![]() In particular, the fat security guards-all named Otis in the files-somehow have even less importance than their older counterparts. Other than the player character, Calhoun, the actual Black Mesa security staff does very little outside of the opening of the game before the Resonance Cascade goes off. ![]() They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Strangely enough, Blue Shift pretty much ignores the group of people that the game is supposed to be giving the spotlight to.Once your armor meter is fully drained, encounters with large mobs of enemies can quickly spell death, so you'll have to be very careful. Finally, if that wasn't enough, there are no armor pickups in this level. There's also a maze of small tunnels that can be confusing for first timers. While "Focal Point" doesn't suffer from the same design problems as its predecessors, there's still a fair bit a platforming to do across large gaps, so the error of mis-jumping and falling into oblivion is still very high. That One Level: "Focal Point" is another level that takes place in Xen, whose levels in the original Half-Life are not viewed fondly.It's Short, So It Sucks!: A common criticism of the expansion is its length, notably shorter than Opposing Force and far shorter than the base game.The Half-Life remake, Black Mesa, opts for a similar approach, on steroids. Hilarious in Hindsight: The Xen level, "Focal Point", is considered one rare example of Xen being done right, with diverse environments, logical labyrinths, and more tame platforming, compared to the original game's Disappointing Last Level syndrome and Opposing Force's minute-long visits, of them only one being mandatory.For a final escape sequence, it's rather underwhelming. During the teleportation escape, you hold off a couple Houndeyes when the coolant line ruptures, and the HECU soldiers arrive so late that it's possible to just beeline for the teleport to the end. Disappointing Last Level: "A Leap of Faith" isn't much of a Final Battle.However, Blue Shift has more scripted sequences and set pieces, as well as far more improved models (see: Rosenberg.) It's to the point that this review recommends playing Blue Shift first, if only so Opposing Force doesn't become a Tough Act to Follow. You don't even unlock all the weapons the original game had to offer. Contested Sequel: Unlike Gearbox's Opposing Force expansion, Blue Shift didn't bring anything new to the franchise other then a new armor system for playing as a security guard, and its story turned out to be much shorter in length compared to the previous games.Some players enjoy the empowerment behind these changes, while others find that they impede the tone that Half-Life 1 and its expansions are trying to establish, as well as seeing the louder nature of the weapons to be misleading. The most contentious changes are the ones made to the submachine gun, the pistol, and the shotgun, which were updated to look and sound more imposing. The game's weapons, however, were all reskinned, some of them becoming entirely different weapon designs aesthetically. What both parties can agree on is that the pack doesn't encompass nearly enough of the game only the models shown prominently throughout Blue Shift were updated. Some welcome the higher quality models, while others either find them ugly or too far removed from the game's overall look. Reactions toward the Pack are deeply mixed. Broken Base: Blue Shift introduced the Half-Life High-Definition Model Pack, which would later be included with succeeding releases of the Half-Life 1 collection's entries.It's one of the more memorable parts of the game since a flowing river using Xen water texture is something that's not seen in any of the other Half-Life games. Awesome Art: "Focal Point" houses a neat looking section where Calhoun has to traverse a path that goes along a flowing Xen river.
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