#58 - Black Mesa (Half-Life)

Long time no see! I really need to stop promising to write about specific games. I get too in my head about it, then I feel obligated to write instead of wanting to write. This is supposed to be a fun personal writing project, not work!

But enough about me. This is a space for discussing games!  And as promised, today's discussion is on Black Mesa, a fan remake of Half-Life that was officially sanctioned by its creator, Valve.

The Black Mesa project was started in late 2004, shortly after the release of Half-Life 2, using Valve's new Source engine to rebuild the original Half-Life game from the ground up.  It would be 16 years before the game was fully completed, although you could play most of it online for many years.

With new advancements in the Source engine over the years, the fan team kept rebuilding and enhancing sections of the game. Eventually, Valve stepped in and allowed them to sell the game commercially so they could afford the commercial license for their newer Source engines. The fan team never intended to make money off this game, but a source of income did help them keep building and improving the game.

Black Mesa is still available on Steam for $20, and I highly recommend supporting the team and buying it over the original game. Valve makes tons of money with their Steam store; they don't need the income from their old game.

So let's get into this game. Apologies in advance; I played this in 4K resolution, which resized everything appropriately except for subtitles.  If there are subs, they're really tiny near the bottom of the screenshot. Open the image in a new window to see its full resolution and read the subtitles.

Black Mesa opens with you riding a tram line deep into an underground research facility in the New Mexico desert. You're playing as Gordon Freeman, a Theoretical Physicist with a PhD from MIT. You're running late to work today.

Side-note: I always saw Gordon as a much older man (I was a teenager when Half-Life first released), but now in my early 40s, finding out Gordon is only 27 makes me feel super old. He's so young! >_<

This game's opening was revolutionary for early games, as it played out like a film. You're stuck on this single-car tram for a few minutes, just taking in the sights of the research facility while opening credits slowly fade in and out. This was unheard of for a game in the late '90s and really pulled you into the world of the game. And this remake has so much more detail than the original game! Here's the same scene shown from Half-Life and Black Mesa, respectively:

In a "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" scene, you pass by another tram on the left with a creepy-looking government man, or "G-Man" staring at you. He's wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. With all the scientists and security guards running around this place, this one G-Man stands out. This mysterious figure is important later in the game, but I'll let you discover that story for yourself.

If you're trying to find G-Man in the opening, you'll see him right before you approach a hazardous chemical spill.  If you see this, you just missed him:

Eventually, you'll reach your stop where a security guard will come to let you off.  He'll make a comment about you running late.  If you linger around other scientists and security guards at the beginning of the game, you'll hear some interesting and funny chats. You can also interact with everyone, although some people won't have time to chat with you.

You enter the research facility (see main screenshot) and are instructed at the front desk to hurry up and get ready. Everyone's been waiting on you. You go to the locker rooms and don the H.E.V. suit, or Hazardous Environment Suit. This orange and black suit will protect you from most damage, heal you if you're injured, and will give you a HUD (Heads-Up Display) with some information about your health and weaponry.

Its protection status is on a scale of 1-100 and you can recharge it at H.E.V. charging stations. You can also find Health charging stations, which will recharge your suit up to 100 health. Think of H.E.V. as armor and Health as... well... health. You'll be fine if your H.E.V. drops to zero, but the game is over if your health runs out.

After making your way deeper into the research facility, you run into several other scientists who give you more information on today's research project. You are doing an analysis on a sample and are instructed to go down to the test chamber to get started.

One of the scientists leads the way, where the two of you run into Eli Vance (on the left below). Eli wasn't in the original Half-Life game, but he is an important character in the sequel who apparently worked alongside Gordon at the Black Mesa Research Facility, so Black Mesa chose to introduce you to him before the game gets rolling.

There's a malfunction in their equipment, so Eli and the other scientist stay behind to fix the machines. They complain that there's been so many issues lately and they can't explain why. They instruct you to go ahead without them.

You run into two more scientists at the giant blast door to the test chamber. They're eagerly awaiting your arrival, but are also worried about the test potentially going wrong. They have the utmost confidence in your abilities though, and encourage you to do well today. They use dual retinal scanners to open the door for you.

You find yourself in a giant room with a Mass Spectrometer filling the center of the room. Once inside, a voice over a loudspeaker instructs you to get up on the catwalk and start the rotors from a computer so they can get the test going.

The sample is brought into the room through an elevator in the floor and you're instructed to push its cart into the beam of the Mass Spectrometer.

Once you add the sample to the beam, everything goes haywire! A Resonance Cascade occurs! The scientists feared this was possible, but the chances were so slim, they didn't think it could actually happen. And yet...

In a flash of green, Gordon finds himself in an alien world. The Resonance Cascade has opened a portal to another dimension!

Some intelligent alien creatures approach Gordon, speaking in an unintelligible language. We'll later learn these creatures are called Vortigaunts.

In another flash of green, Gordon finds himself back inside the test chamber, which has been destroyed by the Resonance Cascade. People are dead, the lab is destroyed, and all sorts of alien creatures are portaling through the dimensional rift to Earth. You run into Eli and he instructs you to get to the surface so you can contact someone and let them know they're all trapped deep underground.

As a scientist, you're not especially trained to fight with heavy weaponry, so you make due with a crowbar you find on the ground, fighting through invading alien creatures on your way to the surface. Along the way, you'll come across the infamous Headcrab, which leaps at people's heads and munches on their brain, turning them into walking zombies.

There are also Barnacles, which attach to the ceiling and drop a super-sticky tongue of sorts that will grab you and drag you up to their awaiting mouth. Be careful; their lure is hard to notice if you're running around in dark hallways.

Then there's the Houndeye, a multi-eyed alien dog of sorts with a super-sonic bark that will injure you, even from a distance. And many more creatures to find along the way!

If you're paying attention, you might just run into G-Man again, who observes you curiously before calmly disappearing down a corridor. Who is this man?!

Once you get close to the surface, you learn the military has arrived and has orders to clean the entire site - terminating aliens and humans alike! They're intent on covering up the Resonance Cascade! If you manage to hold your own against the Marines, you'll earn yourself a nasty reputation and the military will call in Black Ops to take care of you once and for all. These guys are extremely fast and deadly:

Having nowhere left to go, you fight your way back into the underground facility and search for other survivors...

Why am I playing the fan remake instead of the original Half-Life game? Well, because Black Mesa was built not only to be easier to play through for modern gamers, but it also fixed plot and story inconsistencies, and flows better than the original. It's not just a visually-improved version of the game, but they rearranged parts of the story and gameplay to better introduce modern gamers to the world of Half-Life.

'Cause let's be honest, back in the late '90s to early 2000s, before games had standardized controls across platforms, FPS games were kind of the Wild West, with their control schemes varying from game to game. They were great fun in my childhood, but playing them nowadays is difficult and frustrating when there are much better controls in modern games.

So if you want to get into the Half-Life franchise and you're not sure where to start, Black Mesa is a great introduction to the series! The main games are Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2. The other games in the series are either expansions, multiplayer-only arenas, or spin-offs.

One could argue that the new VR game Half-Life: Alyx is part of the main series, but you spend the entire game playing as Alyx Vance, a side character from the series (and daughter of Eli). However, from what I've heard, it does advance the plot of the Half-Life franchise a little bit, so that sounds like it could be main game content to me.

Also, as I mentioned in my last post, the Portal games are set in the same universe as Half-Life. Their Aperture Science company is the competitor to Black Mesa; although the Resonance Cascade led to events that would negatively affect both companies. Portal and its sequel take place after the first Half-Life game.

EDIT: Here's a bonus screenshot for you. I really like this image, just because it's sort of an ominous "quiet before the storm" shot. Seeing both scientists watch you with silent anticipation as you're about to cause a world-altering event in that next room.

#57 - Aperture Desk Job

I was actually in the middle of a Half-Life review (spoiler for my next post!) and I got a new Steam Deck in the mail, which thoroughly distracted me for the past few days. That, and I threw my back out, so sitting comfortably at my gaming PC has been impossible lately. Instead, I've been lying in bed, enjoying some of my Deck-ready games like the free Valve game Aperture Desk Job. The screenshots for this post will all be 1280x800, the default resolution for the Steam Deck.

As you may know, Steam (and the Steam Deck) is owned by Valve, the company behind the Half-Life and Portal games, which both take place in the same universe. Aperture Desk Job is a short Portal-esque game they made for the Steam Deck, which teaches you all the controls and functions of the new portable gaming device. While also having a fun, comedic game to play.

The game opens up with a pre-recorded speech from Cave Johnson (voiced by J.K. Simmons), the owner of Aperture Science, welcoming you to the company. That's a portrait of him on the right:

Your view traverses down through various floors of the company as he espouses all the wonderful things that you can do for Aperture Science. After all, you are a gifted scientist who will save humanity with your genius!

...Or not. Turns out they were playing the wrong recording.

It turns out, you're just a lowly product inspector.  You're introduced to Grady, a personality core overseeing your new position in the company. Grady is excessively chatty.

He says you're going to be inspecting... something. It's not written on his chart, so he moves on to your inspection desk. Look familiar? It has all the same buttons and joysticks and touch pads as your Steam Deck, including the four buttons on the underside of the device (the L4, L5, R4, and R5 buttons)

Your first product comes down the line and it's a puke-green toilet with a white lid. (Incidentally, it looks EXACTLY like the toilet in my childhood home, right down to the color scheme!)

The board in the back seems pretty self-explanatory, so you start pressing buttons in sequence to go through the whole testing cycle. You fill the tank with water, test pressure on the seat, flush the toilet, then move it down the line.

Grady notices one of the toilets is burning and decides to ignore it and continue testing regardless.

Shenanigans ensue and the burning toilet ends up filled with live ammunition, firing rounds all over the room. Which gives Grady an idea.

Six months later... Grady returns to show off his new invention: the Aperture Science Turret! (See first screenshot) It almost immediately breaks, but he claims that was just the initial prototype and brings out the actual turret he's been working on - the Mark Two. He asks you to take a picture of him with it, for the history books. Which teaches you how to take screenshots with the Steam Deck.

Grady aims it away from you and asks you to test it out. He opens up all the panels on your desk and tells you to go wild, pressing absolutely everything.

You proceed to shoot up the entire warehouse, with enthusiastic encouragement from Grady. Once all the ammunition is spent, Grady comments on how 90% of the features didn't even work. Then police sirens can be heard in the distance...

Grady quickly assigns you to take the blame for the whole incident, while he runs off to "streamline" the turret.

18 months later... you're released from prison on probation, and Grady shows up to claim you. Note that this is an "Aperture Incarceration." Meaning that Aperture Science has their own in-house prison that they can keep law-breaking employees locked up in.

You're required to sign a prisoner release form, which requires 3 forms of identification - vocal recitation of your name, typed name, and signed name. Again, showing off more features of the Steam Deck, including the microphone, on-screen keyboard, and touch screen.

Oh, and it turns out, Grady is now licensed to be a probation officer. He studied for his license while you were incarcerated. So he takes you under his charge and escorts you, and your desk, back to your station. He's very excited to show off the Mark Three version of the turret.

When everything seems to go off without a hitch, Grady informs you he arranged a meeting with Cave Johnson to show off the turret. If all goes smoothly, the two of you could be rich beyond your wildest dreams!

But when does a plot with Grady go smoothly? I'll let you play through the rest to find out what happens.

I enjoyed this little sub-plot going on between the floorboards, where a bunch of praying mantises discover electricity, then rapidly advance as a civilization over the months this game takes place.

Even though Aperture Desk Job is the latest game in the Half-Life/Portal franchise, it actually takes place in an alternate universe. Valve has confirmed that it happens in the "Portal expanded universe," a concept created in the "Perpetual Testing Initiative" DLC for Portal 2. As far as a time frame goes, it's been speculated that it takes place sometime in the '80s-'90s, if this universe's Aperture Science lines up with the main timeline.

Which is kind of a shame, because it was a great opportunity for Valve to introduce more lore to the Half-Life universe. But at least they're continuing to write new stuff for their famous franchises instead of completely abandoning them. COUGHHalf-Life3COUGH

Still, this was a fun little game with plenty of comedy, an opportunity to control an Aperture Science turret to shoot up stuff, and also taught you all the various functions of the Steam Deck. The whole game took maybe 40 minutes to play through, so it's a pretty decent tutorial for the Steam Deck without being a nuisance to sit through.

My first Steam Deck came with this game already at the top of my library, but you can find it on the Steam Store for free. I don't know how well it would play on the desktop, since it's reliant on Steam Deck specific controls, but if you can re-map all the buttons to a controller or keyboard, more power to you!

#56 - MiSide

On the surface, MiSide looks like a dating simulation game. And I very nearly passed right over it in the Steam store. But then I caught the "psychological horror" tag and thought, 'That's an odd tag to put on a dating sim.' At worst, maybe it's commentary on dating sims as a whole; letting you experience a loving relationship with the perfect partner that you may never find in the real world. But at best...

This game just released on December 10th, just over a month ago, and it was currently for sale on Steam, so I figured, why not? I'll give it a shot and see what it's all about. And it's even better than I imagined.

By the way, I want to apologize in advance for the subtitles in these screenshots. They moved so fast, they were already swiping away at the beginning of the line as the end of the line appeared. So some of these subtitles might not be very legible. Hopefully you'll still understand the context.

MiSide starts out a little meta; you're hanging out in your bedroom when you get a text from a friend, suggesting you download this cool new game. As a former IT guy, I was internally screaming at the fact your character just installs a random file someone texted him, especially with a vague clickbait message like "check this new version!" But... there wouldn't be a game if you didn't. So you install the game and check it out.

You boot up the game on your phone and are greeted by Mita, the protagonist, who asks for your name. You can type any name you want and she'll use it to address you throughout the game.

She asks for help tidying up her home a bit, and you assist her in a mini game.

You play more mini games with Mita, helping her cook, find lost items, and even earning money in-game to buy her nice things.  Time passes in the "real world," and after about a month of playing this phone game, Mita suddenly shows a desire to meet in person. After a dramatic pause, she just announces that now you're together! Huh?!

You look up from your phone and you're no longer in your bedroom, but in a familiar apartment...

You can explore the empty apartment if you like. I especially enjoyed the "Love Note" notebook; a cutesy version of the Death Note. Also, some of the books on the bookshelves were a bit concerning...

In Mita's bedroom, you find a machine hooked up to a platform. The whiteboard on the wall gives you directions to get it updated and functioning.

You get it running and it opens a portal on the platform. Having nothing else to do, you step into it...

You find yourself in a creepy, dark bedroom. The machine tells you to go hit the breaker in the living room, then track down four batteries to get the portal back online.

Things start to get a little weird. The rooms have a nasty habit of changing when you go through doorways, and creepy scribblings start appearing on the walls.

When you get the machine working again, you jump on the portal pad and find yourself in a normal bedroom. When you step away from the pad, you might find yourself jump-scared by Mita suddenly being right behind you.

She's so grateful to see you! She explains she built the machine to bring you into the game world with her, but you accidentally ended up in another version of the game. But none of that matters now, because you're finally here!

At this point, you start getting some different paths you can follow. I tried my best to explore every option, but some choices required you pick one of two options and forced you down that path. So my gameplay may not be exactly the same as yours, but the overall game probably went down the same path. Probably.

I helped Mita cook some food, got drugged by some "love sauce" which made me sick, and Mita forced me to take some pills to help me recover.

She also wanted to play games with me. I picked a card game, but I kept hearing an unsettling banging noise coming from her wardrobe.

I wouldn't drop it, and when I went to investigate, she threw herself in front of the closet door, desperate to change my mind.

Finally, Mita grows tired of everything and her personality shifts. She decides, with an evil grin, to let me check out the wardrobe... if I dare.  She snaps her fingers and the room goes dark.

Suddenly, I found myself in a horror game, terrified of what's lurking in the dark. The wardrobe had a door inside it, but it was locked, so I grabbed a flashlight and explored the dark apartment, looking for a key. All while terrified of being jump-scared by Mita.

I found the key and unlocked the door in the wardrobe, to find stairs leading down into a basement.  In one small room, there's a studio with a camera, where it looks like Mita was broadcasting herself on an overlay of the apartment for the mini games. You can see yourself on the screen when you step in front of the camera.

And in a locked cage under the stairs is... Mita. Except not the same Mita.

You help this Mita escape (dubbed "Kind Mita") and she sends you on a journey through multiple versions of the game and its backdoors, trying to find a way to stop "Crazy Mita" and get yourself home. You even run into many other versions of Mita, some that are exceptionally fun...

And some that are quite terrifying...

...As well as a variety of different looks and personalities. Cool Mita, a.k.a. "Cappie" (because of her cool cap) is by far my favorite Mita. She's funny, playful, and a bit flirty.

This was a unique twist on the horror genre. I haven't beaten it yet, but I've been enjoying it thus far. I'm still not sure where the plot is heading, but I've heard that there are at least three endings that have been discovered, so it will be interesting to see where my initial run lands me. Here's hoping I can survive and escape the game world!