Half-Life: Blue Shift

Reviewed by Mike Suskie (June 09, 2008)

If Blue Shift were merely a simple rehash of everything we saw in Half-Life, I’d be cool with it, since I adored that game and would have loved to see more. But this expansion lacks many of the masterful touches that made Valve’s first-person shooter stand out so much. Level design is straightforward, mechanical, and lacks imagination; way too much of the game’s first act is spent wandering through some nondescript sewer system, turning wheels and pushing buttons and swimming down canals and all that. The game does eventually pick up a bit, during a semi-cool run through a train yard sporting a number of mildly exciting skirmishes with your old military opponents, but even here, the game lacks the energy and knack for big, “epic” moments that the original (and even, occasionally, Opposing Force) did so well.