aka: Half-Life: Opposing Force - Força Oponente, Hλlf-Life: Opposing Force, OF
Moby ID: 1157
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- Released
- November 1999 on Windows
- Credits
- 165 people
- Releases by Date (by platform)
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- 1999 (Windows)
- 2013 (Linux)
- 2013 (Macintosh)
- Publishers
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- Sierra On-Line, Inc.
- Valve Corporation
- Developers
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- Gearbox Software LLC
- Moby Score
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8.0
#2,105 of 25.6K - Critics
- 85% (43)
- Players
- (174)
- Review Ranking
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- #895 on Windows
- Collected By
- 644 players
- Genre
- Add-on
- Add-on
- Item
Mechanics
NPC / enemy
Story / mission
Windows Specs
- ESRB Rating
- Mature
- Business Model
- Commercial
- Media Type
- CD-ROM, Download
- Input Devices Supported/Optional
- Keyboard, Mouse, Other Input Devices
- Multiplayer Options
- Internet, LAN, Modem
- Number of Offline Players
- 1 Player
- Number of Online Players
- 32 Players [ view all 39 specs ]
Buy on Windows
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Base Game
- Half-Life (1998)
Included in
- Half-Life 1: Anthology (2005)
- Half-Life: Adrenaline Pack (1999)
- Half-Life: Blue Shift (2001)
- Half-Life: Complete (2008)
- Half-Life: Platinum (2000)
- Half-Life: Platinum Collection (2002)
- Valve Complete Pack (2008)
Description official descriptions
Opposing Force is the first official expansion for Half-Life, developed by Gearbox Software under the supervision of the original creator Valve. The storyline of the base game is interwoven into the add-on, as players take on the role of Corporal Adrian Shephard, one of the soldiers sent to the Black Mesa facility to "clean up" the incident and silence any witnesses.
Shephard never reaches his final destination, though: his helicopter is shot down, his squad killed, and he finds himself in a battle for survival against the invading aliens.
Opposing Force takes place concurrently with Half-Life, and Shephard will witness some of the same events (though from a different perspective) and visit some of the same places as Half-Life's protagonist Gordon Freeman did in the original game. The add-on uses the same style of storytelling as Half-Life: everything is seen from the eyes of the protagonist.
The expansion pack consists of 12 new interconnected "levels". There are new weapons and new enemies: Zombie Grunt, Pit Drone, Shock Trooper and Voltigore, plus some new boss creatures.
Another new feature is the ability to command AI-controlled teammates, belonging to different classes: standard grunts and heavy gunners can be called upon for support fire, engineers can cut through doors and medics can restore lost health. Some areas of the game can only be completed with the squadmates' help.
Spellings
- ハーフライフ: オポージングフォース - Japanese spelling
Groups +
- Half-Life universe
- Setting: 2000s
Screenshots
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Credits (Windows version)
165 People (140 developers, 25 thanks) · View all
Senior Vice President, Core Games |
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Producer, External Development |
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Vice President - Marketing, Core Games |
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Marketing Product Manager |
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Marketing |
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Director of PR |
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Sound Designer, Voice Recording Specialist |
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WON.net Networking Engineers |
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Creative Services Sr. Account Manager |
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Manual Layout |
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Quality Assurance Team |
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 85% (based on 43 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 174 ratings with 8 reviews)
Redfines what an expansion pack should be!
The Good
What isn't there to like with ths game? The graphics are great throughout the whole game. The levels are are extremely detailed and diverified. You wander through many different environments, from the labs, to scaling cliffs, and underwater. You even make a very brief journey to the alien world. You pick up several differents weapons.You can have everything from a pipe wrench to a smart gun staright from Aliens. The multiplayer aspect of the game is 1 of the best sqad based games you'll ever find
The Bad
The story has some inconsistencies with the original.
The Bottom Line
The best expansion pack ever. It sets a standard for what a game should be.
Windows · by jeremy strope (160) · 2000
Isn't it nice to become the enemy for once?
The Good
Anyone who has already played Half-Life and jumped straight to Half-Life 2 probably have no idea that there were two add-on expansion packs. The first one of these add-ons is called Opposing Force, and it is by far the best one that I have played in the old HL era. Before writing up this review, I read two that are already on there and each one recapped what happened in the original game. All of them are summed it up quite nicely, so here is my version of what happened.
Gordon Freeman is a scientist working at Black Mesa Research Facility, and his first task is to get to the Anomalous Materials lab and push a specimen into the scanning beam for analysis. This causes a portal to open between Earth and an alien planet called Xen. After this, Freeman has to defend himself against several types of aliens that randomly teleport in from Xen. Later, he encounters HECU soldiers that have orders to contain the alien threat and silence all witnesses. One of these soldiers is Corp. Adrian Shephard, and it is he who you get to control in this game.
That's right. You become the enemy rather than a good guy, and that means you can shoot any scientists and security guards on sight. You may not be able to get in locked doors that require a retinal scan or a certain code to open, but who needs them anyway when you've got your own team of engineers and medics to get the job done for you?
Shephard has access to weapons a real soldier should have including knife, pistol, machine guns, trip lasers, and grenades. Later, he will be able to use more advanced, alien weaponry. Shepard can carry more in his arsenal than Freeman could. The weapons are divided into seven groups, so there is quite a variety to choose from. The alien weapons are much more interesting than those found in Half-Life, and I enjoyed playing with some of them. I had to use each one sparingly as ammo for these weapons are scarce.
The early chapters have Shephard fighting the same enemies that were present in Half-Life, but it is not until later in the game that you get to meet those dubbed “Race-X”. This alien race are a lot more aggressive than their other counterparts. They look excellent, especially in outside scenes. The only bosses in the game are huge and take more than just bullets to destroy. Like Half-Life, you have to fully explore areas looking for switches to push and valves to turn, that could possibly have an effect on the bosses. But using switches and valves are not just confined to bosses. More often than not, you need to push switches and move valves in order to get some machinery going or take you up to higher places, like you do in Half-Life. What's new in this game is the fact that you can access CB radios that can often be found on crates or on a shelf, and doing this will cause your captain to assign you with new tasks.
The environments in which the character walks through are rather nice. I like the way that you have the opportunity to revisit some of the locations that were in the original game, along with the gadgets that adorn each wall. Some of the hallways you walk through look futuristic, and one could be fooled for thinking that you are actually walking through one on board a space vessel. There are some underwater scenes where you walk through a building surrounded by underwater. There are windows all the way round, and you can see what creatures lurk on the other side, as well as the various debris and seaweed that has found its way there.
The soundtrack is well composed. Most of the tracks in the game have a military theme to them, and some of them reflect the situation that you are in. They are CDDA tracks so you can listen to your favorite ones outside the game
Before I started playing the game, I joined the Boot Camp, to see whether I would pick up some new skills. Most of the skills you learn there were previously taught back in Half-Life's Hazard Course. Some sections, however, have you perform tasks a real soldier accomplishes, including navigating vertical rope ladders and putting your new team to good use. The one thing I like about being in Boot Camp are the instructors themselves. If you go up to them and start hitting your Use key, they will hurl insults at you, calling you dirtbag or maggot in the process. Also, you can get them to take a hike just by having Shephard repeatedly bump into them.
The Bad
There are a few maneuvers that I found difficult performing:
Navigating a rope ladder is somewhat difficult. One section of the Boot Camp has your climbing one, then jumping to another. I tried this, but I kept on falling in brown water about ten times. You have to gather some momentum to perform the jumps properly. Outside Boot Camp, there are sections of the main game where using rope ladders is crucial to reaching a platform above you. I had difficulty in doing this, even if I climbed to the top.
I expected more from the barnacle gun, which is an alien weapon that you pick up later in the game. Unlike the ceiling ones that you frequently encounter in this game and in Half-Life - where the barnacle will suck you up to its jaws when you walk under it – the gun is only good for pulling Shephard to pods attached to a wall, in an attempt to get to a platform nearby. Again, this is difficult to do.
It was easy to get stuck in elevators when they arrive at another floor, and this usually happens if you stand on the edge of the elevator. I could only turn around and not go any further. I believe that this was a bug that has not been address by Gearbox.
In the end, I found that using the noclip cheat helped. I disable the cheat when I'm done with the maneuver.
Initial versions of the game require you to install Half-Life before installing the game, otherwise the installation would fail. Starting with Blue Shift, Sierra removed the requirement of installing original games before installing add-ons, which is quite a good thing.
The Bottom Line
In Opposing Force, you play Corp. Adrian Shephard rather than Gordon Freeman. You do the same tasks that you perform in the original game – killing aliens, flipping switches and turning valves to make things happen, and walking through beautiful locations (both inside and outside). There are a few differences: a) you have a bigger arsenal than Freeman's; b) a new, much stronger, more aggressive race of aliens scatter about the corridors to give Shephard a headache; and c) you can access CB radios sitting on crates or shelves which will give you new objectives. The graphics are beautiful, and the soundtrack is excellent.
Also, you can do anything you like when it comes to dealing with people. An example is where one of your team members hold the scientist at gunpoint. You have two options: do you watch him as he continues to trap the scientist inside a room, or be a traitor to your own team and shoot the soldier, releasing the scientist in the process. The best thing about these options is that you don't get punished for the choices you make. Just don't end up killing either the engineer or the medic.
I played the Steam version of Opposing Force and it works quite well. The soundtracks are comprised of MP3 files rather than CDDA tracks. I believe that a bug allows the game to play CDDA tracks whenever a MP3 is about to play, and I made a mistake of leaving my Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 CD, so instead of hearing the soundtrack, all I could hear was old '60s music. Thankfully, I still have the Opposing Force CD so I don't miss out on anything.
Bottom line: Opposing Force is an excellent add-on from Valve , and an add-on that is worth replaying. I hope that Valve will release a Source version of it, just like they did with the original.
Windows · by Katakis | カタキス (43086) · 2008
Opposing Farce is more like it...
The Good
After Half-Life blew PC gamer’s minds an expansion pack was inevitable. The idea of playing as a Marine and seeing the story from the enemies point of view is a cool idea, however this game fails to pay off of this in just about every conceivable way.
You are Adrian Shepard, you lead a squad of marines to Black Mesa to silence all witnesses. You get to see the story of the Black Mesa incident, from Adrian’s eyes. A cool idea, in concept. In execution however it is not so good.
The Graphics are on par with Half-Life’s. That means that they are not that great but get the job done.
The Sounds are good. The music is not as good as the original game.
The Gameplay tries to innovate but also fails. It feels cheap. And lame.
The Bad
The story fails largely because unlike the what the box claims your mission is not to kill Gordon Freeman, you are never even given your orders. Also scenes from the original are scarce, and when you do see them they are not as cool as they could have been. HL:OF, also introduces new weapons and enemies, the new weapons are all good, but the new aliens are crap, they are inconsistent to the plot and are too powerful. And most of the fun of Half-Life was killing marines, in this expansion you are a Marine so therefore you do not fight any. Other plot annoyances, like why would the G-man waste his time on Shepard?
The Music is not as good as Half-Life’s rocking tunes. But I suppose it could have been worse.
The gameplay attempts to innovate, with squad based actions, a medic, and demolitions guy, but in the end this just feels like a cheap Rainbow Six wannabe. Plus your squad is pretty dumb. And when the heat is on the tend to drop like proverbial flies. This game is also brutally hard. It is as if the game developers wanted to punish the player. One of the unique aspects of Half-Life was the fact that you played a scientist, which in the world of video games is the unlikely hero, this expansion places you as a solider which has been done to death in FPS.
The Bottom Line
Unlike what many claim this is no where near as good as the original. I cannot recommend it. You would be better off playing mods like They Hunger, than this crap expansion.
Windows · by MasterMegid (723) · 2006
[ View all 8 player reviews ]
Trivia
Extras
Installing Opposing Force automatically patches Half-Life to version 1.0.1.5. The patch not only fixes several bugs, but adds the multiplayer mode Team Fortress Classic.
German version
There are a number of changes in the German version:
- All blood and gore effects after hits against enemies or the player were removed.
- If a human non-enemy is killed, he does not die but sits on the floor and shakes his head.
- In multiplayer mode, the human skins (except assassin) were replaced with the "Helmet" skin.
A detailed list of changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).
References
- In original Half-Life, when you played the scientist Gordon Freeman, you jumped into some huge generated portal to reach the alien world. In this game, when playing military corporal Sheppard, you actually see Freeman how he jumps into that portal, and then come to the same point only the portal crashed before you manage to follow, but you exterminate what's left of the flying aliens around, though.
- The game contains easter eggs which reference Doom II, The Beating of a High School Janitor song by Adam Sandler, David Michael Mertz and James Bond. Detailed information about how to reach them can be found in the tips & tricks section.
Awards
- GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 03/2000 - Best Add-on in 1999
Information also contributed by-Chris andSciere.
Analytics
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Related Games
Half-Life 1: Anthology
Released 2005 on Windows
Half-Life
Released 2001 on PlayStation 2
Half-Life 2: Episode Pack
Released 2008 on Windows
Half-Life: Platinum
Released 2000 on Windows
Half-Life: Adrenaline Pack
Released 1999 on Windows
Half-Life: Platinum Collection
Released 2002 on Windows
Half-Life 2: Holiday 2006 Collection
Released 2006 on Windows
Half-Life: Game of the Year Edition
Released 1999 on Windows
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Released 2004 on Windows, 2010 on Macintosh, 2013 on Linux
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by MAT.
Linux, Macintosh added by Alsy.
Additional contributors: Jeanne, Foxhack, Solid Flamingo, Patrick Bregger, Plok, GenesisBR.
Game added March 26, 2000. Last modified November 24, 2024.