#black mesa game

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

Some of the changes in Black Mesa Source's story seem a little bit fanfictiony and not-quite-what-Valve-would-do, but I do have to give them props for one good example of environmental storytelling: that one end-of-chapter scene they adapted from the original where the two soldiers jump you with the intention of dropping you in a trash compactor, and when you wake up and escape, you find a room with a bunch of dead headcrabs, the dismembered corpse of one soldier, and an inaccessible closet where you can see a second soldier sitting there, towards the end of the process of being turned into a headcrab-zombie. That's like ... it's flawless, if you're paying attention. You know exactly what happened here. There's no mysteries left.

#shenanigans #half-life #half life #half-life 1 #half life 1 #black mesa #black mesa source #black mesa game #headcrab #headcrab zombie

[thienvaldram]

Black Mesa - Interloper

Black Mesa Interloper is actually good, the 'I got bored and decided to make this' rant.

So like... you jump through the Lambda Core teleporter and are greeted by this absolutely stunning skybox in Xen, and towering in the distance is the Nihilanth's lair, the 'Interloper Tower' as I like to call it. And you spend a good couple of hours moving your way slowly across Xen towards it.

Until you're finally standing at the base of this absolutely massive megastructure. Journey less than half over because you've still got to climb it.

And the god damn chapter makes you feel that climb. That's always something I've felt HL2s Citadel lacked, its like 8 kms tall in lore but it does not feel like anything other than a skyscraper, which after towering over you for much of the game is so anticlimactic. Like yeah the Super Gravity Gun is nice but the tower don't feel like the behemoth its supposed to.

Interloper does, and it is glorious. It's a slog as you slowly push your way up, as the Nihilanth throws all these forces at you trying to stop you from ascending, and you're burning through your ammo until, when you're close to running out, you come across the Gluon Gun recharging crystals and it goes wild. The tower itself is an absolutely amazing bit of worldbuilding too, it's like a massive living organism with technology sewn into it, enslaved by the Nihilanth to produce Alien Grunts like everything else in the factory.

And you climb, and climb. Reach the elevator and ascend, you can feel Nihilanth's desperation as you get closer. You're hurting, and tired and running on fumes but its a battle of wills between the two of you as to who will crack first.

Until you, at long last triumph, and are standing at the top of all that, overlooking everything you've come through over the last third of the game, conquering the tower. The catharsis of this moment would simply not have worked if the tower was half that height. Without the struggle the payoff is nothing.

This chapter is good, and I only wish the Citadel was like it. Imagine getting stocked up by Barney right before entering the Citadel, only to slowly burn ammo ascending through the Combine's manufacturing plants, going up past Striders and weapons and up to ships. And then hitting the confiscation field just as your ammo is hurting. And then bam, Super Gravity Gun. And then the catharsis of finally reaching the top and knocking Breen of the pedestal you've fought tooth and nail all the way up.

#half life #black mesa #interloper #interloper (chapter) #half life 2 #citadel #xen #city 17 #gordon freeman #hl1 #black mesa game #black mesa source #half life 1

[follow-freeman]

Collection of my favorite renders from the Half Life PS2 manual

#half life #gordon freeman #source engine #valve #valve games #black mesa #jump Gordon jump #barney calhoun

[internetskiff]

The most powerful ability exclusive to humanity in the Half Life/Portal shared universe is our ability to just throw bullshit at the wall and see what sticks. Aperture "OSHA are the devil" Science have managed to create completely safe interconnected points in space. The same company that turns people's blood into gasoline and shoves lions and humans into the same enclosed space for the vague concept of "Science". Meanwhile Black Mesa still has to use Xen as a crossing and their teleportation device requires an entire reactor with a village's worth of staff constantly maintaining it, just to end up having most of said staff abducted by onion-headed aliens. Even the resistance hasn't managed to create completely stable teleporters with a compressed Xen relay, meanwhile Aperture just went "oh dude let's shove a black hole into a non-waterproof gun" and have just created a teleportation method that just removes Xen from the equation entirely. Doesn't change the fact they bullshat so bad they basically got themselves gassed to death, but still.

The Resistance are a good example of this too. The Combine seem to have a complete set-in-stone thought process and understanding of science which meant they didn't even begin to explore local teleportation via Xen, meanwhile a group of random human mechanics and scientists have managed to cobble together at least two semi-functional local teleporters out of scrap metal and stolen Combine tech, to the point the All-Consuming Interdimensional Empire had to straight up copy their homework. And that isn't even the only time they seem to be taking human shit to just copy the blueprints.

They 100% just yoinked the entire damn car out of that garage just to take a crack at reverse-engineering the Tau Cannon attached to it. Even Resistance weaponry somehow manages to rival or at least stand equal to Combine tech - and we're talking improvised crossbows that shoot superheated rods of rebar at the target compared to high-tech rifles that can discharge orbs of pure dark energy. The collapse of the entire Citadel is basically set into motion as a result of a cobbled together Rebel device placed into extremely capable hands.

The events of the Portal games are a case of extremely elaborate machinelike planning versus pure human improvisation, with Chell's entire escape in the first game involving her simply weaseling her way through small cracks that GLaDOS missed while setting up her ambushes, eventually turning her own rocket turret against her to destroy her.

I suppose you could argue this falls flat in Portal 2 with Wheatley, but it's important to remember he's designed to be an utter idiot, so it's safe to say he wouldn't obsess over the larger picture like GLaDOS to the point where he fails to see the cracks. Yes, he's the one that breaks Chell out of the test chambers again, and yes, he's the one that came up with the sabotage plot - but it's important to note while he knows what to target in the sabotage, when we actually get there he doesn't quite know how to sabotage it, leaving Chell to figure it out on her own. She botches the Turret Quality Control Line with some minor guidance, but it's basically completely up to her to figure out how to cut off the Neurotoxin Supply. It's through her improvisation that Wheatley even manages to get into GLaDOS' chamber, tumbling through her neurotoxin vent and shattering the glass cage she trapped Chell inside of. It's through Chell's improvisation that the Core Transfer even occurs in the first place.

The script is flipped specifically when Wheatley takes charge, because oops - turns out a mind capable of focusing on the bigger picture might be pretty important when it comes to running an entire facility powered by it's own Reactor. Wheatley just completely zeroes in on his own personal pleasure, hacking up test chambers and the objects within them to try and figure out the easiest way to get his solution euphoria as quick as possible.

Still, something that's pretty interesting is that only Wheatley has ever managed to create a trap that's impossible to foresee and avoid, something GLaDOS has repeatedly failed to do to the point she ends up commending him. I believe this is because his way of thinking is a lot closer to Chell's compared to GLaDOS'. He puts up way more of a fight as the two run through the facility trying to get to him, seemingly improvising on the spot just like Chell has been over the course of the two games. Even his lair would be impossible to survive if it weren't for a single Conversion Gel pipe he somehow failed to notice and remove.

Whether in a laboratory deep beneath the soil or an alien tower tall enough to split the clouds, the ingenuity of even a single person is enough to topple a tower or destroy a supercomputer 3 times over.

Marc Laidlaw put what I'm trying to say into a single sentence when writing for the BreenGrub twitter account:

"The superstructure is riddled with cracks."

#portal #portal 2 #half life #half life 2 #hl #hl2 #aperture science #black mesa #the combine #GLaDOS #Wheatley #Chell #rambling #i think this is what happens when you've been having thoughts about a game franchise like . since birth

[chaotic-minds-think-alike]

Finally played half-life, have a doodle

#myart #half life #vortigaunt #half life 2 #black mesa #yes I know there’s some inconsistencies but it was just a warm up doodle #I’m currently playing HL2 #valve games

[canneddolts]

yesterday twas my mission to completely memorize the (mark 4) hev suit

#something took over me idk #ive been incredibly art blocked lately #its not completely accurate but yk.. #my stuff #half life #hl1 #gordon freeman #halflife #half-life #also sims 1 music is so good…… #one part of one of the songs is used again in the later games as a sound effect #if i remember right #and it jumpscared me so bad #YEAG WHEN YOU COMPLETE A WANT IN TS2 ITS 26 SECONDS INTO NEIGHBORHOOD 3 #i should show u guys my sims2 black mesa dorms omggghghg #ok Bye #also this made me realize i always put the circle (flashlight??) on the left instead #why did i do that???? idk #maybe some mirrored promotional art Idk

[ajtedstone]

Spread #3.

See more of my work on Instagram!

#half life #hl #black mesa #gordon freeman #houndeye #valve #gaming #half life fan art #my art

[never-obsolete]

Original vs Remake

Half-Life (1998) & Black Mesa (2020)

#half life #black mesa #pc games #video games #original vs remake

[hansolosyou]

AAAAH SKETCH I MADE FOR PORTAL 2’S 13TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

The cake wasn’t about the lies… it was about the friends we made along the way…. ew sorry

#portal #portal 2 #aperture laboratories #aperture science #wheatley #wheatley portal 2 #glados #wheatley portal #black mesa #cave johnson #valve #valve games

[mizura1987]

Freeman, Calhoun and Shepherd (Dec 2, 2023)

#adrian shephard #barney calhoun #gordon freeman #source filmmaker #gimp #green #orange #blue #half life #half life fanart #video games fanart #fanart #3d art #3d render #video games #beretta 92 #spas 12 #m4a1 #black mesa

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

Black Mesa 2020 is great for all the other reasons, but also because it culiminates in an ending which, if it were canon, would have established that the G-Man has made a show of striding out a time-stopped explosion in order to monologue at Gordon Freeman and then spirit him away on two separate occasions.

#I still think that if Valve ever revisits Xen it'll be based on the Black Mesa version though #shenanigans #half-life #black mesa #black mesa game #black mesa source #g-man #g man #let's ruin video games

[papajto2137]

literally me

#half life #half life 2 #black mesa #half life alyx #hl1 #valve games #portal #glados #chell #portal 2 #wheatley

[follow-freeman]

I did this back in 2022 does anyone remember this silly little trend? :3

#half life #half life 2 #gordon freeman #valve #valve games #black mesa #silly #silly life

[thatmoodyguy3101]

Fairly rough version of a proof of concept I looked into. It works pretty well >:)

#half life #gaming #art #black mesa #blender3d #blender #3d model #modding #valve #fanart

[chaotic-minds-think-alike]

I ought to draw people more

#myart #half life #half life 2 #headcrab #zombie #valve games #black mesa

[ajtedstone]

Good heavens! I haven’t posted here in... a shameful amount of time. Oh, well. It is what it is.

I’m rather displeased with Instagram’s image compression, so I’ll be posting some of my work here for folks to get a better look at it. This is a spread for a Half-Life comic project I’m working on. Hope you enjoy!

#half life #hl #black mesa #gordon freeman #valve #fanart #gaming #half life fan art #my art