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It's finally here! Black Mesa [Steam, Official Site] is now officially available for Linux in beta form. It looks really great!
Note: It's worth noting this game is not finished and it's in Early Access.
I actually only finished Half-Life in the last few years (when it came to Linux) and loved it. I still haven't put more than a few single hours into Half-Life 2 as it just doesn't hook me in, so Black Mesa is probably ideal for me.
I'm pretty excited to try this one out! Might be what I need to finally push me to actually just play through Half-Life 2.
I think it's really amazing that Valve not only allow such fan creations, but often encourage them and support the developers doing it.
Highlights of the new version:
- Linux client beta!
- Added the ZECU - Zombie Marines
- Translations - Added Russian closed captions!
- Added new security Joop model
- Workshop publish tool is working again
- General workshop improvements (all workshop items must now be VPKed to work)
- VOIP works in multiplayer
About Black Mesa
Black Mesa is the award winning fan-made re-imagining of Gordon Freeman's landmark journey through the Black Mesa Research Facility. Relive Half-Life, Valve Software's revolutionary debut, and experience the game that raised the bar for the entire game industry all over again!
Nostalgia has never felt so fresh - Expect tremendously detailed environments, old-school tough-as-nails combat, and a gripping story with memorable characters. The all-new soundtrack, voice acting, choreography and dialogue create a more expansive and immersive experience than ever before!
Heavily updated single player experience - The over 10 hour single player experience has greatly improved from the mod release; new visuals, new voice over, updated gameplay encounters, stability changes and more. Xen is not part of the Early Access release, but will included as a free update when it is ready.
Black Mesa Multiplayer - Fight with or against your friends, in two game modes across 10 iconic maps from the Half-Life universe including Bounce, Gasworks, Stalkyard, Undertow and Crossfire! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Hell yeah, I will probably buy it this weekend, and make a complete playtrough. I didn't play it since its first release, so I expect to find it quite improved.
It took its time, but it's finally here! Fingers crossed for Xen some time in the future, AKA "when it's ready".
By the way, what does "VPKed" means? Is VPK some kind of file format? (valve-pak? The original game used pak files, IIRC).
It took its time, but it's finally here! Fingers crossed for Xen some time in the future, AKA "when it's ready".
By the way, what does "VPKed" means? Is VPK some kind of file format? (valve-pak? The original game used pak files, IIRC).
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By the way, what does "VPKed" means? Is VPK some kind of file format? (valve-pak? The original game used pak files, IIRC).
Yeah, Valve Pak. Most of id Tech games such as Quake, Quake II and even Half-Life (GoldSrc), as well as many other games use Pak files. But, Black Mesa is a Source Engine game which uses VPK as it should do.
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/VPK
Last edited by rea987 on 28 Oct 2016 at 5:23 pm UTC
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ElectricPrism 28 Oct 2016
Warning this game is like crack.
Once hooked expect to loose a couple days.
Excellent game, looking forward to the final chapters gonna play through again.
Gonna pull the trigger soon on this.
Once hooked expect to loose a couple days.
Excellent game, looking forward to the final chapters gonna play through again.
Gonna pull the trigger soon on this.
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Woo hoo! Played this to death on winblows back in the day. Deffo purchase when I get time! :)
/edit
Is the free play version ported as well?
Last edited by Slackdog on 28 Oct 2016 at 11:03 am UTC
/edit
Is the free play version ported as well?
Last edited by Slackdog on 28 Oct 2016 at 11:03 am UTC
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Is the free play version ported as well?
No, it is not and will not.
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Great! I played through the free version on windows when it was first released several years ago. However, I didn´t want to spend money on the pay-version until the game was completeable.
Guess I´ll have to wait a bit longer for them to finaly finish the "Xen" level...:(
Last edited by Feist on 28 Oct 2016 at 12:00 pm UTC
Guess I´ll have to wait a bit longer for them to finaly finish the "Xen" level...:(
Last edited by Feist on 28 Oct 2016 at 12:00 pm UTC
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Valve are the anti-NintendoMade my day mate... this is so, so true!
What's the official position of Valve on this fan-made remix?
I really want to try this game, but the "fan-made" side and the "not until it's finished" estimation don't inspire me a lot.
1 Likes, Who?
I'd love to play it, but I probably won't. Something about the Half-Life games, as much as I love them, gives me really bad simulation sickness, even when I expand the Field of View. I have no idea why, most other games I'm fine with on 90, but the entire Half-Life series leaves me queasy for hours.
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6 Likes, Who?
apocalyptech 28 Oct 2016
What's the official position of Valve on this fan-made remix?I don't know if there's ever been an official statement, but the impression I got was that they only started selling it on Steam with Valve's approval. (It's also quite high profile and has been available for purchase on Steam for quite awhile now - if Valve disapproved, I'm sure it'd be gone by now.)
I really want to try this game, but the "fan-made" side and the "not until it's finished" estimation don't inspire me a lot.I played this in Wine back when the free version of it was released, years ago, and even back then it was an amazing game. Being fan-made really doesn't enter into it apart from being all the more impressive once you realize where it came from.
I know that this for-sale version is on a different version of the Source engine than the free version was, and the free version itself wasn't totally bug-free (was quite crashy for me), but really the main thing that's not done yet, in re: finishing, is just the ending Xen levels. You get remakes of the entire game up to that point, which is a good 90% of Half-Life, and those Xen levels from the original aren't too well thought of nowadays anyway. (They mentioned long ago that they wanted to do something quite different with Xen, which partially accounts for why those levels still don't exist in Black Mesa.) There's a *lot* of game there!
Anyway: personally I wouldn't let those concerns get in the way of checking it out, if those are the only two concerns you have.
1 Likes, Who?
I hate this mod.
I wasn't a huge fan of HL1, but they took a game full of hitscan enemies, janky platforming, and pitfalls and made it have more of that.
Yay.
"HARDCORE" f off.
Yes Half-Life was the first fps with a focus on story, but that brought in crazy linearity and obtuse puzzles. It feels like a walking simulator smashed into an FPS B on the highway and they called it a day.
This mod just makes it look fancier and increases the difficulty. The difficulty in HL1 was always "easy to cheese or completely unfair".
I think the Half-Life games aged like milk, and are so linear and scripted, I don't see how people play them more than once. I liked HL2 the first time I played it (save the horrid vehicle sections), but the second time was exactly the same. Same linear path you get shoved down. Same solutions to the same problems.
I remember thinking found secrets the first time, only to discover that there's basically no secrets save the ammo and health marked with lambdas.
Scales from my eyes, I'll take the Doom games any day.
1 and 2 have ludicrously stupid stories, but the gameplay is more varied and fun. 2016 has a good story that stays out of the way.
Hell, I'll take Quake 1.
Last edited by TheGZeus on 28 Oct 2016 at 3:27 pm UTC
I wasn't a huge fan of HL1, but they took a game full of hitscan enemies, janky platforming, and pitfalls and made it have more of that.
Yay.
"HARDCORE" f off.
Yes Half-Life was the first fps with a focus on story, but that brought in crazy linearity and obtuse puzzles. It feels like a walking simulator smashed into an FPS B on the highway and they called it a day.
This mod just makes it look fancier and increases the difficulty. The difficulty in HL1 was always "easy to cheese or completely unfair".
I think the Half-Life games aged like milk, and are so linear and scripted, I don't see how people play them more than once. I liked HL2 the first time I played it (save the horrid vehicle sections), but the second time was exactly the same. Same linear path you get shoved down. Same solutions to the same problems.
I remember thinking found secrets the first time, only to discover that there's basically no secrets save the ammo and health marked with lambdas.
Scales from my eyes, I'll take the Doom games any day.
1 and 2 have ludicrously stupid stories, but the gameplay is more varied and fun. 2016 has a good story that stays out of the way.
Hell, I'll take Quake 1.
Last edited by TheGZeus on 28 Oct 2016 at 3:27 pm UTC
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What's the official position of Valve on this fan-made remix?
As far as I know, the developers have been in touch with valve quite regularly, and valve has allowed them to publish their work on Steam.
@dubigrasu : You should have picked one of those fire stick to light them up! There was even a gas leak :) -- Thanks for uploading.
@rea987 Thanks, so it appears this came after the end of GCFs. I didn't have a look at steam's data structure since.
1 Likes, Who?
Few minutes of gameplay:
Wow, this looked sooo much better than I remember from playing the free version back in 2012, could not resist had-to-buy.
1 Likes, Who?
And the price went down to 7,99€, go get it :)
4 Likes, Who?
And the price went down to 7,99€, go get it :)
Thanks, at this price, that's an instabuy ! :D
Low price though high enough to support the developers. Installing as I am writing this.
And there I am, I was planning to work on some personal projects this week-end... I guess that's a higher priority interruption, right? :D
3 Likes, Who?
Crystal Dagger 28 Oct 2016
Insta buy...
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