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an intense, but short lived experience

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 13, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Like OPPOSING FORCES, another expansion for the HALF-LIFE game, BLUE-SHIFT also takes place in the same space of time, during those fatal hours when everything went wrong, as it's two predecessors. This means that you're once again back at the mysterious, Area 51 inspired, Black Mesa Federal Research Facility, but you will be experiencing everything from a different angle. It's like seeing a particular scene from a movie over and over agan through the different perspectives of the peoples involved in the scene. Those who played through HALF-LIFE will certainly get a kick out of seeing the two army men who clubbed down Gordon Freeman (the character you played in HALF-LIFE) carry him through a hallway while you peek at them through a ventilation shaft. But BLUE-SHIFT isn't just a reprise of what you've gone through before. Far from it. It's an intense, well-designed, and most of all fun, experience, but sadly it's a bit short-lived. Naturally you can't expect the game to have the same size as HALF-LIFE, but you're likely to finish the game after two or three hours. But BLUE-SHIFT also comes with something they call "High Definition Pack". If you install this, all the graphics for both BLUE-SHIFT, OPPOSING FORCE, and HALF-LIFE will get a face lift, and it helps a little now that the graphics engine for HALF-LIFE is becoming a bit dated. But in the end I guess that BLUE-SHIFT will be mostly appreciated by hardcore HALF-LIFE fans.

Take my advice

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When I was looking at the reviews on this page I thought to myself, "Oh come on they can't be all that bad". Curious I bought it off the bargin rack and then the adventure began. Unfortunatly this adventure is probably the lamest in the Half-Life universe. Its not that the game is all that made its just that there are

A. No new weapons
B. No new bosses

But then agian maybe I was just expecting too much when I bought this game. Trust me this game is bad enough don't waste your time.

Too little for too much

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Like any other true blue, self respecting Half Life fan, I was overjoyed when I heard that Gearbox software was releasing another expansion to compliment Opposing Force. I counted the days and had a copy the first day it came out. After installing the program (along with the goodies that come with it, notably the hi-definition pack), I told myself that I would ration my play time so as not to finish the game too quickly. When I played Opposing Force I finished it in one day, and I didn't want that to happen with this one. So after two hours I put the game aside and took a little breather. However, starved as I was for some new HL stuff, I jumped back on a few hours later to have some more alien-slaying fun. Sadly, I finished the game half an hour later. That's right, a total of 2.5 hours of playtime for 29.99! I have never been so dissapointed in a game in my life. No new aliens, no cool wierd weapons, and no boss fights at all. Just a couple of the same aliens we've been seeing since the original, along with some marines. It wasn't even really challenging. The only redeeming quality I found in Blue Shift was the HD pack, which enhances all of the previous HL games. I would not reccomend this unless you do not own Opposing Force. Unfortunately, I do and I've wasted good money on what didn't amount to half of what I expected.

Way easy

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: February 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I installed Blue Shift and then won it within a couple hours. Yes, it was fun, but it was way too small. There are only a few available weapons, and most of the challenge is devoted to navigation puzzles and pushing-barrels/crates puzzles. It is not worth the money. As an optional free download it would have been excellent.

A Great Expansion Now at the Right Price

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: May 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Alot of the negative reviews of this game are justified in that Blue-Shift is a pretty short expansion pack that doesn't offer any new monters or "bosses". However I don't think a lot of the people reviewing the game know Blue-Shift's history.

Originaly Blue-Shift was meant as a little bonus adventure for the Dreamcast version of Half-Life that was being produced by Gear Box. When production of the Sega Dreamcast console was canceled right near the end of production of the Half-Life port Gearbox was left with a nearly completed product which no longer had a home.

On top of all of this the Dreamcast version of Half-Life was going to sport higher detailed versions of the weapons and characters, so that as well was ported over to the PC in the form of the included High Definition pack (there's actualy some extra work put in here as it updates the non-Dreamcast content of Opposing Force).

Again Blue Shift was never meant to be a stand alone expansion pack, this is why there's no new monsters in the game, there probably just wasn't budget for development of new content.

The only real problem with Blue-Shift is that Sierra (the publisher not the developer) knew the value of the Half-Life name and knew they could sell it at the same price as the full blown expansion Opposing Force. So what did they do? They included Opposing Force and slapped the high price tag onto it.

Now a days Blue-Shift is at the price it should of been all along. At just $ it's WELL worth it. It is every bit as well written and executed as both Half-Life and Opposing force. Heck anyone who pays close attention to the plot will realise that the shortness of the campaign is actualy appropriate.

Now you know Blue Shift's history, it's actualy great that Gearbox went ahead and got Blue Shift into the hands of the right audiance (the P.C. players). Now if we can only get Half-Life: Decay ported....

Half Life Blue Shift Is Comeing!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: June 07, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game places you in the shoes of a Black Mesa security guard Barney Calhoun, during the same time period as the original Half-Life. The biggest changes from Half-Life in Blue Shift are the remodeled weapons and 3D character models. The character models have been reskinned with larger textures, and some of the weapons have been altogether replaced with new ones. Additionally, all the weapon sounds have been redone as well. The shotgun cocking sound, for instance, is now much more pronounced than it was in Half-Life. These upgrades are all part of the High Def Pack, a retroactive feature of Blue Shift that will search your computer for Half-Life and update all the weapon and character models!!!!! Blue Shift Here We come!!!!! ...

What's up???

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 7 / 18
Date: June 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I saw 12 reviews all dated prior to June 14 when my local best Buy said the game would be available.

How are you people "reviewing" a game which is not yet released?

Or do most of you work for Valve?

PS I had to fill in the star rating field...I have not played this yet either.

Should have been a free download...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 27, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I just played through Blue-Shift, and I think it is more excellent map making like Opposing Force was. I had many other problems with it though:

1) Why must I have my flashlight on ALL the time? Gearbox, do you realize that having to cycle the flashlight all the time gets quite annoying (or going off and doing something else waiting for it to recharge)?

2) No big end game. The thing closest to a sub-boss you'll see is a tank towards the end. Also it's about as short as Opposing Force. No new enemies or weapons. And not much of a challenge either (I beat it two hours after opening up the box it came in).

3) Why must everything be stand-alone all of a sudden? Why do I need three and 4 copies of everything? And does this mean that all the mod makers out there have the option of making their stuff stand-alone? Is that going to bloat up my drive even more (Gunman Chronicles is about 400MB on my drive (they compressed nothing), total size for everything I have even remotely half-life related is 1.5-2.0 gigs...and they said the M$ op sys was bloated!)?

And the worst part of this whole deal: The Hi-Def Pack. I'll talk about the Hi-Def pack since I ran it on all 3 of it's targets (Half-Life, Blue Shift, Opposing Force).

The new models look good and do add a level of detail to the atmosphere. Bad news coming and there's a lot of it:

1) The textures and models redone were the Half-Life ones only. I expected to load OpFor and see new textures for my squadmates and the DIs and came up with the old material. The OpFor weapons are the same too. Probably the biggest oversight is that Gearbox forgot to redo their own stuff.

2) The textures and models redone were only the weapons, the scientists, barneys, and some of the enemies (I couldn't tell on some of them that there was more detail.). As far as the rest of the game goes, it's the old material, looks the same as it always did (old). I understood from what I read that all the original material would be replaced with hi-def material. Guess I'll be looking at the grungy concrete (or what is that?) walls and the brown stuff that looks like wood, but you really can't tell. And then those signs throughout the complex (the rotating signs at the beginning of Half-Life as an example)you really couldn't read because there weren't enough sprites will have to stay unreadable...

The Hi-Def Pack is highly overrated and reveals sloppiness in my opinion, and I think this whole package should have been a download in it's current form. To make this material, which was originally filler to begin with for a game console port and obviously just slapped together, especially the Hi-Def pack and then charge for it shows a lot of cajones on Sierra's part. Gearbox should have done this right instead of doing a half-assed job, and Valve should have acted to protect the reputation that Half-Life has generated.

Uninspired and way too short

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 07, 2001
Author: Amazon User

As a Half-Life fan, I must say how disappointed I am with Blue Shift. It's far too short (took me about 6 hours), too easy (no hard puzzles to solve), and limited in scope (you don't even see all the monsters or get all the weapons you do with original Half-Life). Is it worth the money? Barely. Even if you look at it as just a 'filler' until HL2, it's still very unsatisfying. If you're an HL fan, go ahead and order, but don't waste your time standing by the mailbox for it to arrive. It's just not worth getting excited about. INSTEAD try Gunman Chronicles (uses the HL engine) and actually drive a tank this time !

Lighten Up Folks

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

....Just a reminder-it also includes Opposing Forces AND an upgrade to all the Half Life graphics. .... The game itself is not terrific, but not terrible. It's an ADD ON, not a new concept! Buy it for what it is & you'll be happy you did. If you buy it expecting it to be Half Life 2, you'll hate it.

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