With a sequel being little more than a painfully distant prospect, does Opposing Force offer a welcome respite from the cold turkey Half-Life fans are suffering right now?
Lisa Baresi

Opposing Force is basically more Half-Life and, as such, it's wide open to critical interpretation. Enjoyable? Hell, yes. It is that. Brilliant? Well, that's highly debatable. Enough of the semantics, though. Let's talk content.

Half-Life's great trick was to fool players - that is, you and I and just about everyone with a PC and a pulse - into believing that we were participants in a grand event. Its narrative centrepieces were few and far between, yet it offered a yarn to rival the greatest RPGs. Furthermore, with a modest increase in AI proficiency, it apparently provided superior confrontations - action events that eclipsed its many peers. With Quake 2, we disposed of innumerable foes of limited, even non-existent personality. But, when playing Half-Life, you believed.

Opposing Force marks a reprise for every trick that Half-Life had hidden in its ample, metaphorical sleeves. Occasionally, it insinuates that it has a few neat ideas and party-pieces of its own. But, like kindred releases for Quake or Dungeon Keeper or any other game with an add-on pack you care to mention, it doesn't really innovate. Because it builds upon the Half-Life foundations, you can rest assured that it's rarely less than entertaining. To accord it with pseudo-sequel status, though, would be erroneous.

Remember running around with Barney in tow? And how you spent time trying to preserve his life until, inexplicably, he'd refuse to follow you through a certain door? In Opposing Force you take the role of one of Gordon Freeman's foes - the special forces troops sent in to clean up the mess in the Black Mesa establishment. Your assistants this time, then, are other soldiers. Interestingly, these AI-controlled allies arrive in a few different flavours. There are medics, guys that can open doors... in all, a handful of different assistants that lend themselves to elementary puzzles.