You explore the facility, occasionally guided by the hand of the G-Man, a mysterious gentleman in a business suit. An experiment causes a portal to open in time and space, unleashing all sorts of alien hell on the world. While not hailed with quite a revolutionary brush as the original, the sequel improves and builds upon every aspect of the genre it re-invented.įor those of you who’ve been living under a gaming rock: You are Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist at the top-secret Black Mesa Research Facility. Thus begins Half-Life 2, which, according to the Metacritic score, is the best first-person shooter of all time and I think I would find few people to argue with that. The resources of this once-vibrant world are being spirited away to some alien place, while the population is helpless to stop it. Signs of their destructive power litter the landscape, and even show themselves in the vast oceans, which are gradually receding into nothingness as they are sapped from the planet. His exploits at an uncertain time in the past at a scientific compound known as Black Mesa have spread to pockets of resistance members, the men, women and otherworldly creatures that seek to overthrow the dominion of the Combine, a race that has transported itself into the world, crippled its defenses and enslaved its species, all in a period of seven hours. The stuff of myth and legend in this tattered world, the man is called the only “free man” by the inhabitants of this desiccated plain. I'd love to see more games that are based in, or similar locations to, Black Mesa before and after the incident primarily because of how amazingly interesting and intricate the complex is.Let’s concentrate on this lone figure. I must agree, if there was any way, which there is likely not currently or in the near future to recreate/ invent entire new areas of the complex as it would look before the disaster, along with fully interactable NPCs and interesting side plots, I would instantly buy that, even if it were $100 or more. System Shock 2 is another game that I feel is very close to Half Life in how it makes you want to see what it was like before. Half Life will always stay at the top of my list of favourite games, especially parts like the Office Complex, Biodome and Lambda Complex because of just how interesting they are. It also made me kind of sad seeing all the possible advancements that were lost because of it. I don't know why, but seeing the drastic contrast between pre and post disaster at the beginning left me throughout both the original and this game leaves me wondering what day-today life was like there, and just how efficient and amazing it was. TL DR The Black Mesa Research Facility is f-ing MASSIVE, and I call on you folks to give your predictions!Įdit: I would also like to state that I'm going purely off of in-game info, including maps from both this and the original games.īlack Mesa is quite possibly my favourite game location of all time. Personally, I think what Gordon sees of Black Mesa is really only scraping the surface, possibly only a tenth, of a facility that is most likely the size of perhaps Rhode Island. From there you can see multiple topside complexes with large radio towers, office complexes and even a SECOND DAM.īecause of the absolute sizes of the complex (Re-iterating here: Multiple security levels, surface research areas and higher security underground complexes, two dams, a nuclear reactor plus several other large and smaller generator areas, underwater canals which could go on for miles, etc.) leads me to believe the complex is AT LEAST the size of a small city, with a huge population. The largest scale that you can really see in-game is when you're on the cliffside, during Surface Tension. I'm tempted to say it's around ten square kilometers, maybe larger, but then you've the multi-level structure to it, since it goes deeper underground consistantly. The entire complex is, well, REALLY complex, since you've got entire areas dedicated to civilian activity, research areas, weapons testing complexes, missile silos, multiple biodomes, etc. This is something I've always been curious about.
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