Kleiner and Eli Vance (from Half-Life 2) show up as younger characters, in keeping with the canon. There are multiple models for scientist and soldier characters now (including the introduction of female characters), lending more realism to scenes where Gordon forms up a posse. A nearby canteen has changed from a small room with a table in it to a large public space filled with vending machines. The reception area to the main lab has been transformed from a poky square room into a cavernous circular chamber filled with computer screens.
Other spaces, formerly bare, are now bustling with people moving equipment around. A mech clearing up a chemical spill have now been joined by two scared scientists trapped against a nearby wall. The areas you pass on the tram are more or less the same, but are now inhabited by more people with more activity going on.
The iconic tram ride shows the similarities and differences between the original game and the remake. Freeman is a silent protagonist who never speaks, allowing the player to come up with his own personality and interpretation for the character. You play Gordon Freeman, a 27-year-old theoretical physicist and graduate of MIT. The game opens as the original Half-Life did, with you standing on a tram as it makes its way into the Black Mesa Research Facility in New Mexico. Even the voice-acting (all re-recorded, as reusing the original game's audio files was legally dubious) eclipses that of many supposedly professional games. The attention to detail in the game is tremendous, and it's quality easily exceeds that of many 'proper' Triple-A releases. Created over a period of eight years (!) - or two years longer than it took for Valve themselves to make Half-Life 2 - by gamers and fans working in their own time, Black Mesa is a carefully-crafted love letter to the franchise. Happily, Black Mesa is a (nearly) full HD remake of the game which preserves the pacing, weapons and enemies but updates everything else.
What is needed is a full HD remake of the game which preserves the pacing, weapons and enemies but updates everything else. What was a fantastic-looking game on release is now a painful collection of blocky models and low-res textures. Yet returning to Half-Life, or introducing it to new players, is almost impossible. More recent shooters have seemingly ignored the lessons laid down by Half-Life, becoming lost in a few short hours of tiresome, badly-acted cut-scenes and even more tiresome gimmicks like regenerating health and cover systems.
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