Comment on Random Screenshots of my Games #58 - Black Mesa (Half-Life)
RobotZap10000@feddit.nl 4 weeks ago
When I played Half Life 1 for the first time, I almost immediately lost interest after getting to Xen. When I played Black Mesa, I almost cried when I got there. Best fan-made remake I’ve ever played!
cobysev@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
They put a ton of effort into remaking Xen so that it blends better into the gameplay and story. I think I read somewhere that Half-Life took about an hour to slog through Xen, but Black Mesa, despite having around 4 hours of Xen gameplay, was actually really enjoyable.
Flemmy@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Also it has the Gonarch battle, which looks like gonads on legs.
Quazatron@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I loved Black Mesa up to this point. They turned Gonarch into a RPG sponge in an arena full of hard to avoid clutter which makes it nearly impossible to dodge the attacks.
BlemboTheThird@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
The key to having fun with the gonarch fight (and other huge chunks of Xen too, like the Gargantua chase and Nihilanth) is to discover that the jump pack is broken and if you hold your crouch key, it tricks the game into thinking you never touched the ground. So you never lose momentum and can infinitely slide around at a thousand miles an hour, boosting your speed every time the jump pack recharges a bar. If you’ve never learned Source airstafing, the wide open first stage of the gonarch fight is a great place to start.
I do agree the gonarch was changed to be a ridiculous sponge though. Its regular health bar is set a bit too high anyway, but on top of that it’s actually invulnerable through the whole sequence between the first and last stages of the fight. Which would be fine, except they didn’t do anything to communicate that to the player! It still bleeds, it still makes pain noises, and the only way to figure it out is to waste a bunch of time dumping ammo into it. Very silly oversight.