I have been really into Half-Life 1 and just recently finished the first 2 expansions.
Opposing force was awesome. I loved all the new weapons. The expanded lore into the kinds of research that Black Mesa was doing was nice. And the HECU squad mates were so much more helpful than the scientists and Barneys.
Blue Shift on the other hand was much shorter and didn’t have any new weapons but it did have a bigger focus on the lore of black mesa and had references to Half-Life, Opposing Force, and even Decay. Dr. Rosenberg did a lot of exposition to explain the lore further as well. Overall it was a good experience with very little downtime compared to Half-Life.
I’ve even started playing Decay now with my 8 year old and we are having a lot of fun with that. Its mission structure compared to the unbroken chapter structure of the rest of the games is quite the difference but it works with the co-op gameplay. We are only about 4 missions in but I look forward to experiencing more of it. Dr Rosenberg is back too so I love that it’s another perspective of the events that happened in the other expansions and base game.
I just wanted share my thoughts and maybe here more of the community thoughts as I just love Half-Life despite never really experiencing it until last year
It was so long ago…
My most prevailing memory of Half Life 2 and the Episodes is loading screens.
I really enjoyed the Minerva mods for hl2, but the same developer made a hl1 map too:
I played Opposing Force back in the day, and I absolute loved it. By far my favorite. Blue shift was fun, but not even close.
Half life 3. It’s like getting a job or having a relationship, no matter what happens I’ll never get it.
Ok fine a serious answer, I would want to play half life Alex but my favorite is just half life 2 as I think It was one of the very first games I ever played that my computer could handle and really really got into.
I liked Blue Shift a little more than Opposing Force, but it’s so short (4 hours!) that it’s hard to believe it got a standalone release.
Blue Shift was originally a bonus campaign for the Dreamcast port of Half-Life, which is why it was so short and didn’t add any new mechanics. When that port was canceled Gearbox turned it into a full paid expansion despite it having a fraction the content of Opposing Force.
But hey, it came with the HD pack…so that was nice.
There’s a weird level of hatred for the HD pack. Almost every video I’ve seen on the expansions shits on it and tells you to disable it in favor of the classic look.
I beat blue shift in just 2 nights and I didn’t really stay up late either so I was surprised when it ended. At least it didn’t linger too long or have a bunch of annoying filler like “On a Rail” but it really felt like it ended in the first act
I liked Blue Shift the most, I just wish it was longer.
I am playing through them now. I liked blue shift, and I’m in Opposing forces now.
Hot take: I wasn’t a huge fan of any of them, especially Opposing Force. The weapon sandbox felt overloaded and gameplay far more frustrating. I have never been able to get anybody into Decay with me, and I don’t really blame them. At least on the original PS2 port, it doesn’t have the polish that the original HL PC version does and its challenges seem to stem more from that than the intended gameplay mechanics. That leaves me with Blue Shift, which I liked the most, but not enough to ever go back and finish in full. Every time I play it, I just go back to the main game.
I agree that Opposing force has so many weapons that quite a few of them don’t get much time to shine. And a lot of them come in the last third of the game. Would have loved more chances to use the sniper and the squid gun.
I think blue shift is my favorite just due to the story but I do have to agree that none of the expansions can compete with the gameplay of the original.
Decay is its own thing. I’ve quite enjoyed almost more as an arcade experience where you can compete for the high score and get some more half life lore than it being its own stand alone thing.
Solid perspective, thanks for sharing
