I've been following the crowbar collective on this one for a long time, played several betas and had a blast every time. And every time, every SINGLE time, IT. GETS. BETTER!

And then they released Xen.

They... they did it. They made Xen GOOD! And the final boss became so much more epic! If you played the original Half Life, you owe it to yourself to play this. It honors what Half Life was, and brings it to what it could have been and I look forward to seeing what it will be.

Edit 12/11/2024: I've played and beaten Black Mesa again, and it still holds up so well. And now, I've played the currently released Blue Shift, which at the time of this writing, has released Focal point. And by god they did it again. The Xen section was ENJOYABLE! It felt so alien, but it was intuitive to navigate. I have only VERY minor nitpicks here and there with trying to figure out the path forward, BUT I had a blast the whole way. I didn't want to put it down. It made me feel like I was playing OG Half Life again in the wee hours of the morning.

If you're a half life fan, or just a fan of shooters, do yourself the favor of playing this.