Sunday Is Gaming Day: What Are You Playing Weekly Thread
(hexbear.net)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
32 points (100.0% liked)
games
21088 readers
349 users here now
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
Rules
- No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, or transphobia. Don't care if it's ironic don't post comments or content like that here.
- Mark spoilers
- No bad mouthing sonic games here :no-copyright:
- No gamers allowed :soviet-huff:
- No squabbling or petty arguments here. Remember to disengage and respect others choice to do so when an argument gets too much
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
I forgot I picked up Black Mesa, and so I'm grabbing my crowbar and romping through this cursed facility for the 50th time. This isn't even my first Black Mesa playthrough; I remember playing it before the Xen was released and ~~before Valve bought the team~~ it went up on Steam. I'm about halfway through, and it's gorgeous so far. I turned the difficulty all the way up just to relive the tension, and boy howdy do the enemies pancake me if I'm not careful. The Half-Life series are some of my comfort games.
Maybe I'll pick up my HL2E2 Hard Gnome run again...
but I'm so tired of schlepping the gnome in the car. All the Striders and Hunters just rip me apart when I'm near the final facility. I'm so close, and it seems so far...wait what, team crowbar is now part of Valve?
My bad, I meant before it was on Steam. I've caught the dumb
good idea to raise the difficulty on a replay, might do that too, played hl1 a few times over the years but never got as far as the xen levels lol
Raising the difficulty definitely helps linear set-piece-heavy games, otherwise I memorize the encounters and cheese through it. The first big combat encounter with the marines is a good showcase of the better AI. I got mushed more than a dozen times. The Vortigaunts are harder too because they do a sideways strafe like the Elites from Halo, almost guaranteeing I miss my first shot.
Xen was a bit of a shitshow in the original Half-Life. The developers admitted it was rushed, and it plays poorly compared to what you did throughout the rest of the game. The long-jumping-over-infinite-pits is what we remember, and a boss fight that was... something. I'm very curious what the Crowbar team have done with the setting.
That said, my poor shotgun!
What do you mean it's more balanced and not the god weapon that carries me through the whole game?!