I really enjoy Blue Shift and Opposing Force, I thought the epilogue feel of those two expansions contributed to the overall Half-Life experience.
Every 2-3 years I do a back to back replay of HL/OF/BS.
HL2 + Expansion replays tend to be more like once in 4-5 years.
I never played classic Blue Shift until a couple years ago (I didn’t actually finish though, but I did get a part of the way through Xen in that one) and thought it had a little more “personal” feel to it rather than Half-Life. Like everyone has a name, and calls you Barney or Calhoun all the time and such.
The Blue Shift Remake mod for Black Mesa is really cool imo. It’s bigger, there’s been more stuff added to levels, and it kinda fleshes out Black Mesa itself as a location (you have different divisions with their uniforms and such, like Security, Research, Warehouse and Maintenance).
I have a copy of Black Mesa, but have yet to play it. I will probably get the Blue Shift remake (do they have an Opposing Force remake?) and do back to back run closer to NYE.
I agree that it has a bit more personal feel and I like that it’s a different perspective on the events of HL, relatively original for the late 90s/early 2000s.
