Well it only took eight years, but the Half Life total conversion, Black Mesa, has finally been released to the masses. Usually a project like this would have ceased production before going the distance for eight long years, but those who were involved with the project stayed the course to deliver a crisper more polished version of the Half Life experience. For those that didn’t play the original, this is an excellent time to get caught up with the origins of everyone’s favorite crowbar wielding silent hero, Gordon Freeman.
As Gamespy points out, not only is this conversion free, it’s also received a thumbs-up from Valve thanks to Project Greenlight, a Steam service that allows users to vote for new content. It’s common sense really that Valve doesn’t mind a fan-made conversion of one of their most beloved games, the press alone is a good thing, and there’s also the possibility that some may be inclined to purchase Half Life 2 if they don’t already own it. The conversion itself looks fantastic especially considering it was put together essentially on a volunteer basis by fans of the original series. You’ll need Source SDK Base 2007 to play it, but past that it seems pretty easy to get going. As someone who played the original I’m really excited to see what these talented people have done to the game.
—
It’s not as rare to see games cross over into the mainstream media anymore. I rather like seeing games gain the attention they deserve. Sometimes though, gaming coverage in mainstream media is downright laughable, showing the ignorance of those talking or writing about it more than anything else. That’s why I like Conan’s Clueless Gamer sketches on the Conan O’Brien show. He pretty much openly admits to knowing nothing about games, yet reviews them anyways. At least he’s being honest about it. His most recent one is of Resident Evil 6 a game, he points out, hasn’t even been released yet. His perspective of the game is that of an honest child and it’s really fun to watch him try and keep up with all of the action even though he hasn’t played that previous five games.
—
I still haven’t played Day-Z yet as I’m holding out for the standalone version, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the humor in Zero Punctuation’s review this week. There’s a focus on the game’s difficult learning curve, with “Yahtzee” explaining, in his own way, just how hard it is to survive in this particular apocalypse. I’ve always liked these reviews; despite their humor they have always contained a healthy dose of rational thought-provoking insight. His review of Day Z is no different, explaining how hard the game is not because of the undead, but because of the living.
—
I’m sneaking some more X-Com content into this week’s roundup. This time in a video I found on Joystiq which compares the original game to the reboot coming out in just a few weeks. It’s hard to believe they’re even the same game after seeing some of the improvements. While there will always be a special place in my heart for the original music, graphics, and gameplay, this might be the first reboot in a long time that actually meets expectations.
—
This week is full of news about reboots, although this next one is a fan-made recreation of the opening scene from Baldur’s Gate II. I remember playing through BGII when it was first release, and although it didn’t feel like it was that long ago, watching this video has reminded me of just how old it is. I miss those old pause-and-play style RPG’s that were made by Bioware. There was something about them that hasn’t been recreated in the same way since. It’s great to see someone take the initiative and breathe new life into this game, just in time for the enhanced edition as well, nice.
—
Finally, over at Kotaku there’s an interesting article about the current state of modern shooters and why they all seem to be so serious these days. I’ve thought about this myself for a while, but I haven’t seen a clearer explanation than in this article. It raises the point that although the shooter genre has always seemed to be a place for seriousness, in older titles such as Wolfenstein 3D it was anything but. There’s also the point made in this article that while shooter look realistic, if they were compared to real warfare they really aren’t realistic at all. Hopefully shooters will return to their less than realistic roots, until then I guess we’ll all have to settle for the fake realism we have today.
