awful
he's not a vending machine guy he's a security guard
beer
Gonna be honest, this is probably my favorite expansion from Half-Life and I think it is better then Half-Life 1. Well it's not as long as Opposing Force or as Original as Half-Life. I still found myself enjoying this game more then the other 2 because it has less Bull Shit or moments that made me turn off the game in frustration. While it wasn't amazing, I'd still had a pleasant time with this game, it was like a stroll in the park.
A really short expansion for if you want a little more Half-Life, and not much more than that. Still Half-Life tho
A short side story expansion that happens during the Black Mesa incident where you play as a security staff. Doesn't add anything interesting, it's basically a bare bones level pack for half life 1. Only recommend if you really want more of the Black Mesa setting.
Bit of a waste of time imo coolest thing is to see other parts of black mesa
This review contains spoilers
Great but very short expansion for Half-Life.
I loved the second expansion, Half-Life: Blue Shift for the Half-Life series. It puts the player, once again, in a new perspective of the story, this time as a security guard at the Black Mesa facility. It got enhanced graphics, another piece of the plot and a fresh new experience.
In this game, you play as the Barney Calhoun, a security guard for the Black Mesa facility. You ride the train to work, just like Gordon Freeman in the original game, and are sent to inspect a broken elevator with the mechanics. When inspecting, the elevator goes haywire and plummets to the bottom of the complex, with you inside it.
You try to find your way back to the surface and suddenly hear the HECU forces attacking the facility. When arriving to the classification yard, you meet Dr. Rosenberg and his colleagues, who want to escape the facility using new teleporter technology. They sent you to a location from where you must find a pinpoint research device thingy so a teleport outside the Black Mesa facility can be made possible.
You are searching for power cells to power up the teleporter device, while fighting Xen aliens and HECU forces. You make it back to Rosenberg and his buddies and they teleport themselves to safety. Just when Barney wants to enter the teleporter himself, the door is breached and HECU is entering the room, firing immediately on you. The teleporter explodes and you enter a state of “Harmonic reflux” in which you get sent all over the place, including the Xen world, Black Mesa locations and, the location where you see Gordon Freeman getting captured by HECU. Eventually, the teleporter gets stable again and you are teleported to the location of the escaped scientists. You than enter a SUV and call it a day.
For some reason, Valve decided to enhance the graphics in this expansion. It looks beautiful and almost look like a HD remake of the original game. The weapon detail, the facial features of NPC’s, it is all really good. The animations and effects are also spot on. That came out of the blue (pun intended).
Sound and control wise, the game still uses the same scheme from the original Half-Life game. In terms of weapons, it is just a small selection of weapons used in the original Half-Life game. All the fancy weapons from Half-Life: Opposing Force are not present sadly.
The only downside to Half-Life: Blue Shift is, like mentioned before, its length. This game can be completed in less than four hours. It really felt like just another two levels. It is a shame really, considering the beautiful new look of the game. This expansion does also not add anything in terms of multiplayer.
Even so, Half-Life Blue shift is still a great expansion and gives you a nice little story from yet another perspective.
Definitely recommend it.
I loved the second expansion, Half-Life: Blue Shift for the Half-Life series. It puts the player, once again, in a new perspective of the story, this time as a security guard at the Black Mesa facility. It got enhanced graphics, another piece of the plot and a fresh new experience.
In this game, you play as the Barney Calhoun, a security guard for the Black Mesa facility. You ride the train to work, just like Gordon Freeman in the original game, and are sent to inspect a broken elevator with the mechanics. When inspecting, the elevator goes haywire and plummets to the bottom of the complex, with you inside it.
You try to find your way back to the surface and suddenly hear the HECU forces attacking the facility. When arriving to the classification yard, you meet Dr. Rosenberg and his colleagues, who want to escape the facility using new teleporter technology. They sent you to a location from where you must find a pinpoint research device thingy so a teleport outside the Black Mesa facility can be made possible.
You are searching for power cells to power up the teleporter device, while fighting Xen aliens and HECU forces. You make it back to Rosenberg and his buddies and they teleport themselves to safety. Just when Barney wants to enter the teleporter himself, the door is breached and HECU is entering the room, firing immediately on you. The teleporter explodes and you enter a state of “Harmonic reflux” in which you get sent all over the place, including the Xen world, Black Mesa locations and, the location where you see Gordon Freeman getting captured by HECU. Eventually, the teleporter gets stable again and you are teleported to the location of the escaped scientists. You than enter a SUV and call it a day.
For some reason, Valve decided to enhance the graphics in this expansion. It looks beautiful and almost look like a HD remake of the original game. The weapon detail, the facial features of NPC’s, it is all really good. The animations and effects are also spot on. That came out of the blue (pun intended).
Sound and control wise, the game still uses the same scheme from the original Half-Life game. In terms of weapons, it is just a small selection of weapons used in the original Half-Life game. All the fancy weapons from Half-Life: Opposing Force are not present sadly.
The only downside to Half-Life: Blue Shift is, like mentioned before, its length. This game can be completed in less than four hours. It really felt like just another two levels. It is a shame really, considering the beautiful new look of the game. This expansion does also not add anything in terms of multiplayer.
Even so, Half-Life Blue shift is still a great expansion and gives you a nice little story from yet another perspective.
Definitely recommend it.
Half-Life: Blue Shift, as a stand alone DLC is good. Yes it has some weird differences from the first game, yes its short, and yet I still really enjoyed what I played. Nothing that it did "worse" then the base game and opposing force felt bad enough to ruin the experience of the story as a whole. I did also like the additions of more useful NPC dialog and how such was used to inform the player of what to do and where to go. Overall, while not as good as opposing force, blue shift does still feel really good, and deserving of its place of DLC to one of the greatest games ever.
Mediocre expansion, but the box is still cool
It's odd...
originally purposed for an exclusive add-on for the dreamcast port of Half-Life 1, Blue Shift was later repurposed for DLC for Half-Life. Releasing in 2001, two years after the first expansion, Opposing Force.
Blue Shift is the shortest of the Black Mesa stories, taking a whopping 3 hours. Though it could take less than that, It only took me that long because I suck at FPS' and the final puzzle took me longer than I had hoped. That being said, it's short.
In some ways, it's a meaningful add-on to the world of Half-Life. The intro portion helps sell Black Mesa as a real location. With things like basketball courts, food courts, a shooting range. It revisits what the Black Mesa disaster means and how tragic of an event it is. How you see Gordon casually twice. I always appreciate when entertainment shows us the movements of the heroes from the outsider observing them. It paints them as human because, despite his feats, that's all he is. Gordon is just the right man in the wrong place.
On the other hand, it's very stagnant. The storyline of Blue Shift ends before the finale of Half-Life, whereas Opposing Force went on past the story, giving it a much more depthful approach to the game and new ideas. As extra content, Blue Shift plays it overly safe. It doesn't take any risks, it doesn't try to deviate from the first Half-Life in gameplay or overall experience in nearly any way. Coupled with the fact that the level design, despite being fine, is also forgettable.
Of course you don't need to shove a million new weapons in my face. Though something to feed that craving for something fresh would have been the move.
Something else I don't get, lore-wise, is why Barney is the face of this expansion. This goes along with another point I have is that the game is way too easy on medium difficulty. Lore-wise, I don't know if Barney is jacked the frick up or what, but he's able to mow down soldiers like it's nothing. Multiple groups of soldiers are just ready for you to tear apart. This guy is a security guard and frankly, I'd be wondering what he's doing as an 8-5/5 says and sometimes the weekend guard for Black Mesa. The game gives you a ton of gear at a ton of points. Even for a wasteful player such as myself, who often (accidentally) prefers placing bullets into the walls instead of their skulls, I found it overbearing. Now while healing is scarce, you're never too bad, multiple points had me low and doing fine, I just had to lock in. It just feels wrong to struggle so much as the guys who were trained in every muscle vs "Yeah I think I visited the range last week."
I know it's somewhat minute, but I want to bring it up. I think it would've been worth it to keep combat low, instead focusing on navigating quietly and facing small groups of enemies. Of course, that's just me.
Yes, you should play this, yes it's good. But it could be so much better. Especially when it was released after the great Opposing Force by two years. it was also somewhat buggy on my end; whenever my save was reloaded, it just kept firing until I pressed my mouse.
Anyways, it's a 6/10, it's aight, give it a look. Try playing it before Opposing Force, you may like it better that way, you can't go wrong with it though, it's still Half-Life, just Half-As-Good.
originally purposed for an exclusive add-on for the dreamcast port of Half-Life 1, Blue Shift was later repurposed for DLC for Half-Life. Releasing in 2001, two years after the first expansion, Opposing Force.
Blue Shift is the shortest of the Black Mesa stories, taking a whopping 3 hours. Though it could take less than that, It only took me that long because I suck at FPS' and the final puzzle took me longer than I had hoped. That being said, it's short.
In some ways, it's a meaningful add-on to the world of Half-Life. The intro portion helps sell Black Mesa as a real location. With things like basketball courts, food courts, a shooting range. It revisits what the Black Mesa disaster means and how tragic of an event it is. How you see Gordon casually twice. I always appreciate when entertainment shows us the movements of the heroes from the outsider observing them. It paints them as human because, despite his feats, that's all he is. Gordon is just the right man in the wrong place.
On the other hand, it's very stagnant. The storyline of Blue Shift ends before the finale of Half-Life, whereas Opposing Force went on past the story, giving it a much more depthful approach to the game and new ideas. As extra content, Blue Shift plays it overly safe. It doesn't take any risks, it doesn't try to deviate from the first Half-Life in gameplay or overall experience in nearly any way. Coupled with the fact that the level design, despite being fine, is also forgettable.
Of course you don't need to shove a million new weapons in my face. Though something to feed that craving for something fresh would have been the move.
Something else I don't get, lore-wise, is why Barney is the face of this expansion. This goes along with another point I have is that the game is way too easy on medium difficulty. Lore-wise, I don't know if Barney is jacked the frick up or what, but he's able to mow down soldiers like it's nothing. Multiple groups of soldiers are just ready for you to tear apart. This guy is a security guard and frankly, I'd be wondering what he's doing as an 8-5/5 says and sometimes the weekend guard for Black Mesa. The game gives you a ton of gear at a ton of points. Even for a wasteful player such as myself, who often (accidentally) prefers placing bullets into the walls instead of their skulls, I found it overbearing. Now while healing is scarce, you're never too bad, multiple points had me low and doing fine, I just had to lock in. It just feels wrong to struggle so much as the guys who were trained in every muscle vs "Yeah I think I visited the range last week."
I know it's somewhat minute, but I want to bring it up. I think it would've been worth it to keep combat low, instead focusing on navigating quietly and facing small groups of enemies. Of course, that's just me.
Yes, you should play this, yes it's good. But it could be so much better. Especially when it was released after the great Opposing Force by two years. it was also somewhat buggy on my end; whenever my save was reloaded, it just kept firing until I pressed my mouse.
Anyways, it's a 6/10, it's aight, give it a look. Try playing it before Opposing Force, you may like it better that way, you can't go wrong with it though, it's still Half-Life, just Half-As-Good.
Somewhat a little less beefy than I expected in terms of content, but Blue Shift is indeed simply an expansion to Half-Life, not a full sequel (or side-quel). However, this doesn't stop it from being fairly fun to play; the shooting gameplay has aged well, though I wish I could say the same for the physics-based puzzles. Overall, BS was a refreshing jaunt of an FPS, and the fact that it does not outstay its welcome works more in its favor than against it.
tamanho não é documento
A cool expansion, nothing more.
This expansion suffers from just "more Half-Life" which you would be thinking isn't bad, and couldn't be bad, but Blue Shift does the unthinkable: its just serviceable and nothing more.
I commend Opposing Force for adding more variation on to Half-Life's pillars, but I cannot excuse Blue Shift for doing nothing as impactful and no meaningful replacements for the limited arsenal.
I commend Opposing Force for adding more variation on to Half-Life's pillars, but I cannot excuse Blue Shift for doing nothing as impactful and no meaningful replacements for the limited arsenal.
Easiest of the 3 (will play Decay later when I have friends)
I love you, Barney.
I think this game surpasses the original Half-Life for the fact that you're weak and struggling from start to finish. Which I loved the start of the original game for. It also feels like a horror game from start to finish. Unlike the original and Half-Life Opposing Force, which turn into power fantasies real quick, despite starting impressions.
expansão péssima
Not bad. It doesn't add much new but it's still Half-Life so I won't complain.
It's not bad, not the best thing though. Feel like its a bit overheated but I get it. I think it was pretty simple to get through, my playtime was bloated because I took a nap while the game was open lol.
Ótimo complemento que enriquece a história de Half-Life como um todo. Recomendo para quem curte a franquia.
Barney when beer
Played this before Opposing Force because it's very short. A lot of odd changes to the original like being able to shoot every gun underwater and getting blocked by corpses. There's also shades of Half-Life 2 here, like a greater emphasis on listening to NPCs, and solving puzzles by pushing around barrels to use as platforms. The combat scenarios are much easier since they don't demand any creative thinking at all, I skated through the whole game on really high health and full ammo by just shooting everything I saw.
Blue Shift is yet another expansion of Half-Life. This time around, instead of playing as a HECU soldier you play as the common security seen in the Black Mesa facility, more specifically Barney Calhoun, a character we see around the 10 second mark trying to enter his designed sector in the original Half-Life and then never again. A funnily yet odd choice for a protagonist this time around, seen as how security guards in the game are pretty boring, only really standing in places and being lookouts then always being victim of the Marine invasion onto the facility and dying, and well, it's not like this game makes them any less boring.
This game truly feels like a Half-Life expansion in the way that it is simply more Half-Life. Opposing Force had a lot of things different than the original, new arsenal of weapons, some new mechanics and enemies to take on (and mind you this was two years before Blue Shift released, and one if you take into account this was supposed to be a Dreamcast expansion), yet Blue Shift features little to no different content than the original, making it kind of disappointing to play with the same weapons in a bite-sized version of Half-Life.
But, for what they didn't get to do when it came to new features they doubled in for level design. After three years of GoldSrc being out, I'm guessing the peeps over at Gearbox had a very clear idea of how to use the engine fairly efficiently, and in return we got a very polished and more updated look of the industrial insides of Black Mesa, there's clever puzzling here and there and they accommodate fairly well to the game having you moving NPCs from place to place.
So the game is just like Half-Life but updated and shorter and a bit more boring, what's not to like.
This game truly feels like a Half-Life expansion in the way that it is simply more Half-Life. Opposing Force had a lot of things different than the original, new arsenal of weapons, some new mechanics and enemies to take on (and mind you this was two years before Blue Shift released, and one if you take into account this was supposed to be a Dreamcast expansion), yet Blue Shift features little to no different content than the original, making it kind of disappointing to play with the same weapons in a bite-sized version of Half-Life.
But, for what they didn't get to do when it came to new features they doubled in for level design. After three years of GoldSrc being out, I'm guessing the peeps over at Gearbox had a very clear idea of how to use the engine fairly efficiently, and in return we got a very polished and more updated look of the industrial insides of Black Mesa, there's clever puzzling here and there and they accommodate fairly well to the game having you moving NPCs from place to place.
So the game is just like Half-Life but updated and shorter and a bit more boring, what's not to like.
Yes, it meant for the Dreamcast, and it shows at times. But in spite of what Half-Life: Blue Shift had going against it, the expansion still came out. And even if it's the "weakest" of the Gearbox Half-Life expansions in comparison to Opposing Force & Decay, Blue Shift still performs exceptionally well as a middle-of-the-road puzzle shooter and is far from the "worst" thing to have the Half-Life name attached to it.
It's fine but nothing new
I kinda like the old black mesa setting at points and I like how the small xen section feels like it inspired what would come in Black Mesa's version of it w the random machinery and survey teams and shit but other then that its kinda just boring. The combat especially really feels like it was made for controllers because they don't pose much of a challenge at all. Harmless if you wanna play it but I still don't blame anyone for skipping.
I kinda like the old black mesa setting at points and I like how the small xen section feels like it inspired what would come in Black Mesa's version of it w the random machinery and survey teams and shit but other then that its kinda just boring. The combat especially really feels like it was made for controllers because they don't pose much of a challenge at all. Harmless if you wanna play it but I still don't blame anyone for skipping.
I didn't really care for the overall story of Half-Life. Having said that, this expansion is almost as good as the base game. It weirdly has some minor issues that weren't present in the original. It doesn't overstays its welcome, something I cannot say about most FPS games. So yeah, hard recommend.
Good expansion, liked it more than opposing force
mid