Synopsis Setting īlue Shift is set in the same location and time frame as that of Half-Life, taking place at a remote New Mexico laboratory called the Black Mesa Research Facility. The player is instead given access to a limited selection of Half-Life 's original weaponry. Blue Shift does not elaborate on the storyline in Opposing Force, the preceding expansion pack, and no enemy characters or weapons introduced in it appear in the game. The player also encounters human opponents in the form of a detachment of US Marines who have been sent to eliminate the alien threat and silence any witnesses. A selection of enemies from Half-Life populate the game, including alien creatures such as headcrabs and Vortigaunts. Blue Shift also includes a substantial section dedicated to keeping a major character in the story safe from enemy characters, and escorting him to a specific location. Security guards and scientists will occasionally help the player in reaching new areas and convey relevant plot information. The player battles through the game alone, but is occasionally assisted by friendly non-player characters. Progress through the game's world is continuous although the game is divided up into chapters, the only significant pauses are when the game needs to load the next part of an environment. Story events are conveyed through the use of scripted sequences rather than cut scenes. The player sees everything through the first-person perspective of the protagonist, and remains in control of the player character for almost all the game. The game continues Half-Life 's methods of an unbroken narrative. The overall gameplay of Blue Shift does not significantly differ from that of Half-Life: players are required to navigate through the game's levels, fight hostile non-player characters and solve a variety of puzzles to advance. Rosenberg.Īs an expansion pack for Half-Life, Blue Shift is a first-person shooter. Many reviewers were critical of the short length and lack of new content, although the new graphics were praised.īlue Shift is the first Half-Life game to feature consistent interaction with a single non-player character, Dr. Blue Shift also includes a graphics pack that upgrades the Half-Life models and textures.īlue Shift received mixed reviews. Players control security guard Barney Calhoun, employed by the Black Mesa Research Facility, who must fight his way to safety during an alien invasion. It was released on Steam on August 24, 2005.Īs with Gearbox's previous expansion pack, Opposing Force (1999), Blue Shift returns to the setting and events of Half-Life, but portrays the story through the eyes of another character. Although the Dreamcast port was cancelled, the Windows version was released as a standalone product on Jfor Windows. Blue Shift was the second expansion for Half-Life, originally intended as part of a Dreamcast port of Half-Life. It was developed by Gearbox Software and published by Sierra On-Line. This feature is disabled by default in the Steam release, as Half-Life doesn't have true native support to allow run time switching, and, according to Alfred, the engineering effort to fix the function is better spent elsewhere.Half-Life: Blue Shift is an expansion pack for the first-person shooter video game Half-Life (1998). The menu also adds the "Custom Game" feature that was present in the WON version, where the player could select from an in-game menu to switch mods in-game. An alternate download link can be found here, on GameBanana. The mod also adds main menu music from Blue Shifts's (in-turn, Opposing Force's) own soundtrack. It restores the look of the original Blue Shift menus, but without text subtitles, animated backgrounds, nor various options windows to keep within the Source Engine's assumed limits. A mod was released by Reddit user HowardHeyman. The option to enable the pack in-game is in the options menu, and the game must be restarted for it to take effect.īlue Shift's main menu, among other parts, was heavily changed with the game's transition from the WON (World Opponent Network) system to Steam. This pack replaces most weapon and player/enemy models with higher polygon versions, substantially altering the style of some of them in the process. It was released for free on Steam on August 30, 2005, with a fixed version released a year later. The High Definition Pack was created by Gearbox and first released alongside with Blue Shift on June 12, 2001. These are not needed for the steam version as that already contains the latest version.Īn archive of all official patches for Half-Life and its expansions can be found here Higher definition models
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