Black Mesa

I like killing things with a Crowbar

This game really isn't as awesome as many people deem it to be. I tried liking it, I really did, but Black Mesa brought me way more frustration than genuine enjoyment. Despite being an OK game on its own, it really hardly reaches the bar that the original Half-Life set years ago. Many sections that are completely reworked (like Xen for example) completely miss the point that was brought in the original game, which makes this remake really far from a faithful one. Another frustrating part is that Black Mesa is very linear and unforgiving if you like backtracking, barely having anything at all outside of the "necessary" paths. That takes away the main charm of the Half-Life series overall: the creativity, whether it is in combat or in the general progressing through the levels. All that makes the gameplay really dim and repetitive, not differentiating this game much from any other shooter ever. Oh, and speaking of "dim", Black Mesa also happens to have and awful problem with ingame lighting! Chapters 3 - 11 (speaking roughly from memory) are so dark they are literally IMPOSSIBLE to play through, because even the flashlight ceases to work at all! I know many people have this problem despite the level design obviously not intending such a problem with visibility, and at some point it even made me drop the game for a few months until I found a fix for that through a couple of console commands. Similar stuff happened to me on multiple other occasions, where I would have to manually optimize the game through the console because otherwise it just wouldn't work whatsoever. That was like a cherry on top to make the 100% completion of the game even more miserable. I would touch on how unnecessarily tedious some of the achievements were, but it is technically my own fault for deciding to 100% this game. Overall, this was quite an experience. Despite all the negative aspects of this game, it was genuinely exciting to see Half-Life's story presented through a more serious and dark tone, without the silly blocky scientists making it feel goofy. I just wish this game was less awkward to actually play through! If you are a Half-Life fan, I really do recommend playing through this remake, not because it is good or faithful, but rather because it is a nice "AU" you could spend some hours on exploring. But, seriously, if you are considering this as your introduction to the Half-Life series overall I BEG OF YOU just play the original Half-Life or start with Half-Life 2 if the old graphics are too much of a bum. This remake is decent, but it's far from what original Half-Life is, and using it as a starting point will just make your life worse.