Although Opposing Force is only about one third as long as its predecessor, it's packed with original content. You can sense the designers' enthusiasm as one memorable scene unfolds after another, and it compels you to keep playing. Like Half-Life, Opposing Force's greatest strength is its success at consistently delivering surprises. Many of the original settings and incidents are referred to or revisited from a slightly altered perspective, and it's a ringing endorsement of their effectiveness that to give any of them away would lessen your enjoyment of the game. Your path initially converges with Freeman's, then takes some unexpected detours. The developers know that while Adrian Shephard has no idea what Freeman is doing, you do, and they pack the game with clues as to where you are in relation to Half-Life's hero.
It's a testament to the success of Half-Life that its story actually warrants retelling. As in the original, things immediately go awry, mistakes are made, people die, and your initial plan is replaced with a complicated fight for survival. You've been sent to the Black Mesa Research Facility to locate and eliminate Gordon Freeman. Opposing Force's story recounts the events of Half-Life, but from the opposing side's perspective as implied by the title. As such, it's appropriate that Gearbox Software's Opposing Force, the official expansion for the genre-redefining Half-Life, in turn sets a new standard of quality for future action-game mission packs. First-person-shooter mission packs are usually mediocre: Throw together a few new levels, put in some more guns, add a spider, and you've got a commercial add-on for your aging product.
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