Half-Life 1: Opposing Force

🗃️ Specifications

📰 Title:	Half-Life 1: Opposing Force	🕹️ / 🛠️ Type:	Game
🗃️ Genre:	Adventure & Action	👁️ Visual:	3D
🏷️ Category:	Adventure & Action ➤ Classical ➤ Horror	🏝️ Perspective:	First person
🔖 Tags:	FPS; Shooter; Survival; Horror; Action; Adventure; Aliens; Military; Sci-fi; Dystopian; Story Rich; Linear; Classic; Retro; 1990s; Atmospheric	⏱️ Pacing:	Real Time
🐣️ Approx. start:		👫️ Played:	Single & Multi
🐓️ Latest:		🚦 Status:	04. Released (status)
📍️ Version:	Latest: -	❤️ Like it:	9. ⏳️
🏛️ License type:	💰 Commercial	🎀️ Quality:	7. ⏳️
🏛️ License:	Commercial	✨️ (temporary):
🐛️ Created:	2016-11-13	🐜️ Updated:	2024-06-22

🚦 Entry status

📰 What's new?:		👻️ Temporary:
💡 Lights on:		🎨️ Significant improvement:
👔️ Already shown:		💭️ New version published (to be updated):
🎖️ This work:		🚧️ Some work remains to be done:
👫️ Contrib.:	goupildb & Louis	🦺️ Work in progress:
🎰️ ID:	15135

📖️ Summary

📜️[en]:	This FPS shows the events of Half-Life from the perspective of a different protagonist. The player assumes the role of Adrian Shephard, a U.S. Marine Corporal assigned to the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a specialized unit sent in to Black Mesa by the government to quell the alien threat and silence all witnesses. However, after Shephard becomes isolated from his fellow Marines, he must ally with the Black Mesa personnel and attempt to escape the base.	📜️[fr]:	La 1ere extension de Half-Life, se déroulant dans la même histoire, mais selon une autre perspective, celle du caporal Adrian Shephard - un Marine dont l'avion s'écrase dès l'introduction. Shephard était chargé d'étouffer la menace extraterrestre et de faire taire tous les témoins, néanmoins il constate rapidement que les Marines se font déborder par les aliens et il se retrouve lui-même isolé, obligé de s'allier avec le personnel de Black Mesa pour tenter de s'échapper de la base.

🎥️ Videos

🎲️ Gameplay: (202xxx♺), (202xxx♺), [fr](202xxx♺),

🏺️ Its story :

📕 Description [en]

📜️ "blabla" 📜️

Return to the Black Mesa Research Facility as one of the military specialists assigned to eliminate Gordon Freeman. Experience an entirely new episode of single player action. Meet fierce alien opponents, and experiment with new weaponry. Named 'Game of the Year' by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

🌍️ Wikipedia:

Half-Life: Opposing Force is an expansion pack for Valve Software's science fiction first-person shooter video game Half-Life. The game was developed by Gearbox Software and Valve Corporation and published by Sierra Entertainment on November 19, 1999. Opposing Force is the first expansion for Half-Life and was first announced in April 1999. Randy Pitchford, the lead designer on the game, later noted that he believed Gearbox was selected to develop Opposing Force because Valve wanted to concentrate on their future projects. Over the course of development, Gearbox brought in a variety of outside talent from other areas of the video games industry to help bolster various aspects of design.

Opposing Force returns to the same setting as Half-Life, but instead portrays the events from the perspective of a U.S. Marine, one of the enemy characters in the original game. 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.

Opposing Force was received well by critics, 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. Other reviewers, however, thought that the game still had many of the negative aspects of other expansion packs, although it was still regarded as an exceptional add-on.

Gameplay

As an expansion pack for Half-Life, Opposing Force is a first-person shooter. The overall gameplay of Opposing Force does not significantly differ from that of Half-Life: players are required to navigate through the game's levels, fight hostile non-player characters and solve a variety of puzzles to advance. The game continues Half-Life's methods of an unbroken narrative. 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. Story events are conveyed through the use of scripted sequences rather than cut scenes. Progress through the game's 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. Opposing Force also features an extended multiplayer, incorporating the various new environments and weapons into the original deathmatch mode used in Half-Life. After release, a new capture the flag mode with additional levels, items and powerups, was created by Gearbox for the game.

For the most part the player battles through the single-player game alone, but is occasionally assisted by friendly non-player characters. Security guards and scientists will occasionally help the player in reaching new areas and convey relevant plot information. However, Opposing Force also features fellow U.S. Marines who will assist the player in combat to a far greater degree than security guards. 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. A selection of enemies from Half-Life populate the game, including alien creatures such as headcrabs and Vortigaunts.

A variety of new alien non-player characters, labelled "Race X", appear in the game as well, often engaging in combat with the aliens from Xen. 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. Marines to eliminate the alien threat. 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 in the game.

Synopsis

Setting

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. 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. The player guides Freeman in an attempt to escape the facility and close the portal, ultimately traveling to Xen to do so. Opposing Force, however, shows the events of Half-Life from the perspective of a different protagonist. The player assumes the role of Adrian Shephard, a U.S. Marine Corporal assigned to the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a specialized unit sent in to Black Mesa by the government to quell the alien threat and silence all witnesses. However, after Shephard becomes isolated from his fellow Marines, he must ally with the Black Mesa personnel and attempt to escape the base.

Plot

Opposing Force opens with Shephard riding on a V-22 Osprey with his squad. His squad discuss their deployment, somewhat irritated that they have not been told what they are being deployed for. However, as they are nearing their Landing Zone at Black Mesa, airborne alien creatures attack the Osprey formation, causing Shephard's Osprey to crash land. Shephard regains consciousness in a Black Mesa medical bay, tended to by the science team, learning that the Marines are being steadily beaten by the alien forces from Xen and orders have come through to pull out. Consequently, Shephard departs to reach an extraction point and escape the facility. However, Shephard is prevented from reaching the extraction point by the enigmatic G-Man, forcing the evacuation craft to leave without him.

Other Marines who have also been left behind team up with Shephard and attempt to reach another extraction point near Black Mesa's Lambda Complex, but en route they come under attack from black operations units seeking to thoroughly contain the situation and eliminate all survivors. Shephard makes it to the Lambda Complex alive, and briefly sees Gordon Freeman as the latter teleports to Xen in the final stages of Half-Life. To escape the teleportation chamber, Shephard is forced to enter a separate portal, briefly taking him to Xen before depositing him in an entirely different area of the facility. The facility is now heavily damaged, and it soon becomes clear that a new alien race, Race X, has exploited the situation to mount a localized invasion, attacking both human and Xen forces in Black Mesa indiscriminately. Fighting between the black operations units and Race X quickly intensifies.

Shephard soon encounters more stranded Marine units in the wreckage of the base, and tries to break through the black operations units to reach an escape point past the facility's storage unit, but meets heavy resistance from both Race X and the black operations units. A surviving Black Mesa security guard reveals to Shephard that the black operators intend to detonate a tactical nuclear weapon in the base, thereby totally sealing it off and killing everything in it. After successfully neutralizing the guarding black operations unit, Shephard disarms the device and proceeds to the nearby storage areas, intent on escape. However, the G-Man rearms the device as Shephard departs. The storage unit has become a thick battleground between Race X and the black operation units, and although Shephard manages to evade them, he is informed by another security guard that something very large is coming through an alien portal blocking the exit path.

At the portal, Shephard discovers a gene worm, a massive creature facilitating the Race X invasion. Shephard is able to kill the creature, but just afterwards he is teleported onto an Osprey by the G-Man. As the G-Man congratulates Shephard on his accomplishments, the nuclear device detonates in the background, destroying Black Mesa. The game closes with the G-Man detaining Shephard someplace where he can tell no one of what he has seen and cannot be harmed, pending further evaluation.

📕 Description [fr]

La 1ere extension de Half-Life, dans laquelle le joueur se retrouve du côté des Marines, par le studio Gearbox Software.

Half-Life: Opposing Force est la 1ere extension de Half-Life, se déroulant dans la même histoire, mais selon une autre perspective, celle du caporal Adrian Shephard - un Marine dont l'avion s'écrase dès l'introduction. Shephard était chargé d'étouffer la menace extraterrestre et de faire taire tous les témoins, néanmoins il constate rapidement que les Marines se font déborder par les aliens et il se retrouve lui-même isolé, obligé de s'allier avec le personnel de Black Mesa pour tenter de s'échapper de la base.

Retournez à la Black Mesa Research Facility en tant que l'un des spécialistes militaires chargés d'éliminer Gordon Freeman. Découvrez un épisode entièrement nouveau de l'action solo. Rencontrez des adversaires extraterrestres féroces et expérimentez de nouvelles armes. Nommé «Jeu de l'année» par l'Académie des arts et des sciences interactifs.

🌍️ Wikipedia:

Half-Life: Opposing Force est un jeu vidéo de tir à la première personne développé par Gearbox Software et sorti en novembre 1999 en tant qu’add-on d’Half-Life. Opposing Force (ou Op4) reprend l'histoire d’Half-Life quelques heures à peine après la catastrophe de Black Mesa. Le joueur incarne le caporal Adrian Shephard, un des nombreux Marines envoyés sur les lieux pour reprendre le contrôle de la situation.

Cet add-on a rencontré un grand succès grâce aux clins d'œil qu'il fait à l'opus précédent, et à la capacité de commander plusieurs soldats et donc de se former en petit groupe tout au long du jeu.

Trame

Univers

Armes

En plus de quelques armes présentes dans Half-Life, neuf nouvelles armes ont été ajoutées dans Opposing Force, dont certaines plus efficaces que celles du jeu précédent.

• Clé à griffe : cette arme blanche remplace le pied-de-biche emblématique de Half-Life. Elle est plus lente mais deux fois plus puissante.
• Couteau : plus rapide que la clé à griffe mais moins puissant.
• Grappin Barnacle : des scientifiques ont réussi à détacher ce barnacle sans le tuer et à le transformer en arme organique qui attaque les ennemis et permet aussi de se hisser comme avec un grappin.
• Desert Eagle : ce pistolet est l'équivalent du revolver .357 d'Half-Life, avec le même type de munitions et une cartouche de plus dans le chargeur. Il est beaucoup plus rapide que le revolver mais il possède une précision très faible (défaut qui peut être corrigé via l'activation du viseur rouge avec la touche secondaire de la souris par défaut).
• M249 SAW : ce fusil-mitrailleur est une arme très puissante avec une fréquence de tir élevée, mais ayant une précision décente et un recul extrême, et possédant un chargeur de 50 cartouches.
• M40A1 : un fusil à lunette qui remplace l'arbalète d'Half-Life, avec un chargeur de 5 cartouches, une fréquence de tir plus lente mais une puissance deux fois supérieure.
• Canon Displacer : cette arme expérimentale utilise le même type de munitions que le Tau Cannon et le Gluon Cannon d’Half-Life. Le tir primaire permet au joueur de lancer une grosse boule d'énergie téléportant la victime dans une autre dimension et causant de sérieux dommages à son entourage. Le tir secondaire expédie Shephard lui-même sur Xen, où il peut se procurer des soins et/ou des munitions.
• Fusil de choc : c'est l'arme électrique des shock troopers, qu'ils abandonnent parfois en mourant. Elle lance de petites balles d'électricité plasma permettant de paralyser certaines victimes. Les munitions sont illimitées, avec 10 balles dans le magasin.
• Lance-spores : cette arme alien est organique et lance des spores explosifs que le joueur peut se procurer dans la végétation qui envahit Black Mesa après la catastrophe. Elle peut tirer un maximum de 5 spores avant d'être rechargé.

Histoire

Dans Half-Life, le joueur incarnait le docteur en physique Gordon Freeman qui provoquait accidentellement une catastrophe pendant une expérience et une invasion extra-terrestre. Le joueur devait se battre au cœur du complexe expérimental de Black Mesa contre à la fois toutes sortes de monstres et des soldats venus les repousser et faire disparaitre les témoins. Cet add-on lui permet maintenant d'incarner un des marines en question, le caporal Adrian Shephard, dont l'avion s'écrase dès l'introduction.