Raise your hand if you liked Half-Life. Wow! That's a lot of hands. Now wiggle your feet if you want some more action in the Black Mesa Research Facility. Hmmm ... nobody? Oh, silly me. I can't see your feet 'cause they're under your desks. OK, blink your eyes instead. Wow! That's a lot of blinks. Well quit your blinkin' ... you've got reading to do! Gearbox Software is busy putting together the first official add-on pack to Half-Life, so warm up your mouse hand and get ready to take on the aliens again. OK, now that you've finished reading the absolutely dorkiest intro ever to a game preview, please forget all of that crap and get to the real meat of this article ...
This time you'll go back in to the Black Mesa Research Facility as a soldier, part of the 'opposing force' if you will. Specifically, you take on the persona of Adrian Shepard, a grunt who was flying to the facility to do a little clean-up work. The Osprey you were riding in crashed during the Black Mesa accident and, when you awake, the rest of your team is either dead or missing. Not a good way to start the day but, hey, what're ya' gonna do? Go into the facility and figure out what's going on, that's what!
While the game will feature entirely new levels, for consistency there will be times when you'll return to the same areas that were featured in the original game. As Lead Designer Randall Pitchford puts it, "Part of the goal with Opposing Force is to provide players with more Half-Life as well as to fix things in the original." Remember the big mechanized loader that walked under Gordon when he was taking the tram into the facility? Well you'll get to commandeer that big boy. Can anyone say Aliens reference? I knew you could. In addition to crossing through a few familiar locations, you may even run across Gordon himself while exploring the facility.
There will be a whole slew of new weapons at your disposal in Opposing Force, seven in all. For starters, the folks at Gearbox have replaced that wimpy crowbar with a real weapon: a pipe wrench. Now you can pretend like you're Mario running amok in an alien-infested research complex until you find a good gun. And speaking of good guns, Randall showed us at least one of the new alien techs that is going to be introduced in Opposing Force: the Barnacle shooter. If you've played the original, you'll remember the Barnacles as those cute little aliens with the long tongues that hung from the ceiling and enjoyed dinning on Gordon's scalp. Well, in Opposing Force you'll be able to strap one of those bad boys on your arm and do some tongue lashing of your own.
In addition to new locations and weapons, the team at Gearbox has added a few fresh NPCs and even an as of yet unseen alien race. Since you are a soldier, you'll come across more military-related NPCs this time around, running the gambit from common infantrymen to higher ranking drill sergeants. And squad combat will be even more important in the expansion pack with as many as five NPCs joining forces with you to clean out particularly nasty parts of Black Mesa. Opposing Force will also introduce a new security guard (named Otis) into the mix. Otis is a lot like Barney from the original, only fatter. And, as everybody knows, fat guys are funny ... so expect a bit of comic relief from the many Otises (Otii?) you'll meet along the way. As far as the new alien race goes, Randall wasn't giving away too much info, but we did find out that they'll be known as RaceX. The one representative of RaceX that we saw was a hunched over, faceless monstrosity who shot spikes out of his head. I bet he didn't get a date to the prom.
Randall also told us that the Gearbox Team was looking into some more multiplay options, but nothing was definite as of yet.
All of this sounds pretty exciting and, from what we saw at E3, Opposing Force is shaping up to be a tip-top add-on to one of the best games of last year. While it's going to be about half the size of the original, it should keep you busy for a while. Look for Half-Life: Opposing Force this fall.
-- Tal Blevins
