It looks really well done… seemingly all the magazines have plugged it once or twice but perhaps a few of you haven’t heard of it.
Link - [i]Black Mesa: Source is the Half-Life 2 total conversion of the original Half-Life game. Utilizing the Source engine and its endless array of possibilities and powers, Black Mesa: Source will throw you into the world that started the Half-Life continuum and introduced Gordon Freeman to the world as a gun-toting, bullet-dodging, Ph.D Theoretical Physist.
Black Mesa: Source was built and founded on the principle that Half-Life: Source did not do the original title enough credit, regardless of the true intentions laid out with the release of Half-Life: Source by Valve Software. Subsequently in November 2004, Black Mesa: Source was founded and set out to reconstruct the original title, giving it the new environments, models and abilities it deserved on the Source engine. This total conversion will not require Half-Life: Source installed on your system to play, only a legitimate and working version of Half-Life 2. At the present time, Valve Software is not associated or involved with the development of this project.[/i]
I’m not sure if this has ever happened before - a third-party mod which is essentially a straight remake of something already produced by the official developer - but if this thing comes out and it’s better than Half-Life: Source, that would seem to be a bit embarrassing for Valve.
Kudo’s to Valve for letting it fly. That’s classy.
Although “At the present time, Valve Software is not associated or involved with the development of this project” makes me think that there might be a clause that allows Valve to acquire the project if it is completed and is good.
The best way, perhaps. I think Gabe’s gone on record as saying he believes that’s [the mod community] the single best way to make it into the industry these days.
][…]that would seem to be a bit embarrassing for Valve.
I would hardly call HL: Source a remake. It was pretty much the equivalent of taking old Wing Commander or Ultima games and updating them to work on XP.
I can think of a few off the top of my head. The TIE Fighter remake for X-Wing Alliance, and the Jedi Knight remake for Jedi Outcast (or is it Jedi Academy?). There’s also a Doom remake for the Quake and Doom 3 engines.