Half-Life: Blue Shift

The Good
Half-Life: Blue Shift presents one with the opportunity to fill the shoes of Calhoun, a security officer in the Black Mesa complex. Yes, you get to play one of those guys in blue who you run into so often in Half-Life.

Well, the first great thing about this game is: It's Half-Life. A lot of what was present in the original game is, naturally, present here. That includes the pulse-pounding combat, the well-crafted environments, visceral weapons, and the fantastic use of event scripting, sound effects, and music to bring extra intensity to the game.

The next high-point is that the venerable Half-Life engine sees an upgrade in graphics here. Not that I would have complained if it hadn't, but it's definitely nice. The new graphic upgrade can be applied to the original game and Opposing Force as well.

Then, it also includes the Half-Life: Opposing Force expansion as well. Op-For is a much larger expansion, putting you into the shoes of Corporal Shepherd of the US Marines whom you run up against in the original game. The expansion is incredible, but that's for another review.

All in all, it's a good value if you don't have Op-For already and even if you do, it will give you that one more taste of Black Mesa that Half-Life fans such as myself so crave.

The Bad
It's short. Really, really short. For a Half-Life veteran, it's like a Snickers break rather than a full meal. But hey, if that's the main problem, I don't mind so much.

The Bottom Line
More Half-Life is good for just about any FPS player. Great action, great environment, great presentation, and a great game :-)