Half Life. So called because it took up half of the life of most gamers for months after it was released. A year before it appeared on shelves, Valve decided not to release an earlier version of Half Life simply because they didn't feel it was good enough. In the following year, they improved it to the extent that gamers and journalists alike couldn't lavish enough praise on it once it was released. However, once gamers had completed the game as Gordon Freeman, they wanted more. While Valve slaved away at Team Fortress 2, Gearbox Software ended up with the Herculean task of producing an add-on to the game of 1998, they developed Half Life: Opposing Force. Valve took years to develop Half-Life, yet Gearbox completed the add-on in a matter of months. Were they able to produce a quality expansion in that short period or does this new addition to the Half Life tale tarnish the reputation of its excellent predecessor?
This time round, Gearbox decided to place you in control of Corporal Adrian Sheppard, one of the army grunts sent to silence Gordon Freeman and the other Black Mesa scientists. This new take on the Black Mesa tale provides many new and very enjoyable experiences. You finally get to climb and swing on the ropes that soldiers often used to appear out of nowhere and rake Freeman with MP5 fire. Unlike Freeman, Sheppard knows how to use military radios that serve to progress the story a bit and give you updates on the state of affairs in other parts of the Black Mesa complex. Of course, since Sheppard is in the army, you also get a few nice new guns to slaughter aliens with.