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Black Mesa Nearing Completion, Trailer Released
Today, the Black Mesa Team released an impressive trailer for their remake of Half-Life . The remake is a total-conversion mod for Half-Life 2, bringing the updated graphics and AI of the Source engine to the original game. The team has been dropping hints lately that the project, which began in 2004, is almost done, and the trailer confirms that it will be out in 2009. They also recently announced that they've "dropped Counter-Strike: Source as a requirement for Black Mesa, and from now on, the only thing you'll need to play the mod is a Steam account with any Source engine game installed! Black Mesa is now running completely off of our own content and base Source shared content, and we felt the vastly increased user base more then [sic] justified creating all the extra assets needed to make this switch."
Yey!
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
This is truly a fantastic team effort.
The trailer made me re-experience a few great moments in the classic game, but it now looks so muc better.
It would be cool if the original Doom could also benefit from such a treatment.
So, now they're going to get started on Opposing Force, right? ; )
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
As much as I hope this mod pulls off the feel of the original Half Life, I think an even bigger hope will be for the mod to be actually finished.
Either way, I hope these guys get the recognition and financial success they deserve.
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
Wow that's very impressive. I wouldn't be surprised, if this does well, that the modders might see a future in the game industry.
Are they legally allowed to do this if Half-Life is still for sale and as Half-Life: Source exists?
When we built a port of the original Teamfortress Valve came to us and made it quite clear we can't use the same set of weapons, names for classes and so forth because that would infringe on their IP even though all our assets and code were built by us from scratch. This was admittedly for a different, competing engine to Valve so I suppose it's slightly different and looking back I can imagine thus Valve probably weren't completely honest about what we could legally do.
I'm suprised Valve are willing to allow this if it will risk the admittedly small sales of Half-Life they may still get or do they feel this will instead increase sales of newer source engine games?
Of course the other question is how is this any different from Half-Life source?
Still I don't want to detract too much from the achievement this is. Releasing a mod of this scale can truly be a time consuming task that requires a lot of effort and discipline and I have to congratulate them on reaching this point. I truly hope Valve don't waste their time with a last minute cease and desist!
Check out the music! Its just as amazing as I remember from the original! I can't believe this is not a commerical project!
I expected some pretty good graphics, but this is amazing!
Color me can't wait.
(wow, that's my quota of exclamation marks for the week.)
Please release it for the PS3. PLEASE!!!
Though modders have a completely different ethics about free/non-free they do put lots of work into stuff they basically give away for free (beer). The entire community is one the FOSS crowd should look into, as it hints towards the quality we can expect once the race for better GFX is over and we've reached realistic RT rendering and OSS engines finally can catch up.
Right now modders use the best engine they can get (often Valves Source for Windows nowadays) and the best tools they can get (non-commercial versions of Maya or Softimage or something like that). It will take some more time to bridge that gap, but I do see this coming.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I'd rather they get cracking on Blue Shift. But I wouldn't say no to OpFor either!
If the game is as good as the trailer led me to believe, I sure wouldn't mind paying for it. The Minerva mod for HL2 was also very high quality, for those that haven't seen it yet.
I can play a game again, that I've already played and enjoyed, but now it is sparklier(TM). When will the computer game industry realize we like great games, and graphics are secondary? This isn't a riff on Valve, their games are great, but even they seem to be caught up in this graphics race.
I'm sure this game will sell well, and people will love it, and it'll be lauded as a great success... even if the core game mechanics change significantly and the environment changes significantly, altering the whole feel of the game. That's how I felt when Halo 2 came out, which used abstract physics instead of Halo CE's more realistic physics. I'm tired of seeing "hyper-realism" being touted with every game that comes out. The publishers focus on things like graphics and "head bob" (I'm looking at you, Mirror's Edge.) Yet, I still don't get how games with "realistic head bob" get out the door. Does your vision bob up in down when you walk? No, our brains correct for that. Every simpleton should *realize* that with a little self examination.
I want to see better AI, better physics and more expansive, intelligent worlds. But in the immediate future, I think I can speak for everyone when I say, I want to see a *new* game or installment from Valve.
Oh my god, this is gonna be sooo great! Just in time to soothe the pain of waiting for EP3!
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
Ok, I do not know if HL1 is the greatest game ever; for me it was. I never had so much fun with a computer game. The reason? a note from the article that I really liked may shed some light into it:
"Maybe I'm leaning too much on fond remembrance here, but I prefer the isolated, solitary feel of the first Half-Life to the more character-driven atmosphere in the sequel."
I couldn't agree more! I like HL2, but it did not give you the isolated solitary feel of HL1. I really like FPS games that put me as the solo action hero against the universe. I really miss FPS games of this kind. I have put all my hopes on DNF, but it seems like it will never be released...
if this mod team isn't already pro, they've just written their own ticket.
The work I see is excellent. very polished stuff.
They're using their grammar skills there.
And make certain it doesn't generate any R6034 errors.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
I'd so love some modders to try doing total conversions of non-FPS games.
Can you imagine replaying an action RPG from the inside? RTS?
Zealot-Life.
Half-Diablo.
Guitar Hero, Angry Mob. "After his first try at Through the Fire and Flames, The hero tries to get back home alive."
Ricochet Source!
Hey, look! It's Bono's brother.
Especially in Ep. 1 when she tagged around with you pretty much THE WHOLE TIME, and gave you directions, directed your attention, etc. ("There must be a fuse box around here. Gordan, see if you can find it.")
How would it be to play HL1 with Alyx? http://www.flickr.com/photos/23108889@N06/2212589455/
It got worse in Ep. 2 when SHE forced you on a major side quest. In HL1, you could kneecap a scientist who got in your way and just keep going. In Ep. 2, you had to save the life of an NPC. Even on the side quest they gave you a sidekick (the Vort).
The odd part is that the solo Antlion Guardian chase was probably the closest either of the episodes got to cashing in on phobias that were so common in HL1. Then the strider attack at the end of Ep. 2 (again, a solo mission) was the BEST part of the game.
Did you notice that only once in HL1 did the player lose control of Gordon? (During the Apprehension level.) That was the one break in the game's continuity, which was HUGE progress from Quake and other level-based games. Though HL2, Ep. 1, and Ep. 2 are mainly contiguous, in Ep. 2 the developers started taking the control from the player so they could tell *their* story. If you listen to the developers' commentary it is quite explicit.
I'll save the spoilers, but the ending of Ep. 2 didn't leave me wanting revenge against the combine, it left me cursing the developers who put *their* story before *my* gameplay.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
I just bought Half Life off of Steam. Valve had a deal where you could get it for $0.99 and I figured I liked Half Life 2, so why not.
I read the internet for the articles.
About damn time. I was about losing any hope.
This will indeed help to make the HL game even more successful. Half Life is one of the few games that never allowed the shooting take over both their plot and full immersive environments, which paid in the long run. Plus, their engine low system requirements shows that Valve coders aren't lazy "let's rewrite this in .NET, the user will upgrade anyway" code monkeys like other SW houses ones.
I'd rather see more-or-less faithful recreations of Deus Ex and the two System Shock games.
I've seen projects that claim they're working on them, but I'm pretty sure none of them will ever finish :(
Hell, I'd pay $50 for a professional modern remake of any one of those games, especially if they got some better voice acting for certain parts of Deus Ex.
Ha ha, fat chance!
This is the best restaurant I ever eat in
I wish someone would make a DNF mod for HL2. That would be priceless.
Never mind the legalities of this, this game is going to be amazing. It brings a new look on a old awesome game and it is free which is gonna make it even better. This is a sort of open source produced game that will show a new way of producing games.
Create a shortcut to "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\left 4 dead demo\left4dead.exe" or whereever your l4d exe is stored, and you're back in business.
I'm still not sure whether Valve simply goofed and locked out everyone by accident, or they purposely deactivated the demo on purpose.
Every game that allows modded content requires that you purchase the "core" game first. There's nothing new here.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno