The year is 2000, a preteen wanders through the mall as is commonplace of the time. He visits his usual stomping grounds: Sam Goody and Electronics Boutique, before heading to the food court and purchasing an Auntie Anne's pretzel. While eating said pretzel, he sees a familiar store, Gamestop, and heads in.

Perusing the console games on the outer shelves, he starts looking at the PC games, something he is not very familiar with but realizes the possibilities beyond the standard offerings of Playstation and N64 games. On the shelf, something catches his eye, a box with not 1, not 2, but 5 games in one, sporting a goateed middle-aged man on the front: The Half-Life Platinum collection. The boy excitedly purchases and takes this home, and his life will change forever...

This was my half-life story. That collection, which began with Half-Life, ushered me into a world of PC gaming, FPSs, and the unlimited potential within it.

Black Mesa is so much more than nostalgia. It is a labor of love that brings one of the most beloved and innovative FPS games of all time into present day; to allow an entirely new generation of gamers to experience this masterpiece while not being turned off by the dated visuals of the original. This is as faithful and masterful a remake as I've ever seen, while still adding it's own flare to give you something you haven't quite played before.

I'd also like to give a shoutout to Valve, because if the original Half-Life were created by Nintendo or some of these other studios, this project would have been buried before it got off the ground and we'd never get anything like it.

As others have mentioned, there are some minor issues:
-I had a crash on my first few hours that caused all my settings to revert to default.
-Some of the autosave points can be frustrating for newer players if you don't use full-save or quicksave points effectively
-The conveyor belt section of the Interloper chapter felt too long and repetitive

All of the above said, the fact that it took me so long to finally purchase this was borderline moronic. However, I have rectified my error and I hope you do to. This game is worth the sale price, it's worth the discount price, it's worth the full price.