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

  • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    8 days ago

    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.

      • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        7 days ago

        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.

        • Lawnman23@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          7 days ago

          I experienced it back in 2001 after installing BS from CD. It was cool because it was amazeballs for the time. Looking back on it from present it probably seems lackluster comparatively to what people think HD should mean.

          Like a lot of games, unless you lived through the launches and hype at the time, it’s hard to understand the reality of it all. So many wonderful gaming memories from the 90’s and 00’s…