Half-Life 1 expansion on Steam

By Tom Bramwell Published 23 August, 2005

Blue Shift's wait.

Half-Life fans looking for something to do before The Lost Coast shows up ("soon") and Aftermath takes them back to City 17 ("September") might want to keep an eye on Steam this week as Valve plans to re-release Half-Life 1 expansion Blue Shift.

Blue Shift was Gearbox Software's second Half-Life expansion after the (fairly excellent) Opposing Force, but was pooh-poohed in some quarters for being too short - mainly because it was originally designed as an extra bit for the then-canned Dreamcast version.

It saw players take control of security guard Barney Calhoun as things went wrong in Black Mesa and Gordon Freeman was busy rising to the challenge. Barney has to rescue some scientists, solve some puzzles and avoid crouching in lifts. (Unless they fixed that; all we remember is that it got us lodged in the scenery.)

It doesn't sound like Blue Shift will be redone in the Source Engine or anything exciting like that, but it will be "automatically playable" by anyone who has Half-Life 1 including owners of the Half-Life 2 Silver and Gold packages. You might as well give it a go. We'll let you know when it's available.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (17) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Killerbee #1 7 years ago

    Nice one Valve!

    I never got around to playing this first time around, so a freebie like this is definitely very welcome.

    /watches Steam activity...

  • jellyhead #2 7 years ago

    I really enjoyed the spin-off's from half-life, opposing forces and blue shift.
    Not brilliant but fun to play, i liked the way you got the impression they were all happening at once. Helped expand the size of the whole event, also added some humour to the saga and showed me that valve weren't too precious about the concept.
    Be nice if something similar was done with HL2, after all they certainly have the scope in the gameworld and the engine to do it, an episode for a fiver would be reasonable.
    I imagine it'll depend on how well the Sin episodes go.

  • Teeth #3 7 years ago

    Aha! I'm going to play opposing force at lunch, thanks for reminding me. Never got round to it before.

  • CargoCult #4 7 years ago

    I liked Blue Shift - I can imagine someone getting annoyed if they'd paid full price for it, but I paid a tenner and got the lovely High Definition pack with it too.

    Hmm. I wonder if that'll be included with the Steam release? Of course, I've already installed in manually... :-]

  • jellyhead #5 7 years ago

    I even quite liked the Gunman Chronicles also, wonder if they'll get a chance to update that as well.

  • Mashum #6 7 years ago

    I only have HL2 regular so I get CS:Source but no HL1 or DoD.

    Is there any way I can buy HL1 Source? If I pick up a new copy of the original HL1, install and licence it will Steam know that I have bought it and grant me HL:1 Source?

    I wish I bought the big fancy free T shirt and biscuit tin version of HL2 now, god knows how I get Day of Defeat :(

    ...or I could just look at the Steam FAQs :-o
    Edited by 1 at 23/08/05 @ 11:30

  • mad_caddy #7 7 years ago

    You dont get half life source if you have half life 1.....which really hacks me off!

  • Wobble #8 7 years ago

    lol, crouching in lifts, i forgot about that :)

    [threadjack]
    Anyone remember how the hell you killed the end boss in OpFor? I gave up trying as there was no indication of actual damage being done by anything i tried, for all I know i could have had it within an inch of death, but then there also could have been soemthign 'obvious' that i just wasn't doing. I hate giving up on stuff like that, but it was pissing me off.
    [/threadjack]

  • Mashum #9 7 years ago

    thx mad_caddy

  • deadlock #10 7 years ago

    I think it's really lame that you can't buy HL1:Source seperately; I'd love to give it a go but don't want to have to repurchase HL2.

  • RobertFoster #11 7 years ago

    Haha, I just finished playing Blue Shift the other day. It was nice to see Barney Calhoun in his original role (it made his part in HL2 more understandable).

    Edit:
    Wobble: Shoot it in the eyes with the mounted lasers, then shoot at the thing in it's mouth with the SAW or rocket launcher.
    Edited by 1 at 23/08/05 @ 12:07

  • Wobble #12 7 years ago

    Yeah, that seemed to be the idea, but you have to redo the cycle a few times don't you? I think i gave up cause i could never work out if shooting it in the middle was actually doing anything :(

    Crazy when you compare it to the pushover of a boss that there was in HL2 :p

    So is the ending worth me going back and trying to do it?

  • Freek #13 7 years ago

    You're not missing anything by not playing HL1:Source. It's a straigt port, doesn't take advantage of the source engine at all, pointless really.

  • Hunam85 #14 7 years ago

    i remember completing this in 2 hours

  • Baronen #15 7 years ago

    Same here. Without even a bathroom break and everything. Still, nice freebie for those who haven't played it. I support the suggestion of releasing similar "bonus campaign" so to say for HL2 as well.

  • Ciaran #16 7 years ago

    What Freek said... HL1:Source really isn't all that.

    This however...

    /drools

  • mad_caddy #17 7 years ago

    Ciaran...Thats more like it.....me want!