Unlike Blue Shift, Half-Life: Opposing Force is an innovative expansion that adds new ideas and weapons to the world of Half-Life. The story of Opposing Force adds a great new perspective to what happened in Black Mesa and makes you go through many different areas of the facility that are completely new and exclusive to this expansion. The new enemies and weapons are also interesting and add to the experience. Even the boss fights are fun which is something the original Half-Life struggled with. Definitely give this expansion a chance if you want more Half-Life gameplay.

Opposing Force with it's design reminded me of the Half Life 1 original Xen chapters design, it's not really good impression.

The premise of the expansion is interesting - we are playing as soldiers that covered up Black Mesa incident (well with exception that our squad still haven't recieved orders) and it's actually pretty cool premise. We play as colonel Shephard and the expansion starts with our plane crash landing into the facility and most of the squad dying.

This is of course Half Life, one of the best shooters, so it should play pretty well, right? Well, shooting is one part, because it needs to be supported by: enemies, level design and guns.
Guns are not really bad, some new additions are pretty fun, like: LMG, Sniper Rifle, Alien rocket launcher, Recharging electric eel and literally BFG. And they are all good with only one exception, but we will put pin in that as it's not really used in combat.
Enemies and Level Design is a mixed bag. Enviorment in this expansion is some of the best to look at, as it expands the facility in interesting ways, but most of the time the enviorments feel neither like realistic laboratory complex or enviorment that supposed to enhance moment to moment gameplay. Classic enemies that come from original half life are as fun to fight as ever, but new ones... aren't.

Most new enemies are annoying, with cheap damage and they are not supported with the poor level design, either areas are just corridors, labyrinth corridors or big open space, with minimal or no cover, or very prominent chokepoint; with very sparse health/armor pick ups which reminded me of the weakest aspect of Half Life 1

Some enviormental progression were obtusely communicated multiple times, especially the "barnicle gun" (remember that pin) and it's use for the enviormental traversal - I literally had to guess that alien sacks were also grapple points I could zip line into, as it was either not communicated, or it was very poorly communicated. I had numorous encounters with soft locks, that made progress nigh impossible - I had to use noclip to either know were to go, unstuck myself from elevators, get up to the intended vent that was too high to climb into, I died because of some hurt trigger with large damage that was on the floor.

Final boss was just annoying. No further comment on it.

Overall I never expected to dislike anything Half-Life, but Opposing Force just is the game I mildly dislike. While it is a well done product at the end of the day (despite my expierience with bugs), first ever game from Gearbox devs, which did pretty good job - I just prefer Blue Shift and other HL games. I am just a minority in that opinion because I see that most people really like Opposing Force, so still, give it a try if you haven't, it's usually very cheap so what it hurts, at least it's not bad.

Half-Life: Opposing Force é uma das DLCs do famoso Half-Life. Dessa vez, acompanhamos Shephard, um soldado das forças especiais dos EUA, que invade as instalações BLACK MESA durante seu blecaute, em busca de Gordon Freeman. Dessa vez temos o ponto de vista de um grupo de inimigos do jogo base, por isso, força opositora é o nome dele.

A gameplay é a mesma de Half-Life, apesar de termos ali algumas mecânicas novas, além de alguns inimigos novos também. Temos, em alguns trechos, companions, e também passamos por partes da história de Freeman, que acontece enquanto o jogo ocorre.

O enredo é bom, mas acontece algo no final que foi deixado de lado pela Valve até hoje, simplesmente ignoraram essa dlc.

Em suma, vale a pena jogar.

Quando comprei e joguei a saga Half-Life, as suas duas expansões não estavam em promoção e ficaram de fora do pacote. Me tornei fã da franquia, mas essas duas importantes peças ficaram pra trás. Hora de tirar o atraso.

Essa expansão passa 100% daquela sensação de segunda campanha após zerar um jogo, também lembrando algo como a escolha entre heróis e vilões em Sonic Adventure 2.
Mais inimigos, mais armas, história paralela, duração menor e qualidade também. É bem típico desse costume que se perdeu no tempo.

O seu ritmo acelerado mostra que mesmo que seja seu primeiro jogo, a Gearbox percebeu que o clássico tinha uns problemas de ritmo e não deixou a peteca cair em nenhum momento. Só que acabou não sabendo bem quando sacar cada peteca, visto que os elementos novos, apesar de bons, são introduzidos e explorados irregularmente durante a duração da campanha, nunca dando tempo suficiente pra todas as armas e companheiros brilharem com seus novos usos, e metendo inimigos e mais inimigos difíceis sem pausa nas partes finais.

Pior do que ficar sem saber o que aconteceu com Sheppard, só o esquema de mudança de armas dessa franquia.

PS: Ao procurar legendas e perceber a inexistência delas, me deparei com um mod de dublagem que parecia bem competente. Eu nunca baixei esse tipo de coisa mesmo já tendo visto outras vezes, mas pensei "Quer saber? Vamo ver se é bom" e não me arrependo nem um pouco. Parabéns pra esses caras!

replayed after thinking about it after getting to xen in black mesa, and man people forget to talk about the tone in original half life being somewhat comedic and the artstyle being more cartoony, which gearbox saw in hl1 and crowbar collective did not. but yeah, most of the game feels like more hl1, a lot of the combat encounters feel more clunky than hl1, same with navigation sometimes (i didn't have much issue since im replaying), and while I do like most of the new weapons (that big machine gun is great I want more games to have guns that make me think im physically vibrating (like halo 1 ar)), but there are just too many weapons and pressing the button 3 times to get to my weapon is really slow in the fast paced combat. hate the sewer, actually really liked the story elements, with the stuff connecting back to hl1 being really cool and how g-man is manipulating your playthrough and creating the reality whatever he wants (or is paid to?) and the end he chocks it up to shepard "adapt[ing] and survive[ing] against all odds", and then g-man just leaves him alone in space just be used as a pawn later. i was too hard on this, thanks gearbox

Out of the 2 HL1 expansions, this one is the clear better one. In fact I was actually enjoying this more than the main game... But then the 3rd act came and it was so jam packed full of bullshit moments and enemies, I had to take an entire point off. Get those save/load keys ready, may even have to dabble into Sv_cheats 1 every now and then.

Other than that complaint, I really liked the campaign. I love the new alien weapons included in this expansion and the puzzles are pretty fun too. The weapons in the first 2 acts feel very balanced, and level design is great. A lot of platforming sections here which aren't bad. I just wish the 3rd act was more like the first 2.

Still I highly recommend this if you are a fan of the original HL1.