The only thing i don't like about this is that it will probably never see the light of day on the 360. And that just makes me weep as i never did finish the original Half-Life

@Armyofjuan

you can play it on any crappy pc with a video card? plus it's only 10 bucks at walmart.

I was young and didn't have a computer when HL1 was a big deal but I have always felt like a huge chunk is missing from my gamer cred because I haven't played it. This would definitely get my ass in gear to actually start playing it.

I recommend you guys play the original HF, it's an incredible game and it still doesn't feel incredibly outdated like some older games do.

@Roflcopter_Down: By HF I mean HL. Damn you lack of edit feature.

This is even cooler than the Goldeneye Source project. I may re-buy HL1 just to play through again. Does anyone know if it will run on Vista (Pre-installed, darn it), I'm currently working on getting Carmaggedon 2 to run well.

@Erwin211: dual boot with windows man, save a whole lot of trouble

Will be looking foward to this.

@Erwin211: You sir win just for the fact alone that you know what the Carmaggedon series is. ;D

Hmm, no doubt Valve will charge people for this.

WOW it looks great! And for the guys above that haven't played it, dust off an old P3 and do what xsteinbachx said...10 bucks. You don't know what you're missing!!

@Erwin211: If you buy HF1 via steam (or find your old CD key and register it with steam) it will run with Vista. It still may run if you install the game normally. It's only like $9 on steam now.

@Maiken:

Why would they charge for it? It's not being developed by valve. The best thing they can do is shut the project down, or hire the developers and then charge for it.

@Witzbold: Hell Yes! "Be Quick or Be Dead"! Best crashes to this day.
@nolifedopestar: Thanks.

@Erwin211: I know a ton of people have already given advice, but I'll just give another way. If you buy the HL-2 collector's edition for PC, you get a HL-2 Shirt, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and Counter-Strike, I got it last year for $40, and it works on Vista.

Damn that looks good. I just replayed the original a few weeks ago... and yes, it was still fun.
 
Though seeing those screenshots makes me want to play this even more.

Best fun I had in HL was playing HL again using the Action Half-Life mod.

Goddamn that was some good times diving and shooting at the grunts.

This is the problem with fan made mods, there's usually a lot of exciting activity at the start but after a while things peter out. There were remakes of Dark Forces and Jedi Knight in the works that sadly seem to have died.

I'm not complaining or anything, these guys are doing something for free in their spare time, it's just one can't help feeling down when nothing comes of a very exciting mod. Still, fingers crossed that the Black Mesa mod eventually see a release.

@nolifedopestar: @Roflcopter_Down: @Kirbytheslayer: Just Kirbytheslayer: I have no idea which I should use. I'm just going to check all of these out and see which works for me. By the way, what's on the shirt?

Valve should just bring this team in to make Mesa Source one of the games for Orange Box 2: The Boxxining.

Also comes with Counter-Strike 3 and Portal 2. And maybe the next episode of HL2, but that would delay the whole package to 2010.

@Maiken:

You know what a mod actually is, right?

I thought Valve already did something like this, around the time they released HL2.

@Maiken: It's a mod. It isn't a standalone game.

@elevenoverzero: You mean like Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress and Garry's Mod? Valve even started selling CS in stores when it was still "just a mod" and available free on teh Internet.

@SS_Ymer: (I swear I typed "teh" accidentally. I suppose I've just reliven some of the Internet's humble beginnings? Go figure...)

@IAMDUDE70: Stop dissing Maiken

@Erwin211: It's just a simple white Half-Life Symbol on the front center of a Black T-Shirt.

@Ed-the-Third:

They ported HL1 over to the source engine, which meant some of the same physics of HL2, fancy water, and shiny helmets. Those were the only real differences, though.

Pretty.

I just beat HL1 recently and am playing through Blue Shift just now.

Man, a Blue Shift port would be AWESOME...

I was just going to ask....didn't Valve already release Half Life Source a few years back? Fangeh - so no graphic upgrades like this mod has?

@SS_Ymer: that's because valve developed those, and valve are a studio that has to pay its employees. even if they started as mods, once valve bought them, they had to make back the money spent on them somehow. although i do think a lot of valve's games until recently (especially dod source and Ep1) are nothing more than mods - reusing a lot of HL2 content, just replacing the models and weapons to fit the different setting. they never really felt like a separate, unique game in the way TF2 does, or in the way cod4 feels totally different to UT3 (both running on UE3)

The surprise could be the entire project getting shut down by Valve à la Microsoft and Halogen...

@kodec: Nah, Valve is cool.

I'm really eager to play this. However, given that apparently it takes TWENTY YEARS to make a Source mod, I'm not holding my breath.

@lordofsword:

CoD4 is running on a proprietory engine. But yeah, the rest is truth.

@kodec:

Actually, Valve has had a very hands-off attitude toward Black Mesa since it went public. I believe Gabe Newell once made a remark about the modding community and said something to the effect of "It'll only be a matter of time before someone remakes Half-Life on the new [Source] engine", which is what's happening now. Valve employees will occasionally make positive comments about the game's progress on the Steam forums, and there has even been some discussion about the possibility of the modding team talking with them about having Black Mesa being released over Steam for free when its done (We'll see about that).

I think Valve's always been great to their community like that. You can only help your customer base grow by encouraging that sort of thing, not by pushing your legal team to have it killed before its even off the ground. I can't wait to play it when its done (Whenever that is).

My father was a rocket scientist, and if he were still alive he would tell you how lame this all is. I can hear him now; "If you nerds had a pair, you'd get out of your parents' basements and get real jobs in quantum psysics."

Oh, and he also would say that it helps to look just like Gordon Freeman a'la...
[www.veekachu.com]

(^^ real rocket scientist dad, circa 1963 ^^)

@kodec: Yeah, Valve is cool, they like their mod community although this is a first for them.

Most mods based on existing IPs do get shut down; numerous Alien and/or Predator mods have gotten a C&D from Fox. The most infamous-- IMO-- would be the Chrono Trigger remake which looked badass.

There's the more likely possibility that Valve will let it be released, see the fan reaction then hire up the core team after a year and put them to work and charge for the mod. It's what they did with Counter Strike, Portal and Garry's Mod after all. They're mainly composed of ex-id software and ex-Microsoft employees along with modders. Something old and something new, if you will.

It's expected this HL Origin Mod will be delayed. Anyone who played the original knows how epically large the game was (not to mention easy to get lost in the process). It may be a good significant amount of time before this team finishes. Thought, it would be nice to fight against vortogons instead of having them being your allies.

most fan mods go this way. its tradition. announce big shit, then wash away after a few years. the team find they have less time and believe the people waiting loyally for them to release for years on end after they promised the world over and over again OWE them an indefinite break for all their hard work (that produced nothing playable).

the only ones that succeed are those that start small and have a hook that grabs everyone in its early stages, which leads to permanent interest and offers of help building on the core idea. this is a complete rework of an entire retail game in a modern engine, unfinanced, with no multiplayer alphas or betas for everyone to wow over.

personally, ive always believed if you cant deliver, dont even talk about it.

>At this point, I'd really just appreciate it Valve would just cut them a check to fund proper, uninterrupted development or bring them on board.<

YES. Then it's included in the Grey Box or whatever is next.

"If you don't, it's quite understandable, as the game has been in development since just after the announcement of fire and the wheel."

Actually I think you're thinking of Duke Nukem (taking) Forever. This looks neat, though.

It'll never be finished. I got tired of waiting for this mod about a year and a half ago, and it's still nowhere near finished.

I was just playing through the first bits of HL2 on the Orange Box today when I realized... I don't think I ever finished the original game. My PC crapped out on me when I was a couple levels away from the end and I never learned what happened.

If I can find my disc, I should boot it up tomorrow... If not... Well, there's gotta be a speedrun or something online.

I really hope some people aren't planning to play this because they missed out on the original. Play that one first.

And I don't get the big deal about the long development. This isn't some single-player map pack with terrible enemy placement or balance. This isn't some crappy multi-player mod trying to become the next Counter-Strike. This is a mod *recreating* (not simply porting) the 1998 game that gave rise to Half-Life 2, and the rest of the Orange Box.

@MICHAEL MCWHERTOR: Barney's Tales is coming out Dec 31st - Get excited about that for a while :)

Valve seriously just needs to send them their check. I can't wait for this.

YES! I cannot wait for this. I just feel bad for the console players who haven't played Half Life 1 yet. You owe it to yourself to play it if you haven't. Any computer today will run it*.

*Hopefully...

Haven't played the original, and have barely begun any combat in HL2(the first, not the episodes) and that was only because it came in the Orange Box. I suppose something like this will get me in gear to play the original. I can see from the comments above, I'm not the only one who doesn't have the motivation, but feels like it makes me less of a gamer for not playing something everybody loves for some reason.

This will make a great pack in with HL2 chapter 3 to make it look like $60 is a good deal for a bundle pack which has two thirds old content. (As every critic in the world loudly proclaims.) So it will be HL1 source AKA Black Mesa remake + chapter 3 + counterstrike + maybe blue shift source or day of defeat 2.. No portal2, that will be it's own stand-alone game. For $60 bucks. That being said I do love and own all these games. I just think it seems like every reviewer was paid (a lot) to say that orange box was great deal but it's only a great deal if you don't already own HL2 and chapter 1 on PC. No one calls them on it because they are some of the very best games that exist out there.

@lalahsghost: Where'd you get that information from? There's no info on that on the game's moddb entry.