Recent reviews by Vimy Glide

THE ITALIAN HAS THE QUAD

the second best sonic game of the year (the first is pizza tower)

explosive .50 BMG rounds are more common then regular ones. 10/10

i...might like this game more then system shock 2.

mouselook and rebindable keys absolutely TRANSFORM this game. it goes from a slog to one of the most enjoyable experiences i've had with any game. it's actually kind of amazing. that said, the controls are still kind of awkward since you have to constantly deactivate and reactivate mouselook to go through your inventory and check logs and such, but since it's all point and click it's rather simple to deal with, unlike games that expect you to remember dozens of keybinds.

this game has an "RPG" tag on steam, but this game does NOT have RPG gameplay elements. you're not gonna be trying to figure out the best character build or anything. you do get UPGRADES, but these are consistent throughout every playthrough. they range from hazard suits to energy shields to jump jets to rollerskates to literal eyes in the back of your head. it's all really fascinating stuff. that said, this game is definitely story driven. the voice acting isn't great (unless that voice acting is SHODAN), but it works and it isn't distracting or anything. there's also a surprising amount of room to skip sections of the game or do them out of order.

the gunplay is...surprisingly enjoyable. unlike pretty much any other game, recoil actually makes your character LEAN BACKWARDS, which, coupled with the sounds and their absurdly high rates of fire, makes the two fully automatic submachine guns feel MEATY as HELL. the guns feel a lot better to shoot then in system shock 2. that said the combat is largely about the same tier as system shock 2 - responsive enough, but really most of what you're doing is peaking around corners rapidly while firing at a still enemy, or rushing them and swiping them down with a melee weapon. also this game's laser rapier is so much better then ss2's, i swear to god. there's also a lot more hitscan enemies then i remember ss2 having, which makes melee less practical and cover way more important.

though the enhanced edition essentially fixes the controls, it doesn't seem to do anything about the actual CHARACTER controller, which is kind of a shame because, after the controls, it definitely aged more poorly then the rest of the game. you get caught on stuff a lot and it's hard to really judge how high you can jump. it's overall fairly sluggish. that said, i wouldn't go so far as to say it's BAD, but it definitely could have been much better.

the enemy AI isn't smart. that shouldn't be too much of a surprise. this was 1994. that said, SHODAN IS smart. and she's not just a ♥♥♥♥ - she's THE ♥♥♥♥. let me put her this way - she ambushes you several times in this game, and ALL of them killed me at least once, often more. all of them. i played this game on normal. this game is out for BLOOD. but hey, ♥♥♥♥ it, you're a hacker, you don't play fair. on the first seven levels of citadel station, you can convert the cyborg conversion chambers back into...surgery machines, i assume, and voila. now you can never die.
...ok, well, you CAN die. you just come back to life afterwards if you're on the same level as a restored conversion chamber (and not in one of the groves). so...i guess it makes you jesus? fitting. i think my only real complaint with the conversion chambers is you literal just flip a switch to convert them back. in a game with so many puzzles and, as i'll talk about in a minute, a CYBERSPACE MECHANIC, it feels weird that something like literally being UNABLE TO (fully) DIE is toggled on with just a switch. given, many of the levels DO make you work to get to them, and the last two levels straight up don't have a chamber to restore. i dunno, i think it would've just been more interesting with some sort of puzzle. also would've made more sense. i mean, SHODAN can ambush you 30 ways from sunday but she just leaves a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ switch out to restore her conversion chambers? and don't give me that "oh she can't detect them because someone disconnected her from it" ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, that's just why she doesn't know it's happening.

oh, yeah, puzzles. they're cool. there's a wire puzzle and a circuit puzzle. you find one of each within the first like...half hour of the game, i'm not gonna talk about them here. they're fair and fun and you (probably) won't get shot while doing them. i will say though, keep at least one logic probe (which almost always auto-completes puzzles) for engineering. you'll thank me later.

cyberspace...ehh. it's a 6 degree of freedom shooter, which is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cool as HELL, until you realize you can only move forward (albeit you can do so pretty fast and there's still mouselook), and it's hard to tell where you're supposed to go next since everything is wireframe, and you're on a time limit, and not ONLY are your weapons (more like weapon) INCREDIBLY unresponsive (THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE SOUND), but THEY CAN STRAIGHT UP JUST STOP. FIRING. FOR NO REASON. WHAT THE ♥♥♥♥?! WHAT IS THIS JAMMING ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥?! I'M ON THE INTERNET! ♥♥♥♥ YOU!
so yeah, cyberspace pisses me off. the concept is cool, but the combat just bites. it got to the point where i just sped past everything since i was less likely to get hit and cut off then if i actually engaged. this didn't age poorly, it just SUCKED. i hope the remake does it better.

so, yeah, system shock 1 is great. the controls take some getting used to, you move pretty funky, and i'm pretty sure diego ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scammed you on that implant, but yeah, i'd recommend this. hell, it even has mod support now...there aren't that many mods for it, but it has mod support!

you can commit war crimes. 10/10

david peaked.

it's like max payne but in first person and ridiculous

that said i prefer the levels from the demo (they were longer - this is really noticeable in the jungle level, where you get to use an m60...on one enemy) and i don't really like how the replay feature is implemented, but the former could be changed and the latter is just a personal thing

honestly i bought it just to shred dudes with cool guns, and i can do that, so ♥♥♥♥ it

wait i haven't reviewed this yet?
well-


especially if you like adorable 3d platformers.
with modding support.
and free dlc (incoming).

it's pretty expensive but kind of wacky, but i'm pretty sure the point is to support the devs enough to keep letting them work on the game, and it's just cosmetic ♥♥♥♥, AND it's not loot boxes, so honestly ♥♥♥♥ it.

TL;DR: Black Mesa is a flawed but good game, but Half-Life's BMRF is infinitely cooler in my personal opinion.

Black Mesa is...odd.
Personally, I think it does a lot of things better then the original Half-Life - the world is more believable, the weapons feel better, and the AI actually is (or at least seems) better. Sometimes it breaks though, like an HECU soldier will just forget you exist or the Lambda codes guy will just stare at the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wall until the end of time. On one REALLY bad occasion, if you load a save on a particular map, the AI will just break. (This is way in Lambda Core, so be careful down there.) Aside from that, however, there are a few intentional turnoffs.

First is the amount of ammo the player gets for their guns. 30 rounds in an MP5 magazine? Fine. 12 spare rounds for the .357? No, ♥♥♥♥ off, get out of here. 10 spare rounds for the crossbow? The Resonance Cascade wasn't worth this. Thankfully this is just one skill.cfg modification away, but that kind of blocks you from playing on (public) multiplayer servers from what I can tell, so...do that at your own discretion.

Second is the accuracy of the HECU. This seems like a minor thing. It's not. It's not a minor thing. They are going to kick your ASS. Headshots are your friend in this game, and the magnum is the word of GOD. Too bad the game only gives you a maximum of 18 rounds total for it. That's 18 soldiers if you have the reflexes of a cat stocked up on all the mephamphetimine in the United States. That's a lot of meth. Personally, I think what offsets this is that the game is fairly liberal with health supplies, and soldiers tend to call out if they've spotted you a bit before they start shooting, which helps. Another thing that helps is turning "Always Run" on so that you can be that magnum cat I described earlier, meth and all. Personally, I hate myself, so I keep this off. Besides, even when it's off, you can shoot while sprinting. You'll just be holding down your sprint key while you do so.

The third thing that might turn people off is the voice acting for the HECU. It's admittedly pretty generic. It doesn't have that radio filter or "hoo-ah" attitude from Half-Life, or even the mod. Outside of that however, it's pretty good. The voice actor displays a lot of emotion and kind of makes you empathize with the soldiers, especially throughout Surface Tension. That being said, while I think Half-Life beats both the retail and mod versions of Black Mesa in one scene in particular, and that's the ending to Apprehension. The mod has the sort of Half-Life vibe, but it's way too overexaggerated, even for Half-Life. Retail has the subtlety, but it's a bit too subtle, and again, it could be seen as generic. Half-Life's Apprehension scene is subtle, but at the same time it's exaggerated just enough, plus it has the Half-Life vibe. Valve knew what the ♥♥♥♥ they were doing, I can tell you that.

Okay I'm gonna stop nerding out over Apprehension and start nerding out over something I've never seen a single person seriously consider at all. It also happens to be the last thing that might (but honestly probably won't) turn ANYONE off of Black Mesa.
The facility itself. Hear me out, this'll get weird.

Why this would turn someone off is twofold: the first is probably the most noticeable, and that's puzzles. Most puzzles in Black Mesa remain in tact, such as Questionable Ethics' surgery unit thing, or the Unforeseen Consequences box platforming charade. But there's a few puzzles that are severely dumbed down simply due to making the levels more logical, and I think the best example of this is in Residue Processing. In the original Half-Life, in the area where you regain the revolver, there's a puzzle involving a punch of conveyor belts and crushers where you need to have good timing and jumping skills in order to do it properly. In Black Mesa...all the timing is gone. You turn on the belts, you turn off the grinder (which has replaced the crushers), and...that's it. Personally, I don't mind this particular example. I hated this puzzle in the original Half-Life. It felt stupid and needlessly punishing. It's still the best example I can think of, however.

The second reason why this might turn someone off is because - this is the weird part - it (perhaps accidentally) fundamentally changes what the Black Mesa Research Facility is and who comprises it.
In Black Mesa, everything mostly makes sense. Why are there a bunch of crates suspended over a canal? It's just a transitioning area for the crates to get to other areas. What's this area with a big door and a bunch of cars? That's a parking lot. What are these giant crushers? They're exposed generator pistons. You look at every part of the facility and you think to yourself, "Yeah, okay, that's fair."
Half-Life is...different. Why are all these crates suspended over a pit of nothingness? I don't know. How did they get here? I don't know. Where are they supposed to go? I don't know. Okay, what's this place with a bunch of now-dead aliens and a bouncy cancer tumour? Nothing's here, I don't know. What about these giant crushers? What do they do? I don't know.
I'll admit that Half-Life may be this way for gameplay purposes or because it was 1998 and technical limitations or something. I don't think that matters. Because either way, Half-Life paints a MUCH more interesting picture of the BMRF then Black Mesa does.
Black Mesa's interpretation of the facility is a regular, if very big, research facility, with perhaps a few strange areas (take the sector from Questionable Ethics for example), with mostly normal staff. Half-Life's interpretation is a bit...stranger. It's normal at a glance, sure, but when you start looking closely it quickly becomes a surreal fever dream. The staff seem totally out of it, even in the face of what amounts to an alien invasion. Like for god's sake, ALIENS are invading and all you care about is where the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DONUTS are?! The facility itself has so many strange quirks and confusing design decisions. Black Mesa paints a picture of a team of regular scientists who got in over their heads. Half-Life paints a picture of a team of genius-level psychotic druglords (with some regular folks mixed in) who ♥♥♥♥♥♥ with TIME-SPACE GOD, and got their asses obliterated as a result. This, in my opinion, is what Half-Life will ALWAYS have over Black Mesa. I don't care how pretty your game is or how seamlessly you can transition between maps. Half-Life's team of maniacal psychos with a god complex will ALWAYS be more interesting then your regular pack of nerds.

That being said, do I recommend Black Mesa? Yes. Yes I do. It's really quite enjoyable, and it's interesting to compare it to the original Half-Life.