It’s true BS is more polished and immersive than OP4 but I totally disagree about the lenght since 1/3 of game maps are the same. It gives not the déjà vu feeling which could be fun but a repetitive gameplay. Since it’s not very long, that’s a bit disapointing.
Well, I was playing the part where you’re running around the maintenance tunnels just past the sewers, filled with FUCKING headcrabs and FUCKING Vortigaunts and the occasional FUCKING bullsquid. It became really really really irritating when every box, crate or panel had a bloody headcrab behind it. Blue Shift just doesn’t seem to have enough variation overall. Half-Life was like; Headcrab, Zombie, Vortigaunt, Vortigaunt, Bullsquid, Headcrab, Zombie, Grunt, Zombie, Grunt, Headcrab, Vortigaunt… and Blue Shift is like Headcrab, Headcrab, Headcrab, Headcrab, Vortigaunt, Vortigaunt, Vortigaunt, Headcrab, Headcrab, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Grunt, Headcrab, Headcrab, Headcrab, Vortigaunt, Vortigaunt, OMG ALIEN GRUNT ^_^.
I hope I made my own opinion clear.
Blue Shift is fun the first time and you should play it… it’s just if you know what you’re doing little things like that^ become extremely annoying.
Ahh yeah, that’s a fair point. I think the first time I played through that I was really low on ammunition, so I think the tension overcame the repetition. Now you mention it, I remember being a bit annoyed in my second run through.
That probably settles it then. Blue Shift is a good-quality game, but if the two are the same price then you’ll get more out of your money with Opposing Force. OF has a better ending, one to rival HL’s in my opinion. Save BS until you can/want to afford it.
If you get opposing force. Get a mod called opposing force redux https://www.moddb.com/mods/opposing-force-redux. Most of the added content was great.
Hrm, thanks! I’d never heard of this until now. I’ll give it a go ASAP.
p.s. I hope some of these screenshots are of older versions. The look kind of… shit. 
Most of it is good except the shotgun
Play Opposing Force, then Blue Shift, then Decay.
Well, I decided on getting Op4 first.
It feels as if something half-life was missing from the game, though I can’t quite place it. It was neat to encounter/fight the Race-X aliens, though it felt like Shephard was taking on this force while the Xen aliens had more of a cameo appearance. It completes the puzzle about what happened to Black Mesa though, justifying itself as a ‘part 2’ of how the disaster was resolved. It was also really cool to visit some of the locations in half life and see Gordon take the plunge in the reactor (Yes, I followed him for the Temporal Paradox ending when I first saw it 
)
One thing I didn’t care much for was babysitting the grunts. Half-Life may have been praised for its AI strengths, but I didn’t see it in the version I played. Unless I was staring at the Marines, I’d loose some of them when walking anywhere. Getting them to follow their scripted scenes to move on in the storyline was bothersome too, for the reason that they’d have a hard time following me.
In the end, I wasn’t given the same feeling that I had when playing Episode 2, which made me want to play it again for the fun of it (depsite the ugh strider battle at the end and the headache of transporting that gnome to the rocket cone). It was fun to play once, but I don’t have a strong urge to play it again.
Playing this off the heels of the Minerva Mod, It made me wonder if Minerva’s ‘Perseus’ is actually Shephard. Maybe it’s for another thread, but I think Shephard ‘waking up’ from the life of a Combine soldier would be a neat way to get him back into the story.
I remember somewhere on the forum someone once suggested that Shephard wakes up as a Combine soldier. However the rebellion begins and there is an accident/explosion WHILE the Combine are placing several enhancements onto you.
They don’t realise and send you into battle, but then many of your enhancements begin to fail and you become in control of yourself again, and begin to help the rebellion.
(None of the life-supporting enhancements fail obviously, only the brain ones).
Anyway, I love this idea and I don’t think it got flamed (too) much. It sounds like a decent enough idea for a VALVe game even.
I’d rather have him working for the Combine the whole way through. Maybe have DOG as a boss or something.
Since Adam Foster was hired by VALVe and released statements say they have no plans for Adrian’s character, it would kill two birds with one stone to retcon Minerva’s lab-rat into really being Adrian. There are implied reasons why Minerva conscripted the player and maybe those reasons would involve surviving Black Mesa.
I wonder if this should warrant its own thread since I think there’s discussion value to be had about if it fits or not.
Of course, that implies Minerva is more powerful than G-man, since she got Shepard out of detainment.
Then again, the vorts are also more powerful…
I always thought Minerva WAS Gman still giving you instructions. Just that since Shephard was a soldier and used to taking orders, Gman was willing to be more direct about giving instructions, instead of being vague and mystical like he was with Gordon, who showed the ability to work better when he had to find his own direction.
The tone of G-man and Minerva seem too different to me to be the same being. Personally I feel Minerva is a female entity too, which G-man couldn’t be otherwise he would have chosen a female ‘form’ to present himself. Minerva is also very expressive, while the G-Man leaves thoughts incomplete and deliberately vauge.
It’s clear there are higher powers out there that don’t make themselves obvious to humankind. G-Man and the Combine are the strongest examples of this, the former evoking his ‘employers’ and the latter being represented directly only in the shape of the ‘advisors’ (not directors or overseers). I’d like to play “Someplace else” to find out more about Minerva, but I have the feeling she’s another one of these ‘mysterious benefactors’ on the level of G-Man and his employers, but a different entity from them.
Opposing Force, sheerly because its got the aaahhhhhhwhhhhhhhhhhwow! factor to it. easy to get lost on tho considering how linear it is lol.