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Half-Life: Blue Shift Is Underappreciated
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- čas přidán 15. 08. 2024
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0:00 Intro
01:56 Premise & Gameplay
05:02 The Campaign
07:15 World Building
08:28 The Campaign Continued
12:27 The Campaign Conclusion
14:11 Critiques
17:07 HD Models
19:46 Black Mesa: Blue Shift
23:29 Closing Remarks
24:15 Nvidia/MSI Spot
26:07 Amazingly Awesome Patrons
Hey guys, this video is sponsored by Nvidia/MSI.
For more info on that GE76 Laptop check out this link:
au.msi.com/Laptop/Raider-GE76-Deluxe-Edition-12UX"
But can it run Crysis?
@Tuki get some help
That's at least a 'decently' affordable laptop for adults, I saw some other channel promoting the 5K version of the laptop, which is kinda over the top. That being said, it did trigger me try & find a 3070Ti based laptop ... And I did. Even a 3060Ti based desktop (roughly same performance) with a 240Hz monitor is also 3K (buying decent parts), making an all-in-one gaming laptop more viable than ever.
Arn't they doing a Black-Mesa style "remaster" for this game on PC like that other team did :-oc?
@LAKI 88 BEGONE BOT
I work as a Security Guard. I gotta say that the way some of the NPCs treat you like shit (before the disaster) is pretty accurate.
Right! 😅
I don't get this attitude towards the average worker
the working joe literally runs the world
without them the wheel of economics would stop spinning
in a more modern, open-minded and progressed world everyone should respect the working class.
@@Ar1AnX1x Well, some people are dickheads by default.
@@Ar1AnX1x
It's narcissism that you see that comes from believing in meritocracy. Imagine if you truly believe that hard work = success. Those who aren't success didn't work as hard, therefore, are lesser for being lazy. It's morally incorrect to be lazy, so it's a lot easier to look at the average worker and look down on them for being lazy (even if daddy got them the job.)
Hence why hustle-culture is as popular as it is.
I hope we do get better at respecting people in general though.
Thank you for your work.
I personally feel Blue Shift is really good even just taking into consideration the fact it doesn't place you in the position of someone "special", but rather an (at the time, seeing as Barney is one of the main characters now) but rather someone from black mesa, a security guard, who just happened to be there on the day of the resonance cascade. All in all it generally feels well made and it's enjoyable, although it has bad luck being outshined by Opposing Force which seems to have a lot more work put into it and obviously Half Life itself for reasons that don't have to be explained. I would really call it a kind of "middle child syndrome". Great video by the way! Glad you talked about this classic.
For me the biggest problem was that the azure sheep mod did what Blue Shift tried some years before, for free and with more content. So it felt redundant, but as a nice short addition in the platinum box it was fine i think.
But...all 3 classic half life campaings put you into the boots of someone who isn't special, an nerd that luckily had an HEV suit, a common marine and a security guard
They all became special after the first game but you could swap the name and appearence of any character and nothing would change, because they represent the average person
@@plaguedoctorjamespainshe6009 yeah but like gordon was a level 3 scientist and was in a test chamber and also many people recognized him,shepard is a highly trained marine and knows way more about weapons that gordon but he is a average marine,and barney just knows how to use glock/berreta and nothing more but a bulletproof suit and a bulletproof helmet.
YESSSS dude idk why but when the scientists were like “we did it Barney WERE FREE” I got a pure rush of adrenaline 😩 this made me understand why
@@plaguedoctorjamespainshe6009
Shepard is not a normal Marine though, he's a part of HECU, which is a fictional special forces unit.
Barney is multiple levels of Average Joe away from both. He just wants to finish his shift at the job he hates and have a beer like the rest of us haha
A third expansion was planned where you play as a health inspector auditing the cafeteria when the resonance cascade occurs called “Shelf-Life”
Highly underrated Comment 😂
That's not a *physics* pun though!
I played a mod way back in the day where you play as the contractor building Black Mesa. It was called Half-Assed.
@@keiyakins Neither is opposing force
@@Frille512 ... yes it is? Newton's third law.
I suddenly realized that Doom 3's flashlight system would have been the perfect replacement for the crowbar in Blue Shift. Since Barney doesn't have a power suit, there's no reason light would be emitting directly from him.
That's what the fanmade Blue Shift remake _Guard Duty_ is doing. Gordon and Adrian both have unique personal melee weapons. Alyx in promotional art is always seen with a wrench (the sockets remain on her utility belt.) But poor Barney, Gina, and Collette, just uses Gordon's crowbar.
Correctly
Most 90s games did that to be fair. Don't forget DOOM 3 came out at the advent of more advanced lighting tech so most of what came before just had simple point based sources stuck to objects.
The flashlight feeling like a real flashlight in D3 was nuts at the time and required a hefty rig.
@@BlueZirnitra Totally. And the duct-tape mod was out within the week or two, I remember. Good times. 😁
Barney has to have the crowbar in Blue Shift or HL2 doesn't happen the same. I'm pretty sure it was intentional, and if not, it was later retconned to be needed.
Remember, at the beginning of HL2, Barney gives his crowbar to Gordon.
Blue-Shift had the best Xen section of all three games, with more cohesive land mass (the red river and the device you need to adjust being the high points). The few platforms hovering over the void aren't nearly as annoying as they were back in HL1. You can note how Black Mesa was inspired by it when they've created their rendition of Xen.
The only issue is that stupid maze.
too short
@@wta1518 I remember that maze sucked as a kid, but now that I can easily find the way it kind of grew on me, especially after finding out about the Chum Toad lair at the end.
@@wta1518 the maze isnt even that hard tho
@@victordarkreapewr444 It's not, the issue that if have is that it's easy to get lost because everything looks the same.
6:46 you know honestly I think Barney actually kept his crowbar as well as Gordon’s since in HL2: episode one he had another one to give to Gordon and said “I don’t have many MORE of these,”
where the fuck does barney keep all these damn crowbars tho
@@koolkidkameronsir6088 The same place every character keeps their 2+ amount of crap 1) Their butt or 2) Doraemon's Purse
@@RyanTurner1331 who the fuck is doraemon?
oh wow
@@koolkidkameronsir6088 probably at Dr.Kleiner’s
15:31 I think the optimistic ending for Barney made perfect sense and stayed faithful to the lore as he lives outside peacefully for a while, then dealing with the combine and working undercover.
There actually is a real world under-slung grenade launcher for the MP5, the ISTEC ISL-200, which despite not being a "Gun Nut" I want to say is rare due to little to no demand for such an attachment for the MP5. But hey, it exists.
It's probably rare because of how impractical it seemed for a weapon intended to be used in close quarters to have a grenade launcher unless it were for launching tear gas canisters and flash bangs.
But, but... ingame tis an MP5SD, which would have no easy mounting points and should be silent. Cool find tho, smarter everyday.
@@BoSPaladin-102 wouldn't the weight also be an issue? a gun that small is supposed to be lighter on purpose, no? wouldn't a mounted launcher with a grenade loaded be so much bulkier? I bet it even affects the way it shoots plenty as small as it is
Keep in mind this game came out in 1998-2001, so the assumption is that all these cool gadgets would be mainstream 10 years from now. Remember how Tom Clancy games had the XM8 as the new US service rifle?
There are also a few pictures online of Malaysian special forces packing MP5s with M203 grenade launchers attached. So it's at least doable, if not necessarily practical.
Crazy to think the "wait" between Blue Shift and Half Life 2 was...3 years, and then looking at the graphical leap between both games and the time between Ep 2 and Alyx, 13 years.
Episode 3? What?
@@honzabalak3462 he's from a universe with half life 3
@@honzabalak3462 whoops, i wish though
Thing is, Valve didn't work on the expansions. That was all Gearbox. Valve was busy working on TF2 and getting HL2/Source engine up to snuff. The fact that the gap between BS and HL2 is so small isn't as impressive once you realize Valve was basically hands-off on the HL expansions.
Yes, I too am surprised that technology made gigantic leaps in terms of computing power in the late 90s and early 2000's.
Always felt like Blue Shift was the most relatable of the original Half Life games. Barney is a representation of who we would probably all in an actual event like this. I know that they made Gordon Freeman out to be the "everyday guy" sort of protagonist, but man, I got no PhD lol.
nah, we would be dead if we truly were in this events, not just aliens, but military also wanted to kill us. definetely not even gonna see daylight. barney is atleast skillful with guns to handle them atleast.
Honestly, even after playing the other games, Blue Shift is probably my favorite. Just because of how well it immerses you that you're not a fit chosen one scientist in power armor or a special trained marine or a sorta genius rebel girl. And he doesn't get any intervention from the G-Man AT ALL.
Barney Calhoun is just a plucky, resourceful, normal guy. And he still manages to be up there with the best of them.
Blue shift is definitely over hated. It wasn't as good as opposing force yea (I'd argue nothing half-life related is) but it was still enjoyable.
Hey JAREK i wonder if you can cover UNREAL TOURNAMENT
I agree. Opposing Force was better. But it doesn't mean Blue Shift was bad.
Lore wise it makes sense for this game to be that short. Unlike Shephard or Gordon, Barney just wants to escape he doesn't want to stop the disaster nor hunting freeman.
You gotta love enviromental storytelling man. I feel really immersed everytime I step into Black Mesa as Gordon, Shepard or Barney, and it's because of these little details that make you feel like YOU ARE THERE, inside this huge research facility where chaos has been unleashed. In a way, you connect as a human being, to these NPCs that feel somewhat real human beings, as well as the interesting world and lore built as you go deeper. I fucking love Half-Life. Best franchise ever in my eyes.
I loved the environments in HL: Alyx for this reason, so much storytelling detail in a lot of the spaces you visit.
Man, i remember being stuck on that "metal barrels conduct electricity" explosives puzzle for quite some time as a little kid. But once i figured it out, i never did forget that metal barrels conduct electricity.
Thanks, Randy.
In Poland, that pack came out as “Half-Life: Generation” and initially didn’t include Blue Shift, but it did come with a bonus CD that included some handpicked mods and a mug (which I still use to this day). Oddly enough, the CD keys not only did work with Steam a few years later, but also gave access to Blue Shift. If I recall correctly, they later released an updated version of this pack that did include Blue Shift but no mug.
100% right, I somehow convinced my parents to give me 100 PLN to spend on it. Blue Shift included, but no mug.
Blue Shift was really short for my tastes, but I've always had a soft spot for Barney.
Just a good guy doing his job, willing to have a beer with the perpetually tardy Gordon Freeman, only to get swept up in two major apocalyptic catastrophies. Even then, he's no quitter, and would probably do his damnest to find a surviving bar to have a beer with his old pal.
11:09
Can't say I agree. The moment you step out of the elevator, the scientist says to open the silo door because "they're coming for us, it's our only way out!" The silo door is closed and the guard who could have opened it was killed by the zombie, leaving you to head the only other possible way.
speedrunners skip the entire chapter by pushing the scientist to the guard room door, which he apparently forgot he can open
@@audiovisualcringe One could interpret that as another scientist crawling through the vents into the room and resting there until Gordon found him.
I honestly don't mind the ending of Blue Shift and it certainly reminds people that not everyone are dealing with overly crazy stuff while trying to escape Black Mesa. Most probably have very simple path to follow trying to escape Black Mesa just like Barney. Despite majority never escaping, their goal and path was simplae like Barney's path. Heck, we see in Opposing Force that many marines got out of Black Mesa easily as well once the leave order got sent out. Only reason why Shepard never got out easily is because the G-man kept interfering with his escape though at that point the G-man was just testing Shepard.
This also shows a bit how crazy Gordon and Shepard's paths are compared to Barney's path due to the G-man taking interests in both Gordon and Shepard.
“I came to two startling realisations the other day, I’m losing more hair on my head that I’m comfortable with” that had me 😂😂
I feel yah Gman, it’s rough when you notice..
I really like how short Blue Shift is. There's a lot of really aggravating sections in Half Life and Opposing Force that just feel like they're in the game to pad run time.
while I agree with you I don't really think it comes from run time being padded but rather some encounters falling short in their design like that mortar section OP4
OpFor in general feels like padding because of how disjointed it is.
Like you go from the inner labs to the sewers to a literal recreation of D-Day to Xen. It feels like they tried to experiment too much and nothing really works. People just like it because it has gimmicky weapons and generic aliens that are different to the Xenians.
Ah yes i "love" me some escort mission
Cough cough blast pit
Aggravating sections in Half-Life to pad out time. Like what? The fps genre is not for me personally and I still think you lot just need to git good.
the part where you go back to the scientist that told you about rosenberg and find that he's bled out actually made me shed a tear when I was playing the game.
The fan remake of blue shift looks really good so far. Hopefully opposing force is next
Tripmine Studios is makinga a OpFor remake called Operation: Black Mesa.
They are making both OpForce and BL remake in one game.
Same group is also doing Azure Sheep. It's really good so far, even it retains the OG voice "acting" lol
We’re working really hard to make it an experience to remember :)
Link/source?
That Platinum Collection pack is what got me into Half-Life, and steered me towards PC as a favorite. Always been my favorite game. I still have the physical box. A friend got the collection for a birthday present and had already played it, and for some reason decided to give it to me; thanks Matthew!
Blue Shift is being remade on the Source engine from the scratch. The first three chapters are already done and you can play them. It's really well made and relies more on claustrophobic feeling of danger lurking in the dark rather than loud shootouts. Ammo is surprisingly scarce too
Yes. I literally talk about this in the video.
@@Gggmanlives ofc bro, this was for all the skimmers in the house😂
I don’t think Guard Duty can be played at all yet. Plus it comes out as a part of Operation:Black Mesa.
@@primevaltimes only 3 chapters can be played at the moment. The team behind the game is going to release the fourth one soon. They decided they'll be releasing it as an episodic content
@@MatadorShifter Oh, I see. This isn’t the remake by Tripmine Studios. There must be another team also trying to remake Blue Shift.
One of the few times valve has been able to count to 3 😭😂😂😂
Well it's not really called 3 is it?
More like 2 and a half 😅
Only, valve didn't count it, Gearbox did
It's a Gearbox game.
@don't be surprised BEGONE BOT
I know that the official Blue Shift remake: Guard Duty, replaces Barney's crowbar with his heavy-duty security flashlight, which he is shown in some of the trailer footage bashing the back end of it into headcrab zombies, which I feel is a more accurate default melee weapon for him, sure its not as versatile as a crowbar, but it fits the more survival horror theme that project is apparently aiming for: sacrifice a moment of light to smack away your foes.
I normally save these as workout videos, but this one came along with perfect timing. You have such a great channel and you cover nostalgia like this to games that few people have heard of. You give some pretty relevant analysis but it's packed with humour. Fantastic work.
Hah, I did the same…had this all que’d up for a workout listen and then said “you know what, let’s take it in right now”…have to find a new workout background now🤣
Do you work out with your left or your right?
Nothing like the sultry tones of a middle aged Aussie dude making jokes about his ringpiece to make you feel strong and sexy
@@adamfrisk956 right for speed, left for results
It's pretty rad that both Opposing Force and Blue Shift will get the Black Mesa treatment.
I love blue shift I remember getting it in a bundle with team fortress half life opposing force and counter strike. I beat blue shirt before half life 1 and I was glad because it made Freeman's perspective even more crazy. Definitely a gem. I wonder if I still have those discs somewhere
Blue Shirt
hope you didnt beat the blue shirt too hard
@@Brissles LOL
@@neidhartmuller8804 I did it was great
@@Brissles blue shirt was definitely the most valve game of all time
Watching people break the shit out of the Blue Shift campaign in Sven Coop was some of the hardest I laughed while playing a video game. Simmons slowly floating up to the ceiling and Rosendead put tears in my eyes. Good times.
Glad to see someone shouting out HECU Collective's incredible work on Black Mesa Blue Shift. The fourth chapter recently came out, so now is the perfect time to check it out.
Enjoyed Blue Shift when it came out. It was short but a decent experience. Went through it a few times at release and got my money's worth. Fully agree that Barney should of had a Baton instead of Crowbar. I still remember go crazy when meeting Barney at the start Half Life 2. Good times.
Wait a second, maybe the crowbar Barney tosses you at the start of HL2 is the one he kept from Blue Shift!!
@@KingPBJames Haha! Indeed
@@KingPBJames That's been the fan theory since HL2 came out lol
@@KingPBJames I mean, Blue Shift is very likely not canon, but it's much more likely the HL2 crowbar isn't the one from Black Mesa, considering G-Man took it away.
Crowbar always makes more sense considering how many crates and boxes there are in the half life universe, all crowbars can be batons but not all batons can be crowbars
To me, I love and adore Blueshift than Opposing Force and Half-Life itself from how world building it is. It expands on the Black Mesa facility in Chapter 1 and expands and builds the concept of Xen of what it's supposed to be explained in the video.
The ending gave hope of how Barney's help and cooperation with the Rosenberg, Walter, and Simmons that made a success of escaping Black Mesa besides Gordon and Adrian. The best part of about it is that it tells details and story about Barney being a Security Guard in Black Mesa and how he escaped from the place during the incident. Glad that Gman had less interest in him, lucky'ol him.
Half Life, Opposing Force & Blue Shift are so so good!
The Black Mesa community build looks amazing also, would love to contribute
Having the model change from Glock to the Beretta 92FS makes sense. Since the grunts would be using standard issue(for the time) equipment, that would mean they would be using 92FS pistols. This would be convenient for both Barney and Gordon as their pistols would all share the same magazines. I mean they could of had them ditch the Glock after fighting the grunts for the first time, but you know programming.
4:20 Bro what the fudge!! The G-Man is one of the most iconic characters in video game history! How dare you even resemble his name!
I've always loved the drawn out lonely parts of Half-Life games. I play Highway 17 without getting the car sometimes just to make it last XD. The bridge section still gives me the same epic happy vibes it did years ago and that section at the end of Ravenholm after leaving Gregori... Perfect.
21:40 fun fact about this particular sequence is in terms of world building this sequence here explains the scar on the side of barneys face in Half Life 2.
That’s always been my headcanon
That fart at 10:45 was greatly appreciated. Thank you
The very first couple of minutes in Half-Life, Opposing Force and Blue Shift right after the resonance cascade are the favourite parts of each game for me.
That moment where everything has gone to shit and you're struggling for survival by the skin of your teeth.
Speaking of length, all of Half-Life's expansions are set within a single half of original's campaign, the second half for Opposing Force (the main action even starts somewhere halfway through Surface Tension), and the first half for both Blue Shift and Decay.
Decay even ends much earlier than Blue Shift, so yeah, each expansion really was shorter than the previous one xD
Gun nut here, Hk did actually have a under barrel grenade launcher developed for the MP5. It never saw wide spread use though. So Half-life actually got it right.
The reason why it was never put into wide spread usage was mainly due to it being deemed impractical and unnecessary for a weapon like the MP5 being meant for use in close quarters.
Well unless it were chambered for tear gas canisters, flash bangs, and maybe concussion grenades. Because if it were to be used with fragmentation or other explosive grenades then the recoil would probably cause problems for the inner workings of the MP5 itself later on.
Glad to know I'm not the only one that knows about that, it was a pretty niche modification on the gun, that's for sure. Although according to the game's lore the soldiers were part of a special ops group so it could make some sense into that way. In addition, he also mispronounced the M16 model as an M4, barrel is too long.
Pretty sure I've seen a video before talking about the HD models not making too much sense, same goes with the Glock being replaced with a Beretta. Seeing Black Mesa's remodel of the original HL1 weapons in a true HD fashion is fantastic tho.
I'm not too big of a gun nut, my knowledge mostly goes from searching about niche gun related stuff (like the MP5 with a GL launcher) and watching videos I guess.
First, congrats for the awesome sponsores. Good to see pro content makers being recognised.
Second, dont loose your head cuz of lost hair, just shave it all off. The hairloss will halt, and you can appreciate yourself for who you are
I remembering playing it in High School as we had decent MacBook laptops
And for a short adventure in the Half Life universe it was perfect for playing it during digital labs/study halls for that quick fix of gameplay.
YES. Personally I’ve always preferred blue shift over opposing force. Infact I think it does a good job holding its own against the original
The videos on this channel are like comfort food for me
I think one thing that’s often forgotten is that this was originally intended as an ‘extra’ for the cancelled Dreamcast port, in the same way Decay was for the PS2.
I wonder what the games reception would have been had it been release as intended, followed by a PC port later on?
Even with being just an "extra" i still prefer both Decay and Blue Shift over Opposing Force any day. Level design over content imo.
Blue Shift was actually my favourite expansion pack
Ricochet was my favorite
@@residentevil4freek Ricochet is not expansion for HL brother
@@supersprawy yes it is
@@residentevil4freek it's standalone title, not the expansion for HL
@@supersprawy OK fine
Gman: _A thight, solid expansion pack._
Civvie: _It's so f$&__#ing__ boring!_
Interesting to see how tastes can diverge.
I'm with Civvie on that one. Still respect Gman though and I love both creators.
Pretty sure Civvie lives to compete with Gman so theres that XD
Civvie just hates Half-Life overall
@@MordecaiTheAwesomeBluejay No he doesn't. He actually quite likes it, but he's not gonna suck the game's cock like so many people do. Yes Half Life 1 is a good game, but it has its issues and is dated in certain areas. Still better than any of the triple A military shooters from last year.
@@MordecaiTheAwesomeBluejay thats too bad
Og Half Lifes not my favorite or anything but the lineage it started that culminated in 2, one of my favorites, is something i respect and appreciate, especially compared to how most other contemporary shooters were all strafeathons
Blue Shift has a special place in my heart.. I played it late at night with no one else around in the summer of 2001 and man I was THERE! It sucked me in so much I loved it... the simple ending was honestly the most intense one for me... maybe because it felt more "real" instead of a boss fight type of thing idk.
Someone really needs to release a stable source edition for Blue Shift
Blue shift was the first half life game I played that got me into the series
Gearbox could've used a P90 and Five-seveN as weapon replacements, since both of these, like the MP5 and Glock, share the same ammo type. Or they could've just made a higher-res mp5 and glock.
i guess if you really care that much about it you can just try to pretend the m4 is a colt 9mm smg, even if the magazine is clearly 5.56 on the model
Blue Shift on the Dreamcast (a friend had ripped and hooked me up with back in the day) was my first introduction Half-Life.
The way I phrased it back in the day was: Half-Life Blue Shift was the best let-down I've ever played.
After Opposing Force I just expected so much, and then the game just suddenly ended. But it was such a good time that I just couldn't be upset about that.
blue shift is probably my favorite of the quadrilogy (yes, I count decay, fight me). It's short, it's sweet, it was designed for dreamcast, and it has the best story elements of the quadrilogy.
also, rosenberg's ai pathfinding had to have been mostly scripted for it to be as good as it is.
those who don't cound decay just didn't play it lol
*Tetralogy
Is there some kind of hate for Decay? Had a blast playing it with my brother back in the day.
@@szeltovivarsydroxan9944 tetralogy is for books
Blue Shift and Opposing Force are both amazing in my book. I really loved Half Life's approach to telling the story through different perspectives, often a question I'm left wondering with most games where you just play as the hero beginning to end. I wish more games did this!
This game made me envision my dream job of guarding some deep subterranean lab facility. I imagine sitting at a desk at the end of some huge tunnel. You spend 8 hours a day sitting there, rarely seeing another living soul the whole time. Popping your lunch out of a mini fridge under the desk. Brewing some coffee of a little pot. A small bathroom is thru a door next to you. And this goes on for years. And then one night on graveyard shift the alarms go on. the lights shut off, flashing red emergency lights spin around in the long dark tunnel. Your radio is filled with alarming chatter and then blood curdling screams and then silence. And then you leave a little note scribbled on a piece of paper giving your 2 weeks notice.
20:50 Oh! My! God! Barney and that scientist are vampires!!
Does anybody else prefer the HD models? I totally get the old school charm of the original models and can understand why people would prefer them. However, there is a lot I like in the HD models especially when it comes to things like the military equipment. But yeah, like you said, Blue Shift is the weakest of the three original Half Life games but I think it just has that old flaw of "Great but too short". I'd compare it to something like Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeros. Anyways, I always thought Barney's melee weapon should have be a flashlight.
Ah yes, G Man, the random government employee who teleports you into a tram in space and then opens a portal at the end of Half Life 1.
Yeah and the guy that literally disappears out of nowhere and appears out of nowhere in half life 1 also lol
For a more immersive experience, when you see Gordon in the train at the start of the game he should have been bunny hopping like crazy
Yes, thanks for this Gman. Quake 2 and Half Life are what started my love of PC gaming.
Would've been cool if his melee weapon was a flashlight and it worked like Doom 3. Would add a layer of danger and vulnerability especially not having an HEV suit. Gordon's suit had a built in light and Shepherd used night vision like a soldier would, so giving a cop a flashlight would make sense.
In the standalone Blue shift remake from Tripmine studios they're doing exactly that
I’d say it’s about as appreciated as it deserves.
- It basically requires you to use the HD models, so that Dr. Rosenberg doesn’t look out of place.
- It doesn’t even have the full arsenal from base Half-Life, let alone OP4.
- It just barely has all the enemies from base Half-Life, with you fighting a lot of them only once.
- It barely featured the greatest Half-Life character, Otis.
- While you can argue that this is how the Barney we know from HL2 escaped Black Mesa, that has never been officially confirmed, with Mark Leidlaw even going to far as to professionally dance around the topic when it was asked.
- It becomes so excessively linear by the end, that the game even has to imply that the silent protagonist is having a full conversation with people.
You know there is a mod for a low poly Rosenberg on Gamebanana that fixes the HD face inconsistency. As well as a low poly mod for the vests and helmets that you pick up throughout Blue Shift.
I would post a link for each mod, but CZcams bots hate when people do that.
Also, Otis doesn't have an HD model when the HD pack is enabled. But I'm sure there is a mod for that.
@@BoSPaladin-102 Maybe the professional company should have bothered to do that back in the day.
@@BoSPaladin-102 m o d
You are correct here.
- The HD pack is overhated for bullshit reasons. It fixes a lot of logical holes in the arsenal even if it creates some new ones. The scientists look far better, although their best models are undoubtedly the PS2 models.
- A game doesn't need ten billion guns to be good. OpFor has the most gimmicky arsenal ever, and it's gets boring halfway through. HL1's weapons are barely used except the MP5/M16 & the SPAS-12.
- It's a short experience, of course it won't bombard you with enemies. You expect them to fucking add Controllers?
- Otis was barely present in OpFor, he appears in one hallway.
- None of the Gearbox games are canon. Laidlaw has stated this, Valve have stated this, and it's painfully obvious to anyone that has more than 2 brain cells. Shit like the Race X and the Black Ops heavily mess with the plot of both HL1 & HL2.
- Atleast it remains consistent. OpFor jumps around from deep labs to sewers to fucking D-Day to the mesa to Xen to the storage facilities. Blue Shift is tonally consistent: You spend the game in a train depot, a few deep labs and Xen. That's it. Also, Blie Shift has the best OG Xen levels.
The "Black Mesa Blue shift" is now called "Operation BlackMesa". And I CANNOT wait for it!
21:50 "this guy is an absolute G... Man!" Well done mate, nice transition.
Agreed. I thought Blue Shift was pretty good. Not as action packed as Half-life or Opposing Force. But solid. It had a short, punchy story. Definite beginning and definite end. Added a few new areas and didn't destroy the canon. Exactly what an expansion should be.
I always liked blue shift becuase its that little silly half life game that you play when you want to complete a half life game but you dont want to get hours to complete. Is just easy, simple and quick, it makes sense it was made from the dreamcast
I don't think the weapons weren't thought of when making Blue shift, Gordon had the HEV suit which was basically an exoskeleton, Adrian had his rucksack, and while neither of these makes sense to be holding 32 weapons and about 73,000 rounds of ammo, it makes more sense than Barney holding that much with just his body armor and duty pants, there isn't any way he could lug around such an arsenal.
Dad: Son, get out of the tank.
Son: I'm in the tank and you're not.
Dad: *blows up tank with rocket launcher*
To be honest, I'm amazed Barney didn't instantly start questioning Gordon about what HE saw in Xen once they reuinited in HL2, Barney may be the only other living human to have been to Xen and back
Shepherd, and Green:
And Shepard.
my main criticism is that the campaign ends to early. Basically as soon as Gordan gets captured your out which is half way trough the primary campaign. Too bad Barney was not involved in what Gordan did with the Lamda core.
@@MrChickennugget360 bro didnt read my comment
@@galbelol766 He is such and awesome character he needs to be mentioned twice.
Blue Shift was great for what it was. It's unfair to compare it to Opposing Force because it wasn't created to be a stand-alone expansion pack but a complimentary bonus side-mission within the Dreamcast port. Since that got cancelled, Valve did the smart thing and released it by itself (and I really wish they did this with Decay as well). Deep down we're all really happy they did...even though some dumbasses don't want to admit it.
P.S. The "HD" models are great and I always play with them enabled...come at me Sonny Jims!!
There was actually a cut mission for co-op where you’d kill the soldiers before they killed Gordon, and I’ve heard they’ve made this canon in Black Mesa, with a bullethole in the window of the compactor’s control center if I remember correctly, so they might make a version for the co-op, hopefully
half life 1, uplink, opposing force, blue shift.. EPIC GAMES! i played them ALL when they were released. a truely epic and unforgettable experience
What I really admired is that if you break the sealed entrance to the old facilities before you meet Rosenberg and then lead him there, he will admit you finding it. Way back as a kid I was blown away by this “non-linearity” when I discovered it on my 2nd playthru.
Blue Shift was a wonderful complement to the already existing HL and OpFor. In years I learned to appreciate it for what it is, because none has been created (officially) after it and never will be.
There’s something so lamplight warm and cosy about the GoldSource engine that makes me replay the games and mods every now and then. E.g. Gunman Chronicles. I truly love the game for what it does with weaponry and the setting representation for it’s time.
I’ll just leave it here. Tribes: vengeance. Most likely you won’t see my comment, yet I think it’s worth your attention. Maybe you did play it, but if you didn’t, oh, Sonny Jim, would you kindly? It’s worth your while. If not, money back guarantee.
Regards from Ukraine.
P.S. Still deciding if spiders are worse than russians.
"There’s something so lamplight warm and cosy about the GoldSource engine" you put into words a feeling ive been trying to describe for years. thank you :)
I’m looking forward to the remake by Tripmine Studios that’s coming out soon, paired with their OP4 remake.
That should hopefully fix any and all issues people had with the original Blue Shift, namely that there was literally no reason to play it instead of the base game.
TS is already doing cool things like having your crowbar also be your flashlight, so breaking boxes will require you to give up visibility, which, right off the bat sounds like a really cool gameplay addition.
Well when i'd want an expanded Opposing force keeping the key elements , i absolutely don't mind if most of Blue shift is reworked from the ground up. Mostly because i barely remember this game plot despite being 2 hours long. I only remember the final part where you gotta help doctor John St jon go to the portal then go yourself. But that's the only part i really want to remain in the remake.
Wait what? I didn't knew about this? Are there any videos out there?
@@kalpeshrawat418
They have a CZcams channel with the same name as their company, and they’ve been posting video updates for several years, now.
They also officially got a steam page for their duo-remake, so it is officially happening.
It seems that they’ve put the majority of their focus on making Blue Shift, or “Guard Duty”, as they’ve named their remake, as the majority of new gameplay features they bring up, are tied to that remake, with them showing off how they’ve given Barney an indestructible flashlight, which will serve as his crowbar, and will cast light in real-time as he bashes boxes with it.
You should check out their videos, a lot of cool stuff they showed off was from months or years ago, so it’s all certainly either been improved, or fully implemented, by now.
33:35 To be fair, both the headcrabs and vortigaunts are used from HL2 from models and AI, and not to mention that the vorts in HL1 do attack faster on the hard difficulty
Blueshift helped me fight my fear of jumpscares, there was so many headcrab jumpscares that I just accepted, I'm no longer that type of guy that goes onto the comments to see a time-lapse of the jumpscares in a horror game video
I really enjoyed op-for and blue shift equally. At the time half life was still such a step up in gaming and between it and 3dfx hardware it was a very special time you had to almost try to suck to be not interesting
I honestly feel bad for kids that grow up these days never being able to experience the times when games like Half Life came out. Half Life was revolutionary and really brought gaming to a whole new level. I remember when it came out and my friend was raving about it telling me I had to play it. Those were the days.
I bet it was awesome
@@s_callahan It was man.
3:55 there was a cut scene in "Decay" were you kill the 2 soldiers before they shotgun freeman in the back before dropping him in.
Black mesa required security guards to also do maintenance so it makes sense he would use a crowbar.
GManlives is just so consistent. Thank you for all the videos.
After so many years, HL with it's expansions is still a damn good game.
And thanks for making me wanna play it - again...
Where's mah fix?!
Brings me back to my childhood and gave these packs a shot whenever I had the money to buy one (IIRC, $25 each one when Gamestop actually sold boxed PC games). Opposing Force was the my first experience with the Half Life series when I found it bundled with Half Life and opted to play that one first. I played Half Life then I played Blue Shift after that.
17:31 You do realize that those first aid and H.E.V. chargers have their looks different, because they are supposed to be like an old version of those, since, you know, it's a long abandoned prototype lab, right? And the normal versions can be seen all around the game.
No.
The crowbar in this game is actually the one you are using in Half-Life 2 until it gets disintegrated when entering the Citadel. So Its pretty epic and also explains why Barney tosses you a crowbar with a remark "that you dropped it" back in Black Mesa, with Gordon being well known for using a crowbar. After losing it in Ep. 1 barney gives you another saying that he doesn't have any more of these. So if the crowbar you find after those marines throw you in the smash pit is not the one you've been using, Gordon uses 5 different crowbars during his chronicles so far.
I still say they should have also made a *Half Life: Black Ops* game.
it was a big missed opportunity. It would have shown another interesting side of things even if it might have only been a few hours long.
15:49 i believe in HL2 barney is working as a cop without the combines knowing about it, possibly to help some resistance members slip by the cracks.
Ever since i first played the original WON Blue Shift as a kid in early 2014, i thought that this was the most underappreciated expansion, even when i played a bit of Opposing Force around that time too.
The main reason Blue Shift was my favorite because of the story, unlike the fates that of Gordon and Shephard, Calhoun just escapes the facility instead of being taken away by the G-Man, and you also get to explore the older abandoned and sealed off parts of the facility like the Section A-17 Prototype Labs that just make you feel like a kid wanting to place yourself in that universe, even though Gordon has already been in Silo D and Sector E Track Control, imagine how much bigger the older and sealed off parts of the facility could be like.
Old Black Mesa was in use through the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's, and all the way up until around the early 1980's when it was gradually being abandoned and sealed off as it started being replaced by the newer built more modern sectors of the facility. You can see lots of old 1950's/1960's tape drive machines, phone dials on switchboards and run down systems that seem to be broken yet still function properly. I just wish Blue Shift's campaign was longer to reflect that stuff though, but not past the point where the military pulls out that is, of course. And if it had more weapons and enemies.
I also liked Blue Shift because Calhoun and Shephard are complete opposite personalities. Blue Shift implies Calhoun as this undecided college guy, whereas Shephard is basically an action and adventure seeker. It's also more gigachad to be an actual security guard and replenish your damaged armor by replacing the ceramic strike faces in your vest and ceramic liner in your helmet instead of using some HEV suit. Not only that, but Calhoun also had a significant other to buy flowers for and was also very good friends with Gordon and Kleiner, this friendship being something that would later become a deciding factor in Barney Calhoun's future in the Half-Life universe.
Blue Shift was also the first to introduce the welcomed by me High Definition Pack, which changed a lot of the realism in the textures and weapons, for example the HECU soldiers wearing PASGT-style helmets and bandoliers as well as ALICE gear. The weapons also got changed, for example, the barebones Glock 17 became the Beretta 92FS, the SPAS-12 got it's vents and folding stock, and the MP5 became the Colt M727, which is a variant of the CAR-15 rifle, which is in fact used by the USMC, which Gearbox has properly canonized the HECU as. The Black Mesa remake which was being worked on also went ahead and decided to canonize the HECU as marines, albeit instead wearing MICH helmets and IBA body armor, which are more fitting for the brainstorm note year of Marc Laidlaw that Half-Life 1 is set in, 2003. In Black Mesa, they also use LAV-25 instead of the Bradley, and the AV-8B Harrier instead of the F-16 that we see pass by the canyon in Half-Life 1, although in base HL-1 it could've been implied that the military was getting air support from the New Mexico Air National Guard nearby which would explain the F-16's being present, but Gearbox also didn't seem to change this, only Black Mesa later did.
Gearbox simply saw the base Half-Life which didn't have any proper fleshed out characters or story and decided to give it a lot of proper lore and canonize things, hence why the expansion packs existed in the first place, it's why you see people like Kleiner, Calhoun and Dr. Cross and Green exist, and why you fight with weapons like the Beretta and Colt M727, it's because when Valve first released the base Half-Life 1, it didn't have any proper lore, so Gearbox decided to come in and fix it, and later on, in Half-Life 2, Valve just kinda decided to play along with it.
Also GmanLives, i really fucking loved the "Running in the 90's" train car scene from the elevator in Blue Shift, only more stuff like this man, LOL.
The more I watch your videos, the more my simple brain gets educated with the games you review
@Tuki BEGONE BOT
The title of this video says it all. Keep it up, dude! Hope fatherhood is treating you well.
A well deserved tribute and analysis for an underrated expansion pack. I loved it and completed it several times and I loved the "all good" ending without the need of a boss fight. I wonder what Blue Shift remake will be better between the Black Mesa one and the one TripMines studio plans on including in Operation Black Mesa. Shame TripMine, Crowbar and HECU collectives never worked together
the reflexes on that guard tho at 0:05
that man be movin like the matrix
Ah yes, the Half Life 2 prequel where Barney escapes Black Mesa with Eli and Isaac
Well, you're not wrong about Valve about making a 15 minute game.
I'm sure you tried about the Aperture desk job simulator.
12:43 I always loved the noise those health pools made.
R.E. Black mesa Blue Shift. I hope they don't do the same to Zen in Blue Shift, as they did to Half-Life.
There's also some other devs remaking the Half-Life expansions. Operation: Black Mesa, on Steam.