History Videogame / BlackMesa

** The added detail available from the new Source engine allows for unprecedented levels of gore in ''Black Mesa''. Along with the usual blood splatters from kills, almost every enemy can be gibbed by explosions or especially powerful weapons, while blood (both human and alien) and Bullsquid acid will regularly splash on Gordon's arms and weapon in disturbing detail should he be injured, attack an enemy up close, or get caught in an enemy's gibbing.[[note]]This is disabled by default in the retail release due to an unresolved lag spike when the effect first occurs but can be re-enabled with the console command '''cl_mdldetailfx_enable 1'''.[[/note]] Dismembered body parts also litter Black Mesa.

* CouldntFindAPen: In addition to the scientist in the Lambda Complex who wrote the solution to a nearby puzzle this way, there are also the military's messages to Gordon during "On A Rail", which were written with more mundane implements in the original game. Halfway through the chapter, "DIE FREEMAN" can be seen written with the blood of a dead security guard, and the highly popular [[GameMod "Uncut" mod]] for the chapter features the rest of the original messages, in all their poorly spelled glory, also inscribed in blood.

* CreatorsCultureCarryover:

** Some of the facility's signage uses British terms and spelling, such as "authorised" instead of "authorized".

** A minor example, but there was one particularly annoying puzzle in "Residue Processing" involving three conveyor belts with crushers. Not only did you have to pick the right one, but had to flip a switch to stop the crushers and run through in a very short period of time, and if you stopped the crushers in the wrong position you'd be unable to get past due to one or both blocking your way. This entire puzzle has been excised from Black Mesa, and, unlike the other changes, no one seems to miss it.

** In addition to the sewer-flooding and crate-jumping puzzles from the original game, "Unforeseen Consequences" adds two new major obstacles. First, in the Sector B Coolant Reserve, you'll need to find two valves to open hot water feed pipes to thaw out a frozen door. Then, instead of just taking the freight elevator down to the canal as in the original, you need to make your way through [[AirVentPassageway the game's first air duct]] into a control room to start up a generator to power the lift.

The game's first public release came [[SavedFromDevelopmentHell in September 2012]]. With Creator/{{Valve|Corporation}}'s blessing, [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/362890 a retail version of Black Mesa]] was made available on UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} in May 2015 as an Early Access title, which added advanced graphics technology and multiplayer. This also marked the cessation of development for the freeware version, though it remains available for download.

** Following this, the player was originally required to drive a train out of a siding onto the turntable, run back to the control room to rotate said turntable towards the exit, and then return. In ''Black Mesa'', the injured guard in the control room manages to muster up enough strength to activate it for you.

** An odd variant - the Black Ops assassins, when cloaked, can be tracked by their mono-optical goggles, which glow red.

** Thankfully, this one is to the player's advantage: Black Ops Assassins don't retain their insane damage or firing rate from ''Half-Life''. They also retreat to hide more often, backing away when too much damage is done, and aren't as fast as they were, despite the higher jumps they can do. Even when they become cloaked on Hard difficulty, they're easier to track down by the lights of their goggles (see LaserSight above).

** Following this, the player was originally required to drive a train out of a siding onto the turntable, run all the way up to the control room to rotate said turntable towards the exit, and then return. In ''Black Mesa'', the injured guard in the control room manages to muster up enough strength to activate it for you.

* AthleticallyChallenged: Late into the "Office Complex" level, should you choose to have a group of security guards and scientists accompany Gordon Freeman throughout the level, one of the scientists will tell a fellow guard and the player that he can't make the jump towards the nearest ladder of an elevator shaft, having failed physical education when he was younger. It's also for this reason that the aforementioned guard also chooses to stay behind, in order to watch over him.

** The double-barreled shotgun blast can do a LOT of damage and can straight up one-shot most standard HECU grunts and, if [[WebVideo/SamONellaAcademy RNG-esus]] is on your side, Vortigaunts. The problem is, the fire rate is worse than the regular shotgun blast, and you have to get really close and personal in order for it to even have a chance at doing any damage. Not to mention it takes two whole shots of your precious shotgun ammo.

** Gordon Freeman is a theoretical physicist who found himself in the midst of a literally out-of-this-world catastrophe he unwittingly contributed to, but nevertheless managed to run, think, shoot and live through the Black Mesa incident even as the facility descended into an alien-infested war-torn nightmare with nothing more than his above-average fit body, his wits, his protective HEV suit and a diverse collection of mundane and exotic weapons he picked up along the way.

** The [[RevolversAreJustBetter Colt Python]] got a significant buff. Ammo for it is far more common than before and its iron sights add a slight zoom effect. The only drawbacks are a slightly longer reload speed and the halved reserve ammo capacity, which don't really draw from the improvement of its practicality.

** The Black Mesa [=SUVs=] are modeled after Jeep Cherokee XJ's with "JOOP" badges.

** Your first and last fights on the surface take place during sunset. In the former, which happens during "We've Got Hostiles", the HECU have arrived in force at the complex and are so overwhelming that you eventually need to find a way to retreat back underground to evade them. The latter fight, set during "Forget About Freeman!", has the HECU worn down by a combination of Gordon and the aliens, and is clearly their LastStand.

** In an EasterEgg location in "Surface Tension", you can find Dr. Breen's poorly spelled, [[TerribleArtist drawn]] plans for world domination, which involves befriending aliens and getting them to build him a huge tower, seemingly predicting the Combine and their Citadel in ''Half-Life 2''. You also learn that he really, really, ''really'' doesn't like Dr. Vance.

*** Plus an extra one for ''Episode 1'' in the hidden research center you find in the area: [[spoiler:A voicemail of Barney talking about the scientist ends with Kleiner locking himself out again, making the guard rush to beat Gordon who was already halfway through the vents.]]

** An achievement requires that you get killed by a headcrab. Another requires being ripped to pieces by your own snarks.

* {{Cliffhanger}}: Prior to the release of the Xen chapters, both the 2012 and 2015 Black Mesa releases ended with Gordon jumping into the teleporter to Xen at the end of "Lambda Core".

** The final segment of "Gonarch's Lair", in a similar manner to the original game, is demolished ''during the fight''. Towards the end, the ceiling collapses and sends you to the bottom of the arena. The Gonarch tries to flee as this happens, only for its strength to finally fail and send it hurtling to the bottom, where the now horribly wounded creature continues to try and kill Gordon until it is finally put down.

** On one of the bulletin boards is a note from Otis that Security Desk B3 needs more donuts, Otis being the fat security guard NPC introduced in ''Opposing Force'' & ''Blue Shift''. You even find one instance of him holding a donut instead of practising at the firing range in ''Blue Shift''.

** The brutality of the Gargantua's flame attack against [=NPCs=] in the original, seen with the HECU marines in "Power Up", was limited to gibbing. In the same chapter of this game, you'll actually see them set alight by the flames, causing them to flail and scream as they burn to death.

** A scientist in "Unforeseen Consequences", in his attempts to save a fellow colleague from being pulled into and eaten in a vent, falls backwards and gets hit on the head by the same ladder he was standing on.

** Houndeyes are dangerous in packs with their sonic area-of-effect attacks. In Xen, they have an orange, glowing explosive counterpart which charges at you en-masse and blows you up unless you act quickly.
** Think Snarks are bad? In Xen, there are locations where their nests are ''everywhere'', and you can find yourself falling into a pit full of them after falling into and breaking several webbing-suspended nests which covered the opening
** In the original ''Half-Life'', you get chased by one Gargantua, which you can actually defeat if you have enough firepower to do it. Here, you don't get chased by one, or two, or three, but ''twelve'' of the damn things in one epic chase sequence, and since you now can't kill them period, all you can do is RunOrDie. When you finally make it across an impassable chasm with your Long-Jump module and look back, you see them roaring and firing their flamers at you in fury, and it is here that one final realization hits you - those damn unstoppable giant animals are ''pack predators''.

* DirtyCoward: In "Office Complex" you can discover two scientists - Clifford and a woman - holed up in an office with a Barnacle blocking the entrance. As you walk in, Clifford shrieks "Take her! It's not my time!" He then refuses to come along with you if you ask. You can actually shoot him without the woman freaking out, provided that any accompanying guards don't see this.

** There are a number of assets and elements re-used from ''Half-Life 2'', repurposed into this game.

** The Nihilanth has the ability to unleash mortar barrages and beams of fire, create rock walls, and fire off charged energy blasts, calling to mind the abilities of the Cyberdemon from ''VideoGame/Doom2016''.

** Similarly, the scientist that gets fussed about the exploded microwave casserole and who would eventually be retroactively recognised as Magnusson uses Kleiner's model in the original game. In ''Black Mesa'', neither are present in the staff lounge and the [=NPCs=] instead mention that the currently not-present "you-know-who" (Magnusson) will get extremely upset with Gordon's antics if he chooses to blow up the casserole.
* FriendOrFoe: The jumpiness of the facility's security guards is played up from ''Half-Life'', in that Gordon finds himself nearly getting shot by no less than three of them throughout the course of his journey.

** Partially, as the devs have stated that some players randomly crashing at various points in the game, whether always at a specific position or just from playing for a while, is not their fault, but the Source Engine's from being a bit overstressed by the game.

* GeniusesHaveMultiplePhDs: The game features a minor scientist who complains that the button-pressing he's confined to performing is beneath him because he has two [=PhDs=] and an Oersted Medal, which may be interpreted as a dig at how Gordon Freeman, both here and in the original ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', is made to do the grunt work in the Anti-Mass Spectrometer despite being a doctorate holder. The Hazard Course mod takes this further with some dialogue that implies that a large majority of the scientists employed at Black Mesa hold multiple [=PhDs=], and Gordon with his single [=PhD=] in theoretical physics is actually an outlier.

* GodzillaThreshold: The third and final Emergency Broadcast message found in "Surface Tension" offers a glimpse of the world outside of Black Mesa, and things are looking really bad. Since the HECU are unable to contain the alien invasion, the President has declared a state of emergency, ordered the military to withdraw all ground forces covered by immediate airstrikes over Black Mesa, and ordered the ''entire state of New Mexico'' to be completely evacuated of all civilians ASAP. Things are getting so bad that the Emergency Broadcast also requests any civilian with any amount of military or firearms training to immediately report to a military officer, suggesting that the army is making an [[LoweredRecruitingStandards emergency recruitment effort]] to hold back the invasion.
* HeroicSacrifice: While [[BattleDiscretionShot taking place off-screen]], one security guard, if he accompanies Gordon into the rocket silo in "On A Rail", will hold off an entire HECU squad trying to capture the silo in order to buy time for Gordon to prep the satellite rocket to be launched. By the time Gordon finishes and makes it back to the top of the silo, the guard has managed to kill off the entire squad, [[MutualKill but ends up succumbing to his wounds shortly afterwards]].

* HollywoodSilencer: The Black Ops Assassins [[GunsAkimbo dual-wield]] silenced Glocks -- or so it seems. While their gunshots play this straight, a [[https://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/5/4384/femassassin_beauty.jpg look at their model]] reveals that they actually don't have silencers attached to their pistols. This is likely an oversight, or the developers didn't expect anyone to get a good enough look at them to notice, given how fast and agile they are.

* IncompetenceInc: While much less blatant than in ''Half-Life'', Black Mesa still carries vibes of this with many questionable elements present in the Black Mesa facility such as pointless rooms, mass radioactive waste leakages, lethally dangerous obstacle courses and other things being less level design and more Black Mesa clearly [[NoOSHACompliance failing to meet proper safety and ethical guidelines]] or even [[ViolationOfCommonSense simple common sense]] in their work. Were it not for various hints suggesting the whole Resonance Cascade event was deliberately set up to happen, the Black Mesa Incident would look more like the inevitable culmination of their own ineptitude.

* LikeCannotCutLike: The Hivehand's primary fire has no effect on exploding Xen plants or other Xen obstacles because it only homes in on enemies, while the aforementioned obstacles are hazardous objects. The secondary fire will still work, though, since this turns the hornets into unguided missiles that immediately burst on impact.

** "Interloper" is just ''massive'', rivaling the updated "Surface Tension" in length.

** In general, most ammo reserves were shaved compared to their ''Half-Life'' counterparts. This really hurts the Python and Crossbow the most, reducing Gordon's carrying capacity for the latter to a mere ''two'' spare magazines. It also doesn't help that ammo pickups for these weapons provide ''two'' magazines worth of ammo, reaching the ammo cap instantly and making it highly likely for any additional ammo boxes to just be left behind.

** Buried mines in outdoors sections are ''much'' easier to spot, as they are now "Bouncing Betty" types with three small metal prongs very visibly sticking out of the sand.

* NeverTrustATrailer: During the 1.0 Update trailer, a scientist can be heard saying "The alien species can't possibly ''all'' be hostile, can they?" This line, featured as idle dialogue for the scientists in the original ''Half-Life'', is not actually featured in ''Black Mesa'', albeit due to a misspelling in a script file rather than intentionally.

* NintendoHard: This game is considerably more difficult than ''Half-Life''. For starters, the Tentacles in "Blast Pit" are ''far'' more sensitive to noise this time around (which most likely has to do with an eye on top of their tentacle, as pointed out by a research note on one of the boards), the HECU's firing rate is no longer restricted to burst-firing, now eating up your health like a cocaine addict with crack, Barnacles can take ''four'' crowbar whacks instead of one in the series' official games so you're forced to engage them from a distance and actually use ammo, and the Vortigaunts, in addition to using basic squad tactics, charge up their attacks at the speed of ''Half-Life'''s Hard difficulty (read: almost instantly), and can actually take a few hits before dropping. Even the ''headcrabs'' react a bit faster than average. On top of that, all enemies became smarter than their original selves; see ArtificialBrilliance for more details.

** On the whole though, considering that the original ''Half-Life'' could be considered a TropeCodifier for its lack of OSHA compliance, ''Black Mesa'' has had a lot of thought put into making the place look like an operating government facility rather than a collection of safety hazards. Notable is the number of fire extinguishers available... none of which can be actually grabbed and used to put out a fire.

*** The iconic Crowbar doesn't appear until Gordon enters through the vent in the Sector C lobby to find it holding a pair of doors shut. To compensate for this, the area's prior focus on utilising enemy-igniting emergency flares and an accompanying Security Guard in order to clear out the zombie-infested hallways.

*** In Early Access, the SPAS-12 Shotgun wasn't available until "We've Got Hostiles", which is a whole chapter later than it originally debuted in "Office Complex". The first shotgun that Gordon could obtain was wielded by one of the HECU soldiers that guards the elevator up to the surface. This was rectified in the public release. The only minor difference is that the player needs to save the security guard that opens the fenced storage area to reach the shotgun stored within it rather than the gun just being on a box outside of the fenced area.

** In addition to the sewer-flooding and crate-jumping puzzles from the original game, "Unforeseen Consequences" adds two new major obstacles. First, in the Sector B Coolant Reserve, you'll need to find two valves to open hot water feed pipes in order to thaw out a frozen door. Then, instead of just taking the freight elevator down to the canal as in the original, you need to make your way through [[AirVentPassageway the game's first air duct]] into a control room in order to start up a generator to power the lift.

** The ''Surface Tension: Uncut'' update for the 2015 retail release deserves special mention here. Not only is all of the marine dialogue re-recorded and expanded upon but there are several setpiece battles and sections that don't even appear in the original recursive mod.

*** It's only at the end of the "Xen" chapter do you reach that all too familiar island, and even then, it has a significant number of changes that make it a far cry from its ''Half-Life'' appearance. For starters, you don't arrive from a set of moving platforms floating above the island. Rather, you enter it from the side by crossing twisted bridges of knotted roots. While the exterior is still guarded by hanging alien turrets and packs of Houndeyes, the interior has received a drastic overhaul; the waterlogged room with the barest pretence of a puzzle is now replaced by a snaking network of smooth tunnels, linking to rooms containing three beam emitters and a control room, all made from a never-before-seen technology; too alien be human, too organic to be Combine. This network becomes the centerpiece of a series of puzzles, as you navigate through the island's interior and exterior in order to repair the damaged teleporter generator, socket-switching and hunting around for Xen crystals to power its components. To sum it all up, it's basically a revamp of the Citadel core puzzle from ''[[VideoGame/HalfLife2 Half-Life 2: Episode One]]''.
*** Large stretches of "Gonarch's Lair" don't actually involve fighting the titular testicle monster. In some instances, you have to [[spoiler:run away from it, similar to Antlion Guardian chase sequences of ''Half-Life 2: Episode 2'']]. The course of action that the player is intended to take is almost always visually implied through both the environment and the Gonarch's placement during these sequences. As for the chapter itself, the copious amounts of webbing coating the environment combined with the overabundance of Headcrabs compared to other wildlife really lends credence to this chapter's islands being part of a single, enormous nest, with the Headhumper queen herself as its sole, hyper-aggressive defender.
*** Like the other Xen levels, "Interloper" has been entirely revamped, only retaining the base concepts that made up the original chapter. Since the exploration of Xen was greatly expanded upon in the previous two levels, the first two maps of the original "Interloper" that had you exploring floating islands of the borderworld have basically been cut out to the point that only a tweaked version of the Tentacle section from the second map remains. In addition, there's still the Gargantua encounter, but it's now been turned into a chase sequence where you speed your way through [[spoiler:a home of multiple Gargantuas all trying to kill you until you escape the area]]. The encounter with the friendly Vortigaunts is still there, but the area they're located in has been transformed into an impoverished slum that needs to be traversed. Finally, the Alien Grunt factory still caps off the level, but the layout to get through it has been entirely revamped. Some examples include the factory's barrel conveyor belt section being vastly extended, and the socket-switching puzzles seen in "Xen" making a return at several points throughout the factory. The purpose of Gordon going through the factory has also changed where instead of just needing to find your way through it, the player now goes about changing or breaking certain things to outright destroy the factory. Finally, the elevator climb section at the end of the level still exists, but instead of being a bunch of annoying spinning elevator platforms, it's been turned into [[spoiler:a single ClimacticElevatorRide fighting off a horde of Alien Controllers until you reach the top to take the portal to the FinalBoss]].

* OneManArmy: Like in the original ''Half-Life'', Gordon Freeman became one over the course of the game thanks to his wits, his HEV suit and an incredible collection of mundane and exotic weapons he picked up along the way. By the end of the game, he would have massacred his way through two armies, survived an incredibly hostile alien world, and capped it off by taking on and killing a being which was for all intents and purposes an [[EldritchAbomination alien]] [[PhysicalGod god]]. Did we mention that [[BrickJoke he may not have been wearing a helmet]] through all of it?

** The Hivehand, now grosser than ever. Gordon has to AssShove his hand into the poor creature in order to use it.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: In the 2012 mod release, your first trip to the lobby in "Questionable Ethics" has two HECU Marines talk about going to see some of the female scientists, in a creepy manner.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: A scientist you run into in “Office Complex” states how everyone is crazy trying to run to the surface. His reason was believing someone will eventually rescue them if they stayed put, even when surrounded by alien creatures. However, there really was no one coming to rescue them, and the ones that headed for the surface were probably all gunned down by the HECU.

* SatchelCharge: The Satchel Charge functions in pretty much the same way it did back in ''Half-Life 1'', being a bag of explosives triggered by a remote detonator. This time around, satchels are thrown with the primary fire button and can be picked up by the player in case they dropped the satchel prematurely. The secondary fire button, meanwhile, detonates the satchel.

** The devs really went crazy with the Source engine's considerable capabilities. The facility's large pieces of machinery (like the Anti-Mass Spectrometer and Dimensional Portal Device) are [[TechnologyPorn considerably more detailed]] and feature complex moving parts. Meanwhile, outdoor areas have been completely redesigned to have a considerable "WOW!" factor. An example would be the scene where the player must fight an Abrams tank and a squad of Marines, while overhead military Ospreys are seen abandoning the facility as Harrier jets engage the aliens' organic flyers, or the scene where the player witnesses jets screaming past to bomb a distant target, which creates a visible shockwave that rattles the mesa as it hits.

** During "Surface Tension", prior to entering the Laser Tripmine warehouse, there's a scene where you witness a scientist run out of a nearby structure to help a security guard downed by a HECU sniper in the area. A few moments later, the sniper would then kill the scientist as he tries to help the security guard. If you kill the sniper before he shoots the scientist, however, the scientist remains on the field forever kneeling before the now dead security guard. This was fixed in the 2015 retail release; after the sniper is killed, the scientist will become startled, run into the nearby minefield, and die anyway.

** In the same chapter, the guard that rushes the Tentacles is literally named LeeroyJenkins.

** The HECU's vehicular lineup is more consistent with what the U.S. Marines would use (M2 Bradleys and F-16s from the original are replaced with LAV-25s and AV-8B Harrier [=IIs=], respectively), and they use protective gear modeled after real-world equipment including the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20130618122028/http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r261/ArvinPabico/armorvest-Crye-armor-7.jpg Crye Precision Armor Chassis]] and the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160327140300/http://wwww.specwargear.com/retro/images/helmet-CCT%20IBH-1.jpg Integrated Ballistic Helmet]].

* SideBet: A scientist and security guard in the Anomalous Materials lab happens to be betting their lunch on whether Gordon will show up to work. If you walk in on them, the guard will gloat about having won the bet.

* StealthPun: The forklifts used at the Black Mesa facility are apparently manufactured by a company called "Dun-givva". [[spoiler:[[DontExplainTheJoke Dun-givva Fork]]-lifts.]]
* TheStinger: If you successfully complete the Rare Specimen achievement (where you take a purple top hat found at the start of "Unforeseen Consequences" ("Lambda Core" in the 2012 mod release) and send it through the portal to Xen) and then beat the game, after the credits roll, [[spoiler:a short bit plays out where a Vortigaunt finds the hat in question and tries it on.]]

** One of the guards asks for help from Gordon with one of those critters, who apparently got onto his buddy's head and are making him act all weird. Right on cue, guess who walks out? The guard then proceeds to talk to his "buddy" as if he's all fine and well. You can guess how that ends.[[note]]If you kill the zombie before it gets him, though, you'll get access to the [[HandCannon .357 Colt Python]]/[[ShotgunsAreJustBetter SPAS-12 Shotgun]] much earlier than normal. His reaction seems to lean way towards being shell-shocked, thanking you when you kill his "buddy".[[/note]]

* TookALevelInJerkass: Some of the scientists and guards starting from "Anomalous Materials" are now short-tempered, egotistical, grumpy, or all three. Like Hunter, the guard in Level A of the Lambda Reactor Core, who greets you with a sour disposition once you finally reach it. At least after the Resonance Cascade, a scientist in Lambda Complex [[LampshadeHanging noted this]] and figured this is in part due to everyone being under a lot of pressure trying to survive and working feverishly under desperate circumstances to reverse the disaster.

* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: During the part where you're climbing Level B of the Lambda Reactor Core using the numbered portals, it's entirely possible to lose ''all'' of your weapons for the rest of the game if you fire the Hivehand into the #9 portal (the one that kills you). You have to really go out of your way and try it out to make this GameBreakingBug happen though, as it's not something that most players would logically do right from the get-go. This was patched in the retail release.

* ZeroToHero: Like in the original ''Half-Life'', ''Black Mesa'' chronicles Gordon Freeman's transformation over the course of the game from a hapless civilian scientist trapped in the middle of a nightmarish disaster he unwittingly helped cause, to a cunning and lethal OneManArmy who fought his way through entire armies, monsters, and an entire extradimensional DeathWorld to end the Resonance Cascade and save the Earth from an AlienInvasion.

*** A whiteboard notes that the high powered laser requires [[Film/BackToTheFuture 1.21 Gigawatts]].

** The HECU's vehicular lineup is more consistent with what the U.S. Marines would use (M2 Bradleys and F-16s from the original are replaced with LAV-25s and AV-8B Harrier [=IIs=], respectively), they correctly refer to their medics as "corpsmen" and their first aid kits as [=IFAKs=][[note]]Individual First Aid Kits[[/note]] in the retail release, and they use protective gear modeled after real-world equipment including the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20130618122028/http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r261/ArvinPabico/armorvest-Crye-armor-7.jpg Crye Precision Armor Chassis]] and the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160327140300/http://wwww.specwargear.com/retro/images/helmet-CCT%20IBH-1.jpg Integrated Ballistic Helmet]].