I just. really love Black Mesa. It's a really good game and you should all go play it. But since no one in my family really has an interest in this sort of video game, I'm gonna ramble on about it here as I play it again. (So you get screenshots, too!)

I think, perhaps, the reason I like the game so much is because despite the fact that Gordon never utters a word, you can still feel so much emotion in the game. You can feel the raw terror as you first see the affects of the resonance cascade in the "Office Complex" chapter, the pride before the fall in "Apprehension," the restored confidence in "Questionable Ethics," and the building sense of finality in "Lambda Core." Best of all is the fact that- at least for me, anyway- this emotion remains, even revisiting the game. I can't tell you how many times I've played it now, but every time, I still get nervous creeping through abandoned cubicles, I still get sad when a wounded ally insists I leave him behind, I still get a rush of furious adrenaline as I wait for my opening to launch a missile at the helicopter firing at me. I get a lot of people frequently telling me that they can reread my books and still be made to laugh or cry at certain points, despite knowing it's coming, and that's the way I feel about Black Mesa, and the Half-Life series in general.

All this said, if I've convinced you to go play the game, you ought to stop reading this now. I'm gonna be sharing a lot of spoiler-y screenshots and talking a lot about plot. Or, if you're still on the fence about it, you're probably safe to read at least a ways in to get a feel for what the game is to make up your mind.

But anyway. I'm gonna get to fangirl gushing now.

Inbound

I didn't really take a whole lot of screenshots for the "Inbound" chapter. You don't really do a lot, just sit in the tram car lol. I still think it's really good worldbuilding, though, just because it really lets you get a feel for what the Black Mesa Research Facility (will be referred to as BMRF in the future, to differentiate between it and when I refer to Black Mesa, the game itself) is, both through what you get to see and what's said over the intercom. I think, personally, my two favorite parts are where the intercom talks about being safe and getting radiation checkups as the tram rides over a big pool of spilled toxic waste (Oh, the irony), and the bit where it mentions the mandatory employee decathlon. The second one I like because it explains why exactly Gordon, some random scientist, is capable of doing some of the things he does- especially because Black Mesa takes a "learning on the job" approach rather than the option to play a tutorial that the original Half-Life offered. (I do miss the tutorial, though. It was set up really cleverly- Gordon at the hazard course, learning to use the HEV suit!)

I did take a couple of screenshots, though:

A brief shot of Barney Calhoun, Gordon's best friend at the BMRF, who still owes Gordon a beer, and is also just as late to work as Gordon. (Fun fact for you all: in the original game, this wasn't Barney, but just a generic security guard. He was later reconnected into Barney Calhoun with the release of Half-Life: Blue Shift, where you get to play as Barney on his own adventure to escape the BMRF! If, at this point in Blue Shift, you turn around,  you can actually see a tramcar go by with (a rather low poly) Gordon Freeman model go by!)

Idk about this one, I just thought it was a cool scene. Very picturesque.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the G-Man, as he does show up once in the "Inbound" chapter, in a different tramcar that you pass. I will, however, be taking screenshots of all his other appearances that I know of! (If I miss one you know of, please point it out to me. I will absolutely replay the game just for a little more lore!)

Anomalous Materials

I honestly thing the "Anomalous Materials" chapter is one of my favorites. Like sure, I actually love them all, and sure, we haven't actually gotten to the exciting stuff yet, but there are so many small details and funny additions, like

"You know, Barney's been pretty scarce around these parts,"

Obviously, this little conversation with the security guard wasn't included in the original game, what with Barney not technically existing, but I love that they added it in. Is it possible Barney owes more people beers than just Gordon? I think that's more than likely.

And a neat little nod to the original! In Half-LIfe, Gordon's model had a little ponytail, but it was mysteriously absent from his HL2 model. While they do make this little joke here, you gotta wonder, what exactly happened to his ponytail? It's not as if he really had the opportunity to cut it off between games, what with being in stasis. Did the G-Man decide a ponytail was not befitting of the savior of humanity?

GORDO

With that, I think it's a good opportunity to bring up Gordon's relationship with the security staff versus with his own fellow scientists. For the sake of a photo limit, I didn't take any pictures of the generic speech responses from the scientists, but they pretty much fall under three main responses: "Hello, Dr. Freeman," "This had better be important, Gordon! ...Mmhm, I thought not," or "You were supposed to be in the test chamber half an hour ago, so get going!" But most of the guards...

"Looks like somebody here owes me lunch."

Thanks for the vote of confidence in Dr. Half-an-Hour-Late Freeman, buddy.

And,

"Sorry, pal, I got explicit orders not to let you through without your hazard suit on."

Implying the security staff, or at least this guard, frequently do make exceptions for Gordon on certain things.

Follow this up with him telling Gordon to go get the HEV, and an incentive:

And another line from a different guard

(Though I'm pretty sure this is just a generic response. If not, it's a reference to a line in the original game, "Hey, catch me later and I'll buy you a beer." (which was what brought about Barney owing Gordon a beer.))

as well as

So Gordon hangs out with most the security guards pretty frequently!

There are also these three screenshots that I just thought were pretty funny:

once you get the HEV, one of the guards will say to you,

Freemeister

(Though he is right lol. Orange and green are a pretty sharp contrast (and one you see on numerous occasions throughout the game!)

Excuse me, I am one of those white coats!

I mean, sure, Gordon's wearing a bright orange suit of power armor, but he's still one of the scientists!

and from the same guard,

Not so much relating to Gordon and the security guards, but this line always cracks me up.

But anyway.

There you are, you business suit jerk. Yes, I am talking about you.

(I do wonder what they were talking about, though. Is the G-Man informing that particular scientist of events to come?)

--one of the greatest video games of all time!

A great little meta conversation! The guy in the middle is very enthusiastically defending his work reproducing an experiment done in the past (*ahem*Half-Life*ahem*) made with modern technology that, for one, "shows how far our field has come." The guy on the right just scoffs critically, mockingly wondering how much recognition the middle guy is gonna get for copying an old project. (Not nearly enough! Go buy Black Mesa! Leave a good review on Steam! Support the scientist in the middle!)

Time to give a man a reason to hate my guts for the next two decades: by exploding his microwave casserole!

I wonder, though, did they plan to have this in the original game, or did they just put the microwave in there and then decide to drop a reference to it in HL2.EP2? Because you don't see Magnussen until the episodes, which kind of makes it seem like he maybe didn't actually even exist until then. Which might imply that he was only added altogether as a reason to reference the casserole exploded by Gordon twenty years ago!

(I also couldn't add it because of picture limits, but you should also talk to the guard standing near the microwave. He says something about how that was "you know who's" casserole, then makes a bunch of bad puns about how you should leave before Magnussen gets there- "You should make like a tree and leaf," "You should make like a missile and cruise," "You should make like a nut, and bolt," are a few off the top of my head)

I absolutely love the way the HEV suit looks, though I may just be biased because it's the armor of one of my favorite protagonists.

Two things to note, here: 1) we can see Gordon is user 4176 in the HEV suit system (remember that, I'm gonna bring it up much later, once the Xen chapters are actually released) and we get  precise measurements as to his weight and height, which personally, I think is kind of ridiculously overinformative, but exactly right for adding character to the game. And  2) the HEV has a weapons registry and database, and a menu for selecting those weapons. So the HEV canonically (At least in Black Mesa) has hammerspace to store Gordon's weapons.

One of the most classic lines in the game! Unfortunately, I think this one of the few places- or perhaps, the only place- where the Black Mesa remake doesn't quite match up to the original. Just something about the way he says it doesn't quite make me laugh as much as the original line did, sound quality disregarded.

Doctors Eli Vance and Isaac Kleiner! (Dr. Kleiner was actually on the right in the last screenshot, I just wanted to point them out at the same time.)

As is with Barney, Eli and Isaac were actually just generic scientists in the original Half-Life, but were later retconned into their respective selves on account of the enormous roles they play in HL2. I do believe, however, that despite not technically appearing in the original Half-Life, Kleiner was still a canonical character, as he was one of Gordon's professors at MIT, and then later provided a referral for Gordon to work at the BMRF, though I'm not sure if this information was provided before or after HL2 came out.

Aaaaaand that's about it for now, due to picture limits as well as a time constraint, but you can rest assured I'll be doing more of these later; there's still a LOT of game to get through, and I wanna talk about Black Mesa, dangit! So, uh, expect more soon lol