Half-Life: Blue Shift

by Vivendi Universal

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005BIQK
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: June 13, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (144 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,384 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Half-Life is still considered the finest single-player 3-D shooter ever made, and with good reason. No other game has combined nail-biting tension, truly alien aliens, and devious artificial intelligence in as complete a package as Valve's masterpiece.

Sierra has kept Half-Life on countless hard drives by publishing the excellent multiplayer Counter-Strike modification, but Half-Life was originally all about the single-player game--the sci-fi action story of research assistant Gordon Freeman. The first Half-Life expansion pack, Opposing Force, concentrated on the military Special Ops side of the same story, and featured Colonel Adrian Shepherd. The new Half-Life: Blue Shift episode highlights security guard Barney Calhoun's adventure during Black Mesa's extradimensional catastrophe. Like Adrian, Barney encounters much the same creatures as his predecessor, but in different situations and locales than you've seen before, some located as far away from Black Mesa as you can get. Unlike Opposing Force, Blue Shift doesn't feature any new weapons or monsters; oddly, it doesn't even feature the new creatures introduced in Opposing Force.

With Blue Shift, you get Barney's adventures, a new high-definition graphics pack that dramatically improves the look of the weapons and characters in all Half-Life games, and the entire Opposing Force expansion pack (there's also a rebate for those who already own Opposing Force). It's obviously geared toward fans that bought the Counter-Strike online package and want to see why the single-player Half-Life is hailed as the best action game ever. Even though the technology is fundamentally three years old, Blue Shift proves the Half-Life series is still about tension, story, horrible monsters (both human and alien), and fantastic combat in a sci-fi setting. Want more Half-Life? Get Blue Shift. --Bob Andrews

Pros:

• A new Half-Life episode starring Barney!
• Also comes with the complete Opposing Force expansion
• The high-definition weapons and creature graphics look great
• High-definition pack improves the look of all Half-Life episodes

Cons:

• The graphics engine is three years old, and level geometry does not compare to modern games
• The new episode is awfully short

Product Description

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fun, but too short and thus it's overpriced., September 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Half-Life: Blue Shift (CD-ROM)

First off: only buy Blue Shift now if you don't own Half-Life: Opposing Force. Now, Blue Shift is, of course, Half-Life, so many of us die-hard fans will want to (and should) own it. Unfortunately, the price tag on this just isn't worth it. The game can be beat in just 2-4 hours, making this one of the shortest expansion packs in the history of gaming. Yes, they did add in Opposing Force, but that's just because they realized that the title game was just too short, and it's not worth it if you already own OpFor, as most of us Half-Life fans do. There's a High Definition pack added, which "upgrades" the looks of the weapons, enemies and friendly characters, but how it looks isn't that important. The original game still looks good, so this wasn't needed. If anything, it just makes the sinister "G-Man" character look less intimidating. As it stands, the game isn't quite worth a [price]price tag; wait until they drop it to a more sensible ... price and buy it then.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Blue Shift gives me the Blues, July 14, 2001

By 

"joe6pk" (Iowa, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Half-Life: Blue Shift (CD-ROM)

Blue Shift, I knew Half-Life and let me tell you, you are no Half-life!"

Disclaimer. I loved Half-life. So it is reasonable that any game that might be compared to it would fall short. Even acknowledging that fact Blue Shift was an extreme disappointment.

Length: It took me roughly 2 hours to get through Blue Shift- roughly the length of a good demo. Half-life, of course, took weeks of seemingly never ending fun. Opposing Forces, although not as exciting as Half-life, was very respectable in length.

Innovativeness: There are no new weapons. There are no new opponents. Worse, the very few irritating things, which were found in Half-life and Opposing Forces, are EMPHASIZED in Blue Shield. For example, those irritating crabs that periodically would attack from vents in Half-life and Opposing Forces appear around every corner in Blue Shield. Not interesting, only a nuisance which detracts from the game. Remember the great music found in Half-life and Opposing Forces, which would set the mood and accompany significant events and the change of locations. For example when you successfully launched the satellite. Don't look for it in Blue Shield, because it isn't there. Unlike Half-life (and to a lesser extent Opposing forces) I did not find myself saying "Wow, What great detail." or "I can't believe they thought of that." The incredible lack of innovativenessng was notable.

Plot: Same plot as Half-life but from a security guard perspective. I liked the way the plot interconnected with Half-life and Opposing Forces. For example, periodically you might see Freeman or the Administrator. Unfortunately, these connections were very infrequent.

Overall Rating. Poor. Blue Shift has none of the wit of Half-life.

Worth the money? Nope, Sorry, I can't recommend (as much as I want to) its purchase.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Totally worth it, June 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Half-Life: Blue Shift (CD-ROM)

NOTE: BLUE SHIFT IS A STAND-ALONE GAME - YOU DON'T NEED A COPY OF HALF-LIFE IN ORDER TO PLAY.

More Half-Life. That's what sold me on Blue Shift. The Half-Life setting is so interesting, so developed, that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn more about the Black Mesa Research Facility.

The expansion can be finished in one long evening. I started at 9 at night and completed the expansion by 3:00AM. The other expansion pack included in this box, Opposing Force, is just about as long--maybe a little bit longer.

In Blue Shift, you play a Good Guy: one of the loyal security guards of Black Mesa. Remember that poor guard you saw banging on the door during the opening tram ride sequence of Half-Life? That's you.

<minor spoiler alert> The scripted action sequences and dialogue in Blue Shift are top-notch, and the levels are brilliant. It's really fun exploring Black Mesa. And there are lots of jump-out-of-seat scary moments. Unfortunately, there aren't any big boss monsters and there are a few too many jumping obstacles. Also, there are no new weapons and I went through the whole game pretty much using just the pistols, shotgun, and submachinegun--there's no opportunity or need to use the satchel charges, grenades, snarks, or (with one big exception) rocket launcher. </end spoiler alert>

Still, the game is really fun and you do get to learn a lot more about Black Mesa and the nature of the facility's experiments. This game is totally worth it, especially when you consider that you get the Opposing Force expansion for free (if you already own Op4, you can mail away for a [price]rebate).

My question is: where is Half-Life 2?!