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Half-Life: Blue Shift is another sequel to the popular Sierra FPS series – Half-Life. Yes, “another” one. Among countless number of mods, add-ons, value packs, and special editions, Blue Shift is the second official expansion for Half-Life. Originally being developed as a bonus pack for the Sega Dreamcast, Blue Shift has oddly made its appearance on the PC and not the console.

Although this is a sequel, players do not necessarily have to know about the original story to enjoy this game. But of course, things will make more sense if you do. In Blue Shift, players take on the role of the nervous security guard, Barney Calhoun, from the original game. Barney goes to work at the underground Black Mesa Research Facility. And the game begins as Barney hops on to the tram that takes him to his department…

Gameplay

To my disappointment, gameplay is the weakest aspect to the entire game. First of all, the game is really short, I mean REALLY short. I didn’t keep track of the time by the minutes, but I believe it took me no more than six hours to finish. Some of you may think that I must have rushed through the game. But to tell the truth, I didn’t. In fact, a good portion of the six hours was spent on discovering hidden passages and items. I also checked every room that I could find and killed every enemy that I encountered. The game is just way too short, plain and simple. Let’s try to find out where the problems reside.

As mentioned earlier, Blue Shift was originally planned as additional material for Dreamcast. In other words, it’s never been intended as a full-length standalone game. Perhaps it was to compensate for the console’s different control mechanism, the gameplay was made rather easy. Not that there isn’t enough monsters and soldiers to satisfy your inner violence or are they not aggressive enough trying to rip your guts out, there’s unreasonably way too many health packs to keep you alive. It isn’t unusual to find 2 or more first aid kits in a generally small area. Unless you take all attacks like vitamin pills, you’ll never need all of them. As a result, you can charge around without worrying about your life level.