Opposing Force vs Blue Shift

A comparison between the two expansion packs for Half-Life. But play both either way.

Opposing Force and Blue Shift are two expansion packs released by Gearbox Software for Half-Life. Both feature alternative stories from different characters during the same time. However both have different styles, and different things they add, which is what I'll be comparing. But even though one could be better than the other, you should still play both if you haven't. Though I'm sure you have.

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Downloads:

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Music:
(In order of appearance)

.Kevin MacLeod - Sneaky Adventure
.Opposing Force - Planet (Soundtrack)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

[veracc]

Are you serious? This had got to be the worst comparison in existence. You missed 2 million things this time because you're brain dead by the looks of it. Literally look at any other comparison and just copy them because it'll be 100 times better than this pile of garbage. Like, man, the history part was all wrong. Did you even take history class? You probably wasted your time with Fortnite or some other related trash. And while I could make a normal comment with legitimate criticism, I'm just gonna act like a 5 year old and roast you. First, your 22 thousand subscribers probably don't care about you. Heck, you probably even paid them to suscribe to you. YouTube probably secretly hid your channel because it was physically breaking their servers. That would explain the 0 views you get per year. Also, damn, your "humor" causes headaches when watching for more than 3 seconds. OSHA probably classified your videns as a psychological hazard from the spike in hospital cases your videos brought. Anyways, Lma head out, and *not* >:) enjoy reading this.

[comicaze]

I think the aimlessness of opposing force’s story kinda shows how scary the situation in black mesa is to any outsider. Opposing Force is like Corporal Shephard’s really shit day where he ended up getting caught up in government coverups and aliens.

Also weird people in suits

[Creeper_]

Since Shephard woke up when HECU pretty much failed to covered up the incident and are now retreating, the storyline is somewhat understandsable with the confusion and pretty much no clear objective

[OMGWTFBBQ]

"A grunt that's just as anti-social as Gordon Freeman."

It's impressive how both silent guys meet each other

[BedsAreComfy]

Opposing force is just better. I like green.

[TeddyBearns]

The beginning of blue shift is really memorable for me. Role-playing as a security guard in black mesa was pretty immersive

[soomlarr]

Theres a pretty weird reason Blue Shift was the way it was, since Blue Shift was originally made for the Dreamcast port of Half Life. But due to that being canceled extremely late in development for some reason, Blue Shift was sold as its own expansion pack. It explains its short playtime and lack of new content, the team could only use content already ported to the Dreamcast. Any new content was only easy things like model swaps or a handful of sounds. So for a little side game meant to be bundled with a pretty sizable game, Blue shift is great, but as it's own expansion pack? Doesn't hold up too well when compared to the big green man

[LNSO]

In my opinion blue shift is underrated, i like it more because you can feel the loneliness, at least in the first chapters, the few allies we encounter die. Along the way
At least that's my opinion

[redridesog]

Actually, OpFor weapons are not replacements, but added as new weapons. You just don't get some of the main game weapons in the story.

[alialatrach]

I can conclude that Opposing Force focused more on gameplay and engaging while Blue Shift focused on the story and characters. Both were good on their own and I love them both alongside Decay. The entire expansion was fun for me and they all had corss-paths with HL1 in which was the best thing for me, seeing what happened on another side of the facility at the same time

[proimsat]

I've no idea why but the joke with Gordon changing his in game settings in Zen just caught me so off guard I laughed for a minute straight .. cause he just stands there .. menacingly

[MaximG.]

For some reason I find it interesting how Barney and Shephard weren't in action at the same time. Like Shephard woke up only after Gordon was ambushed and Barney has escaped.

[VechsDavion]

I really liked Blue Shift more, I think. There was something I really enjoyed about spending time before the Resonance Cascade event, just being a normal security guard mucking around doing your duties at the facility. I think the word I'm looking for might be "Immersion". It was really cool seeing the facility from a guards POV.

[lognpr]

"There are 2 expansion packs for Half-life"
Half-life Decay: *sobbing*

[ace_ofchaos]

I honestly liked the improvements to the ai in OP4. your Allie’s no long stand around when
The enemies start shooting you and enemies actually react to their Allies being killed. Not to mention the addition of Otis and his 5, 000 clones. He’s the best expansion character that was added.

“You just think it’s all about you.”

[RedLazer]

Barney in Blue shift may be muted to the player, but technically he’s not. Because when you meet rosenburg, obviously he wouldn’t know that his friend Harold would’ve told him to find rosenburg. So it’s basically true that Barney does talk. Plus if we’re playing as the original Barney Calhoun, yes he does talk. The player just never hears him talk.

[thatemocat]

Blue shift works better as a story within half-life. While OP4 just is for expanding it whilst adding more content.

[skysamfreeman]

Blue Shift is a comfy sunday afternoon type of game. Short, fun, doesn't feel too different or out of place. Opposing Force is good but it feels like fitting a square peg in a round hole sometimes. It tried to do too much and the new mechanics/story suffered. I'm that weird guy that prefers Blue Shift.

[Blucario]

Believe it or not, Blue Shift is the first half-life game I played, and still my favorite of all of them to this day. Something about its pure simplicity is what I love.

[Tamamo-no-Bae]

To be fair, Blue-Shift was a mini addon meant to be bundled with the cancelled Dreamcast port.
That's why it doesn't add new weapons or enemies.