Opposing Force is the very first expansion of three for the original Half-Life. In it, you play as one person from the HECU soldiers that debut in We've Got Hostiles in the original game, as Corporal Adrian Shephard you're also tasked with eliminating any evidence and witnesses of the incident, but Adrian has quite the peculiar journey being mostly encountered with the stealthy Black Ops and later on gargantuan sized aliens, but most importantly is that he crosses paths with the G-Man himself, this one making Adrian be unable to leave the site of the incident. And after he defeats the Gene Worm, Adrian gets sort of cryogenized by G-Man by putting him in some sort of place where he "can't harm or cause harm" which is definitely indicating that he will indeed show up in Episode 3 and we'll all get up from our seats and start clapping like it's an MCU movie.
Now, Opposing Force is a bit on the shorter side, a lot of the chapters don't last that long and there's no real stop for puzzles of any sort except for one roadblock of the likes of Blast Pit and then the final boss. But besides these two there's no real remarkable or iconic parts as much as I can say that about the original game. One thing though, the ambience for it being the earlier Half-Life expansion and all the different places you go to is something that is remarkable in itself since you do visit a lot of places you see in the original and more, you go to Xen for a bit, then an underwater lab, and to Lambda Complex even, and while it's not for long I can appreciate it more than the original wanting to stick to the constant Black Mesa levels and having pretty much only one tone to them all.
In general terms I feel like Opposing Force adds a bunch of things then doesn't give a lot of use to some. Ropes for example make for vertical platforming which is something you don't really see in any other GoldSrc game which is cool, but then you proceed to unlock a billion alien weapons that you never use and that's kind of lame, because I really just couldn't find the use to some that weren't the grappling hook or the bootleg BFG, squad tactics are used in the minimum and there's no elements of stealth or somewhere to which actually use the brand new sniper rifle you get, a lot of these additions feel like Gearbox going "these are the TOP 10 things we wished were in Half-Life" and then actually adding them in.
But besides all that, for a first expansion there's nothing bad with it besides some level design choices and what was mentioned, it does really separate itself from how the original game does things and has a pretty unique military aesthetic to it compared to the more sci-fi esque Half-Life stuff, and seeing how the HECU was reacting at the fact that the government practically sent them to die is a pretty good change of views when you are in Adrian's shoes.
I really want this dude to appear in a new game man he's been in the fridge for too long
(EDIT: Played a bit of the multiplayer for the Opposing The Bar event, and honestly. deathmatch is pretty much the same as normal Half-Life's but the added modes like Control Points or Capture the Flag lack a lot when it comes to maps and just how the modes feel themselves, but that seems to be a problem with most maps included, they aren't really adequate for 32 players and then there's the problem with the weapons I talk about here, so much for so little.)
Now, Opposing Force is a bit on the shorter side, a lot of the chapters don't last that long and there's no real stop for puzzles of any sort except for one roadblock of the likes of Blast Pit and then the final boss. But besides these two there's no real remarkable or iconic parts as much as I can say that about the original game. One thing though, the ambience for it being the earlier Half-Life expansion and all the different places you go to is something that is remarkable in itself since you do visit a lot of places you see in the original and more, you go to Xen for a bit, then an underwater lab, and to Lambda Complex even, and while it's not for long I can appreciate it more than the original wanting to stick to the constant Black Mesa levels and having pretty much only one tone to them all.
In general terms I feel like Opposing Force adds a bunch of things then doesn't give a lot of use to some. Ropes for example make for vertical platforming which is something you don't really see in any other GoldSrc game which is cool, but then you proceed to unlock a billion alien weapons that you never use and that's kind of lame, because I really just couldn't find the use to some that weren't the grappling hook or the bootleg BFG, squad tactics are used in the minimum and there's no elements of stealth or somewhere to which actually use the brand new sniper rifle you get, a lot of these additions feel like Gearbox going "these are the TOP 10 things we wished were in Half-Life" and then actually adding them in.
But besides all that, for a first expansion there's nothing bad with it besides some level design choices and what was mentioned, it does really separate itself from how the original game does things and has a pretty unique military aesthetic to it compared to the more sci-fi esque Half-Life stuff, and seeing how the HECU was reacting at the fact that the government practically sent them to die is a pretty good change of views when you are in Adrian's shoes.
I really want this dude to appear in a new game man he's been in the fridge for too long
(EDIT: Played a bit of the multiplayer for the Opposing The Bar event, and honestly. deathmatch is pretty much the same as normal Half-Life's but the added modes like Control Points or Capture the Flag lack a lot when it comes to maps and just how the modes feel themselves, but that seems to be a problem with most maps included, they aren't really adequate for 32 players and then there's the problem with the weapons I talk about here, so much for so little.)