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Half-Life: Blue Shift: The Verdict

I liked it. I went in to it knowing that it is considered a disappointment compared to Opposing Force.

It doesn't have all of the enemies or weapons from the games that came before. But it is very short, clocking in at three hours for my playthrough. The game felt like the easiest of the three with ammo being abundant, health being about as common as in the original, and quick deaths non-existent.

Even though for me there wasn't much novel, the pacing felt very good, never giving you a chance to get bored. There are more military character models; the enemy engineers can break through doors to attack you; there are new puzzle elements. Nothing in this game feels like a dud, except that the military AI seems to be worse than usual with them sometimes running away from me in broad daylight. The game is consistently quality whilst not having as many exceptional moments as HL1 and Opposing Force.

Blue Shift probably has the best Xen levels of the three, showing us new ideas, having the least platforming, and giving us a glimpse of Xen's human occupation and more detail about its significance. They clearly learned from the previous instalments to put water near the bounce pads, to give you something safe to land on if you miss.

Blue Shift is most of the Half-Life 1 experience in a very consumable package.

Play it if you've played both of the others and want a bit more /10
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