Black Mesa

This is totally safe... no worries, I got this!

In 1998 a small game called Half-Life by a small company called Valve took the gaming world by its balls and made it cry "uncle". A nerdy goatee'd scientist called Gordon Freeman became a legend overnight as he clawed his way through the massive Black Mesa Research Facility after an incident called a "resonance cascade" linked our world to a world called Xen and started spawning hordes of bad critters. As if that wasn't enough, when the "help" arrived bullets started flying everywhere and everything was a gigantic mess. And a G-man by the name of Tarquin Smith - who we now know to be a Jovian agent - took control of Gordon's life just when he thought the ordeal was over.

Fast forward to 2004. Tarquin woke up Gordon and sent him to some eastern bloc hell-town now overrun by some extra-terrestrial faction called the Combine for another bullet storm and awesome adventure. To say that the Half-Life games are good is an understatement on the cosmic scale. They brought gaming to what it is today, that is to say as big, if not bigger than the movie industry.

Fast forward to 5 days ago. A small team called Black Mesa Modification Project released the result of a massive task. Black Mesa is basically the original Half-Life game but as opposed to Valve's own Half-Life Source, it uses all of the Source engine's bells and whistles to give the classic game a very modern look. And the result is as brilliant as the original. The beginning will still make you shit bricks and you WILL pray to whatever you believe is holy to find your crowbar and your first Glock.

Do yourselves a favor and download Black Mesa. You will not be disappointed!

o7