Half-Life: Blue Shift is the second, stand-alone expansion pack for Half-Life, developed by Gearbox Software and released on June 12, 2001. Like Gearbox's other expansions, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life: Decay, Blue Shift returns to the setting and timeline of the original story, but with a different player character: the ubiquitous Black Mesa Research Facility security guard Barney Calhoun. As Barney, the player attempts to escape the alien invasion caused by the resonance cascade and the ensuing military cover-up.
Blue Shift has now been released via Steam and anyone with access to the back catalog, whether through an old copy of Half-Life or the Silver or Gold packs of Half-Life 2, may download Blue Shift for free. A third-party remake of Blue Shift for Source is under development.
Overview
The Blue Shift package offers the "Half-Life High Definition Pack" as an option at the time of install. The pack includes updated 3D character, weapon and item models, often increasing the polygon count 10-fold over the 1998 originals. The U.S. Blue Shift release includes a full, stand-alone version of Opposing Force, but the international edition has the multiplayer-only Opposing Force CTF.
Blue Shift started out first as an exclusive part of the Half-Life Sega Dreamcast port. Due to Sega pulling the plug on the Dreamcast, this version was cancelled only weeks away from release (the Dreamcast Half-Life port has since been leaked onto the Internet, with both Half-Life and Blue Shift fully playable). Gearbox then turned the project into a stand-alone product; unlike Opposing Force, it does not require the original Half-Life.
Although fans of Half-Life were eager to play more of their beloved game, many complained that Blue Shift did not measure up to the high standards set by the Opposing Force expansion. The game offers some new levels and areas of Black Mesa previously unseen in a (relatively short) new campaign, but no new weapons or enemies, as Opposing Force offered. Aside from the High Definition pack, the only new content was a character named Dr. Rosenberg, a Black Mesa scientist who has his own unique character model and played a major role in the story, and alternate scientist and security guard models wearing civilian attire. Blue Shift reviews were very poor in comparison to other games in the series.
On August 24, 2005, Blue Shift became available for download via the Steam content delivery program. Anyone who owned an old copy of Half-Life, or the Half-Life 2 silver or gold packages (thus, having access to the back catalog) could download it for free. Since then, access to Valve's back catalog for free after registering a previously owned copy of Half-Life has been discontinued, and Blue Shift must now be bought either alone, as part of the Half-Life 1 Anthology, or as part of the Valve Complete Pack. [1] The High Definition Pack is also available via Steam.
However, the Steam port suffers from numerous issues, most probably because the GoldSrc engine used in the game has been changed, preventing Blue Shift maps from being correctly played. Additionally, the Steam port omits the fixes from the Blue Shift patch that prevent known map and model glitches. The Steam port also introduced several other bugs that did not exist in the original release, such as the GUI colour now being displayed in the standard Half-Life orange, not Blue Shift blue. A third-party mod, Blue Shift Unlocked, addresses these issues and can successfully patch files from either a CD or Steam version of Blue Shift.
Plot
Barney Calhoun, a mid-ranking security guard in Black Mesa, is responsible for the preservation of equipment and materials and the welfare of research personnel in a cavernous underground sector of the facility. At the time of the resonance cascade, Calhoun is trapped in an elevator with two scientists. He wakes up at the bottom of the lift shaft, and soon finds himself fighting through the facility's underground areas to reach the surface and escape. Calhoun rescues some scientists who have been locked in railway cars in Black Mesa's classification yards. One of the scientists, Dr. Rosenberg (who is also a character in Decay), advises Calhoun that the entire facility is surrounded by Hazardous Environment Combat Unit Marines intent upon killing all base personnel to cover-up Black Mesa's research into extradimensional exploration. The only way to escape, Rosenberg explains, is to use an old prototype of the Lambda Complex teleporter; if it works, they can reach an obscure entrance to Black Mesa which (hopefully) has been overlooked by the Marines.
The remainder of the game takes place in an abandoned, walled-up sector of the base originally built for research of the first teleporter device. Calhoun, Rosenberg, and two other scientists (Walter Bennet and Simmons) try to restart the prototype teleporter. Calhoun is briefly teleported to a ruined human research camp on Xen to operate a triangulation device. Upon his return, Calhoun fights off Marines and aliens while the three scientists teleport out of the facility. Calhoun experiences a brief malfunction while teleporting: he is quickly "zapped" through different locations across Black Mesa and is imbued with a green glow. Finally, he returns safely to the remote facility entrance where he and the three scientists escape in a Black Mesa SUV.
At several points during Blue Shift, Calhoun almost meets the protagonist of Half-Life, Gordon Freeman: Calhoun is locked outside the door to Area 3 Security Facilities and sees Freeman go past on the tram heading towards Sector C (In the opening sequence of Half-Life Gordon Freeman sees a guard locked out of a door on the inside of the tunnel); using remote cameras, Calhoun also sees Freeman heading towards the H.E.V. Storage Area from the surveillance room; during the ending sequence of Blue Shift, Calhoun sees Freeman being dragged by H.E.C.U. soldiers towards a trash compactor.
Blue Shift is the shortest game in the Half-Life series (with the exception of Half Life 2: Episode One) with all the events taking place immediately after the resonance cascade. Blue Shift is also arguably the most disturbing — as most of the events take place on the surface in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the player sees firsthand the panic of the Black Mesa personnel as they desperately try to flee the facility by any means necessary. It is interesting to note that aside from the PlayStation 2-only Decay, Blue Shift is arguably the only HL1-based game with a "happy ending". At the end of Half-Life, Gordon Freeman is conscripted by the mysterious G-Man, and Opposing Force's Adrian Shephard is indefinitely detained by the same individual to ensure his silence. However, in Blue Shift, Barney and his three scientist companions escape Black Mesa and the scrutiny of the G-Man, whose brief report suggests he deems them too insignificant to bother further monitoring or eliminating.
Chapters
- Living Quarters Outbound - Calhoun rides the tram from the surface into work at the Black Mesa Research Facility. Along the way many new details about Black Mesa are revealed; Calhoun passes a laundromat and several fast food outlets, suggesting that the facility is very self-sufficient and probably houses many of its workers. He is also passed by Gordon Freeman riding in another tram in a scene that mirrors one in the original game.
- Insecurity - Calhoun visits security headquarters, including a shooting range and a surveillance room where it is possible to see Gordon Freeman again. He is then sent to help some scientists with an elevator; along the way, he witnesses many incidents foreshadowing the resonance cascade, such as a pair of scientists vainly trying to fix a supercomputer. He also sees the G-Man passing by in a tram. After repairing the elevator, the resonance cascade occurs; the elevator cable snaps and sends Calhoun and two scientists plummeting down the shaft as chaos breaks out around them.
- Duty Calls - Calhoun regains consciousness at the bottom of the elevator shaft to the sight of a Houndeye eating the body of a fellow security guard. The two scientists in the elevator are dead, and so Calhoun sets off through the industrial waste areas of Black Mesa to try to find help. Along the way he gains an insight into the scope of the disaster, and sees a pair of marines dumping corpses into a sewer opening, thus discovering that the military is trying to cover up the disaster rather than evacuate surviving personnel. (This scene also contains a reference to previous expansion pack Opposing Force, as one of the marines grumbles "just because Shephard's team didn't make it, we have to do the crap jobs?")
- Captive Freight - Calhoun reaches the surface and encounters the HECU. He manages to fight through them and reach a man named Dr. Rosenberg. He and a team of fellow scientists were trying to escape until the marines caught him.
- Focal Point - Rosenberg and Calhoun reach an older part of the Black Mesa Research Facility where a disused teleporter system is being reassembled by scientists. To make the teleporter completely operational, Calhoun is forced to travel to Xen and activate a device to allow teleportation to happen. Notable in the older part of the facility are older-looking models of health and HEV charger and the use of hand scanners instead of retina scanners for identification.
- Power Struggle - The teleporter has used its entire supply of batteries to transport Calhoun through to Xen. Calhoun is again forced to go down to a power facility level and find the batteries and recharge them. Calhoun fights through a team of HECU marines and aliens before he reaches the power generators.
- A Leap of Faith - Calhoun helps operate the simpler parts of the teleporter to get all the scientists through. He barely escapes the marines before teleporting.
- Deliverance - The other scientists have teleported to a safe location outside Black Mesa with some cars laying about. Calhoun also arrived, but some kind of discharge has affected him. Calhoun is teleported to various parts of Black Mesa. He witnesses Freeman being carried off to the trash compactor before transporting back to the scientists. A reference to the "Apprehension" Chapter of Half-Life. The scientists and Calhoun drive off. The last words say: "No Further Comment".
Weapons
- Crowbar: A simple melee weapon that is iconic of the Half-Life series.
- Pistol (Beretta M9 pistol with the High Definition pack): The first and simplest ranged weapon. Has good accuracy and does more damage per shot than the MP5, but these advantages are offset by a low rate of fire that makes it more useful on weak targets, like headcrabs or laser trip mines. Unlike most other ranged weapons, this pistol is effective underwater. Primary fire is accurate with every shot; secondary fire uses the machine pistol function, and is faster but less accurate. The rate of fire is then comparable with the MP5, but does slightly more damage per shot. Pistol is the standard equipment of the Black Mesa Security Guards, Calhoun would obtain it before the crisis unfolds.
- .357 Magnum (Colt Python revolver): An extremely powerful and accurate gun. It has a long reload time and a 6-round cylinder. Good for dispatching enemies in one hit, especially from a distance.
- Submachine gun / M4A1 Carbine (High Definition Pack) (Heckler & Koch MP5N/M203 grenade launcher, Colt M4A1 Carbine/M203 grenade launcher with the High Definition pack): Excellent for close-range combat. Has a fast rate of fire that compensates for its poor damage and accuracy. Secondary fire launches an extremely powerful under-slung grenade that detonates on impact. It uses the same ammo pool as the pistol.
- Shotgun (Franchi SPAS-12): Does high damage at close range, but its broad fire cone makes it weak at a distance. It can be reloaded one shell at a time, but is slow to fully reload. Its secondary fire shoots two shells at once. Shotgun is the additional equipment of the Black Mesa Security, storing in security armoury, but Calhoun would not be able to get one before the crisis.
- Rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launcher: Does a large amount of explosive splash damage. Secondary fire toggles a laser designator that guides the RPG to its target. Can only hold one rocket at a time with 5 more in reserve.
- Hand grenade: A frag grenade that explodes a few seconds after being thrown.
- Satchel Charge: A high-explosive that can be thrown a short distance and detonated when the player presses fire. Secondary fire allows the player to place several satchels and detonate them simultaneously.
- Snarks (alien weapon): Small, aggressive alien creatures that quickly pursue their target, pestering and biting, until finally exploding after several seconds (or if shot). If they cannot locate a hostile target, they will turn on the player that set them loose. When used in number, they are very effective at drawing enemies out from their cover, or distracting them from attacking the player.
Blue Shift: Unlocked
Blue Shift wasn't initially available on Steam like Half-Life and Opposing Force. In August 2005 the Half-Life Improvement Team released a mod that ported the legacy version of Blue Shift to Steam, allowing the player to play it as a fully working mod for HL1 rather than its own stand-alone game. This had the added benefit of letting Blue Shift take advantage of features that had been added to the GoldSrc engine since then, such as detail textures. Almost immediately after, Valve made Blue Shift officially available – but it used its original engine, and suffered from many of the same bugs as the legacy version. A few months later, the porting project was updated, and renamed to Blue Shift: Unlocked.
Trivia
- In the original Half-Life, Freeman is offered a beer many times by the "Barneys", and in Half-Life 2 Barney's introduction begins "About that beer I owed you...". In Half-Life 2: Episode One it is revealed that Gordon and Barney were friends prior to the events of the original game. Alyx Vance refers to stories told in Black Mesa about how Barney and Gordon raced in the airducts to unlock Dr. Kleiner's office.
- Otis, the overweight security guard introduced in Opposing Force, makes only few appearances in Blue Shift: first at the Black Mesa canteen wandering around, as a guard greeting Calhoun in the introduction chapter, at the shooting range enjoying a donut, and later as a dead body being disposed of by two soldiers.
- Blue Shift has its own version of the Hazard Course training tutorial, suitably adjusted for security personnel. Instead of Gina Cross, a male security guard identified in the instruction manual as Miller serves as the holographic guide.
- Black Mesa security guards do not have access to the HEV suit worn by Freeman, nor to the PCV worn by Adrian Shephard; instead they use an armored suit and helmet. Yet Calhoun is able to survive a trip to Xen, proving that Xen has an earth-like atmosphere. Further proof can be found in Opposing Force; when the player actives the alternate fire on the Displacer to teleport to Xen, sometimes they will find a scientist not wearing a HEV suit, who is very glad to see him.
- Examination of logo sprite files included with the game reveals that Half-Life: Blue Shift was originally going to be named Half-Life: Guard Duty (see the Logo320.spr and Logo640.spr files in particular).