Black Mesa is an absolutely beautiful remake of the original Half Life with vastly improved content, challenges and graphics

The environmental storytelling is top notch, the weapons are the same, our HEV suit is still the same color, you still break the Anti-Mass Spectrometer but it's all happening on levels that are enriched with more story elements, epic boss fights and absolutely beautiful music, telling you what happened in the facility after the events that started it all, with a much expanded and improved Xen section which feels really good to play through this time... at least up until Gonarch's Lair which in my opinion is a highlight of the remake, deserving a whole separate praise especially once you figure out a different way to approach her.

Even though they are visually different to each other and the early Xen levels are indeed gorgeous, some of the later levels can be tedious to go through. While they're being distinct to each other, have too much of the same colors being used making everything kind of look the same. Your destination is still clear, you always know which way to go but after a while everything sort of blends together which can make it harder to swallow how long these sections are, especially with all the cable puzzles in these new areas and while it makes you feel badass, the lengthy elevator fight before the end level isn't helping it either but it does end in a truly EPIC boss fight this time around.

Although the game requires a half decent computer now that the Xen levels are out, it can still run on pretty much everything without a hitch or a crash, making it a great purchase both if you have never experienced the original, and if you wanted to play through your favorite again but always felt like it should show and tell you more about itself.

The modding scene isn't great, with pretty much all the currently available workshop mods requiring you to tinker with files in order for them to work which can of course change in the future but this hardly has an impact on the overall feel of the game.

Wholeheartedly recommending it to every story focused FPS fan.

Black Mesa is an absolutely beautiful remake of the original Half Life with vastly improved content, challenges and graphics The environmental storytelling is top notch, the weapons are the same, our HEV suit is still the same color, you still break the Anti-Mass Spectrometer but it's all happening on levels that are enriched with more story elements, epic boss fights and absolutely beautiful music, telling you what happened in the facility after the events that started it all, with a much expanded and improved Xen section which feels really good to play through this time... at least up until Gonarch's Lair which in my opinion is a highlight of the remake, deserving a whole separate praise especially once you figure out a different way to approach her. Even though they are visually different to each other and the early Xen levels are indeed gorgeous, some of the later levels can be tedious to go through. While they're being distinct to each other, have too much of the same colors being used making everything kind of look the same. Your destination is still clear, you always know which way to go but after a while everything sort of blends together which can make it harder to swallow how long these sections are, especially with all the cable puzzles in these new areas and while it makes you feel badass, the lengthy elevator fight before the end level isn't helping it either but it does end in a truly EPIC boss fight this time around. Although the game requires a half decent computer now that the Xen levels are out, it can still run on pretty much everything without a hitch or a crash, making it a great purchase both if you have never experienced the original, and if you wanted to play through your favorite again but always felt like it should show and tell you more about itself. The modding scene isn't great, with pretty much all the currently available workshop mods requiring you to tinker with files in order for them to work which can of course change in the future but this hardly has an impact on the overall feel of the game. Wholeheartedly recommending it to every story focused FPS fan.