At some point after Half-Life 2 Episode 2 I got the idea to go back and play through the series from the start, including these expansions I never played at the time. This was definitely the most lengthy and different-feeling of them, and I had a pretty good time with it. Seeing the events of HL1 from a different perspective was cool, and I liked that we got some different weapons. Definitely remember getting frustrated by the ceiling hangers with the long rope-tongues that started yanking you up when you touched one though. The ending was also cool as hell

A very nice expansion to Half-Life 1, I like all the new stuff it introduces, that portal gun is quite genius and I really like the Barnacle gun. And the final boss is pretty rad. My biggest problem with the game is, is that around Foxtrot Uniform, the game starts to get unfun hard, where I just ended up switching to Easy through the console command: "skill 1" (2 being normal, 3 being hard). Last boss was giving me a hard time too, until I realized I can use the blue pool there to heal myself, was that ever introduced earlier? Or was I simply meant to walk in and find out? If not introduced earlier, I don't think it's very reasonable to expect the player to try this in a game that expects teaches you things through show and tell but oh well. I also played the Training Course after I beat the game as I also did for Blue Shift and HL1, Boot Camp here, very creative, anyway, only to find out that I have to HOLD E to get health from the medics and not just press it....shit, that would definately make Foxtrot Uniform (F U, get it?) easier....that's my bad I guess lol, with the previous games I didn't needed it and just wanted to see the extra content, why would I suspect I might need it this time?

Version Notes: Steam GoldSrc Version
Mods / Hacks / Fixes: Fixed HUD & Font Sizes

Just like Blue Shift, Opposing Forces is a great expansion to Half Life 1. There's a lot more in this, but I found it to be not as good as Blue Shift in terms of pacing. I found that the squad members you can bring along SUCK at path finding. They would often get stuck or stop following you and I found it extremely annoying. I did like the new variety of weapons that it brings. That was really good. I can see why everyone likes it the most, but I feel that the changed arsenal and the increased playtime more than makes up for the issues I have with it. Overall a great time still, and I very much recommend it, of course that is if you've played Half-Life 1.

I was expecting a bit more from this one. Level design was good but not great by Half-Life standards, and I felt the environmental storytelling was much weaker than the original game. The new alien weapons were cool concepts but didn't add much to the overall experience. The difficulty curve of this game is quite intense, by the end I felt like I was getting spammed with enemies. Don't get me wrong, it was still a fun time with engaging gunplay and great design. I just went in expecting some grade-A Half Life and this felt more like a B-tier spin off.

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 is the very first expansion of three for the original Half-Life. In it, you play as one person from the HECU soldiers that debut in We've Got Hostiles in the original game, as Corporal Adrian Shephard you're also tasked with eliminating any evidence and witnesses of the incident, but Adrian has quite the peculiar journey being mostly encountered with the stealthy Black Ops and later on gargantuan sized aliens, but most importantly is that he crosses paths with the G-Man himself, this one making Adrian be unable to leave the site of the incident. And after he defeats the Gene Worm, Adrian gets sort of cryogenized by G-Man by putting him in some sort of place where he "can't harm or cause harm" which is definitely indicating that he will indeed show up in Episode 3 and we'll all get up from our seats and start clapping like it's an MCU movie.

Now, Opposing Force is a bit on the shorter side, a lot of the chapters don't last that long and there's no real stop for puzzles of any sort except for one roadblock of the likes of Blast Pit and then the final boss. But besides these two there's no real remarkable or iconic parts as much as I can say that about the original game. One thing though, the ambience for it being the earlier Half-Life expansion and all the different places you go to is something that is remarkable in itself since you do visit a lot of places you see in the original and more, you go to Xen for a bit, then an underwater lab, and to Lambda Complex even, and while it's not for long I can appreciate it more than the original wanting to stick to the constant Black Mesa levels and having pretty much only one tone to them all.

In general terms I feel like Opposing Force adds a bunch of things then doesn't give a lot of use to some. Ropes for example make for vertical platforming which is something you don't really see in any other GoldSrc game which is cool, but then you proceed to unlock a billion alien weapons that you never use and that's kind of lame, because I really just couldn't find the use to some that weren't the grappling hook or the bootleg BFG, squad tactics are used in the minimum and there's no elements of stealth or somewhere to which actually use the brand new sniper rifle you get, a lot of these additions feel like Gearbox going "these are the TOP 10 things we wished were in Half-Life" and then actually adding them in.

But besides all that, for a first expansion there's nothing bad with it besides some level design choices and what was mentioned, it does really separate itself from how the original game does things and has a pretty unique military aesthetic to it compared to the more sci-fi esque Half-Life stuff, and seeing how the HECU was reacting at the fact that the government practically sent them to die is a pretty good change of views when you are in Adrian's shoes.

I really want this dude to appear in a new game man he's been in the fridge for too long

(EDIT: Played a bit of the multiplayer for the Opposing The Bar event, and honestly. deathmatch is pretty much the same as normal Half-Life's but the added modes like Control Points or Capture the Flag lack a lot when it comes to maps and just how the modes feel themselves, but that seems to be a problem with most maps included, they aren't really adequate for 32 players and then there's the problem with the weapons I talk about here, so much for so little.)

Half-Life if it was just a 5-hour long enemy spam with no story.

On paper, more Half-Life sounds pretty good, but the execution was poorly done here ending up giving us a constant spam of enemies with a mix of weird escort missions and a story that barely exists with a boss that just comes out of nowhere.

This game recycles most previous areas from Half-Life 1 and gives us new weapons which are just gimmicky extra weapons that don't really do much for me, and new toxic and annoying enemies which I wish never left the idea board.

Overall a somewhat disappointing expansion, but I guess whoever likes dying over and over to annoying enemies will get a kick out of this game.

Somehow better than the base game, Half-Life: Opposing Force is the first expansion made for Half-Life. As you can probably tell from the name of the expansion, you play as the Opposing Force, or rather, initially sent to “silence” Black Mesa, only to get stranded and tangled into the whole mess.

Half-Life: Opposing Force has a lot of stuff that you’d probably wish from an expansion. It features new cool weapons, enemies and mechanics, and it nicely intertwines with original’s story events. I found the level design to be FAR less egregious than the original Half-Life, I actually found some enjoyment in this expansion and overall can recount little BS (then again, I am a serial save-scummer). It’s not perfect of course, some mechanics are kind of underutilized, I thought the ropes would be about as janky as the ladders, but there isn’t much rope climbing to be found in this campaign. You also have two instances where you lead a mechanic teammate to unlock a path forward, and these also double as pace breaks, as sawing the door off takes a lot of time. The teammates aren’t that useful in combat, especially since they’re awfully sensitive to friendly fire. Even slightly tickling them with a corner of the grenade explosion hitbox will make them shoot you, though it’s kind of subtle, as they may face you and only occasionally shoot.

There are a couple level parts I didn’t like. The first one is this overdramatic room with electricity that destroys chunks of the ground. First, it’s just waiting, second, you have to figure out that you just need to stand in this corner and wait for the climb to the top to open. I think this section could’ve been handled more elegantly. Second, is this part. As you can notice, I’m low on health. Generally, while this expansion is challenging for sure, I didn’t find it to be super frustrating. Well, this section sure is, as there are multiple enemies that can shoot you with little wiggle room, so picking them off can be an exercise of frustration. Lastly, how is this wire solid? Again, I think there could’ve been a more sensible solution on crossing to the other side.

Some of the issues from the base game do remain. It doesn’t fix physics, but there aren’t many irritating platforming sections. Ladders on the other hand are still bastards. There are instances where you climb DOWN a ladder from a ledge to progress, as opposed to up, and it just doesn’t work. Did the testers not notice how easy it is to just run off the platform instead of naturally starting climbing the ladder? Remember, the air control is poor, so it can be difficult to go back and catch the ladder.

Otherwise, I don’t have many issues with Half-Life: Opposing Force. For an expansion, it’s really good, and even surpasses the main game in terms of design (for me anyway). The level design is good, the new weapons are all cool, and there’s a lot to be excited about in this venture. Also, you can pet one of the “weapon” creatures in an idle animation, so this expansion instantly gets a 15 out of 5.