
Opposing Force, however, shows the events of Half-Life from the perspective of a different protagonist. The player guides Freeman in an attempt to escape the facility and close the portal, ultimately traveling to Xen to do so. In Half-Life, the player takes on the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist involved in an accident that opens an inter-dimensional portal to the borderworld of Xen, allowing the alien creatures of Xen to attack the facility. Opposing Force is set in the same location and timeframe as that of Half-Life, taking place at a remote New Mexico laboratory called the Black Mesa Research Facility. A limited selection of Half-Life 's weaponry is allocated to the player to defend themselves with, although several new weapons such as a sniper rifle, combat knife and a variety of alien weaponry are also present. The player also encounters human opponents in the form of a detachment of black operations units who have been sent to destroy the base in the wake of the failure of the U.S.

A selection of enemies from Half-Life populate the game, including alien creatures such as headcrabs and Vortigaunts.Ī variety of new alien non-player characters, labelled "Race X", appear as well, often engaging in combat with the aliens from Xen. Three types of Marines are featured in the game: the soldier will simply provide fire support for the player with a submachine gun, shotgun or machine gun, the combat medic is capable of healing the player and other non-player characters, while the engineer can cut through doors and remove obstacles, allowing the player and their squad to proceed unhindered. Marines who will assist the player in combat to a far greater degree than security guards. However, Opposing Force also features fellow U.S. Security guards and scientists will occasionally help the player in reaching new areas and convey relevant plot information. įor the most part the player battles through the single-player game alone, but is occasionally assisted by friendly non-player characters. After release, a new capture the flag mode with additional levels, items and powerups, was created by Gearbox. Opposing Force also features an extended multiplayer, incorporating the various new environments and weapons into the original deathmatch mode used in Half-Life. Progress through the 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 of the game. The game continues Half-Life 's methods of an unbroken narrative. Players navigate through levels, fight hostile non-player characters and solve a variety of puzzles to advance. The overall gameplay of Opposing Force does not significantly differ from that of Half-Life. Opposing Force introduces new weapons and allows the player to command small squads of soldiers.Īs an expansion pack for Half-Life, Opposing Force is a first-person shooter. Other reviewers, however, thought that it still had many of the negative aspects of other expansion packs, although it was still regarded as an exceptional add-on.

Opposing Force was received well by critics, with many describing it as the new benchmark title for expansion packs, in a similar fashion to how Half-Life revolutionized the first-person shooter genre. The player character, Adrian Shephard, is sent in to neutralize the Black Mesa Research Facility when a scientific mishap causes it to be invaded by aliens, but quickly finds that the Marines are outnumbered and slowly being beaten back by a second alien race and black operations units. Marine, one of the enemy characters in the original game. Opposing Force returns to the same setting as Half-Life, but instead portrays the events from the perspective of a U.S. Over the course of development, Gearbox brought in a variety of talent from other areas of the video games industry to help bolster various aspects of design. Lead designer Randy Pitchford noted that he believed Gearbox was selected to develop Opposing Force because Valve, the creators of Half-Life, wanted to concentrate on their future projects. Opposing Force was the first expansion for Half-Life and was announced in April 1999.
HALF LIFE OPPOSING FORCE 2 SOFTWARE
It was developed by Gearbox Software and published by Sierra On-Line for Windows on November 19, 1999. Half-Life: Opposing Force is an expansion pack for the first-person shooter game Half-Life.
