Half-Life: Blue Shift Reviews

I remember playing Blue Shift back in 2001, it's just more Half-Life really, but I was very disappointed at how short it was for a expansion pack that came in a big box as if it was it's own game. But still a must play for any Half-Life fans.

I adore the concept of setting a game's expansion within the perspective of someone who's a side character at best. It's almost kind of fun seeing things from the POV of a lowly guard who's way less equipped than Freeman and Shepard and has to scrounge about by looting from other dead guards, while Barney never even encounters anything really big like any Gonarchs or Gargantuas. It's a bit short but that's understandable from something made as a little extra bit of content for the cancelled Dreamcast port of the original game. Overall I'd say it's a nice little piece of side content, though I prefer Opposing Force for that.

Good game, but incredibly short. Hopefully you got it for free or for a couple dollars in a Steam sale. Blue Shift does a great job with giving characters a lot more personality than Half Life. Its worst aspect is having a couple puzzles that are completely unsolvable without looking them up. It invents mechanics that aren't in Half Life or in the tutorial.

Played it for many years again and again. it's been a long time favorite.

meh game could easily be skipped no new guns boring story and levels 4/10

Хорошее дополнение к халфе! Играем мы за барни-охранника а Блек Мезе.

When i think of Half-Life, i think of ADHD endusing action and shooting. Not, actual maps that make me look around and appriciate them instead of just bhopping thru it. Its really short, almost as short as Portal 1. But not that short. What makes HLBS so unforgiving is the horrible xen level design. During the point where you align the huge orange meth crystal, you need to go to the cave where that one vort gets killed and GO UP that boulder. In no way does the game tell you to go up there, so in typical half life fashion. I grenade hopped up to the enterance bolder, got stuck, waited for 20 minutes, until i went up the boulder to complete the level. Overall, not the greatest half life game. But with this, my boy Barry would never make it to HL2.

> be me > Calhoun > 2-year community college dropout, majoring in “idk lol” > get assigned to Black Mesa because I passed a CPR class once > day one: scientists tell me my safety is a rounding error > “guard these donuts and shut up” > jokes on them, I got books on *aliens* and *gov conspiracies* in my closet > then alien sphaghetti monsters show up and start eating brains > scientists: "it's theoretical teleportation physics!" > me: "bro i dropped out of chem 101" > still end up pushing buttons and doing real-ass teleportation magic > become interdimensional uber driver > save everyone > scientists become my ride-or-die bros > we go on a cross-dimensional road trip > 10/10 would get laughed at by PhDs again 👮‍♂️🚀🧠🛸

Blue Shift finishes the trifecta of three different perspectives on the same event in a short but well executed second expansion pack to the 1998 masterpiece Half-Life. Finally after playing a glasses-wearing nerd and a trained killer we get the perspective of a regular blue collar everyman, Barney Calhoun, regular dude who's having a regular day at work at a regular trillion dollar research facility until things go real bad. There's nothing majorly new about this in terms of enemies weapons or environments but its still very fun half-life gameplay, and seeing yet another angle on the events of May 16th 200-and-something is really cool. The game isn't too long, maybe 4 hours on a first play through on medium difficulty if you are nothing special at shooters (im certainly not). I played it like 7 or 8 times and got my time down to i think 59 minutes. I just liked replaying it and improving my time because it was short and manageable, however in order to get much faster id have to learn to b-hop and that didn't interest me. This game was never expensive even when it came out so the length wasn't a huge criticism. It might be the least talked about of the 7 half-life games but don't think that means you should overlook it. 9 / 10 ★★★★★★★★★☆

Half-Life: Blue Shift adds another perspective to the Black Mesa disaster, but compared to the other expansions, it feels the least substantial. Playing as security guard Barney Calhoun is a nice change, but the game doesn’t expand the story or gameplay in any meaningful way. Rather than introducing new weapons, enemies, or mechanics like Opposing Force, Blue Shift sticks to the familiar Half-Life formula. It’s more of a side story than a true expansion, offering a brief but enjoyable revisit to Black Mesa. While it’s a decent addition for fans, it doesn’t bring anything particularly fresh or memorable to the series.