Unmarked spoilers ahoy. One of the first things you should know is that Blue Shift isn't really an expansion. It was originally designed as an extra for the dreamcast port of this game. But when the dreamcast version was cancelled, the game was released as an expansion pack for the pc. But, since it was released as an expansion pack, I should judge it as one. And as an expansion pack, the game falls short in both it's length, roughly 3 hours of gameplay, and it's content. The game adds no new weapons or enemies, and doesn't even fully utilize those that were present in the previous games, as most weapons from half-life and every single bit of content introduced in opposing force is missing. Most annoyingly, the game has no real bosses and the final encounter feels like any other encounter. Yet I still prefer this expansion pack over opposing force. Why is that? Because of it's great level design. The massive improvement in the level design surprises me a bit, since this expansion was made by the same company as the previous one, but it's there. Where half-life and opposing force both featured rooms that were kind of silly and obviously designed as puzzles, blue shift had none of that, while sacrificing nothing in terms of gameplay. Every single level in the game actually feels like a proper area in a building complex and it's very clear that the design started with a legitimate building design before implementing gameplay features. All of the ladders in the game are placed in a way that you can easily access them (not a single death by missing a ladder) and the Xen levels are a marked improvement over both Half-life and Opposing force, featuring a single large area instead of a large number of small levels. The puzzles in Blue shift were all very logical, and the NPC's actually explained what you had to do, instead of you just walking into random territories and lucking out. The plot of the game is also a lot better than opposing force's alien invasion invading an alien invasion while silencers silence the silencers. While the scientists from Lambda complex have put all their hopes in Gordon Freeman and hope to stop the alien invasion, the scientists from another complex say "**** it, we're out of here", and try to escape using an older teleporter. The player, random security guard you saw bashing on a locked door during the intro of the original half-life (also known as Calhoun), comes upon this plan and helps the main scientist get to the teleporter and gets the scientists what they need. In conclusion; The game is way too short, and features no new weapons, enemies or mechanics. On the other hand, the level design is fantastic and the plot is a marked improvement. In the end, I have to give this game a 6.75 out of 10. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it's just not a real expansion. next up: portal.
