It almost feels like switching from a stroll down your hometown’s main street to an abstract level from Super Mario Brothers From reality to abstract. Jump on that round thing to get launched in the air. If there’s a structure or an order to their world, it’s not communicated beyond basic gameplay tropes. Monsters stand around and wait to attack you, much like they do on Earth. Xen, on the other hand, is a world you can’t relate to. The player knows how to feel since so much of it is familiar. The Half Life franchise is built on creating a relatable world that’s been obviously turned on its side by a sinister alien presence. Ironically enough, the extended time spent in Xen illustrates why the location is so difficult to pull off: it’s a world without context. The location feels suitably alien, with the only recognizable bits being pieces of scientific equipment placed there before you. The most interesting bit happens when scientists send Barney to the netherworld of Xen to re-calibrate their teleporter. There’s nothing wrong with keeping it simple it’s just that the game is too simple when compared to its companions.

It’s the tale of a guy who had a bad day at work and wants to go home. The game doesn’t have the sense of discovery that Half Life did, nor does it turn the narrative on its side like Opposing Force. Barney’s story is pretty simplistic: Trapped in Black Mesa, he sets out to find a group of scientists who are devising a means to escape the facility via a short range teleporter. Honestly, there’s not much to Blue Shift. The game puts you in the shoes of Barney Calhoun on the day everything went wrong in the Black Mesa research facility. Released two years after Half Life had a seismic impact on the state of story-driven video games, and one year after Opposing Force earned the label “best expansion pack ever”, Blue Shift entered the scene to high expectations. Playing it again today, I’m not quite sure why that is. For the past 19 years, Blue Shift had been cemented in my mind as my favorite Half Life experience.

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