Half-Life: Blue Shift (a play on the physical phenomenon of the same name) is the second, but stand-alone expansion pack for the first-person shooter computer game Half-Life, developed by Gearbox Software and released on June 12, 2001. Like Gearbox's other expansions, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life: Decay, Blue Shift returns to the setting and timeline of the original story, but with a different player character: the ubiquitous Black Mesa Research Facility security guard Barney Calhoun. As Barney, the player attempts to escape the alien invasion caused by the resonance cascade and the ensuing military cover-up.

Blue Shift has now been released via Valve's content delivery service, Steam, and can be purchased individually or in a pack with several other Half-Life titles. A third-party remake of Blue Shift for Source is under development.

Etymology

The title has a dual reference to the actual blue shift effect, which is the phenomenon of light from stars appearing bluer as they move towards the observer and "Blue Shift" is a way of referring to the facility's security guard's work shift. Various game manuals refer to security shifts in color codes. The events of the game follow Barney as his "Blue Shift" coincides with the Black Mesa Incident.

Overview

The Blue Shift package offers the "Half-Life High Definition Pack" as an option at the time of install. The pack includes updated 3D character, weapon and item models, often increasing the polygon count 10-fold over the 1998 originals. The U.S. Blue Shift release includes a full, stand-alone version of Opposing Force, but the international edition has the multiplayer-only Opposing Force CTF.

Blue Shift started out first as an exclusive part of the Half-Life Sega Dreamcast port. Due to Sega pulling the plug on the Dreamcast, this version was canceled only weeks away from release (the Dreamcast Half-Life port has since been leaked onto the Internet, with both Half-Life and Blue Shift fully playable). Gearbox then turned the project into a stand-alone product; unlike Opposing Force, it does not require the original Half-Life.

Although fans of Half-Life were eager to play more of their beloved game, many complained that Blue Shift did not measure up to the high standards set by the Opposing Force expansion. The game offers some new levels and areas of Black Mesa previously unseen in a (relatively short) new campaign, but no new weapons or enemies, as Opposing Force offered. Aside from the High Definition pack, the only new content was a character named Dr. Rosenberg, a Black Mesa scientist who has his own unique character model and played a major role in the story, and alternate scientist and security guard models wearing civilian attire. Blue Shift reviews were poor in comparison to other games in the series.

On August 24, 2005, Blue Shift became available for download via the Steam content delivery program. Anyone who owned an old copy of Half-Life, or the Half-Life 2 silver or gold packages (thus, having access to the back catalog) could download it for free. Since then, free access to Valve's back catalog after registering a previously owned copy of Half-Life has been discontinued, and Blue Shift must now be bought either alone, as part of the Half-Life 1 Anthology, or as part of the Valve Complete Pack. The High Definition Pack is also available via Steam

However, the Steam port suffers from numerous issues, most probably because the GoldSrc engine used in the game has been changed, preventing Blue Shift maps from being correctly played. Additionally, the Steam port omits the fixes from the Blue Shift patch that prevent known map and model glitches. The Steam port also introduced several other bugs that did not exist in the original release, such as the GUI color now being displayed in the standard Half-Life orange, not Blue Shift blue. A third-party mod, Blue Shift Unlocked, addresses these issues and can successfully patch files from either a CD or Steam version of Blue Shift.

Plot

Barney Calhoun, a mid-ranking security guard in the Black Mesa Research Facility, is responsible for the preservation of equipment and materials and the welfare of research personnel in a cavernous underground sector of the facility. (His least important duty is his own personal safety.) At the time of the resonance cascade, Calhoun is trapped in a plummeting elevator with two scientists. He regains consciousness at the bottom of the lift shaft and soon finds himself fighting through the facility's underground areas to reach the surface and escape. Calhoun rescues some scientists who have been locked in railway cars in Black Mesa's classification yards. One of the scientists, Dr. Rosenberg, informs Calhoun that the entire facility is surrounded by Hazardous Environment Combat Unit Marines intent upon killing all base personnel to cover up Black Mesa's research into extradimensional exploration. The only way to escape, Rosenberg explains, is to use an old prototype of the Lambda Complex teleporter; if it works, they can reach an obscure entrance to Black Mesa which has been overlooked by the Marines.

The remainder of the game takes place in an abandoned walled-up sector of the base, originally built for research into teleportation (prior to the construction of the Lambda Complex). Calhoun, Rosenberg, and two other scientists (Walter Bennet and Simmons) try to restart the prototype teleporter. Calhoun is briefly teleported to a ruined human research camp on Xen to enable a triangulation device and allow the teleporter to be targeted. Upon his return, Calhoun is charged with replacing the teleporter's burnt-out batteries, then fights off Marines and aliens while the three scientists teleport out of the facility. Calhoun experiences a brief malfunction while teleporting: he is quickly "zapped" through different locations across Black Mesa and is imbued with a green glow. Finally, he returns safely to the remote facility entrance where he and the three scientists escape in a Black Mesa SUV. Similar to every other game in the series, Blue Shift ends with a screen displaying the main subject name and their status as of the events after the game.

At several points during Blue Shift, Calhoun almost meets the protagonist of Half-Life, Gordon Freeman: Calhoun is locked outside the door to Area 3 Security Facilities and sees Freeman go past on the tram heading towards Sector C (thus confirming that the security guard Gordon sees in the beginning of Half-Life is in fact Barney); using remote cameras, Calhoun also sees Freeman heading towards the H.E.V. Storage Area from the surveillance room; during the ending sequence of Blue Shift, Calhoun sees an unconscious Freeman being dragged by H.E.C.U. soldiers towards a trash compactor.

Correlating the Blue Shift timeline with the other games is fairly easy; it begins slightly before Half-Life, as shortly after starting the game Calhoun sees Freeman moving past him in the transit system during the opening credits of Half-Life, and ends before the nuclear explosion which finally destroys Black Mesa during the epilogue of Opposing Force. Towards the end of Blue Shift, when Barney is jumping randomly between locations after teleporting, Gordon Freeman can be seen being dragged by the H.E.C.U soldiers, an event which occurs halfway through the first game, suggesting that Blue Shift ends somewhat early in the Half Life timeline.

Blue Shift is the shortest game in the original Half-Life series, with all the events taking place alongside a measurable fraction of those in the first game. Blue Shift is also arguably the most disturbing—as most of the events take place on the surface in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the player sees firsthand the panic of the Black Mesa personnel as they desperately try to flee the facility by any means necessary. It is interesting to note that aside from the PlayStation 2-only Decay, Blue Shift is arguably the only Half-Life game with a "happy ending". At the end of Half-Life, Gordon Freeman is conscripted by the mysterious G-Man, and Opposing Force's Adrian Shephard is indefinitely detained by the same individual to ensure his silence. However, in Blue Shift, Barney and his three scientist companions escape Black Mesa and the scrutiny of the G-Man, whose brief report suggests he deems them, perhaps out of pride and annoyance, too insignificant to actively monitor or eliminate them. Speculation of the G-Man's role in the Half-Life series would even suggest that he may in some way be aware of Barney's significant role in the events of Half-Life 2, although most people believe that he doesn't care about him, since you only see him once in this game.

Chapters

• Living Quarters Outbound - Calhoun rides the tram from the surface into work at the Black Mesa Research Facility. Along the way many new details about Black Mesa are revealed; Calhoun passes a laundromat and several fast food outlets, suggesting that the facility is entirely self-sufficient and enclosed. He is also passed by Gordon Freeman riding in another tram in a parallel of the original game.
• Insecurity - Calhoun visits security headquarters, including a shooting range and a surveillance room where it is possible to see Gordon Freeman again. He is then sent to help some scientists with an elevator; along the way, he witnesses many incidents foreshadowing the resonance cascade, such as a scientist unable to access his files stored on the server and a pair of scientists trying in vain to repair a supercomputer. He also sees the G-Man passing by in a tram. Barney boards and repairs the elevator just before the resonance cascade occurs; the elevator cable snaps and sends Calhoun, and two scientists, plummeting down the shaft as chaos breaks out around them.
• Duty Calls - Calhoun regains consciousness at the bottom of the elevator shaft to the sight of a Houndeye eating the body of a fellow security guard. The two scientists in the elevator are dead, and so Calhoun sets off through the industrial waste areas of Black Mesa to try to find help. Along the way he gains an insight into the scope of the disaster, and sees a pair of marines dumping corpses into a sewer opening, thus discovering that the military is trying to cover up the disaster rather than evacuate surviving personnel. (This scene also contains a reference to previous expansion pack Opposing Force, as one of the marines grumbles "just because Shephard's team didn't make it, we have to do the crap jobs?")

• Captive Freight - Calhoun reaches the surface and encounters the HECU. He manages to fight through them and reach a man named Dr. Rosenberg, who has concocted an escape plan that hinges on prototype teleportation technology.
• Focal Point - Rosenberg and Calhoun reach an older part of the Black Mesa Research Facility where a disused teleporter system is being reassembled by scientists. To make the teleporter completely operational, Calhoun is forced to travel to Xen and activate a device that allows Rosenberg to pinpoint the teleport's exit point. The design of this facility is notably older-looking than the rest of Black Mesa, including older HEV charging and first aid stations.
• Power Struggle - The teleporter has used up its reservoir of power to transport Calhoun through to Xen. Calhoun is forced to go down to a power facility level and find the batteries and recharge them. Calhoun fights through a team of HECU marines and aliens before he reaches the power generators.
• A Leap of Faith - Calhoun helps operate the simpler parts of the teleporter to get all the scientists through. He barely escapes the marines before teleporting.
• Deliverance - The other scientists have teleported to a safe location outside Black Mesa with some cars laying about. Calhoun also arrived, but some kind of discharge has affected him. Calhoun is teleported to various parts of Black Mesa and Xen. He witnesses Freeman being carried off to the trash compactor (The chapter "Apprehension" in Half-Life) before being transported back to the scientists and escaping the facility.

Blue Shift: Unlocked

Blue Shift wasn't initially available on Steam like Half-Life and Opposing Force. In August 2005 the Half-Life Improvement Team released a mod that ported the legacy version of Blue Shift to Steam, allowing the player to play it as a fully working mod for HL1 rather than its own stand-alone game. This had the added benefit of letting Blue Shift take advantage of features that had been added to the GoldSrc engine since then, such as detail textures. Almost immediately after, Valve made Blue Shift officially available – but it used its original engine, and suffered from many of the same bugs as the legacy version. A few months later, the porting project was updated, and renamed to Blue Shift: Unlocked.

Soundtrack

See Opposing Force.

References

External links

• Installing the Half-Life High Definition Pack for Steam (official)