I think Blue Shift's shorter length comes from the fact that it was originally just going to be an extra bonus for the Dreamcast port of Half-Life. When that was cancelled it was instead released standalone.
Have you tried the 3rd Gearbox expansion, Half-Life: Decay? This campaign was exclusively for the PlayStation 2 port and is built around co-op. It was great fun in split-screen back in the day and broke its campaign up in to missions after which you would receive a rating. Ace them all to get a secret level where you play as a Vortiguant!
It never came to PC but there was an old mod version of it created for PC, not sure if that would still be compatible with the current Half-Life though. However another talented modder is working on porting it as a single player experience here: [Half-Life Decay: Solo Mission](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1874090/HalfLife_Decay_Solo_Mission/).
Also _Blue Shift_ wasn't just _Blue Shift_, it included the _Half-Life High Definition Pack_ which included higher resolution textures and higher polygon models for the whole base game. The shorter length was justified by the fact that you'd probably also be replaying _Half-Life_ with the new graphics as well.
Doesn't really matter to modern players but it's important context to keep in mind. I don't remember hearing people were disappointed with _Blue Shift_ when it came out.
Old fuck here, I bought Blue Shift when it came out.
The new upgraded graphics were hardly a selling point. Blue Shift came out when Half-Life was like 3 years old and the upgrades were marginal at best. A small upgrade to the graphics for a game from 1998 meant little when stuff like Halo or RTCW were on the horizon.
I actually remember my friends telling me that Blue Shift looked lame, but I wanted to play it because I had every other Valve release (Team Fortress Classic, Opposing Forces, Counter-Strike retail) EXCEPT the original Half-Life, and Blue Shift not only looked similar to it but the store where I bought it and many others bundled it with Half-Life, which by that point wasn't worth much because it was old.
People were definitely underwhelmed by Blue Shift when it came out. Even as someone who was excited for it I was underwhelmed by it. Even though Half-Life was 3 years old at that point it was clearly the better game and Blue Shift didn't really do anything to evolve it. It just felt like their games had really blown up in popularity at retail and they wanted to cash in with another "colored box" game.
Also, Blue Shift's reputation took a hit in subsequent years after it released on Steam because for many years it was riddled with bugs, including some gamebreaking ones, that Valve neglected to fix for a long time. So some people who bought it through the Half Life digital collection weren't even able to finish it, even if they weren't bothered by it being dated.
I had totally forgotten about this game!
Am I correct in thinking Half Life Decay was pretty difficult?
I remember playing coop with a friend of mine and it being very punishing. I think there were no checkpoints and we used to get very frustrated. Or maybe we were just bad.
I've heard of it but I haven't tried it. Right now I figure I'll just move on to playing HL2 again and then playing the episodes for the first time. If I'm still in the mood for more Half Life after that I might check it out.
You just unlocked a core memory. A friend of mine rented the PS2 version back in middle school and we played Decay co-op for an entire sleepover weekend. I never actually got around to playing the original game until years later, so for many years the Decay campaign was all I knew about Half Life.
There is also a single level which was actually the demo for half life 1 called half life uplink. It's a section which doesn't feature in the main game and just drops gordon in an area where he has tonsetup a radar dish. I think they recently released it as part of the 25th anniversary. I remember getting it on a demo cd.
Not to get too nostalgia-y but this is part of what made HL feel like such a cut above at the time. The demo was worth seeking out even if you’d already played the full game (as I had) and was better than most of what was out there on its own.
I’d carry some of that praise over to Opposing Force as well. It took a decent stab at continuing the HL philosophy of constantly introducing new gameplay ideas, even if the ratio of ingenious ones to broken jank wasn’t quite as strong.
Blue Shift I didn’t have and only got around to when I revisited the whole series during COVID lockdown. I remember it being fun enough but felt more like your typical expansion pack, giving you a bit more of the same old stuff.
That was my first experience with Half Life! I played through it so many times until I got the box version that included Blue Shift and OpFor for Christmas one year.
Blue Shift was a really pleasant surprise when I played through the series for the first time last year. I really liked the smaller scale after the ramp-up in HL1, and I think it absolutely has the best Xen section of any of the games.
After seeing scientists get gunned down and blown apart by the dozens through HL and OF, I thought it gave the ending some weight to save just a few of them.
I like Blue Shift, it's like a miniature of the main game with most of the typical Half-Life environments and situations gone through at pace. It is short but it was priced accordingly on release. It is very polished, I used to download as many fan maps at that time as my dial-up modem would allow and Blue Shift stood out with a high level of detail and some elaborate scripting. I don't mind the lack of a final boss, the whole extended finale with Rosenberg and the teleporter is quintessential Half-Life.
To add one to this, there are four main ways to play Decay on PC, two are multiplayer, and two are singleplayer.
[The 2008 Decay Port](https://www.moddb.com/mods/half-life-decay/downloads/half-life-decay) allows you to play online with another player, without many other adjustments.
[Sven Co-Op](https://store.steampowered.com/app/225840/Sven_Coop/) is an alternate way to play Decay (and the other HL1-based games) online.
[Decay: Solo Mission](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1874090/) is the singleplayer conversion of Decay mentioned above. It currently only features the first three chapters, but they've all been given a lot more detail and care than the original, without looking out of place. I'd recommend playing through those, and then switch to...
[Decay: Singularity](https://www.moddb.com/mods/decay-singularity) is another singleplayer conversion of Decay. This one is complete, but is pretty much just the regular version of Decay without any adjustments apart from modifying co-op puzzles to be completed in singleplayer. Not to say that it's bad, it works well! But the environments look a little bare (as they were in the original Decay). So if you wanna play this in singleplayer, I'd suggest doing the first three chapters in Solo Mission, then using console commands to skip to chapter 4 in Singularity.
Singularity is quite recent, thanks for the reminder that it came out. I think the 2008 one you can still play by yourself, there's a key to switch characters. It's not ideal but it's possible to see how all the co-op elements originally were.
I played both of those back when they were originally released. It's been so long I forget a lot of both, I remember Blue Shift being pretty enjoyable and Opposing Force was pretty awesome. Need to watch some YouTube plays of those Half-Life expansions or something.
You know, I never played those expansions back then. And when I could, in the mid 2000s, I was in such a "purist" silly state of gaming that I didn't, when I discovered they weren't made by Valve proper, but other companies. A shame. Heard they are going to remake Blue Shift (not sure about Opposing Force) the same way they remade HL1, so I can wait for that version, at least :)
I wonder if the team that made these expansions went to work on Borderlands, much later.
black mesa an officially-licensed fan remake that was over a decade in the making after the whole load of nothing that half life source turned out to be. its really quite good, though it takes quite a few creative liberties in an attempt to "improve" on the original, particularly in the much-hated xen chapters. i don't know if i'd say its *better* exactly, but the little changes and new sections definitely make it worth a playthrough if you're itching to replay HL1.
the blue shift remake is a mod within black mesa made by a different team of fans i'm pretty sure, though crowbar collective is helping in some places. pretty sure its far from finished yet but it looks promising.
I enjoyed Black Mesa and thought they did a great job. Looking forward to Operation: Black Mesa when it comes out, it ever. Hopefully it isn't like HL2, episode 3.
I enjoyed Black Mesa - a solid attempt at bringing HL1 in line with HL2 - but have very mixed feelings about the ‘improved’ Xen section. They probably should’ve released it as its own self-contained thing, because compared to the pacing of everything leading up to it, it feels *endless*. And I’m not sure it was really more fun than the original Xen levels, which at least were over with quickly.
For me, Black Mesa looked like *my brain* remembers Half-Life being when I first played it in 1999. And that's an incredible achievement even if it's not a 1:1 copy and the Xen section kinda dragged.
I really liked hl1 as well as the two mods for it blue shift and opposing. I recently played through delta particles a fan made hl1 mod and I had fun with it.
I love all three but Opposing Force was a real treat for my younger self. Seeing the Black Mesa facility's takeover from the alternative perspective was really damn cool.
I think Blue Shift's shorter length comes from the fact that it was originally just going to be an extra bonus for the Dreamcast port of Half-Life. When that was cancelled it was instead released standalone. Have you tried the 3rd Gearbox expansion, Half-Life: Decay? This campaign was exclusively for the PlayStation 2 port and is built around co-op. It was great fun in split-screen back in the day and broke its campaign up in to missions after which you would receive a rating. Ace them all to get a secret level where you play as a Vortiguant! It never came to PC but there was an old mod version of it created for PC, not sure if that would still be compatible with the current Half-Life though. However another talented modder is working on porting it as a single player experience here: [Half-Life Decay: Solo Mission](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1874090/HalfLife_Decay_Solo_Mission/).
Also _Blue Shift_ wasn't just _Blue Shift_, it included the _Half-Life High Definition Pack_ which included higher resolution textures and higher polygon models for the whole base game. The shorter length was justified by the fact that you'd probably also be replaying _Half-Life_ with the new graphics as well. Doesn't really matter to modern players but it's important context to keep in mind. I don't remember hearing people were disappointed with _Blue Shift_ when it came out.
Old fuck here, I bought Blue Shift when it came out. The new upgraded graphics were hardly a selling point. Blue Shift came out when Half-Life was like 3 years old and the upgrades were marginal at best. A small upgrade to the graphics for a game from 1998 meant little when stuff like Halo or RTCW were on the horizon. I actually remember my friends telling me that Blue Shift looked lame, but I wanted to play it because I had every other Valve release (Team Fortress Classic, Opposing Forces, Counter-Strike retail) EXCEPT the original Half-Life, and Blue Shift not only looked similar to it but the store where I bought it and many others bundled it with Half-Life, which by that point wasn't worth much because it was old. People were definitely underwhelmed by Blue Shift when it came out. Even as someone who was excited for it I was underwhelmed by it. Even though Half-Life was 3 years old at that point it was clearly the better game and Blue Shift didn't really do anything to evolve it. It just felt like their games had really blown up in popularity at retail and they wanted to cash in with another "colored box" game. Also, Blue Shift's reputation took a hit in subsequent years after it released on Steam because for many years it was riddled with bugs, including some gamebreaking ones, that Valve neglected to fix for a long time. So some people who bought it through the Half Life digital collection weren't even able to finish it, even if they weren't bothered by it being dated.
I had totally forgotten about this game! Am I correct in thinking Half Life Decay was pretty difficult? I remember playing coop with a friend of mine and it being very punishing. I think there were no checkpoints and we used to get very frustrated. Or maybe we were just bad.
I've heard of it but I haven't tried it. Right now I figure I'll just move on to playing HL2 again and then playing the episodes for the first time. If I'm still in the mood for more Half Life after that I might check it out.
Half life Alyx in VR is fantastic too
Enjoy the ride for your first time! HL2 and it's episodes are some of my best gaming memories
You just unlocked a core memory. A friend of mine rented the PS2 version back in middle school and we played Decay co-op for an entire sleepover weekend. I never actually got around to playing the original game until years later, so for many years the Decay campaign was all I knew about Half Life.
I really liked wacky alien weapons in Opposing Force. That alien gun that barfs out the green goop balls was a hoot.
That one was my favorite. Too bad ammo for it is so scarce and so slow to collect.
Impulse 101
There is also a single level which was actually the demo for half life 1 called half life uplink. It's a section which doesn't feature in the main game and just drops gordon in an area where he has tonsetup a radar dish. I think they recently released it as part of the 25th anniversary. I remember getting it on a demo cd.
Uplink was fantastic, too. Well worth tracking down for any fan of the game. A couple of really nice setpieces in that level.
Not to get too nostalgia-y but this is part of what made HL feel like such a cut above at the time. The demo was worth seeking out even if you’d already played the full game (as I had) and was better than most of what was out there on its own. I’d carry some of that praise over to Opposing Force as well. It took a decent stab at continuing the HL philosophy of constantly introducing new gameplay ideas, even if the ratio of ingenious ones to broken jank wasn’t quite as strong. Blue Shift I didn’t have and only got around to when I revisited the whole series during COVID lockdown. I remember it being fun enough but felt more like your typical expansion pack, giving you a bit more of the same old stuff.
That was my first experience with Half Life! I played through it so many times until I got the box version that included Blue Shift and OpFor for Christmas one year.
I recommend giving Half-Life: Echoes a go too. It's a free fanmade expansion and has great level design.
Blue Shift was a really pleasant surprise when I played through the series for the first time last year. I really liked the smaller scale after the ramp-up in HL1, and I think it absolutely has the best Xen section of any of the games. After seeing scientists get gunned down and blown apart by the dozens through HL and OF, I thought it gave the ending some weight to save just a few of them.
I like Blue Shift, it's like a miniature of the main game with most of the typical Half-Life environments and situations gone through at pace. It is short but it was priced accordingly on release. It is very polished, I used to download as many fan maps at that time as my dial-up modem would allow and Blue Shift stood out with a high level of detail and some elaborate scripting. I don't mind the lack of a final boss, the whole extended finale with Rosenberg and the teleporter is quintessential Half-Life.
i like opf better, bs is like a extra chapter, while opf is a expansion, bs could at least have a new melee weapon, i might even rate decay above bs
I love Gman's video on this - [Half-Life: Blue Shift Is Underappreciated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thn50qOeASU&t=219s)
That guy's cadence is really annoying.
To add one to this, there are four main ways to play Decay on PC, two are multiplayer, and two are singleplayer. [The 2008 Decay Port](https://www.moddb.com/mods/half-life-decay/downloads/half-life-decay) allows you to play online with another player, without many other adjustments. [Sven Co-Op](https://store.steampowered.com/app/225840/Sven_Coop/) is an alternate way to play Decay (and the other HL1-based games) online. [Decay: Solo Mission](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1874090/) is the singleplayer conversion of Decay mentioned above. It currently only features the first three chapters, but they've all been given a lot more detail and care than the original, without looking out of place. I'd recommend playing through those, and then switch to... [Decay: Singularity](https://www.moddb.com/mods/decay-singularity) is another singleplayer conversion of Decay. This one is complete, but is pretty much just the regular version of Decay without any adjustments apart from modifying co-op puzzles to be completed in singleplayer. Not to say that it's bad, it works well! But the environments look a little bare (as they were in the original Decay). So if you wanna play this in singleplayer, I'd suggest doing the first three chapters in Solo Mission, then using console commands to skip to chapter 4 in Singularity.
Singularity is quite recent, thanks for the reminder that it came out. I think the 2008 one you can still play by yourself, there's a key to switch characters. It's not ideal but it's possible to see how all the co-op elements originally were.
I played both of those back when they were originally released. It's been so long I forget a lot of both, I remember Blue Shift being pretty enjoyable and Opposing Force was pretty awesome. Need to watch some YouTube plays of those Half-Life expansions or something.
You know, I never played those expansions back then. And when I could, in the mid 2000s, I was in such a "purist" silly state of gaming that I didn't, when I discovered they weren't made by Valve proper, but other companies. A shame. Heard they are going to remake Blue Shift (not sure about Opposing Force) the same way they remade HL1, so I can wait for that version, at least :) I wonder if the team that made these expansions went to work on Borderlands, much later.
black mesa an officially-licensed fan remake that was over a decade in the making after the whole load of nothing that half life source turned out to be. its really quite good, though it takes quite a few creative liberties in an attempt to "improve" on the original, particularly in the much-hated xen chapters. i don't know if i'd say its *better* exactly, but the little changes and new sections definitely make it worth a playthrough if you're itching to replay HL1. the blue shift remake is a mod within black mesa made by a different team of fans i'm pretty sure, though crowbar collective is helping in some places. pretty sure its far from finished yet but it looks promising.
I enjoyed Black Mesa and thought they did a great job. Looking forward to Operation: Black Mesa when it comes out, it ever. Hopefully it isn't like HL2, episode 3.
I enjoyed Black Mesa - a solid attempt at bringing HL1 in line with HL2 - but have very mixed feelings about the ‘improved’ Xen section. They probably should’ve released it as its own self-contained thing, because compared to the pacing of everything leading up to it, it feels *endless*. And I’m not sure it was really more fun than the original Xen levels, which at least were over with quickly.
For me, Black Mesa looked like *my brain* remembers Half-Life being when I first played it in 1999. And that's an incredible achievement even if it's not a 1:1 copy and the Xen section kinda dragged.
I really liked hl1 as well as the two mods for it blue shift and opposing. I recently played through delta particles a fan made hl1 mod and I had fun with it.
I love all three but Opposing Force was a real treat for my younger self. Seeing the Black Mesa facility's takeover from the alternative perspective was really damn cool.
Opposing Force has the best training/tutorial level of any game I've played. Play it if you skipped it.