10 Essential FPS Levels Every Fan Must Play

Throughout the course of Black Mesa you battle through a maze of corridors, radioactive pits, and ethically questionable labs. You’ve take down soldiers, aliens and three-story razor-beaked tentacles. By the time you reach the surface you feel like a one man army.

Well, time to prove it, because now you’re up against an entrenched military, facing the game’s toughest, most aggressive, most well equipped enemies on their turf. And those are just the grunts. The level also throws a gunship at you. While you’re on a dam. Out in the open. And if you panic and jump into the water there are two alien Ichthyosaurs waiting. Yes, it’s that kind of level.

But persevere and you are rewarded. This is where the invasion of earth boils over into all out war, and it is sublime. You’ll see Vortigaunts blown to literal pieces by tanks shells only for the aliens to return the favour with precision bombing runs that roar in to wipe out the tanks, grunts and you, if you’re not careful.

Surface Tension is Black Mesa at its toughest, most cinematic, satisfying best, and fighting your way through is a hard-won achievement any FPS fan will be proud to own.