In this chapter, Adrian Shephard finds himself in underwater laboratories where several Ichthyosaurs are being held.
After making his way through the labs and freeing a scientist who provides him with information on the area, Shephard is again forced to teleport to Xen and back again to reach a new part of Black Mesa.
- Takes place at the same time as the Half-Life chapter Gonarch’s Lair.
- In fluid physics, the term “crush depth” is the depth at which the pressure will be strong enough to crush a mentioned object. Therefore the name is a pun to the design of the level itself, which contains a considerable amount of water.
- Find a bundle of TNT
- Complete the chapter without killing any ithchyosaurs
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 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.
Plenty of alien action in this chapter and a chance to see a new area of BM. Gotta love the scripted stuff with the rocks and machinery that gets transported into the water and alos the scientist who “hid” himself.
There’s a lot going on here but it is so well intergrated that it flows so smoothly.
Everything is coming together nicely and the tension is building to a finale.
He must be on holiday.
Nope, none.
Nope, I just swam like hell.
YAY, got my first alien weapon!
20 minutes
1
I tried running through the electrical field. DOH!
CRUSH DEPTH
– Find a bundle of TNT.
– Complete the chapter without killing any ithchyosaurs.
(You could try saving Otis, but that might be a bit difficult.)
Thanks, I’ve added them to the main post.
Wow, this was a really cool chapter, lots of neat level design going on. We find ourselves teleported into a new part of Black Mea. The ambinet sound effects here really build up an atmosphere as you wander through the corridors. We meet a scientist who trapped himself underwater and have to use a “transporter” to get him out. This was a really cool idea, but it seemed to create a big plot hole. In Half-Life 1, wasn’t teleportation supposed to be top-secret research only known about inside Lambda complex, yet here it is being used as freely as if this was an episode of Star Trek!
Moving on we get a lot of watery environments to enjoy, and again the level design is nice. I especially loved the “clean suit” area and the air lock which drains the water. Just after this we meet another new enemy, which I killed before getting a proper look at it! We are rewarded with a new experimental weapon.
I achieved the challenge of avoiding all the ichysaurs, and it led to me finding a major bug in the room where the glass tunnel is broken and you have to go out of the hole into the water. If you swim up and try to get on top of the glass tunnel, you find a gap in the water brush and camp there whilst using any weapon you please!
This brings us to the end of the chapter, which came a lot sooner than I expected. I thought Opposing Force was longer than it seems to be, maybe because I completed it a long time ago. Anyway, I really liked this chapter for giving us a new take on the environment and fun gameplay.
The very beginninng of this chapter causes nostalgic feelings, because we appear in the elevator very similar to the one from Anomalous Materials. This is some research lab, and, as usual, the path is blocked and we search for the way around. Level design is beautiful, and our progression is interesting. It includes underwater swimming and teleportation to Xen, which are great variety.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=102739111
The displacement weapon places us into the pit where Freeman saw Xen for the first time. This idea is cool, but almost all passages are dead ends. I would like more exploration.
The door is locked with the retinal scanner. So we help the scientist and he helps us. But it’s not that easy this time. The authors got a good original idea: second scanner is broken and kills the scientist when he attempts to use it, so we have to find another way.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=95776790
If we use the displacement weapon later, we will fall to our death through the beautiful Xen area.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=102740133
We enter the transporter, and stunning teleportation sequence gets us underwater. Teleporting part of the computer first is a great idea, which makes it so stunning.
Playtime: 17 minutes
I found Crush Depth to be a solid mix of combat, minor puzzles (mostly buttons), and ties to Half-Life.
The combat comes in chunks, first with a gaggle of pit drones (oh how I hate them) and then later on you get to fight a shock trooper by itself. It’s a nice relatively low-risk way to have you fight one, before you get to take them on in packs and before they get to use their spore grenades. As usual I simply chose to bypass the ickys – they take way too much ammo and effort to kill on Hard.
The puzzles really aren’t worth discussing much because they’re really just hit-the-button or have-the-scientist-open-the-door types. But I do like the added bit where you can ask the scientist to open the second door which leads to his demise.
I like this chapter mainly for the intrigue it builds (more BMRF experimentation on Xen fauna and teleportation) and the sign right at the end of the chapter hints at the large biodome complex which is still to come. It ties nicely to Half-Life with the ichthyosaur area.
Bonus if you use the displacer in the right spot – you get to visit the very first Xen area that you saw in Half-Life, during the resonance cascade:
http://imgur.com/CnqlD
Playtime: 13 minutes
And an unfabulous bonus if you use it in the wrong spot
General
A very well made chapter taking place in a lab specialized in aquatic species. We see that Black Mesa Research Center works in numerous ways. We also notice that this lab was equipped with functionals teleporters (at least one is fully functional).
In this chapter you must find your way by fighting, detours, puzzles and others worlds. What a nice mix of gameplay. And all that to reach a sort of sewer…
Poll
Killed them all, they are too ugly!
Challenges
Find a bundle of TNT OK
Complete the chapter without killing any ithchyosaurs No
Deaths
One by teleport error.
Playtime
13 minutes
French Let’s Play
I remember finding it rather difficult to kill all the Ichthyosaurs in this chapter, however this time around I did manage to sneak past them thanks to William’s tip about them not attacking unless you touch or attack them.
Playtime: 12 minutes
I am now officially more than a month late, so I guess I really should catch up soon. I am really sorry and will try to be as fast as possible from now on even tough I still don’t have much time.
Crush Depth gets us back on the earth, and as Shephard’s mind said it, back in Black Mesa. We start by riding down an elevator, then fight a few monsters and free a scientist with teleportation. He opens the first door for us, and gearbox really had a nice idea here, making the second scanner kill our scientist so that they don’t have to explain why he can’t open that door or why there is no door to that room. We move in air vents, we CAN’t save Otis, he dies when we cross a trigger while going up the ladder. Then we teleport and I really like how gearbox teleported parts of the environment even with hl’s weak physics engine. How come there are so many zombies in a place like that when scientists can’t swim nor crawl and both entrances need one of those, that is a mystery. I did not kill any of the ichtyosaur because it’s a huge loss of time since without a crossbow only a pistol and explosives work underwater, both of those require a lot of time. The we get out, encounter some xray machine, move around xen and earth like it’s no big deal, encounter a weird acting water (near the end with the 2 ichtyosaurs, pressure SHOULD make the water go up to the ceiling of the “pipe”) and we get in the next level.
Challenges:
– Find a bundle of TNT.
I have no idea what or where this is, and it is the first challenge in the project that I don’t think I could have completed if I wanted to.
– Complete the chapter without killing any ithchyosaurs.
Didn’t know this was a challenge, it seems much easier to do so than to kill them, but whatever I got one 😀
Five Words Or Less Review:
Gearbox using awesome new ideas
Deaths:
Nope, will I complete Opposing Force without dying? that would be cool
Playtime:
3 minutes 53 seconds 167 milliseconds
There is a mistake in the playtime at the end of the vid. As you can see, the timer is right in front of the lamp, and while editing, the video has low quality so I tought it was 51 seconds, thus I made the big title 51 seconds. I really took 53 seconds.
I found a map bug at the start of the level, when you exit the elevator and take the ladder down.
Uhm was the TNT in the Xen part? I tried jumping down and just died so I gave up looking. But I did manage to let the poor Ichties live, as I have more fun killing them with a crossbow which we currently don’t have. I also died trying to shoot the alien weapon under water as I didn’t know what it could do lol apparently it’s electricity based. Too bad we meet the new enemy in such a tight space, I kinda shot it while ducking behind cover so didn’t get a good look at it 🙁
Playtime: 13 minutes
the TNT is actually hidden in plain sight! It’s near the X-ray corpses but it’s really hard to tell what it is. But if u shoot it, it explodes!