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000000 No.16637943
Yeah, they fucked it up. Xen is not supposed to look all mystical and exotic and shit, it's supposed to look cold, hostile and with architecture that makes no sense on purpose. And Black Mesa wasn't supposed to have set up bases there yet, they were only sending explorers to collect data. Also, all they've done is added a bunch of extra platforming and cave sections. This is what they wasted almost a decade on?
5bfb98 No.16637951
>>16637943
>Xen is not supposed to look all mystical and exotic and shit, it's supposed to look cold, hostile and with architecture that makes no sense on purpose.
In this case I think I'll let it pass because
1.) It's a remake, not a remastered, you want original Xen just play original HL1
2.) I actually think it's a great contrast to the already cold and uncaring science facility
d2859b No.16637962
>>16637951
>It's a remake
No excuse to go full retarded and only proves modern game design is shit.
c5445b No.16637971
The xen mod was better, prove me wrong.
4ba2d8 No.16637979
looks fine to me. not like we will see any competition, gaben gave up and decided he can't be bothered to count to three
000000 No.16637991
>>16637951
>it's a remake, not a remaster
A remake is supposed to be an as-faithful-as-possible recreation of the original game. This version of Xen doesn't look anything like the original Xen. It's like if someone remade Thief but completely messed up the deliberately bizarre architecture of the mansion level. I'd much rather they put in effort actually re-doing On A Rail to be full-length instead of quarter-length as it currently is. They did it for Surface Tension, why not fix the whole thing?
412cd9 No.16638025
Imagine having such a shit eating need for a contrarian opinion about everything you actually defend the original version of a level which everyone universally agrees was complete garbage in the first place.
8b21a8 No.16638053
>>16637943
It's a fan-made thing so you can keep your expectations low but to their credit they managed to release a HL game unlike valve so there is that. The areas before Xen also had various changes and to me Black Mesa looks more like a game based off of HL1 but with their own spin on things rather than a 1:1 remake. If I had to guess what the devs were thinking when redesigning Xen is that we are never going to see the universe in an official release in our lifetime so they decided to build something themselves.
I can understand the criticism but everyone's expectations for anything half-life related should have hit rock bottom way back so seeing some fancy Xen "remake" with pretty colors is still alright by me
0d8a10 No.16638112
>>16637943
The last area doesn't seem very alien, more like a slightly exotic forest that you could almost see being on earth. Also there aren't many enemies, they seem to have forgetten the S part of FPS. A handful of houndeyes and zombies and like 3 bullsquids are the only enemies there that can hurt you if you don't actively walk into them, needs more challenge.
Still, it looks alright. I enjoyed Black Mesa and I'll probably give this a try when it's out in another 5 years.
5a1800 No.16638124
>>16637991
>A remake is supposed to be an as-faithful-as-possible recreation of the original game.
You're a retard
The definition of a remake is exactly the contrary of what you're stating.
a83d03 No.16638152
Aesthetically on the level design it looks amazing, to be fair. There's a lot of detail and it's a huge step up from the original even though >>16638112 was right in the ending feeling a bit more standard.
It doesn't look much better gameplay wise though. Instead of boring overly long fight sequences with Gonarch, it has boring overly long "attach power socket to wall" puzzles. It doesn't look like the gameplay is taking advantage of being in an alien world. I can't even fathom why the fuck the long jump would have a limit aside from getting some cheap deaths and to force the player to slow down to enjoy the scenery, which is a retarded reason because if the player wants to look around, they'll do that anyways. And they still haven't updated the guns to not feel like shit. The sound effects are cheap and the satchel explosion is laughable.
Overall it just feels like a walking simulator. Visually impressive especially for a mod, but because it's built on an already dated engine it's going to age very poorly, and the gameplay is shallow to non-existant in most of it. Also the nonstop science stations dotted around the surface, seemingly randomly, feel more rooted in what Blue Shift was trying to do, not what the original game portrayed.
>b-bb-b-b-but it's a beeeeta!
It has potential, but judging by how long this took to come out I doubt the team will do anything to fix the issues because they'd hate to scrap their work. Also I'm sure they're getting a million nuthuggers lining up to fellate them.
000000 No.16638165
>>16638025
>defend the original version of a level which everyone universally agrees was complete garbage in the first place
The only people who hated it back in the day were morons who were literally too stupid to grasp basic platforming. They were universally made fun of by people who weren't idiots.
>>16638124
>remake
>definition
>re-create something again
Guess who's the retard now?
8ecf89 No.16638167
>>16638025
Actually, Xen owned.
04fab7 No.16638177
>>16637943
The original Xen was god fucking awful and everyone knows. Anything is better than the original. I'm mostly surprised it got done at all. I'll take it for what it is. Candy with a bit of sawdust in it that's free. Complaining about free shit unless it's forced upon you is kinda retarded.
04fab7 No.16638184
>>16638167
>>16638165
Show me any fucking part of the original Xen that was good. Got nothing eh?
5a1800 No.16638186
>>16638165
Recreating something doesn't mean being 100% faithful to the original material you dumbshit.
8ecf89 No.16638194
>>16638184
The general atmosphere of weirdness. The floating platforms, the odd lighting, the alien sounds. I totally dug it while first playing it 20 years ago, but I don't hate the majority of players who thought it sucked.
04fab7 No.16638200
>>16638194
>The general atmosphere
There is almost none and what little there is get pulled down hard by the absolutely godawful level design.
>I totally dug it while first playing it 20 years ago
Take off those nostalgia goggles then.
000000 No.16638205
>>16638184
>Interloper
>Gonarch fight
>Nihilanth fight
>yes, the platforming
I know you're retarded anon, no need to publicly show it.
>>16638186
>I can redefine words to mean whatever I want them to mean
Still stupid I see.
04fab7 No.16638210
>>16638205
>Gonarch fight
You're really gonna pretend that that was a fight. You my good sir are a massive cunting idiot.
>Nihilanth fight
Boing, pew pew, boing, pew. Fight over. It's garbage.
5a1800 No.16638211
>>16638205
>Remake
<Make something again or differently
The only brainless retard here is you
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/remake
04fab7 No.16638214
>>16638211
He thinks the original Xen was good. What do you expect?
5a1800 No.16638218
>>16638214
I liked Xen, I still don't see all of the issues people saw with it, if anything it had better and more enjoyable platforming than all of the Black Mesa sections combined and some of the interior sections were extremely memorable and decently designed.
04fab7 No.16638220
>>16638218
>I liked Xen
Yes, yes we all know you're retarded by now.
5a1800 No.16638223
>>16638220
Outside the long bullshit vent sections of which the Black Mesa sections also had tons of and some poorly designed enemy encounters I really don't see the issue.
04fab7 No.16638230
>>16638223
Are you a game journalist?
5a1800 No.16638273
>>16638230
Maybe give me an actual argument against those sections?
If I was a journo I wouldn't even know how to Ctrl Jump.
3a7fc0 No.16638278
3a7fc0 No.16638282
>skybox still looks like a jpeg.
kek.
5a1800 No.16638284
>>16638282
Still not as bad as thr night sky on FarCry 2 or some of the more modern skyboxes.
Holy shit is that bad
d9f495 No.16638323
>>16638210
>dude reductionism lmao
fdf56d No.16638402
I don't think Xen was supposed to be any of those things OP. Xen's development in HL1 was rushed because of time constraints and it only encompasses the last 5% of the game. The only part of Xen anyone actually liked is the Nihilanth fight.
I see no point in criticizing Black Mesa's approach to Xen as literally anything they could come up with would be better than HL1 Xen.
120ea9 No.16638421
Looks disgusting.
People waste their lives remaking games lile HL1 because they think it's the best game ever.
It was good, but it does not deserve this cult following.
9c0087 No.16638446
>>16637943
>Xen is not supposed to look all mystical and exotic and shit, it's supposed to look cold, hostile and with architecture that makes no sense on purpose
Half-Life was first formed from the union of Quiver, the game fascinated by mysteries of national conspiracy and the cold, potentially inexplicable developments of military technology, with Prospero, the game fascinated by mysteries of abstraction and infinity. I think there are a lot of things you're forgetting about from the original version of Xen, from the healing pools to the inexplicable nebula-like formations that could be seen off in the distance to the constant background presence of the Nihilanth to, in Opposing Force and Blue Shift, the presence of Black Mesa research habitats, and your objections seem to me to stem from this version of Xen expanding on all of those things that defined the original which I wouldn't have trusted any developer today to have even recognised to begin with.
With that said, though, here's something on my mind about this take on Xen: Something that's firmly established in the Half-Life universe is a cosmic ecosystem that's full of interdimensional invasive species. With how much this version of Xen expands on the ecosystem of the border world - do we see enough evidence in it of how these interdimensional invasive species are around to impact on that ecosystem?
9026f3 No.16638461
Wow crazy timing. I just installed Black Mesa for a play through on my new PC with 155hz monitor and wanted to see how HL1 played at high fps.
I'm almost surprised they released Xen at all.
d375f7 No.16638478
>>16638025
>a level which everyone universally agrees was complete garbage in the first place.
Everyone agrees that Xen had clunky gameplay, but it had fine aesthetics. It nailed the "hostile and deadly" visuals. It's like that was the Australian outback, and the new version is the Brazilian rainforest. Could be great, but it definitely has a different feel.
b42dc0 No.16638497
>>16637991
>A remake is supposed to be an as-faithful-as-possible recreation of the original game
No, you got it ass backwards. Remasters are supposed to be as faithful to the original as possible, because it IS just the original - only with higher resolution version of the same textures, improved lighting, remixed sound, etc. Maybe adding in original cut content, but that's about as far as it goes. A remake is exactly what it fucking sounds like. Re-making the game from scratch. Remakes are their own distinct product from the original, and so are more appropriate places to experiment with new mechanics, new scenarios, new perspectives, and re-imagined content.
Good remakes are rare, but they do happen - and the best case scenario for a remake is where it brushes across that border with remasters and leaves the core gameplay in-tact enough to the point where you can swap between the original and re-make in real-time. Most still end up being shit and un-necessary, but again - a few stand out as being decent.
74c511 No.16638527
>>16638205
>>16638211
The problem here is that retards think remake=new product because of cinema propaganda, they're just repacking the shitty product they reprint all the time in factories, hell you remake data by making copies of it. Remake doesn't mean good and the word remaster is reserved for 'looks' by virtue of HD video re-releases. Remake is just a shitty word in general, it's literally just make with 're' added to it, implying repetition.
8570d8 No.16640478
1eba9a No.16655070
1eba9a No.16655071
d7a613 No.16655080
>>16638124
The opposite of what he was saying would be a reimagining. That's what Black Mesa Xen is. A remake is exactly what that anon said, as close to the original while taking advantage of modern hardware. A remaster, then, is a quick update with very few changes, such as textures and lighting.
e1a997 No.16655088
>Xen is not supposed to look all mystical and exotic and shit
>An alien fucking planet is not supposed to look mystical and exotic
Are you retarded?
d15dea No.16655107
Didn't black mesa get paywalled? I looked into it again awhile ago after discovering my archived copy didn't work anymore, and saw that they want people to buy it now.
1eba9a No.16655115
>>16655088
He is right in the sense that Xen is supposed to be a hostile sort of interdimensional membrane where other races flee to in desperation, not a place lush with life.
df1a81 No.16655120
Looks like every other game made in unity these days. Same bland lighting, auto placed rocks and glowy shit every where.
e1a997 No.16655122
>>16655115
Valve specifically said that when they made Half Life, they designed the aliens and Xen to be a believable ecosystem first, and a setpiece second. It is certainly a hostile, alien place, but not a Diablo dungeon. The aliens have to actually survive in it, hence why it's "lush with life". It's an alien world.
d00110 No.16655243
>>16655107
That happened back in like 2015
1eba9a No.16655254
>>16655122
That's only true to an extent, you have to be blind to imply HL1 Xen and BM Xen are anything close to atmospherically similar.
>>16655107
That's just for the Source 2 Steam version, the original mod is legal to own.
e1a997 No.16655907
>>16655115
>>16655254
BM Xen looks a bit too shiny and not enough green, but other than that it doesn't look bad. That section with the ruined lab is really atmospheric
f705a0 No.16655933
>>16655907
Agreed, the ruined lab is neat. The "jungle" section goes way overboard with the greenery, though. Looks more than a magical fairy-tale forest than an alien planet to me.
a14441 No.16655973
YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.
>>16638053
I am enjoying the HL3 we deserve to this day
aa6aa4 No.16655994
>>16637991
A remake is to reMAKE the game again. I still don't agree with what they did though. Not to mention half a decade for this? How?
Is the game even worth playing though? That's the real question.
8c5e5a No.16656000
I like it. Might even play it, though I'd first need to get around bothering with the first half.
87b522 No.16656694
>>16638214
Original Xen was confusing for sure, and I was too retarded to figure out how to jump on those island platforms…
87b522 No.16656709
>>16656434
I've enjoyed Black Mesa. Can recommend.
03a14a No.16656889
>>16655088
Xen isn't an alien planet, it's a dimension, nothing is native to it.
060199 No.16656906
>>16637943
>>16637951
Do they remove all the lego crystals yet?
2d4050 No.16656965
>>16637943
It looks fine. The fact that they switched from being a remaster to a remake (fuck these shitty terms btw) halfway might upset some people, but it's alright in my opinion.
You can still play Half-Life if you like that Xen more.
73b785 No.16656972
>>16638165
>he only people who hated it back in the day were morons who were literally too stupid to grasp basic platforming. They were universally made fun of by people who weren't idiots.
This fucking revisionism again.
Find me a single usenet post actually praising Xen.
00f31c No.16656994
>hack modding team takes almost a decade just to remake one of valves only games
looks like total ass and the gameplay sucked, same shit always happens with faggy fan projects that are really just people padding their portfolio
e1a997 No.16657037
>>16656889
I know nothing is native to it, but "dimension" doesn't really determine the existence of a world in and of itself. It's described as a borderworld that connects dimensions. but yeah "planet" wasn't the best word for it
3dae32 No.16657044
>fan remake of Half Life 1
>Xen isn't removed
They fucked up the moment they announced that they were going to put that piece of shit level in the game.
1eba9a No.16657171
>>16656906
Why do devs keep pressing the "wash out" button right at the end every time.
1eba9a No.16657475
>>16657186
Cool, now instead of being washed out with vaseline, it's washed out with purpleish-blue vaseline.
b6cf8b No.16657494
>>16637943
what is that faggy thumbnail jesus
ee0c2c No.16657728
YOU FUCKED UP XEN
>>16655973
Truly the best community made half-life game of all times
68d958 No.16658136
>>16637951
>shit is good if there's an explanation attached
Nope, that's an ad-hoc rationalization.
I told you faggots that any mod group telling their fans to play their remake over the original, is really just a bunch of scammers.
68d958 No.16658139
>>16656434
>an interesting re-imagining of HL1
Dumber AI, military shooter gameplay, shorter levels, shitty music replacing the original.
SHITTY
MUSIC
REPLACING
THE
ORIGINAL
d3a815 No.16658167
>>16637943
>Xen is not supposed to look all mystical and exotic and shit
But that is what it looked like to me. In this video it looks pretty plain though. I only skipped through the video but I only see one color at once. Purple areas, blue areas, and green areas. I don't see any well defined shapes, just blobs of rock where HL1 had distinctive pillars and islands
>>16638167
>owned
What year is it?
>>16656906
Look at all that lens flare and fucking purple tint they added.
8c7508 No.16658171
>>16637943
>This is what they wasted almost a decade on?
OP is right.
8c7508 No.16658175
>>16637951
You are a faggot. If you don't want to be one, stop posting.
51724d No.16658292
It looks like a pretty fantasy jungle and nothing like Xen.
>Black Mesa wasn't supposed to have set up bases there yet, they were only sending explorers to collect data
That really caught my attention. The original had a handful of corpses of your predecessors who failed to return and some equipment, but that was it.
The most unusual thing about this remake is that there are zero survivors considering what a massive operation they have going there. And what wiped them out anyway?
Honestly, if anyone wants HL1, just play fucking HL1.
This is a fan remake in every sense of the word, fanfiction included.
>>16655080
>gif
That series is pretty good.
c5ba9b No.16658307
65ab12 No.16658312
>all these years and a fucking map is still in "beta"
>a literal map
>took years for "beta" stage
>a map
>a single map
>a little single map
>took years
>and still not finished
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH PEOPLE ACTUALLY GAVE THEM MONEY
c5ba9b No.16658318
>>16656972
>knee jerk reactions of OTHER people who were bad at longjumping will totally validate my viewpoint
00f31c No.16658332
>>16655973
technically HTDF is opposing force 2, since you play as adrians brother
>>16658139
yeah, i pirated it last year and there was too much wrong with it, iron sights, sprinting, jumping was too low, small changes for the sake of change everywhere, soldiers shot way to fast and accurately with their SMGs so I had to hug boxes for most of the level, weapon models are way to big on the screen, everything was shiny, Mp5 having rails etc
I dont see how or why it would even take them this long, if you were remastering a game you should just recreate whats already there instead of adding in more useless bloat
>>16658312
b-but they're amateurs!!! they got jobs n school n shieet.
b70fc2 No.16658398
>>16658312
>who is everyone mad over a free mod-
<early access commercial release
Oh
00f31c No.16658557
>>16658546
why is the jump height so shit? in og hl it looked like you jumped much higher
66e163 No.16664975
So I went ahead and bought it. Xen beta is pretty short. I like that they tried to expand the ecosystem, and the levels. I have 3 issues with their Xen:
1- Jungle ambient sounds make it way too Earth-like. Silence, even with the busy visuals, would make it more alien. It's not like there's a lot of animals in there anyway. Just have silent plants.
2- Trees. I'm against trees being there, unless they make them alien looking. But we get green leaves and brown wood. Even the trunks are thick despite the lower gravity of Xen. Makes no sense. Lack of creativity.
3- Green moss floors all around ruin the alien look.
All in all, I like what they're doing. It's not very good, but nothing is these days. At least you can tell they're really trying. I particularly liked the outpost/bunker. Can't shoot down voids, like wtf?
320b1d No.16665845
>>16664975
>bought it
Sucks to be you i was gifted the game by some cuck. im gonna try it out tommorow probably.