It’s been a long time since I last played Half Life, so when Black Mesa went on sale I figured I’d take a look at it and write a review!

I’m going to let you in on a little secret – I never completed the original Half Life. I know, I know. I’ll own that shame. Despite Half Life 2 being the first game I got on Steam and despite completing it multiple times (before Steam even tracked play time!), I never finished the original. This is for a couple of reasons. The first is that I never actually owned Half Life 1. I played a version which was acquired via legally dubious means, back when I had no money and that was the only way I could play games at all.

I had the original and the Source update on my Steam wishlist for a long time, waiting for a decent sale (I object to paying a lot for a 25 year old game). But when I saw the discount and clicked into the store page I saw that Valve had pulled it from searches and people were saying that the game was vastly improved in the Black Mesa remake – especially the endgame content. Then it went on sale for something like 80% off so I grabbed it.