's free.” on The RPS Bargain Bucket: Extreme Precision
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