Half-Life: Қарсы Күш - Толық нұсқасы

1999 video game

Half Life: Opposing Force is an expansion pack for the first person shooter game Half Life. It was developed by Gearbox Software and published by Sierra On Line for Windows on November 19, 1999. Opposing Force was the first expansion for Half Life and was announced in April 1999. Lead designer Randy Pitchford noted that he believed Gearbox was selected to develop Opposing Force because Valve, the creators of Half Life, wanted to concentrate on their future projects. Over the course of development, Gearbox brought in a variety of talent from other areas of the video games industry to help bolster various aspects of design. Opposing Force portrays the events of Half Life from the perspective of a U. S. Marine, one of the enemy characters in the original. The player character, Adrian Shephard, is sent in to neutralize the Black Mesa Research Facility when a scientific mishap causes it to be invaded by aliens, but quickly finds that the Marines are outnumbered and slowly being beaten back by a second alien race and black operations units. Opposing Force was received well by critics, with many describing it as the new benchmark title for expansion packs, in a similar fashion to how Half Life revolutionized the first person shooter genre. Other reviewers, however, thought that, despite its accomplishments, it still suffered from the negative aspects of other expansion packs.

As an expansion pack for Half Life, Opposing Force is a first person shooter. The overall gameplay of Opposing Force does not significantly differ from that of Half Life. Players navigate through levels, fight hostile non player characters and solve a variety of puzzles to advance. The game continues Half Lifes methods of an unbroken narrative. The player sees everything through the first person perspective of the protagonist and remains in control of the player character for almost all of the game. Story events are conveyed through the use of scripted sequences rather than cut scenes. Progress through the world is continuous; although the game is divided up into chapters, the only significant pauses are when the game needs to load the next part of an environment. Opposing Force also features an extended multiplayer, incorporating the various new environments and weapons into the original deathmatch mode used in Half Life. After release, a new capture the flag mode with additional levels, items and powerups, was created by Gearbox. A selection of enemies from Half Life populate the game, including alien creatures such as headcrabs and Vortigaunts. A variety of new alien non player characters, labelled "Race X", appear as well, often engaging in combat with the aliens from Xen. The player also encounters human opponents in the form of a detachment of black operations units who have been sent to destroy the base in the wake of the failure of the U. S. Marines to eliminate the alien threat. A limited selection of Half Lifes weaponry is allocated to the player to defend themselves with, although several new weapons such as a sniper rifle, combat knife and a variety of alien weaponry are also present.

Opposing Force is set in the same location and timeframe as that of Half Life, taking place at a remote New Mexico laboratory called the Black Mesa Research Facility. In Half Life, the player takes on the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist involved in an accident that opens an inter dimensional portal to the borderworld of Xen, allowing the alien creatures of Xen to attack the facility. The player guides Freeman in an attempt to escape the facility and close the portal, ultimately traveling to Xen to do so. Opposing Force, however, shows the events of Half Life from the perspective of a different protagonist. The player assumes the role of Adrian Shephard, a U. S. Marine Corps Corporal assigned to the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a specialized unit sent in to Black Mesa by the government to quell the alien threat and silence all witnesses. However, after Shephard becomes isolated from his fellow Marines, he must ally with the Black Mesa personnel and attempt to escape the base. However, Shephard is prevented from reaching the extraction point by the enigmatic G Man, forcing the evacuation craft to leave without him. Other Marines who have also been left behind team up with Shephard and attempt to reach another extraction point near Black Mesa's Lambda Complex, but en route they come under attack from black operations units seeking to thoroughly contain the situation and eliminate all survivors. Shephard makes it to the Lambda Complex alive, and briefly sees Gordon Freeman as the latter teleports to Xen in the final stages of Half Life. To escape the teleportation chamber, Shephard is forced to enter a separate portal, briefly taking him to Xen before depositing him in an entirely different area of the facility. The facility is now heavily damaged, and it soon becomes clear that a new alien race, Race X, has exploited the situation to mount a localized invasion, attacking both human and Xen forces in Black Mesa indiscriminately. Fighting between the black operations units and Race X quickly intensifies. Shephard encounters more stranded Marine units in the wreckage of Black Mesa, and attempts to reach an unknown exit route, encountering heavy resistance from Race X and black operations units. A surviving Black Mesa security guard reveals to Shephard that the black operators intend to detonate a tactical nuclear weapon in the base, thereby totally sealing it off and killing everything in it. After neutralizing the black ops unit guarding the device, Shephard disarms it and proceeds to a nearby storage facility to attempt another escape. As Shephard departs, the G Man rearms the nuclear device. The storage facility has become a battleground between Race X and the black operation units. Although Shephard manages to evade them, he is informed by another security guard that something very large is coming through an alien portal blocking the exit path. At the portal, Shephard discovers a gene worm, a massive creature facilitating the Race X invasion. Shephard is able to wound the creature enough to force it back through the wormhole, but immediately afterwards he is teleported onto an Osprey by the G Man. As the G Man congratulates Shephard on his accomplishments, the nuclear device detonates in the background, destroying Black Mesa. The game closes with the G Man detaining Shephard someplace where he can tell no one of what he has seen and cannot be harmed, pending further evaluation.

Half Life: Opposing Force was announced by developer Gearbox Software on April 15, 1999. In their press release, founder Randy Pitchford stated that "our number one goal is to preserve the integrity of Half Life and provide new experiences that expand upon the sensation of the original". In addition, Pitchford commented that Valve and Gearbox had agreed not to "severely modify" the game engine used by Half Life and Opposing Force as it "risks breaking all of the wonderful work" that the game's custom content community was creating. The official website for Opposing Force, hosted by publisher Sierra Studios, was put online in July 1999. Opposing Force was developed in 8 months by a team of more than 15 people. Over the course of development, Gearbox acquired various outside talent to assist in designing some aspects. In June 1999, Gearbox announced that level designer Richard Gray would be assisting in developing the multiplayer aspects. Several other designers subsequently joined the project in September 1999, with collective experience from the development of Daikatana, Quake II, Doom and Shadow Warrior. In the subsequent two months, media releases displaying a variety of screenshots were unveiled. The game was released on November 19, 1999. Gearbox later released a multiplayer update in May 2000, adding a capture the flag mode, along with various items to accompany the new mode. Opposing Force was later released on Valve's Steam content delivery system. Opposing Force was published as part of Sierra's Half Life: Generation compilation in 2002, and as part of Valve and Electronic Arts' Half Life 1: Anthology on September 26, 2005.