As a seemingly normal day at work starts, Barney Calhoun visits security headquarters, including a shooting range and a surveillance room where it is possible to see Gordon Freeman again on camera heading towards the HEV Storage Area.
Calhoun is then sent to help some scientists with an elevator; along the way, he witnesses many incidents foreshadowing the resonance cascade, such as a pair of scientists vainly trying to fix a supercomputer. He also sees the G-Man passing by in a tram.
After repairing the elevator, the resonance cascade occurs; the elevator is jammed, the cable snaps and sends Calhoun and two scientists plummeting down the shaft as chaos breaks out around them. As the elevator collides with the bottom of the elevator shaft, Calhoun falls unconscious.
- This chapter takes place at the same time as the Half-Life chapter Anomalous Materials.
- Turn on the lights in the tunnel to Sector G.
- Find the chumtoad.
- Get yelled at by a scientist (other than the one waiting in elevator)
This section is new for TREE. I will ask a few questions and see if you know the answers before you play.
- What’s are the security guards told they should be guarding?
- Name one of the books in Barney’s locker?
- How many paper targets are in the shooting range?
Got all three right? Impressive Luke Skywalker
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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This post is part of the The Replay Experience Experiment event. This is a chance to replay all the Half-Life games and discuss them based on our experiences since we first played them.
All 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: Blue Shift.
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: Blue Shift directly through Steam and could be playing in within moments, depending on your internet connection.
Sometimes it’s the small things that count. I’ve never noticed how cool the scientists shoes are. Kinda like leather bowling shoes.
Anyway, there’s no action here and it clearly is the same as Anomalous Materials in the way it allows you to explore and get your bearings, with rushing you or forcing you into action.
Lookout for lots of little set sequences like the scientist complaining to the security guard about his files or the super-computer repair. They all go to make it feel familiar and also make it feel like a real research facility.
Can’t believe the security guard tried to stop the cart with his face, but maybe he was high, who knows.
All I know is I am ready for some serious action. BRING IT ON GEARBOX!
Yes, I poked around in there fore a while. I missed the dancing scientist though.
– Turn on the lights in the tunnel to Sector G.
– Find the chumtoad.
I knew where it was but didn’t want to waste my ammo.
The tension is building
16 minutes
But that was me running around looking for crazy stuff
0
Yay! Probably the only time this will happen in this game.
Though I didn’t do it in this video, I wonder why there’s a puzzle to turn on those tunnel lights. A rewarding diversion maybe. Also, the most difficult boss in this game (if you are playing on steam) is the sector G elevator. I think I died the first time because I couldn’t protect that scientist from the Evil Elevator’s deadly attacks. I also got trapped once by it and was killed. So glad I finally finished this really difficult chapter.
INSECURITY
Blue Shift’s version of Anomalous Materials, but with more scripted sequences.
More Gordon Freeman.
One of my favorite parts of the Half-life series is when the scientists tries to fix the computer.
A unused animation from the Gonome is used for one of the scientists dancing.
None.
Of course I went in there.
Turn on the lights in the tunnel to Sector G.
I think Gearbox wanted the player to turn on the light, they just put it in a stupid place.
Find the Chumtoad.
I think everyone knows this by now.
Funny how simply pressing a button on the elevator counts as “fixing” it.
Playtime: 14 Minutes
5 words or less: Barney goes to work
My Images for this chapter: http://imgur.com/a/ybDCM
Pretty awesome chapter, starts off by seeing Gordon Freeman on his way to his adventure. Then we witness all kinds of technical problems, suggesting the resonance cascade is probably not entirely Gman’s fault.
I always loved Anomalous materials, and this chapter is even better. Most people seem to prefer Opposing Force and to hate blue shift, but I actually think it’s better than op4. More believable, more canon, and it feels more like half-life. I think opposing force just missed the point of an expansion to actually follow the first game’s adventure.
Pretty sure I couldn’t have done better except for that missed jump through the window. I watched the world record speedrun before doing this in order to remember the route (haven’t played blue shift in a really long time).
Overall awesome chapter, we’re not stopped by a zillion of Npcs talking (that really bothered me with anomalous materials), you listen to them if you want to (hey calhouns *zoom*).
Quiz:
– What’s are the security guards told they should be guarding?
I have no idea, but I’ll guess: “the important people here”. I guessed that according to the scientist in the elevator’s personality (is he the one telling what to guard?)
– Name one of the books in Barney’s locker?
It’s something about alien right? or maybe the same books as gordon? I don’t know….
– How many paper targets are in the shooting range?
4 or 5. I’ll go with 4.
Five words or less review:
Very awesome indeed
Deaths: 0
it’s possible to die by falling or maybe glitching in the elevator. It’s very hard to die if you don’t mess around. I didn’t
Playtime:
5 minutes 500 milliseconds.
Here are my challenges section:
Challenges:
– Turn on the lights in the tunnel to Sector G.
Nope, not even a flashlight xD
– Find the chumtoad.
I need my ammo for speed purposes.
– Get yelled at by a scientist (other than the one waiting in elevator)
That one is time comsuming. I’m the one who came up with that challenge so I won’t spoil it, I wanna see who will find it first (if someone manages to find it)
I have just been reminded that I didn’t add the challenges in the main post. I have now added them, sorry about that.
General
“Insecurity” give you the definition of what I now call a “Black-Mesa Day”.
When Barney arrive to work he prepare himself for another long and soporific day at work. But on the place all is going wrong! Doors don’t open, toilets are broken, two scientists need you to start an elevator and power fall down! Well this IS a bad day, not safe to continue experiments in labs…
This second part of game intro is full of scripted sequences making it realist; exceeded scientist who can’t work, guards training at shooting range, and guys trying to repair equipment.
Finally Barney do his maintainer job and restart the elevator very easily and, when he believes he is loosing his time, world and elevator collapse around him.
Challenges
Turn on the lights in the tunnel to Sector G. Not hard
Find the chumtoad. I was aware of those in Xen chapter, but not this one
Get yelled at by a scientist
Caught my eyes
What are you doing, Otis?
Playtime
12 minutes
My French Let’s Play
Challenges
Turn on the lights in the tunnel to Sector G.
Find the chumtoad. !! I have no idea how I missed that, I mean I saw the books and the pics.. I didn’t look down 🙁
Get yelled at by a scientist (other than the one waiting in elevator)
Quiz
What’s are the security guards told they should be guarding?
Facility personell? No idea
Name one of the books in Barney’s locker?
The truth about aliens and Government Conspiracies, my favorites lol
How many paper targets are in the shooting range?
6?
Was surprised to see G-Man on a train in this chapter and not in the previous. Freeman still rockin it. And the end of this chapter is amazing and really sets the mood.
Playtime: 14 m
Directly analogous to Half-Life’s Anomalous Materials, here we have a nice introduction to Calhoun’s work world, complete with shooting range and security guard locker room. I think it nicely walks the line between being a remade Anomalous Materials and being new and fresh – there are a couple of nice references to Half-Life (Freeman, Gina, the scientist complaining about the AM crew pushing their equipment too hard) without going overboard. We also get a quick Gman appearance on the passing tram.
To an extent, this is personally the type of map I love to make. I like the “normal” feel of everything before the shit hits the fan. But I really like the scripting, whether it’s subtle like having all the characters actually doing something, or a cool setpiece like the elevator sequence. It didn’t blow me away but it was very well put together, and definitely starts the action off right.
Mapper’s Corner: In the elevator sequence at the end of this chapter, we saw something totally new that wasn’t in Half-Life or Op4. If you aren’t/weren’t a mapper you might not notice it at all.
The tram crash was surprising to me for a specific reason: here was a moving object (entity) that also rotated (the tumbling it did during the crash). The barrels that go flying through the air also tumble in a similar fashion.
This probably doesn’t sound revolutionary but it kind of was to us mappers. To get technical, we never realized that func_trains (things in game that move in straight lines without changing their orientation) could also rotate as they move. It apparently had been possible in HL and Op4, but no one was aware of it since it wasn’t documented and wasn’t included in the fgd file which contains the entity properties that you set while making a map. I ended up doing a ton of testing and writing another tutorial on it since you could pull off some decent tricks with it.
Playtime: 13 minutes
Interesting places to explore where we familiarize ourselves with the character’s life in Black Mesa, and a stunning catastrophe in the end.
There’s some nice architecture and multi-floored rooms.
There are excellent scripted scenes: guards in the shooting range, complaining scientist.
But what’s the most exciting is, of course, the end of the chapter, where monsters start teleporting around, and, finally, the train crash scene, which just looks too advanced for a Half-Life game scene. In Kingpin, such scenes are realized by animated models, but here, it is all with entities!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=123403475
This effect also reminds me of a spectacular Half-Life map named Orb:
http://twhl.info/vault.php?map=3900
Turn on the lights in the tunnel to Sector G.
Find the chumtoad.
Found it! The pistol ammo that I got in the shooting range wasn’t enough, that box broke only after a couple of RPG shots and SMG grenades with impulse 101. Before that box I checked every box in the sector G tunnel. Before that I looked around everywhere for a chumtoad.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=123401687
Get yelled at by a scientist (other than the one waiting in elevator)
Got yelled by scientist by breaking the candy machine, also got yelled by guard in the shooting range by standing in his line of fire. Funny thing is that we lose our job for killing people but not for breaking glass and soda machines. Nobody even say anything if they see us breaking them. Maybe breaking things is permitted in Black Mesa? The scientists who broke the computer didn’t seem too worried…
Blue Shift’s Anomalous Materials.
24 minutes
Alright I’m finally catching up and responding this now that my latest videos are ready.
I really liked Insecurity this hasn’t changed in the long time since I’ve played it.
The whole thing just seems like a very natural walk and introduction to your job as part of the Blue Shift.
I love the scientist reading the Mesa Times and just the general feel of the whole chapter. All of the moments especially the cameos from known characters seemed natural.
I did turn on the light.
I did find the chumtoad.
My video starts from where I left off last time so a few moments into Insecurity right through.
I quite like the chance to explore a bit of Black Mesa before things go awry but it’s a little too similar to the Anomalous Materials area for my liking.
Some things of note:
-I like the security camera room because it’s a cool idea and it makes sense.
-The light switch “puzzle” is kind of bad level design because I expect most people miss it entirely. I only knew because I saw it mentioned here.
-Another bit of level design that makes no sense- if you are in an underground complex, why all these cumbersome moving bridges? Wouldn’t it be far easier to tunnel over or under the rail track, especially since the stairs go up on both sides of the bridge!
-The new details like a scientist reading the Mesa Times are very well done.
The chapter ends with a cool destruction sequence; I thought the physics effects on the train crash were cool (although undoubtedly “faked”). The whole thing does give a feeling of being on a far smaller scale than HL and OF though, which is a little disappointing.