PROS
CONS
CONCLUSION: Half-Life: Opposing Force offers ideas that further demonstrate the capabilities of the GoldSrc engine and successfully build on the original game, in the same way that made the original popular to begin with.
- When I play this game, I feel like playing a familiar game with an entirely fresh experience. Immersive, interactive, destructive, physically correct, and grotesquely violent, Opposing Force ensures a quality game of Half-Life as a reality.
- Gordon could break boxes with the crowbar, but Adrian Shephard can turn Headcrabs (amongst other small creatures) into a splat of guts with the powerful strike of a wrench. The player gets a thorough story of a tale of one soldier of the Opposing Force who finds himself to be fighting for survival, and while the secondary characters that tell the dialogue are still designed to be "there and done", the exchange of conversation and dialogue has notably been improved.
- Graphics are equally beautiful as the original, and the level design is agreeable and additionally, thanks to the utilization of some of the additions of new content, has some of the trickiest and most well-planned level architectures and puzzles ever.
- For an expansion pack, we got an abundance of new weapons (up to 23 according to the game files and in multiplayer compared to the original's 14--with 5 being entirely new weapons and 4 essentially being re-editions--though there are only 17 in single-player), enemies, personnel with their own abilities for helping the player, and ways of physically interacting with the world, notably the climbing of ropes, which I find to be among the most pleasing additions to the game. Gearbox obviously tried so hard to make the game not feel too familiar to the original that they would add the new stuff and replace some content with better versions. The Barnacle as a weapon is a very special surprise to me, we have teleporting guns, there are replacements such as the revolver being placed by the more-functional Desert Eagle, and we are fighting primarily against a race of aliens known as Race X, comprising species other than those in the original game, not to mention that the flashlight has been replaced by night vision.
- As a bonus for enthusiasts of multiplayer, functionality is expanded to not only include Deathmatch as in the original Half-Life as well as additional levels, but Capture the Flag as well.
CONS
- Sadly, there are cases where there are under-demonstrations of the improvements such as the ropes as well as over-demonstration of certain improvements at a time that can render the game a bit repetitive, specifically late in it. I have had a lot of fun with the improvements, but with about 7 hours of campaign, I am left disappointed with the feeling of missing out on the full potential.
CONCLUSION: Half-Life: Opposing Force offers ideas that further demonstrate the capabilities of the GoldSrc engine and successfully build on the original game, in the same way that made the original popular to begin with.