The chapter details Adrian Shephard’s battle with the monstrous Pit Worm which is blocking his progress through Waste Processing Area 3.
Working his way through the surrounding area (littered with the corpses of the Marines who sent the distress signal in the previous chapter), Shephard manages to dump toxic waste on the Pit Worm, killing it and allowing him to access the next area.
- This chapter mirrors the chapter Blast Pit from the original Half-Life, though it is much smaller.
- The puzzle to kill the Pit Worm involves both a “valve”” and a “gearbox” to be used, which are obvious references to the game’s developers as an Easter egg.
- Another Easter egg are the garbage compactors, especially the flooded one, which are directly designed after the Death Star’s garbage compactor seen in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
- In the first map, a flooded Xen area where one can be brought by the Displacer features two dead scientists. In the second map, another scientist can be found clinging to the edge of an island with another Displacer (that brought him there) still on the island.
- This chapter takes place at the same time as the Half-Life chapter Nihilanth.
- Find Gina.
- What’s rotating the wrong way?
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WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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This post is part of the The Replay Experience Experiment 2012 event. This is a chance to replay all the Half-Life games and discuss them based on our experiences since we first played them.
The trivia text taken from the CombineOverWiki, a fan-supported, editable wiki covering the Half-Life series of games.
On the left is a complete text walkthrough for Half-Life: Opposing Force.
It has been written by Stanley E. Dunigan and updated with all the tricks and tips from PlanetPhillip.Com readers.
It is in PDF format, meaning you can open it directly in modern browsers or download it and print it.
(Left-click to open and right-click to save)
You can purchase Half-Life: Opposing Force directly through Steam and could be playing in within moments, depending on your internet connection.
Obviously, the comparison with Blast Pity is impossible to ignore and to be honest this version was just as fun. Clearly not on the same scale architecturally, it still provides plenty of challenges and interest.
The Easter Egg of “Gearbox”, “Valve” and “Steam” is a nice touch, although Steam might not have been a reference to the now compulsory software we love and hate.
All in all, a great chapter that continues to build the atmosphere.
Puzzle and action. Although, what we define as puzzle is more about pressing buttons and then pressing some more buttons. Still it was fun.
Yes, right at the beginning. Nice to have you back, G-man.
Besides the HUGE one blocking your way, I didn’t have any. You?
Definitely the Pit Worm,. although I haven’t met yo momma, so she may be the scariest.
– Find Gina.
– What’s rotating the wrong way?
Time for some YOMOMMA jokes!
20 minutes
1
Got caught between a couple of pit drones.
This is a boss chapter similar to Half-Life’s Blast Pit. Thankfully, the pit worm is not as dangerous as tentacles so it doesn’t cause frustration.
We’re going through Black Mesa waste processing system, and we have to kill the worm because it prevents us from extending the bridge. The design is, as usual, visually pleasing, and the pit worm looks great.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=101875341
So we need to find and turn on gearbox pump and steam pressure valve in order to flush toxic waste in the area. The ladder was broken, but then I remembered that I have a barnacle.
There is a bug: at one point I started the trash compactor then walked back and died from unknown reason.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=101875244
Aside from the pit worm, we fight small creatures X, which I enjoyed killing with one strong wrench strike, and bullsquids, which I enjoyed gibbing with one strong wrench strike.
Playtime: 12 minutes
General
To my mind this chapter is a little strange. Obviously it remind Blast Pit but is not as well designed. What is that thing with Gearbox and Valve on control panel? Are they out of idea or it was only for an easter egg? I don’t understand…
Anyway the level itself still fun, make a detour to activate somethings and return to destroy the boss. The part where you must open Steam Vent is interesting with double gameplay, puzzles and avoiding powerful enemies.
This chapter is not very long and I don’t know if it should be longer or not.
Poll
Voted Tentacles cause they can hurt you even by accident.
Challenges
Find Gina.
What�s rotating the wrong way?
This bizarre cogwheel on the right on the gearbox pump.
GMan sightings
Above first compactor room. He’s returned!
Deaths
One at the second compactor, a bug because you should be at safe above the moving walls.
Caught my eyes
Gearbox? Valve? What are those products? And why are they so dangerous?
Playtime
10 minutes
French Let’s Play
You start this chapter with a strange sound which you can figure out what it is and you soon meet the subject of the chapter title. You spend most of the chapter running around, mainly avoiding the Pit Worm.
This chapter was sort of a scaled down version of Half Life’s Blast Pit chapter: Flip switches A,B,C around the centre chamber and then flip the last final switch to kill the big monster in said chamber to progress.
I’m not sure why but I insta-died when leaving the room where you activate the trash-compactor.
I loved the reference to both Valve and Gearbox, it couldn’t be more obvious.
Playtime: 16 minutes
Yeah, this chapter is a “blast pit” remake where tentacles are replaced with a giant cyclop worm with eye lasers. And instead of a blast pit, it’s a toxic waste pit. Like the guys above say, the second trash compactor has this problem of killing you even when you’re not in it, which is very annoying because you never know if it will hit you or not.
I think both these challenges are pretty easy, since there isn’t much to do in here anyways. Did you know you can’t turn the valve unless you open the steam? I dunno why, maybe it’s because you NEED steam in order to activate the valve’s stuff. Maybe gearbox knew how it was eventually gonna be back then!
So, yeah, Race X themed chapter, mostly with the pit worm and its drones, with some leftover bullsquids since the level is mostly an industrial canal sort of setting.
Playtime – 6:28
For me, this chapter is an inferior version of Blast Pit – but it ultimately serves a higher purpose of giving you some relative down time between more combat-heavy chapters before and after. I didn’t find it one of the better chapters but as I said it does break things up.
There’s not much combat here and the Pit Worm can’t really be considered a “boss” – in that like the tentacles in Blast Pit you can’t hurt the worm directly so he acts as more of an environmental puzzle. Unfortunately the steps again boil down to hit the buttons in the right order (still pretty boring even in terms of Half-Life puzzles), although the Gearbox/Valve labels deserve a chuckle. At the time Steam wasn’t even a twinkle in Gabe’s eyes so that’s coincidental.
I think my time is mainly so long because I refilled on spore ammo to the max which took a couple minutes. Those spores should be limited in my opinion.
Playtime: 13 minutes
It seems like the devs just decided to chuck all the references into this chapter. The Valve/Gearbox thing was a little too obvious, but the replica Star Wars trash compactors were a nice touch. Maybe one of Black Mesa’s architects was a fan?
As other have said this is more of a small chapter to break things up. I guess it’s these sorts of areas which show Opposing Force up as “just” an expansion pack seeing as this is basically a scaled down repeat of Blast Pit. Still despite that the design still looks good and I still love exploring these long forgotten areas of the facility.
Glad to see G-Man is back from his holiday 😛 Another bug in the beginning of the chapter, a wooden crate sounds like a metal one.
Unfortunately I didn’t get any of the challenges this time.. But I’m enjoying the grapple mode. And I think the creature looked kinda cute! It somehow has baby features, the tentacles still being the scariest.
Playtime: 19 minutes cus I forget to save often
I hate this level. Most people seem to think it is very similar to Blast pit, but it really isn’t. In Blast pit, a creature is living in the rocket testing room and you have to kill it using the rocket fire. Now a creature started living in some water/waste and you have to activate a gearbox and a valve in order to send some radioactive toxic waste in the pit. I fully understand that valve and gearbox are easter eggs, but that’s just plain stupid, it makes black mesa dumb.
Overall I don’t like the level, which might be hy this is MY NEW RECORD FOR A LEVEL! 35 SECOND :D:D:D
Challenges:
– Find Gina.
You have to use the displacer and then she’s one of the dead bodies underwater. Huge loss of time.
What’s rotating the wrong way?
I have no idea. Why aren’t these challenges skill related D:
Five Words or less review:
Yuck let’s speed through it
Deaths:
None. Foxtrot Uniform and The package actually scare me.
Playtime:
35 seconds 205 milliseconds
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I was interested to know how you center yourself and clear
your thoughts prior to writing. I have had a hard time clearing my thoughts in getting my thoughts out.
I truly do take pleasure in writing but it just seems like the first 10 to
15 minutes are generally lost just trying to figure out how to begin. Any recommendations or hints?
Kudos!