Half-Life: Blue Shift

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Half-Life: Blue Shift

Half-Life - Blue Shift - W32 - USA.jpg

Windows - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Gearbox Software
Publisher Sierra On-Line, Valve
Published 2001-06-12
Platforms Linux, Macintosh, Windows
Genres Action, First-person shooter, Shooter
Themes Horror, Science Fiction, Suspense
Series Half-Life
Distribution Commercial

Half-Life: Blue Shift is a first-person shooter developed by Gearbox Software and published by Sierra On-Line for Windows on 2001-06-12 and then ported to Macintosh and Linux.

The game is set in the Half-Life universe and the game tells a side-story of what occurred elsewhere in Black Mesa during the events of the first Half-Life game. You play security guard Barney Calhoun who tries to escape from the research facility after the resonance cascade causes it to fall apart.

Personal

Own?Yes. On Steam.
Won?Yes. Medium difficulty. Twice.
Finished2013‎-07-21.

If I recall, I bought a collection of all the original Half-Life games when they were on sale on Steam, but it was only after I had already beaten Half-Life 2. I still enjoyed the game, but I was certainly not as impressed at the lower-quality graphics and weaker physics engine as I would have been if I played it when it was released.

Review

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5 5 4 4 4

Best Version: Windows (not Steam)

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

  • Watching the effects of the resonance cascade through the eyes of the other occupants of Black Mesa is really interesting and gives you a new perspective on the game's story line.
  • Barney's auto-aiming is a nice addition that makes him seem like a more accomplished marksman than Gordon Freeman.
  • There are a couple scripted encounters that showcase how dangerous and ruthless the aliens (and the military) can be.
  • I like the addition of being able to drag and pull boxes and barrels to solve puzzles.
  • The section Power Struggle has a couple clever puzzles (but also some dead ends that confuse the player).
  • Most of the good points from the original Half-Life hold true with this game.

Bad

  • There isn't much new to this game. There aren't any new weapons to use (and several have been removed). Instead of a HEV suit, you get armor, which is dull. There aren't any new enemies. There are only two new NPC skins: the fat security guard and Dr. Rosenburg. Because of this, the game feels less like an expansion and more like a level mod.
  • By 2001, the GoldSrc engine was starting to look a little weak. Now that more of their target base had upgraded their computers, the designers could have pushed it a bit further with more detailed models and higher resolution textures, but the game still looks like 1998.
  • The visual range of enemies is shorter than your visual range. This means, as long as you keep your distance, you can see (and shoot) enemies without them shooting back or ever even moving toward you. In most places in the game, the hallways are too twisty for this to be beneficial, but, in long corridors and large open spaces, you can take advantage of this oversight.
  • Although the new mechanic of pulling crates and barrels was a good idea, it's only utilized a couple times, and they're very difficult to control properly.
  • The final section, A Leap of Faith, is pretty dull and uneventful. A lot more could have happened during the escape sequence.
  • Most of the bad points from the original Half-Life hold true with this game.

Ugly

  • The game engine has quite a few bugs:
    • For many players using the Steam release, the game won't even launch. I've created a guide for getting it to work. It is really shameful that Valve hasn't fixed this.
    • If you click the left-mouse-button while reloading to speed the game along after dying, your character will sometimes be stuck in autofire mode when the game reloads because the LMB is also the default shoot button).
    • When in scripted motion, like riding in an elevator or walking along a path, NPC animation is a quite jittery.
  • The jumping and pushing controls are pretty awful. The double crane puzzle early on took me about 10 minutes to complete, not because I couldn't figure out what to do, but because I was wrestling with the controls. It was so hard to push the crate and barrel in the correct alignment, jump on them without knocking them out of alignment, and get both the cranes at the correct height, all while not falling off the sides. This never should have made it through testing.

Media

Box Art

Documentation

Videos

Review - Defense of the boredom.
Longplay.
Speedrun.

Representation

Strong female character?FailThe game very briefly shows Gina Cross, but she has no dialogue.
Bechdel test?FailThere is only one woman.
Strong person of color character?FailThe black scientist model is used, but doesn't play an important role.
Queer character?FailThere are no queer characters.

Links

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