what the fuck is this shit
>>727754529First person view holding a pistol of sorts.
>>727754529The Xen?
>>727754529Looks like Xen from Black Mesa.
>>727754529played half life so many times but never actually fully completed italways give up when I get to Xen, even the last time I told myself I'd finish it I gave up halfway through it
>>727754529Xenjamin
>>727754647why is it a lush and vibrant jungle from James Cameron's Avatar instead of the barren spiky hellscape it is in the original
>>727754771Dunno. It was their "artistic vision" I guess. It's a glorified mod so who cares.Bigger issue is how long it drags, especially non-combat sections.
Lmao get settled in you'll be there a loooooooooooooong time
>>727754529I have not played Black Mesa with Xen update yet, but it looks nice.I would rather play Black Mesa than 2 or even hypothetical 3.
The devs missed the point of zen. It flew completely over their heads.
Yeah I stopped playing shortly after I reached xen. Just like I do in the original.
>>727755621>>727754837There was no point to Xen. They did what they could with the limited time they had and slapped three texture on building blocks and made a platformer out of Half Life. Most people hated it anyway. Didn't get around playing Black Mesa's Xen but I surely won't judge it because they tried to make something interesting out of this bland ending.
>>727756150I mean the new thing is less original or interesting than what we had so yeah.
>>727754771Because a bunch of retards didn't get why Xen was bad. Xen looks amazing, it just plays like shit and it's such a huge whiplash after spending the whole game in Black Mesa. Interloper is the worst level in the game by a LOT, controllers suck, platforming sucks, death pits suck, nihilanth sucks, there's no new weapons and everything is in fake low-gravity. Black Mesa kept in almost all the shitty parts while adding in some new ones and annihilating the unique aesthetic for something that manages to look more generic with 100x the colors and textures. I like BM for the most part, but they really should have just stuck to remaking the game visually. The levels where they make few or no meaningful gameplay/level design changes are the best ones.
>>727754529A good time. People who dislike Xen, both in the original and in Black Mesa can clean my asshole with their tongue. Tired of hearing your shit. They're both fun and immersive.
>>727754529They should've gone for something truly alien, not just "earth, but alien looking". OG xen had these floating islands in the middle of nowhere, that was cool.
>>727755621I liked the idea of hev zombies and that small research camp. But the rest of xen was just meh. People like to shit on original xen and interloper in general but you can just run through most of those chapters pretty fast. Black mesa turns xen into fucking chore that becomes tiring very fast. All I wanted is for that fucking level to end.
>>727755621Yeah I didn't like that part very much either, but the game is still great and a lot of care was clearly put into it
>>727754529Just skip it, it's actually worse than the original xen.
>>727756815I think Xen is just too tempting a target for modders due HL1 Xen being officially described as rushed and unfinished. They had to stick to the regular level progression, but NOW they get to "fix" Xen, flex their muscles and go wild with the levels. Black Mesa Blue Shift also has this problem: It already strays pretty far from the original level design, especially during Captured Freight, but their Xen is something like triple the size of the original, and despite looking kinda nice in parts it just starts dragging on and on and on.
The biggest problem with Black Mesa is that they stretched out Xen for way too long. Ironic that Xen in Half-Life is underdeveloped, while in Black Mesa it's overdeveloped.
>>727754529is this from half life alyx?
>>727757301I'm just glad hl2 was not about Gordon visiting xen and more about xen settling on earth. Over the years, the more I think about it, the more crazy and scary it becomes. Hl2 is an apocalyptic out post-apocalyptic game, but the apocalypse is so quiet. Don't know why, but it kicked me just a few years ago just how fucking awful everything is in hl2. It seems orderly and clean, air is breathable, sun still shines, birds still fly. And then you notice shoreline, invasive species, suppression fields, amnesiacs in water, brainwashing and flesh changing. And after all these years xen feels just like some flying rocks in space. I'm glad it's gone.
>>727754529I literally just finished this mission an hour ago wtf. I am being gangstalked>>727754529>>727754771>>727755621I always assumed Xen was like this fleshy biological mass, much like the level 'Cortana' from Halo 3
>>727754529Crysis
>>727757736it's the HL1 fan remake
>>727757748Yeah, I've also come around to HL2's take on the apocalypse. As much fun as it is to think about the beta content, it feels much more cartoonish and over the top in comparison.>>727758204I think that's too overtly biological. For me, the appeal of the original Xen landscape is that you have a hard time determining what's organic, what's mechanical and what's geological.
