Black Mesa: Source

It all starts with a tram ride. Gordon Freeman arrives at the Black Mesa Research Facility at 8:48am - the exact time the mod was launched - and rides the transit system to a top secret complex buried deep beneath the New Mexico desert. In 1998 this was revolutionary; a story told without cutscenes, viewed entirely through the eyes of the player. In Black Mesa, it's still an incredibly effective, sophisticated way of telling a story and creating a sense of place.

We move slowly past bubbling pools of toxic waste, now given a sickly glow by Source's bloom lighting. A frustrated guard pounds on a malfunctioning security door. A mysterious figure in a blue suit silently observes you from an adjacent tram. Black Mesa's production values are seriously impressive. If you'd told us Valve developed it, we wouldn't have blinked an eye. The facility feels bigger and more alive, and the ominous sense that everything's about to go disastrously wrong is even more palpable. The Black Mesa team, which consists of around 40 volunteers, knew they had to get this iconic sequence right, and they've nailed it.

It's a shame about the loading. One of Source's biggest flaws is map size, which even Portal 2 suffered from. Turning a blind corner, or activating an elevator, will often freeze the game and load up the next chunk of level. It's a fault of the engine, not the modders, but it really disrupts the flow of the game; especially in certain sections that require you to backtrack. The abundance of first-person platforming is another unfortunate remnant of the past, and not being able to see your legs when you're skipping between tiny, fast-moving platforms in the Lambda Core will have all but the most patient gamers slamming their mouse on the desk in frustration.

Minimum system requirements

Windows XP, Vista, or 7

Pentium 4 3.0 GHz or AMD Processor

1 GB RAM

Shader model 2.0, ATI 9600, NVidia 6600 or better

DirectX 8.1 compatible sound

6.9 GB of free hard drive space (not including *free* Source Sdk Base 2007, installed seperately)

Recommended system requirements

 Intel core 2 duo 2.4GHz or AMD Processor

1 GB RAM

Shader model 3.0, NVidia 7600, ATI X1600 or better,

DirectX 9.0c compatible sound

DirectX 8.1 compatible sound

6.9 GB of free hard drive space (not including *free* Source Sdk Base 2007, installed seperately)

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