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.
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.