Half-Life: Opposing Force

PROS

• When I play this game, I feel like playing a familiar game with an entirely fresh experience. Immersive, interactive, destructive, physically correct, and grotesquely violent, Opposing Force ensures a quality game of Half-Life as a reality.
• Gordon could break boxes with the crowbar, but Adrian Shephard can turn Headcrabs (amongst other small creatures) into a splat of guts with the powerful strike of a wrench. The player gets a thorough story of a tale of one soldier of the Opposing Force who finds himself to be fighting for survival, and while the secondary characters that tell the dialogue are still designed to be "there and done", the exchange of conversation and dialogue has notably been improved.
• Graphics are equally beautiful as the original, and the level design is agreeable and additionally, thanks to the utilization of some of the additions of new content, has some of the trickiest and most well-planned level architectures and puzzles ever.
• For an expansion pack, we got an abundance of new weapons (up to 23 according to the game files and in multiplayer compared to the original's 14--with 5 being entirely new weapons and 4 essentially being re-editions--though there are only 17 in single-player), enemies, personnel with their own abilities for helping the player, and ways of physically interacting with the world, notably the climbing of ropes, which I find to be among the most pleasing additions to the game. Gearbox obviously tried so hard to make the game not feel too familiar to the original that they would add the new stuff and replace some content with better versions. The Barnacle as a weapon is a very special surprise to me, we have teleporting guns, there are replacements such as the revolver being placed by the more-functional Desert Eagle, and we are fighting primarily against a race of aliens known as Race X, comprising species other than those in the original game, not to mention that the flashlight has been replaced by night vision.
• As a bonus for enthusiasts of multiplayer, functionality is expanded to not only include Deathmatch as in the original Half-Life as well as additional levels, but Capture the Flag as well.

CONS

• Sadly, there are cases where there are under-demonstrations of the improvements such as the ropes as well as over-demonstration of certain improvements at a time that can render the game a bit repetitive, specifically late in it. I have had a lot of fun with the improvements, but with about 7 hours of campaign, I am left disappointed with the feeling of missing out on the full potential.

CONCLUSION: Half-Life: Opposing Force offers ideas that further demonstrate the capabilities of the GoldSrc engine and successfully build on the original game, in the same way that made the original popular to begin with.

Oppossing Force, the official expansion pack for Half Life by Gearbox software is better than its parent original game in every single way. You play as one of the marines sent to cleanse out Black Mesa, instead of Gordon freeman. For starters, the level design is brilliant and far better than the old static levels. You also get a whole load of new weapons including one that is really an eel and a very powerful minimi machine gun. You'll need them as you go against new and more powerful monsters and bosses. The story also neatly ties in with the events from Half Life and the ending itself is far better than the original ending of Half Life.

PC Game: Half-Life Opposing Force.

Genre: Sci-Fi First-Person Shooter.

Developer: Gearbox Software.

Publisher: Sierra Studios.

Release Date: 31.10.99.

Engine: GoldSrc (modified Quake engine).

Protagonist: Corporal Adrian Shephard.

Settings: Black Mesa Research Facility, New Mexico, USA; Xen.

The action of Opposing Force, the third installment of what appears to be the greatest PC game series ever, interweaves with the events of Half-Life, so that the player catches a glimpse of Gordon Freeman, the player character from the original game, sees an officer making a pivotal radio broadcast that Freeman overhears in the first game, and visits some recognizable locations.

In the original Half-Life, a "resonance cascade" opens a dimensional rift, which cause Xen aliens to teleport into the Black Mesa Research Facility. The surviving scientists and security guards at the facility struggle to escape. Responding swiftly, the United States military initiates a massive "clean-up" operation to eradicate the alien presence at Black Mesa as well as "silence" any witnesses. As the game begins, Shephard is part of this operation. After his transport aircraft is shot down and he is cut off from the rest of his unit, the clean-up mission is abandoned and Shephard joins forces with the scattered survivors seeking escape.

Being an expansion pack, Opposing Force added many new aspects and capabilities to Half-Life's gameplay. It is notable for the introduction of squad-based support. Whereas the player in the original had to rely on composite models of a security guard, the player in Opposing Force can rely on other soldiers of different classes, including the regular support soldier, a heavy machine-gunner, an engineer, and a medic. Each class possesses unique abilities, such as the engineer being able to cut through certain doors and the medic being able to heal teammates. The AI was improved to allow better coordination of offensive actions during combat.

Opposing Force also included several new weapons. A weapon based on the barnacle creatures acts as a grappling hook. Other organic weapons such as the Spore Launcher and Shock Roach are based on the newly-introduced Race X aliens. In the single-player campaign, some of these weapons replaced their old Half-Life counterparts (Desert Eagle - Colt Python, M40A1 - Crossbow, Pipe wrench/Combat knife - Crowbar). However, in the multiplayer game the player can carry both the new Opposing Force weapons and their Half-Life variants at the same time.

Additionally, a new class of security guards was added. Like Barney in the original game, Otis, also named after a character in The Andy Griffith Show, served a similar role. Having the appearance of an overweight and balding guard, Otis can follow the player and provide support during combat. However, Otis is armed with a Desert Eagle, making him much deadlier in firefights than Barney, who is armed with the weaker Glock 17.

The Opposing Force soundtrack is credited to Chris Jensen and contains 19 .mp3 tracks.

My rates (compared to 1999’s level, of course):

Gameplay: 9.5/10 (a slight minus for linear straightforwardness).

Graphics: 9.5/10.

Sound: 10/10.

Score (OST): 7/10.

Story: 8/10.

Controls & Interface: 9.5/10.

Multiplayer: 9/10.

OVERALL: 9.5/10.

If you like this game I also recommend: Half-Life, Half-Life Uplink, Half-Life Blue Shift, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Lost Coast, Half-Life 2 Episode One, Half-Life 2 Episode Two, Portal, Half-Life 2 Episode Three, F.E.A.R., F.E.A.R. Extraction Point, Far Cry, Doom 3, Quake 2, SiN, SiN Episodes, Aliens vs Predator, Aliens vs Predator 2.

I think this sequel is a bit worse than the original Half-Life game: "Opposing Force" has less diversion in enemies and level design. I think the dialogs and sound effects are also a bit worse. It's somehow strange, that the two Half-Life games from Gearbox aren't as good as Valve's Half- Life games.

But it also has a larger diversion in weapons and fortunately there are new enemies introduced. I love the crossover between Adrian Shepard and Gordon Freeman and G-Man takes an important part in this game.

I'm satisfied that the story of Gordon Freeman doesn't need a "Opposing Force" or a "Blue Shift".

8/10

Half-Life: Opposing Force is an expansion for the original Half-Life. This time you are Corporal Shepard, a soldier tasked with hunting down Gordon Freeman while fending of aliens at the same time. It soon turns out that in general chaos everyone fights everyone, including new alien species and black ops soldiers.

There are a few new weapons (alien lightning gun, Desert Eagle) and some new features. You get to lead other soldiers with various specialties: engineer who can cut doors, medic who can heal you. You learn to climb ropes and at one point you can use alien technology of grappling gun.

Graphics is not great, but it's cool enough and the level design with brilliant color schemes and lighting styles makes up for it.

Music sets the mood nicely, especially dynamic themes when something serious is going down.

It's 2015 and I definitely enjoyed playing Half-Life: Opposing Force! GAMEPLAY 8/10 GRAPHICS 7/10 AUDIO 8/10 STORY 9/10