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View Full Version : Half-Life: Opposing Force Retrospective


Emabulator
12-06-2009, 08:35 AM
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John Walker returns to Black Mesa armed with Gearbox Software's expansion, Half-Life: Opposing Force, in this week's retrospective (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/half-life-opposing-force-retrospective) from Eurogamer.

The game is at its best when it's challenging you to complete a series of tasks. Getting machines working, finding the right pumps and valves, working out how to kill an enormous bug-eyed beast so you can extend a bridge - these moments are not only a ton of fun to play, but they don't patronise you by holding your hand through them. You have to make sure you've headed off in every possible direction and found things for yourself.

A good 10 hours long, 10 years on it's surprising to think of it as an expansion for Half-Life rather than a game in its own right. And accusations that it was just more of the same, as made by some complete lunatics at the time it was released, are silly beyond belief (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/opfor). That could only be said by the sort of person who'd refer to the original game having a wrench in it, instead of a crowbar.

TekkenZaibatsu
12-06-2009, 10:41 AM
Wow, in all the games of new it just occurred to me that I still have my copy of Orange Box for 360 and I never finished Half-Life 2. I really need to get back on that.

OmegaVader
12-06-2009, 12:04 PM
Ah, I still have fond memoreis of this expansion. They really took valve's radically new design philosophy and somehow made it...formulaic. And I don't mean that in a negative way, only that they were able to recreate what made the first half-life so special. It's beacuse of this game that, even 10 years later, I'm willing to put up with Randy Pitchford's shit. haha.

lockwoodx
12-06-2009, 12:32 PM
This expansion left me feeling pretty jipped. At least Op4 had some new and interesting deathmatch goodies.

drowsy
12-06-2009, 04:47 PM
I actually really liked this expansion, as well as the generally hated Blue Shift. It's just cool to see the events from different perspectives. I remember wishing that there would be a survival horror type version where the player is one of the useless scientists. No guns, no way to defend yourself, just sneaking and puzzles. Thinking about it now, that's actually a really boring sounding game, but it would've been interesting at least.

VorianScript
12-06-2009, 05:01 PM
I liked the pseudo squad element to it, but I really can't remember much other than I liked it, I'll put this on my "play when bored and broke" list.

HALO 32
12-06-2009, 05:24 PM
Gearbox has usually been good with expansions. Even the Zombie Island of Dr. Ned is supposed to be pretty lengthy.

lockwoodx
12-06-2009, 06:49 PM
Wow I could have sworn this retro review was about blue shift and not op4. These meds are seriously messing with me.

Dag-Sabot
12-06-2009, 09:04 PM
I enjoyed this more than half-life.

Lactose
12-06-2009, 10:18 PM
Some trivia: Before we worked at IW (or the industry) 3 of us designers entered a contest to get our TFC maps onto opFor. Two of us made it on and the 3rd guy (who went on to become the lead mp designer on Modern Warfare) didn't make the cut!

sgtslappy
12-07-2009, 05:16 AM
Some trivia: Before we worked at IW (or the industry) 3 of us designers entered a contest to get our TFC maps onto opFor. Two of us made it on and the 3rd guy (who went on to become the lead mp designer on Modern Warfare) didn't make the cut!

Ha, that's great.

I really wish I knew what Half Life was back in the day. I was to young and didn't know anything but Starcraft and Diablo 2.