I may be in the minority, but I ve always preferred Half-Life to Half-Life 2. Don t get me wrong: Gordon Freeman s second go-round was excellent, full of better characters, fun weapons, and Ravenholm, one chunk of a larger world, left me more shaken than most full-length horror games. There s no place like home, though, and for me, Half-Life s Black Mesa facility was home. Labyrinthine, yet with verisimilitude that made it feel like a real, lived-in place.
Black Mesa recreates Half-Life s infamous science facility and alien planets, and then some. The mod went through development hell for years before the Crowbar Collective, the result of a merger of two indie teams, collaborated to rebuild their favorite game in Valve s superior Source engine after Valve s own re-release, Half-Life: Source, fell far short of what fans expected.