

Half-Life: Blue Shift had players playing the role of Barney Calhoun, a Black Mesa security guard, whereas Opposing Force had them stepping into the shoes of Adrien Shephard, one of the US Special Forces operatives sent in to squash the alien threat and destroy any evidence of the incident. As opposed to continuing the story of Gordon Freeman, these two expansions instead retold the same story from the perspective of two different characters.

In peak 90’s fashion, Valve followed up two expansion packs: Half-Life: Blue Shift and Half-Life: Opposing Force. Half-Life was met with praise by both players and critics who lauded the games unique combination of combat, puzzle-solving, and platforming elements. While it may seem like a relatively common technique by today’s standards, this was considered an extremely bold approach at the time. This included helicopter crashes, specific NPC deaths, certain enemy encounters, etc. Instead of using cut-scene intermissions to advance its plot, Half-Life relied on scripted sequences planted strategically throughout the game. Unlike other action games at the time, Half-Life told its story almost entirely from a first-person perspective. When the original Half-Life launched on Steam in 1998, it revolutionized the FPS genre. The series-which consists of Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life: Episode 1, and Half-Life 2: Episode Two-follows the adventures of Freeman as he attempts to quell the invading alien threat alongside a band of resistance fighters. For those unfamiliar with the series, Half-Life centers around ass-kicking physicist Gordon Freeman who, alongside a team of scientists working out of a remote research facility referred to as the Black Mesa compound, inadvertently rip open a portal to an alien dimension known as Xen.
