Opposing Force: Foxtrot Uniform

22nd October 2012

The Replay Experience Experiment: Half-Life: Opposing Force: Foxtrot Uniform

Details the fierce battle raging between the Race X creatures, the Black Ops contingent, including several snipers, and the remnants of the HECU in the last hours of the Black Mesa Incident.

Adrian Shephard makes his way through the underground canals and sewers of Black Mesa, fighting through a Voltigore nest, and arrives at the hydroelectric dam featured in the first game.

Here, a Gargantua has been trapped on top of the dam and several Marines are attempting to kill it. Shephard uses explosives to destroy the creature and leaves the area through the dam’s exposed water pipes.

Trivia
  • The name of the chapter is based on the NATO phonetic alphabet, Foxtrot being “F” and Uniform being “U”. This is a euphemism for either “fuck you” or “fucked up”, depending on the context it’s used in.
The Poll


Challenges
  • Clear the Voltigore sewers without dying.
  • Survive the grueling Race X battle in the demolished yard.
Saves

HARD [139KB]

Screenshots

Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.

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The Replay Experience Experiment

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.

Hat Tip

The trivia text taken from the CombineOverWiki, a fan-supported, editable wiki covering the Half-Life series of games.

Walkthrough
A Complete Half-Life: Opposing Force Walkthrough

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)

Do Not Own This Game?

You can purchase Half-Life: Opposing Force directly through Steam and could be playing in within moments, depending on your internet connection.

8 Comments

  1. Summary

    The game really starts to step up and show what’s it’s worth. This chapter is equal to any in Half-Life and really offers the player a challenge. The most interesting aspect from my point of view is that it’s not just overwhelming numbers of enemies that make it hard but the location and layout.

    There’s plenty of variety in this chapter and it’s pretty cool to revisit the dam section.

    The only thing I disliked was the way the gargantua explodes, but that’s nothing to do with Gearbox.

    All in all a tremendous chapter that got me excited and frustrated in almost equal measure. if I had the ability to add a recommendation Image it would probably be a Personal Favourite.

    G-man Sightings

    Yes, getting into the portal at the dam. He didn’t even wait to see me blow the gargantua up.

    Bugs or Errors

    I got some really weird effect on my weapons. You can see it in image 14 and 15.

    The Poll

    Yes, now that I know I can, I will try it almost everywhere!

    Challenges

    – Clear the Voltigore sewers without dying.
    – Survive the gruelling Race X battle in the demolished yard.

    5 Words or Less Review

    Things are getting hot!

    PlayTime

    62 minutes

    Deaths

    at least 6
    I died so many times in that battle! Nearly drove me crazy. Can’t wait to play it on hard and win.

  2. At first we appear in the Black Mesa canalization, then we ascend using the Barnacle. The design is surprising here: I didn’t expect to find some room above the arch sewer tunnel.

    http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=101948992

    Finally we get topside through the well. A black truck with black ops arrives, but the cargo container in front of us contains the chaingun.

    http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=101949240

    There are challenging battle situations, where we have to show quick wit when selecting our weapons. Trying to blow up explosives to clear the way will cause a very big “ba-doom!”, which is impossible to survive, so we have to be careful. Strong pistol with laser sights is very helpful against the Black Ops.

    Locked door will make us find another well and descend back to canalisation. There are dark tunnels with big monsters, one of them was a boss in Vicarious Reality. The chaingun allows us to kill them quickly.

    Then we’re in lit area. Small monsters-X appear endlessly until we understand that we have to close the doors.

    Then another round of dark tunnels, this time we can see their nests.

    http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=101949492

    Ruins is a very dangerous place with a lot of creatures X.

    http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=101949912

    After fighting through them we get to the same dam seen in Half-Life, where the soldiers managed to catch a Gargantua. So, with some swimming and some help from our Barnacle, we get around him and push the switch to blow him up. The tunnels which Freeman used are locked and the way he came from has a cave-in, so the only way to get out is through the pipe on broken bridge. It takes up to the next chapter, “The Package”.

    Overall, this is a chapter with emphasis on challenging battles.

    Playtime: 30 minutes

  3. 2muchvideogames

    Heh, I feel like a speedrunner in this chapter. Gearbox tried their best to clip off all the exploitable areas, but they couldn’t clip ’em all. There’s some areas I used to skip large sections of the yard, and since enemies spawn sequentially, doing this will make the later sections mostly empty as well. The black ops sniper is maybe too underused, as there is only 1 in the entire game, in this chapter. Good thing there’s plenty of friendlies around.

    Yep, the challenges are pretty much just survive without dying. Pretty difficult, mind you. Like the video description say, there’s basically 3 difficult sections in one general area. Surprisingly, we end up back at the hydroelectric dam where Gordon went thru much earlier.

    Playtime – 14:34

  4. To start the chapter, we find our way to the surface (yet again) and have another encounter with the Black Ops. Now they are no match for our new weapons though and not too challenging. However what follows is probably my most hated part of any Half-Life game.

    We get dropped into a labyrinth of pitch black tunnels, forced to rely on the headache inducing night-vision to see anything, and have to stumble around blindly trying to avoid being killed by the massive Race X beasties. I’m not sure what tactics you are supposed to use other than having lots of things which go boom and using all of them. To make matters worse, just when you think you’ve escaped you are hit with endless streams of Pit Drones and no health or ammo in sight. It feels as if someone at Gearbox was having a bad day and just wanted to make me suffer. And then we get sent into more dark tunnels to do it all again.

    Getting back topside again (we really need a counter of how many times Shephard get there only to be denied) we get some great dynamic combat with Race X, infinitely more fun than being punished by the horrible sewer gameplay. And for the “grand finale” we return to the half-Life dam and blow it up along with the Gargantua.

  5. General

    Here one of my favorite chapter of OP4. It can be divided in four parts.

    At first you encounter Black-Ops again. I was missed them. Fighting them in industrial yard remind “Surface Tension” in HL1.

    After that you enter in dark and scary labyrinth fulfilled with Voltigore. Yes you already have fight one or two but there you really discover their power.
    In addition your night vision goggles don’t let you to see very far. As a result a very oppressive part where you progress step by step and jump to roof at first noise.

    Then you came back to the yard you were but now destroyed. Amazing to go across the same but not the same place. This time combat is very different against Race X. With (or without) your guys, you should have a plan.

    Finally you arrive to a djà-vu area with a little puzzle to pass the Gargantua and more fight

    Poll

    Yes but it don’t really worse 60 ammos

    Challenges

    Clear the Voltigore sewers without dying.

    Survive the grueling Race X battle in the demolished yard.

    G-man

    In the dam tower, discussing at phone with… his girlfriend G-Woman?

    Deaths

    None, OK I admit to play on easy.

    Playtime

    31 minutes

    French Let’s Play

  6. TWIN SUNS

    I remember hating this chapter the first time around, I was always getting constantly killed by the Shock Troopers and the Voltigores.

    This time around, while I didn’t get killed as often (still plenty times though), I did use up all my explosives on the Voltigores and all my Gatling gun ammo on the Shock Troopers.

    Playtime: 32 minutes

  7. Unq

    One of my favorite chapters in Op4, mainly due to its similar setting to Surface Tension, but also because of the nice mixture of diverse combat and exploration. It’s not nearly as diverse as Surface Tension or as long, but there are nice parallels – and of course a direct tie-in to Half-Life at the very end of the chapter at the dam.

    I honestly loved the challenge in this chapter. I’m playing on hard, and I died a bunch of times (at least 8) but never more than a couple in any given area. I really liked the diversity of the battles as well – sometimes you’re on a slow approach to some encamped Black Ops, and a minute later you’re scrambling through the darkness in the voltigore nest. We finally get the entire Op4 arsenal to play with, assuming we grab the sniper rifle from the elevated nest once taking care of him.

    My main nitpick in this chapter really isn’t chapter-specific. I felt the pacing was a problem, but that was specifically due to the spore ammo. I kept returning to the two spores at the bottom of the ladder to refill with spore ammo, because they were infinite supplies if you are patient. So this was a self-inflicted pacing problem clearly, although I still think it’s a design issue that could have been better handled by Gearbox. It’s an overpowered weapon anyway, don’t give me infinite ammo in a bunch of places! So without the spore ammo waiting, I’d estimate my playtime to be more like 25 minutes.

    I also thought the Black Ops snipers were underused in the game. I think Gearbox missed a good opportunity to have the player carefully approach a building/tower manned by several snipers. It would have made for a tense but relatively slow-paced section that would have fit nicely in this chapter in my opinion. Still, one of the strongest parts of the game here.

    Playtime: 30 minutes

  8. Ade

    Nothing more rewarding than killing a sniper and taking his weapon! You don’t see that a lot in hl2.

    I couldn’t make it alive thru the sewers in less than 3 tries 😀 So only 2nd challenge down but I thoroughly enjoyed this level.

    Playtime: 43 minutes

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