OMG why is Xen almost half the length of the whole game????

[SteelyBeast]

This is sooooo boring. I thought I was almost done when I got to the Gonarch. Dear god... wtf were they thinking? I've been chasing that fat piece of **** for an eternity. Where is the ****ing Nihalanth?????? Dear god end this nightmare.

[Venge329]

Eh. They're just following the script for the original HL1 - which old school games back then were kinda lengthy naturally. Interloper (next mission) is kind of long too haha - good luck bub. Have fun.

[Gin]

Really... If you did follow all the news updates prior to the release and combining of Xen to the game,
then you would have known that Xen would be longer, better and more detailed as opposed to Half-Life's Xen.
Ok, maybe a chase sequence or two less would still be good without making the chapter bad. I'll admit to that.
But Black Mesa's Xen is by far less boring than the original Xen.

Don't forget, you still have 20 to 40 minutes of a, once again, better and more detailed Interloper chapter to cover as well, before you even get to Nihilanth.

Man, i beginning to think i'm the only one who finds this Xen is still too short.

[SteelyBeast]

I grew up on HL1 and I've beaten it several times. You could beat Xen in less than half an hour in the original. I've been in Xen for 3 or 4 hours at this point. Not even remotely close to being the same.

[SteelyBeast]

引用自 Gin：

Really... If you did follow all the news updates prior to the release and combining of Xen to the game,
then you would have known that Xen would be longer, better and more detailed as opposed to Half-Life's Xen.
Ok, maybe a chase sequence or two less would still be good without making the chapter bad. I'll admit to that.
But Black Mesa's Xen is by far less boring than the original Xen.

Don't forget, you still have 20 to 40 minutes of a, once again, better and more detailed Interloper chapter to cover as well, before you even get to Nihilanth.

Man, i beginning to think i'm the only one who finds this Xen is still too short.

Adding a bunch of stupid padding does not equal better. Gonarch is a complete cluster*** and glitchy af. And they could have cut the wannabe Avatar nonsense areas before Gonarch by half and it still would have been too much.

[Jodasnail]

It's a lot easier to appreciate when you stop expecting it to be worse.

[SteelyBeast]

引用自 Jodasnail：

It's a lot easier to appreciate when you stop expecting it to be worse.

I was expecting this to be a short part of the overall game just like the original. Maybe a bit longer is fine. But they have actually made this almost half the length of the entire game and it is boring, tedious, and overstays its welcome in every chapter from the moment you enter Xen.

[Jodasnail]

引用自 SteelyBeast：

I was expecting this to be a short part of the overall game just like the original. Maybe a bit longer is fine. But they have actually made this almost half the length of the entire game and it is boring, tedious, and overstays its welcome in every chapter from the moment you enter Xen.

You're complaining about more content, and I'm not surprised it looks like padding to someone who just wants it to end as fast as possible. In reality there's more world-building, more platforming, more fights, new enemies, new mechanics, and puzzles that actually require you to stop and think. Half-Life's Xen feels unfinished by comparison.

You can always take a break or chapter select Nihilanth if you're too impatient.

[SmellofNapalm]

A lot of people are agreeing that it is too long. Personally I did still like "Xen" as it had a good amount of variety, felt less try-hard in regards to combat and was definitely pretty. But overall the game is about twice as long as Half Life, so it's no wonder that a lot of people have a problem with that kind of pacing. It doesn't help that Gonarch's Lair and Interloper are trying a little too hard in my opinion. Both wanting to be cinematic, large scale and then wanting to be challenging as well, even if it means being annoying. There was a point where I definitely just wasn't interested in shooting even more Controllers with the Gluon gun anymore. It's just not interesting, especially not when the game had already been lasting for quite a while at that point.

[SteelyBeast]

引用自 Jodasnail：

引用自 SteelyBeast：

I was expecting this to be a short part of the overall game just like the original. Maybe a bit longer is fine. But they have actually made this almost half the length of the entire game and it is boring, tedious, and overstays its welcome in every chapter from the moment you enter Xen.

You're complaining about more content, and I'm not surprised it looks like padding to someone who just wants it to end as fast as possible. In reality there's more world-building, more platforming, more fights, new enemies, new mechanics, and puzzles that actually require you to stop and think. Half-Life's Xen feels unfinished by comparison.

You can always take a break or chapter select Nihilanth if you're too impatient.

I'll always complain about more content when said content is repetitive and boring. The extra world building is nice but does not warrant an extra 4-6 hours of game length. I don't need to kill the same enemies a hundred times just to "learn" that the vortegaunts were slaves that we freed.

You're seriously going to praise the "puzzles"? Dear god... if unplugging a cord from one outlet and moving it to another is your idea of good puzzle design then I don't know what to say. It was fine the first 5 times I had to do it but at this point its just ridiculous and kills the pacing.

[Jodasnail]

引用自 SteelyBeast：

I'll always complain about more content when said content is repetitive and boring. The extra world building is nice but does not warrant an extra 4-6 hours of game length. I don't need to kill the same enemies a hundred times just to "learn" that the vortegaunts were slaves that we freed.

You're seriously going to praise the "puzzles"? Dear god... if unplugging a cord from one outlet and moving it to another is your idea of good puzzle design then I don't know what to say. It was fine the first 5 times I had to do it but at this point its just ridiculous and kills the pacing.

Sorry you feel that way. And I never said anything about the plug puzzles or their design, not sure who you're talking to.

[CrAsH]

I thought it was a good adaptation. Multiplayer games for me have become stale. Besides, Valve releasing anything new wise seems to be a pipe dream.

[Cat]

Unfortunately, yes.

[Sgt. Pepper]

6 hours? Didn't take me that long even on the highest difficulty... come on now.

[SchnozBott]

New Xen is better than old Xen in every way. Old Xen was just a half-baked series of low gravity jumping puzzles punctuated by some of the worst boss fights in video game history. New Xen offers context and parallels to the Black Mesa experiments, as well as teasing the oppressive cruelty of the Combine (through their proxy, the Nihilanth).

But there's no accounting for taste, I suppose.

[Cynwale]

Man I've hardly seen a point of view so wrong.

I've played Half Life, and holy hell Black Mesa did it right.

They did not remake the game, they made it better.

The only part I think was kinda not respected, is the difficulty, I had a way worse time playing Half Life than playing Black Mesa.

But really, none of the parts were boring. (The only one a little tedious on the repetetiveness is the cable ones in Xen, but honestly all games should have a Sewer level.)

Edit: Thank you for the points, nerds.