Black Mesa (mod) - Subtley similar to Half Life
 

Latest trailer from my baby:

YouTube Video

So basically you get to play the original Half-Life with new ultramint flavor for free. New models, music, textures, voicework...really the only thing left of valve's is the source code.

I don't know how many people know about this mod from previous threads and such, but it really does deserve its own thread. I mean, they've not only redone the first player campaign, but will also be enabling it for co-op play, and also adding in revised versions of half-life deathmatch to boot.

Free.99 is a nice price to pay for this one, so keep your eye on it.

Looks neat. But uh... So why ISN'T Valve doing this themselves? Or are they just handing it off to some dedicated modders: "Have at it!", and only stepping in to make sure everything is as it should be?

Uh, is that supposed to be 99 cents??

Well it's being talked about at Kotaku. So good stuff with that.

Looks great. :3:

Valve technically already did it with Half-Life: Source, they just didn't have the time for all the texture and modeling work it would require, so Half-Life source came with better water effects and...not much else.

Well, after Valve stoked the flames, this mod team stepped in and decided to do it right. The most important part is that when contacted, Valve basically gave the team their blessing to continue and complete the whole thing. They have no involvement that I know of other than that.

Free-99 is a term my friends coined, but um...it's free. If they decided to charge money, that's when they'd be in hot water with Valve.

Been waiting for this for FUCKING YEARS.

And oh man, it's actually coming out in 2009? I bloody well hope they stick to that. Psyched as all hell.

Saw this mention on Joystiq when I looked this morning, and it certainly sounds ambitious. Valve have a pretty good attitude when it comes to the mod community so I would have been surprised if they had had any issue with this. But yeah, will be interesting to see how it turns out in the end.

Luckily, Valve is not REALLY part of a bigger publisher anymore, which could intervene legally with this...
So no "hey it's don- removed due to legal issues, sorry guys, 3 years of work wasted" here, as with so many others.

Well in that case, I can't WAIT to play the full thing when it comes out, mod teams dedicated to a project usually pump out some well-made stuff :3

DN Still wants Goldeneye source though

Yeah, I've known about this for a while. I remember reading that the creators are trying to give it a Ravenholm approach for most of it (when the aliens are around) for a sort of freaky horror element.

Funny thing is, not sure how many people played Half Life: Source, but there's a few parts where the "Source" engine breaks the game.

Specifically there is one point where you're suppose to release barrels to the surface of a pool of water in order to walk across them. In the original, they just came straight up, and you could walk across them no problem. In the source version, they came up, and split apart and went everywhere. You kinda had to play with it abit in order to use one of the barrels to get up on the ledge.

As for Black Mesa Source, I definitely can't wait for it. When it comes out I'll probably play through it in one sitting if I'm able to.

If I was Valve, I too would let somebody re-make my old material with shiny new doo-dads for free.

No point in intending to release it for cash moneys when you're not going to do the work for it anyways.

I don't want to be overly positive but like, Valve is generally pretty chill about this shit. They'll let it run it's course and if it's big enough, they'll just hire EVERYONE that worked on the mod. It happed with Counter Strike, Portal and I'm pretty sure the guys from Turtle Rock (Valve now) did counter strike bots/maps and they hired/ acquired them bitches too. Valve lets talent flourish and then is smart enough to actually get em up on payroll.

Valve has no reason to put a stop to this let me explain why:

If Valve properties were still being published out-of-house the publisher would put a stop to this kind of project because they'd want to hold out for an official release of a Half Life: Original with shiny new doo-dads for cash moneys.

Realistically it'll never happen, but that's what they'd be holding out for.

Valve on the other hand has no reason whatsoever to go back and re-do Half-Life because there's not much money in it compared to another Half-Life plus why re-do a bunch of your own work?

Then what was the reason for SquareEnix putting a stop to that shiny new doo-dads with the 3D Chrono trigger remake?You must remember, the ability to be an asshole is reason enough for some people.

Thing is Valve is smart. Most, if not all the mods that people come out with, require a specific game to play...that being said if someone happens to stumble along a Mod they love for CS:S, but hate the game itself, then they'd have to buy Cs:S and thus, put money in Valve's pocket that way.

Because they actually had a remake/enhanced port down the pipe, Grail.

Ahhh that's right. I forgot about it since it took em so damn long to port the game from the time they shut that independent project down.