How do you see Xen? (Black Mesa)

It seems to me that most of the xen will be changed. and most of all the hunt, the battle against the womb of the headcrabs, to make it cooler and more interesting. I do not doubt the success, because I played BMS and was surprised. Got the same feeling when I went through the original half-life in 2001.

I think they are robots up to their throats, since in my opinion some locations on xen were unsuccessful, they kept the traditions of HL1 on the BMS, for example: when he breaks the character and the brains are separate, the heart and liver are also separate, and the meat in even pieces, it took me into nostalgia ^ - ^. since I strayed from the topic a little, I will write briefly: the developers will squeeze out all the juice from the engine, after portal2 I thought that this was the edge, but I was mistaken, to tell the truth we saw a little xen in the laboratory where bespectacled people were doing experiments on our guests from xen. I think that all the same it is worth waiting for the valv is not predictable.

Rotato is
not predictable.
This is a mod, Valve is not involved in this project.

but exactly))))

Here So

when it comes out does anyone know?

VenoM37
I think there is nothing to hope for, it will not work, another team of enthusiasts was blown away

Since Xen did come out, I think you can already unsubscribe. I won't say anything for the main part - as for me, in general, it turned out exactly the same as in the original half. Not better or worse. Although ... in the original half-life there were no moments when you had to blunt, not knowing where to go next. But they appeared in Black Mesa. This is not to mention the fact that half-life was completely undemanding to the hardware, and in Black Mesa I see just a shameless lack of optimization. Moreover, this is a remake, that is, nothing fundamentally new has been introduced. There are no high-poly models there, and in general the style is completely the same. So in the end we got the same thing, but at a much higher cost, including development time, and on demand for hardware, and everything else.

But I would like to say a few words about Xen.
I do not know. I somehow liked the original Zen better. Yes, it was shorter, but, as they say, less is more. There, each next level is just a brain removal. Like a memory from the perinatal matrix: you can't figure it out on purpose. You teleport and don't understand where you got to. This world really seems to be somehow absolutely alien, with alien alien logic. And at the same time absolutely not friendly. You feel like an insect that is about to be crushed by someone and will not even notice. Or, say, a grain of sand in a millstone. Or infusoria in the intestines of a mammal.

And the last "ascent" on the gears behind the shining star of the portal of lightning, in my opinion, is generally the best moment in the whole game. Perhaps something similar is felt by the sperm when it reaches the egg. For me, there is something deeply personal in all this, like a memory from a past life.

And Black Mesa Xen - well, beautifully, of course, they did, what can I argue with. But!
Firstly, all attempts to squeeze out some kind of "prettiness" from the source remind me personally of trying to make candy out of shit. I personally have epileptic seizures from this engine when I run on it for a long time. Compare at least the first Dishonored (drawn on the Unreal Engine) with Half Life 2 - it's like earth and sky. (And the drawing, by the way, was the same person, Viktor Antonov, EMNIP.) Moreover, the developers seem to feel it themselves, and on this basis, in my opinion, an inferiority complex has already developed. In an attempt to prove that "ours is beautiful too", they stuck so many shaders (in Black Mesa, I mean) that the game periodically falls off even at minimum. But not only. For example, Lost Coast, according to wikipedia, was also released "

Secondly, what does space and the underwater world have to do with it ??? How is one related to the other? And where do all these waterfalls fall? This is in space, where there is neither top nor bottom. And if water constantly flows out from there, then where does it come from? In short, beautiful, but somehow meaningless.

Thirdly, I was personally sick of all these same type of puzzles. One of them can be screwed up altogether, if the explosives run out - you will have to start the whole chapter from the beginning (if, for example, the saved items are also damaged). Yes, the developers threw a lot of it there - just in case, so that it doesn't end. But again, there is no logic in this: if this whole level explodes, why then does the stored explosives not explode? Shouldn't she detonate like all the other "watermelons" on the level.
By the way, in another place there someone placed "laser" mines among the explosive "watermelons". Who could have done it, and most importantly, why ??? Again, nonsense.

In fact, there are many more places to screw up. For example, if you run out of cartridges - and there is such a level with a laser in the center and several transparent bottoms, through which you need to shoot at some red buoys (I don't know what they are called correctly).

And most importantly, why does this whole level look like an obstacle course? As if this whole world of Zen was created only for Gordon Freeman to "pass" it. Somehow it's not cool :(

By the way, the second cool moment after the "star from the sky" is the portal, which is activated by butterflies. In Black Mesa, this moment is also cut out. In general, it feels like they cut out the coolest and most original.

Among the shortcomings I also want to mention Nihilant. In the original half, he was not at all a stupid blockhead with a thirst to kill everything and everyone. On the contrary, he constantly meditated in the lotus position and it was in this form that he flew around his chamber with the crystals Chamber of Nihilanth (that's what I called her). If you remember, he constantly concentrated on something and generated all kinds of miracles with the power of his thoughts. In general, he is a very mysterious person: it is not clear exactly what he needs.
And with what methods did he fight Freeman? - Sending him into the maze using the portal. In other words, he fought him by asking riddles for him! Kind of like the Sphinx.

Of course, in Black Mesa, the developers (Crowbar Collective) ditched Nihilant too, including that mind-blowing moment when it was necessary to jump into his head.