Shack PSA: Black Mesa now live

Black Mesa, a long-in-the-making fan mod that recreates the original Half-Life using the Source Engine, has finally launched today.

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Grab your crowbars and spectacles, everyone. The Source engine fan remake of the original Half-Life is now available. It went live at 8:47 AM Mountain Time, which should sound awfully familiar to fans. The labor of love has taken eight years and has added a few notable tweaks to the classic, with at least one more revision on the way post-launch.

The Source mod has added some new bits of dialogue, and plans to make revisions to the Xen portion of the game sometime in the future. It opted to remove that part completely from the initial release. Other than those changes, it will be a much prettier version of Half-Life. The excitement was enough to garner a spot in the first batch of Steam's Greenlight program, and chances are we have more than a few Half-Life enthusiasts in the Shacknews audience.

You can grab the file from the official site. Also available is the full soundtrack for your listening pleasure. Download it from us.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 14, 2012 8:15 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Shack PSA: Black Mesa now live.

    Black Mesa, a long-in-the-making fan mod that recreates the original Half-Life using the Source Engine, has finally launched today.

    • reply
      September 14, 2012 8:16 AM

      Downloading from the Shack now...

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      September 14, 2012 8:20 AM

      So if there's no Xen yet, how does it end?

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        September 14, 2012 8:27 AM

        Much better, I assume.

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          September 14, 2012 11:39 AM

          But if there's no Xen, it breaks the plot. Being as it is that it's the Borderworld where these random alien species are trapped, and also the jumping off point for the Combine to invade our dimension.

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          September 14, 2012 12:38 PM

          gordon picks up that can

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        September 14, 2012 9:26 AM

        The police drive up and haul away all the knights.

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          September 14, 2012 9:55 AM

          Right then...turn off that camera!

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            September 14, 2012 10:05 AM

            Right. This game is getting way too silly. Alien worlds? Nonsense

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              September 14, 2012 10:41 AM

              Well, you gotta look at the bright side of it.

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                September 14, 2012 4:06 PM

                And now for something completely different.

                (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻)

    • reply
      September 14, 2012 8:26 AM

      [deleted]

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      September 14, 2012 9:08 AM

      And we wonder why Hollywood keeps remaking old movies.

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      September 14, 2012 9:26 AM

      I love how the screenshots are all of the original game.

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      September 14, 2012 9:29 AM

      Found a place for the .torrent: http://www.mediafire.com/?khmzyygg4vetko0

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      September 14, 2012 9:35 AM

      So - is it any good?!

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      September 14, 2012 10:30 AM

      maybe im bugged but there no crowbar?? theres is 6-7 crab heads in my path and all i have are flares

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        September 14, 2012 1:50 PM

        I found a crowbar

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          September 14, 2012 1:51 PM

          Plus, you need to use Barney so he can shoot zombies for you

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        September 14, 2012 9:03 PM

        Having the same issue - near the red lasers and no crowbar to break through the door after.

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          September 14, 2012 9:59 PM

          You find the crowbar after that, when you get to the main lobby and crouch through the tunnel. It isn't needed before that.

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            September 15, 2012 6:07 AM

            I hear by give up my gamer card on Sept 15th, 2012 for being unable to crouch through a broken glass door from a game I've played before in the past.

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      September 14, 2012 10:37 AM

      fuck YES!! The remainder of my workday just got a whole lot longer, but hot damn I can't wait to fire this up tonight.

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        September 14, 2012 10:46 AM

        They're waiting for you, Gordon... in the test chamber

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      September 14, 2012 11:37 AM

      How do we find it on Steam?

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      September 14, 2012 12:07 PM

      LAMBDAS ARE NOT A'S

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        September 14, 2012 12:08 PM

        Also they're not lambs. Fail. :(

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          September 14, 2012 12:09 PM

          I'm hallucinating typos. What's going on in this thread? Who are you people? Where am I?

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            September 14, 2012 12:46 PM

            That is of no concern to you, Mr. Torrence. At least not at this point.

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        September 14, 2012 3:46 PM

        Apostrophes are not for pluralizing.

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        September 14, 2012 7:42 PM

        lol, tell that to Valve.

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      September 14, 2012 12:33 PM

      Holy shit what the fuck? Can you play multiplayer?

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      September 14, 2012 12:51 PM

      Any chance the Half-Life coop hacks work with this?

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      September 14, 2012 1:11 PM

      Do we still get to ruin Dr Magnusson's lunch before ruining the rest of the world?

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        September 14, 2012 2:13 PM

        Yes, with a few new bits of dialogue to go with it.

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      September 14, 2012 3:19 PM

      If you're even slightly a shooter fan, grab this game. It will floor you and you will never forget where it takes you. It's 1998 all over again, in a 2012 graphically induced format.

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      September 14, 2012 3:26 PM

      Ive tried 3 times to download this from shack and it keeps quitting on me. The othere sites are sooo slow!

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      September 14, 2012 3:41 PM

      I don't understand.... I thought this was supposed to be a Steam thing. Why is it an external download?

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      September 14, 2012 3:46 PM

      Where the hell does it install? It's not in Steam, not in programs. Looked in Program Files (both of them), nothing.

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        September 14, 2012 3:49 PM

        restart steam, it'll be in your library.

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          September 14, 2012 3:50 PM

          It's there, but steam does nothing when I launch it. I've even watched my process list, and it just never triggers anything.

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            September 14, 2012 4:23 PM

            Did you install the source sdk?

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            September 14, 2012 4:30 PM

            [deleted]

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              September 14, 2012 5:12 PM

              I did get a prompt to install it when I tried to run the game for the first time.

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                September 14, 2012 5:13 PM

                I did not, I had to restart steam a second time and then I got the prompt.

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        September 14, 2012 4:19 PM

        It appeared in Steam for me following the install. Someone mentioned trying to restart Steam if it doesn't show up right away.

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          September 14, 2012 4:40 PM

          After you install it, it says to restart steam and it will show up in your games library... I can attest that it does upon restart.

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            September 14, 2012 5:14 PM

            Yup, steam mods always require a restart to show up in steam.

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      September 14, 2012 3:47 PM

      so uhh. how to make work on mac

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      September 14, 2012 3:56 PM

      [deleted]

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      September 14, 2012 10:27 PM

      [deleted]

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      September 14, 2012 11:08 PM

      This is pretty much what I was hoping the original HL source would be like

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      September 15, 2012 7:10 AM

      Do I need HL1 to play thiS?

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        September 15, 2012 4:07 PM

        No, just install Source SDK Base 2007 in your Steam library, which you can find under the "tools" submenu.

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      September 15, 2012 7:34 AM

      wtf where do I put my money?

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      September 16, 2012 10:22 AM

      I always get this message after downloading and the zip file is broken
      BlackMesa.zip.part could not be saved, because the source file could not be read.

      Try again later, or contact the server administrator.

    • reply
      September 16, 2012 11:21 AM

      This is fantastic so far. Minor bugs, of course, just like any other first release... but hats off to the Black Mesa team. Great job.

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