![]() ![]() You were not trained for this, you are massively under-equipped for the enemies you’re going up against, and yet you keep surviving by force of will. If Half-Life was a homage to classic sci-fi horror, then Blue Shift is Die Hard with aliens. Every time there’s an edge in your arsenal, Blue Shift tosses in a new problem. RELATED: Valve Bans Curator Groups Involved In Steam Key Reselling Scamįor a good third of the campaign, all you have weapon-wise is a mediocre pistol, a shotgun with too few shells, and the odd grenade. Armor drops tend to give you more initial protection than an HEV, but enemies ambushing you constantly will make short work of that. All you have are standard ballistics and explosives, with the odd armor pack here or there. Barney’s got no HEV power suit or fancy laser guns. Precious medkits are spread out minutes apart as you’re beset by headcrabs so frequently that they actually have a chance at killing you. The entire opening sections play more like a horror-FPS. Blue Shift dedicates almost its entire runtime to making you feel a small man caught between forces far beyond your pay grade. There are optional areas with valuable rewards and hidden dangers ready to punish you for growing cocky. All of that laser-focus-crammed into a two-hour ride. Blue Shift is basically Half-Life 2’s biggest improvements while retaining all the best parts of Half-Life 1 that got trimmed out in the sequel. Yet it’s these circumstances that gave Blue Shift some of the strongest content in an official Half-Life product. The improvements here are technical and subtle at first glance. You’re just a security guard with no fancy spec-ops gear - a hard sell for a full-price expansion with the shortest run time coming out three years after Half-Life first launched. To be fair, it doesn’t have an obvious “awe” element like Opposing Force did. Yet Blue Shift holds a contentious place in the Half-Life fandom. Barney and a handful of scientists are trying to escape the facility in the wake of the Resonance Cascade that kicks off the entire series, in a story that runs parallel to the preceding campaigns (with some direct crossovers with Gordon’s). Originally part of a near-complete Dreamcast port, Blue Shift stars Black Mesa security guard Barney Calhoun. RELATED: Goldeneye 007 Remaster Gameplay Leaked It was impressive for its time, but Opposing Force’s proto-Uncharted antics aren’t as important as Gearbox’s penultimate contribution to the Half-Life saga - Blue Shift. ![]() Designed more around spectacle, explosions, and gimmicks, Opposing Force expanded the Half-Life formula in a new direction. Adrian Shepard in Opposing Force was as much a perfect opposite to Freeman as was his campaign. The Black Mesa Incident may have been Gordon Freeman’s rise to heroism, but two other survivors weren’t so lucky.ĭeveloped by Gearbox (yep, of future Borderlands fame), each expansion explores a wildly different take on the Black Mesa incident. It’s rare for a game to explore what that feels like, but Half-Life’s PC expansions, Blue Shift and Opposing Force, offered two wildly different perspectives. They just want to end their shift and go home, but here they are stuck in the middle of a life-altering scenario as some player rips through the world, blasting zombie-aliens from who knows where. ![]()
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