Yes, both the houndeyes and the vortigaunts take less time to prepare their attack than in the original.

Finally downloading the 3 GB Zip file (and downloading at a decent speed) and almost done. Haven't looked at any videos or screenshots yet since I don't want to spoil it for me. Eager for this overall. : >

I wasn't really talking about firing speed, but the enemy / NPC's path finding, observation skills, accuracy etc.

That said, did you notice that the crowbar is a lot, lot slower? It's about half the speed that it was in HL1. I used to crowbar barnacles to death before they started chewing on me no problem. But now you can't do that.

Those Vortigaunts fire a lot faster too. You could take them down with the pistol while they were charging before. Now you've got no chance. They've done a lot to rebalance the game and by and large I like the changes.

Yeah, vast majority of changes are great. I really think they should reduce soldier accuracy or ... Anything to make them less annoying, but everything else: All weapons are actually useful in certain situations, enemies that used to be far too easy pose a challenge now, they've really done a lot to improve upon the original.

To anyone who hasn't gotten this and played it yet: GET IT! PLAY IT!

I am SO impressed with the work the Black Mesa team have done. Black Mesa is everything Half-Life: Source should have been, and more.

So, all those of you who haven't gotten this game yet, go get it here: http://release.blackmesasource.com/. It's free, it's excellent, and you owe it to yourself to play it (unless you thoroughly hated the original Half-Life).

Also loving it, really like the changes they've made, think they should have remade Residue Processing a bit more cause I always get stuck on that level, even after having finished the game several times. All in all an AMAZING remake and I wonder: is there any way to support the makers? I want to pay for my games and these guys really should get some cred for they almost decade long work

For everyone who installed the game in different directory than suggested, and the installation didn't create any shortcut or added BM to library on Steam, I got a solution.
Make sure you have SDK Source 2007 installed from Steam. Then you gotta go to properties of it and set launch options where you type in:
-game sourcetest -steam -game "D:\Games\Black Mesa"
where "D:\Games\Black Mesa" is the location where you installed Black Mesa.
Hope this helps someone

The SDK is free in "tools". You dont need to buy anything.
Mine automatically picked up my steam installation in another directory. It installed flawlessy, but I had the SDK installed prior to the Black Mesa install.

Its stuck in a door. And sorry I negged you. It happens quite often when Im trying to quote on my mobile because of the site layout!
A torrent directly from the Black Mesa site

I like almost all the changes, except for taking out a lot of the open-endedness of the puzzles. Most of them just have a single solution now (of have been taken out altogether), whereas in the original, a lot of them had 2 or more ways of being solved.

I do really love that they've ramped up the combat, though. Just wish they hadn't kept the whole "quicksave, run into room, see what happens, reload save and act accordingly" focus.

Yes, those load screens seem to appropiately come right before I have my ass handed over to me. Im stuck atm.