I only recently finished black mesa and then HL 2, and just finished episode 1 last night I will start episode 2 soon. I’m loving it . it is much more enjoyable and engaging than so many games today.
I plan to give the others a go once I finish episode 2.
HL Alyx has me wanting to get a VR kit just to play that. Maybe in a few years.
I played it and Blue Shift way back when. I don’t have a lot of specific memories of the levels or story. At the time I was just happy to have more Half-Life to play, and I enjoyed it.
I played all three back in the day. They were all good. Blue Shift wasn’t as engaging as the first two, as I recall. I still have it on the shelf, I’ll play it again and see.
That aside, I remember back in the day that Op4 received a lot of praise from fans, while Blue Shift was considered by many to be underwhelming. I love them both, but I always thought Blue Shift was the better game. Op4 might be longer and more full of new content, but it’s also all kind of thrown together, playing very loose with the universe. Blue Shift was, by comparison, short, clean, well told, and nailed the setting and gameplay. To me it feels like a very Half-Life game, whereas Op4 feels more like fanfic, like the most impressive single player Half-Life mod ever made.
Which feels a little wild to someone who was “there at the time.” Op For was the one that got the praise at the time for having the cool new weapons and interesting new enemies and such, Blue Shift had normal Half Life weapons, basic armor pickups and I guess some cool level design. Plus I think there’s still backlash against the HD models that came with Blue Shift.
I think it got easier to dismiss the Gearbox expansion packs as non-canon when basically the only thing they kept from them was Barney’s last name.
It may be The Algorithm reacting to my search history but when it shows me Half-Life content it’s often centered around Half-Life 2 or Portal. I don’t get “Cut unreleased content from an old build of Opposing Force.”
I think one thing that might be a factor is, Op For and Blue Shift don’t pose more questions than they answer. Half-Life still has some mystery to it, there’s a lot of intrigue to it, people want to know more about the setting.
Tangentially related note: I had an idea for a video game but no one will ever make it. You almost have to glom onto an existing project. Imagine a normal open world sandbox game like GTA 4 or something, and the normal game is there, but if you pay close attention some of the NPCs are a little weird, and if you follow them there’s a WHOLE OTHER, BIGGER STORY.
Problem with that is you have to make an entire game to hide the “real” game in, and what you want to bet it would be found by people going through the game files rather than playing.
That was definitely a bold design decision, but I’m glad it paid off for Gearbox. Never before had I played a first person shooter from the perspective of an underpaid pumpkin.
I replayed it on Deck a month or two back… And then Blue Shift. Still in my library from when I bought the Orange Box pre steam and then eventually registered it with my steam account
I actually liked Opposing Force and Blue Shift better than HL1 back when they were still new. Recently I thought I would play through them all again, but I only made it a little way into the original before I quit. Going back to old mechanics is not generally enjoyable for me. Or maybe I should have just skipped HL1 and gone directly to the ones I liked better. To be fair, I skipped ahead to HL2 and am still struggling to enjoy the dated mechanics.
Dude play Black Mesa! It’s a modern remake of the original Half Life but with a new and improved Xen at the end. I played Opposing Force and Blue Shift back in the day but barely remember them. I’d love to replay those games.
Edit: store.steampowered.com/app/362890/Black_Mesa/ It’s on sale for $5 right now. Also it runs decently in Linux, when I played it would crash every 20 minutes or so in some sections, I think there is/was a memory leak or something.
Aw man, I loved opposing force so much! The idea of having allies (with their own infinite ammo!) to fight for you was everything I had ever wanted in a game.
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