Black Mesa: A Fan-Made Recreation of Half-Life

October 22, 2012

In 1998, the iconic video game made by Valve Software, known as Half-Life, was released. In 2004, using an updated graphics engine known as the Source engine, Valve released Half-Life 2. At that time, fans of the original Half-Life decided to remake that video game, but with the graphically superior Source engine.

On September 14, 2012, the fans that have been working towards this ambitious goal for years released their remake, known as Black Mesa: Source. This is not a simple port of the assets from Half-Life. They have, from scratch, recreated everything up to and including the Lambda Complex chapter (the level right before the player is teleported to the alien world of Xen. They are going to release this in the future.)

After having played it through, I am impressed. The game has been improved in all areas. Environments have been reworked. New puzzles to solve have been added. There are new lines of dialogue and voice acting. There are more character models, and certain characters from Half-Life 2 make an appearance. Even though all this new stuff has been added, it does not detract from the reminiscent experience. Everything that made the original game great is present and improved upon. For those that have played the original, it is a great stroll down memory lane, even while giving the impression that it is a new game all over again.

For more information about the game, go to http://release.blackmesasource.com/ for different download options, as well as information about how to install it.

Matthew W.
Oak Grove Branch