izigame.me

Gordon Freeman, in the flesh - or, rather, in the hazard suit. I took the liberty of relieving you of your weapons. Most of them were government property. As for the suit, I think you've earned it. - G-Man

Sum-Up
In-depth analysis further down.



🟩 Pros
🟥 Cons




• One of the best remakes ever made.
• Story is kept over the original and despite being simple, it holds up well.
• Great overall improvement over lightning, effects and visuals.
• Better performed voice dialogues and great re-imagining of originals.
• Despite it's age, it holds as one of the greatest games played.
• Beautiful world recreation, completely redesigned from the ground up in Xen.
• Fixed a lot of issues with the old game. Optimised it for newer generations of gamers.



• Shooting can be a bit arcade-ish at times and if you're looking for wall cover and other gimmicks like that it's almost non existent here.
• Has some weird interface problems in the main menu and save selections.
• Mods available, but don't work very well or at all in many cases.






🟨 Bugs & Issues‎
🔧 Specs
⚙ Settings & FPS



🔲 Never had any.
🔲 Hanging, Freezing, or
Crashing.
🔲 Graphics Glitch.
🔲 Gameplay Defect.
🔲 In-game Purchase.
🔲 Audio Problem.
☑️ Text Problem.
☑️ Save Glitch.



• CPU: i7-12700K
• RAM: 32GB DDR4
• GPU: 3080 10GB
• SD: SSD
• RES: 1440p


Settings: Ultra
FPS: 60+






🌌 Content & Replay Value
Completed this game in 33 hours with multiple hours and difficult achievements in the same time. You can replay the game chapter by chapter and retry for achievements if you wish, but other than that, there's no game plus or things to consider after finishing the game.


💵 Is it worth buying?
Yes. If you loved Half-Life 1, this is a must-play game. The hard work and effort placed in this game is astonishing and deserves all the praises.


🎮 Steam Deck Compatibility
The game works well on the Steam Deck if you switch to Proton GE or Experimental. There's here and there artefacts that can be a problem and reading text is a bit difficult. Other than that, it's playable.


🧾 Verdict: Masterpiece
Rating Chart Here

This game remastered or remade holds up well today and if you've played this, you'll notice that the FPS genre holds the same principles. This game is one of the first and is a staple of what it means to be a great video game. A game that will forever be talked about be it remade by fans or Valve itself it's gonna be one of the greatest games ever made.


In-depth
📑 Description:

Black Mesa is a reimagined and remastered first-person shooter that defined the FPS genre for generations. You play as a Ph.D. Scientist who is tasked to undo the mistakes done by scientists in Black Mesa facility and understand what is going on.
⚔ Gameplay:
Rate: ★★★★☆

Despite it's recreation, this game still holds some of the old and arcade-ish first person elements. With a large array of artillery, you try to survive and explore the Black Mesa laboratories for answers, puzzles to solve and characters to meet and save.
A large portion of the game holds platforming elements as well as careful, but intelligently made backtracking elements. It's well passed and sectioned in enjoyable junks that you can replay at any given time with a great auto-save and manual save features that make the whole experience a lot better.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2927224992
😄 Fun:
Rate: ★★★★★

I knew exactly what I sign up for when I was about to play Half-Life for the first time. I've enjoyed my time with this game and I am happy I've experienced it.

🏞 Visuals:
Rate: ★★★★☆

It's a significant improvement over the original, with increased polygons, recreated levels, high definition lightning effects and textures and particle effects. The whole game feels like a last gen game in some areas and it was very well made to hold up well today. Although it's not perfect, I've thought it was well represented over the original.
Wanna make a remark that this game does have a great horror atmosphere and once I've reached the end game content I did miss it for some reason. Something that wasn't done very well in the original.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2925556197
🔊 Sound:
Rate: ★★★★☆
Sound is highly worked on and this game comes with music, which was not present in the original. I wanna give a big shoutout to Joel Nielsen for creating amazing tracks and delivering in some amazing moments. Although the music at times feels kinda off placed, I do like it and really creates some epic moments in the game.

📖 Story:
Rate: ★★★☆☆

I personally don't think the story was the main thing that made this game special, but rather the gameplay behind it. Still, the story was fairly interesting and well-represented. I knew little about Godon Freeman before the game and little do I know about him after finishing the game. The main protagonist is a silent one, so there's not much getting out of him. One thing is for sure, that it peaked my interest to know what happens next in Blue Shift and Opposing Force, but I'll have to wait for that to happen from another fan-made company because I'm not willing to play it via the classic and of course Half-Life 2.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2928428612
🧵 Length:

🔲 Short (1-8h)
🔲 Medium (8-15h)
☑️ Long (15-25h)
🔲 Very Long (25h+)
🔲 Unlimited

The game shouldn't take more than 15 hours to complete if you rush through the story and not focus on getting all the achievements. It took me double the time to complete it at a nice and easy pace.

🧩 Difficulty:

🔲 Easy
☑️ Normal
☑️ Hard
🔲 Brutally Hard
🔲 Impossible

The game doesn't require you to play the game on a particular difficulty to get achievements, which I like, but you're carried to do a few additional gimmicky things like carrying a purple hat or a box of pizza to the endgame in order to get achievements which are rather frustrating and difficult at times. The puzzles are well designed and often times it makes you feel smart for trying out things so, I think the levels are fairly easy to work with.
⭕Conclusion:
Black Mesa is a great recreation of Half-Life, which was and will remain one of the greatest first person shooter horror games ever created. I want to give a big round of applause to everyone who worked at creating such a fantastic job and giving me, a newbie to Half-Life universe and as well to others and fans an experience I will forever treasure.

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