Half-Life: Blue Shift

The latest title to emerge from the bowels of Sierra's prestigious series of first person shooters based on the original groundbreaking Half-Life defies the orthodox method of game reviewing. I've strugged mentally for a few hours trying to find a way to best explain this game that most benefits the reader and potential buyer, and I've finally devised a diabolical scheme (well, not really) to meet these conditions.

First things first. Let's get all pretenses out of the way: Half-Life: Blue Shift (from now on HL:BS) is not one game. The game under that title that's inside the box, which lets you play as the obese police officer, will last you about five hours, maybe a little more. It is not a single item that can be understood and considered without the proper context and background explanation. So what's the reason for this? HL:BS was originally a little for the Sega Dreamcast console system. But of course, even the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.

So with the official demise of Dreamcast, Gearbox Software decided not to let their efforts go to waste, and tuned it for the PC platform. Undoubtedly, the team knew that the game in and of itself wasn't enough to justify a $30 dollar pricetag.

Hence, the inclusion of two items in addition to the modified Dreamcast pack. What you get is the following: a "Half-Life High Definition Pack", Half-Life: Opposing Force, and $10 off the purchase if you have proof of ownership for the latter title. The visual enhancement package is just that: it updates the graphics models for characters and weaponry for all titles throughout the series--it's a bit of a facelift. By no means, however, does the game look up to date in comparison to today's standards, and in no way does it look fundamentally different from the original game. The textures are enlarged, the weapons look more intimidating, and the characters look a little more realistic. It just looks a bit more clean, especially if you enable 2x2 antialiasing.