i recently got the half life games and also knew about black mesa, i played most of half life years ago and starting playing it the other day, but i was wondering what the best experience would be out of these games? what do you recommend i play ?
If you want to play the whole game at once you'll have to play Half-Life Source first or wait until Black Mesa part 2 is released. Black Mesa is really good though and I personally would choose to play that over the original HL even though it is incomplete.
HL:Source is just the origingal game ported over to the source engine, for the most part it's visually no different to half life... Black Mesa is a 'remake' for lack of a better term... All of the graphics have been updated and the game play differs in places...
so play black mesa and wait for part 2? i downloaded it and thought the file sizes were quite small i didnt relies there was multiple parts.
Black Mesa is the first two thirds of Half Life, it ends on your entry to Xen, which is good, because Xen was *******ly hard. If you really want to play the Xen chapters get HL:Source as well, they're quite good, but very difficult. It's worth getting a hold of Black Mesa's console commands as well, being a mod it's a bit bug prone. The most common being you losing weapons between levels, which can make advancing interesting, it's useful to have the command to get your shotgun back handy. It's fantastic piece of work though, Half Life with a decade's worth of refinement.
There is really no reason to play Half-Life source as far as I know. Black Mesa is a much better product, either play Black Mesa or play the first Half-Life and use the HD pack that was bundled with Blue Shift for the best experience. It's true Black Mesa isn't finished yet, it's missing the last few levels but it's got so much heart and love put into it, totally worth playing and waiting for the next part whenever that may be.
thanks for the replies, i got the complete pack from steam it didnt really say what the other games were like blue shift... and there some others, il have go at black mesa. thanks!!
no you'll play the original followed by opposing force, blue shift at your discretion and THEN you will go over to Black Mesa. do it right.
Black Mesa is like a directors cut of Half-Life with the improved source visuals. It is not exactly the same patch through in all areas. It is the best free game of all time though!
