HLBS 2811

Run Details

Completed in: 28:11
Runner: PJC
Game: Half-Life: Blue Shift
Difficulty: Easy
Type: Single-Segment
Scripted: No
SDA status: Submitted
Demos: [1]

This is a single-segment speedrun of Half-Life: Blue Shift by PJC on Easy difficulty.

Attempts began in early 2014 with the first run lasting about 40 minutes, however over time the duration decreased significantly and eventually a major skip was found that saved a little under a minute. The final attempt lasted 28:11 without loads and 28:25 realtime.

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Comments:

I chose to run on the Steam version of the game because I found that timing hops at 72fps in the WON version is alot trickier than 100fps in HL1 and OP4, plus there's uncapped fps in the Steam version and not really many places that you can take advantage of uncapped speed in this game so I decided it wasn't worth it.

Shouts to sadf for competing with me, Takyon for finding the pre-timing tram skip and quad & rayvex for their segmented run.

• Insecurity

Before the start of this chapter I lower my framerate to escape the tram, then I am able to enter past a door that has no collision trait before the next map loads. This trick saves about 50 seconds and was found by Takyon.

Since I'm running this on the Steam version, I have to use a technique called 'ducktapping' or 'duckrolling' to avoid hitting the speedcap. This consists of using the scroll wheel to spam +duck in order to maintain speed for a short while until I start slowing down in which I then start bunnyhopping again.

Once I've picked up the pistol I take a shortcut, shooting the glass and hopping through, taking me straight to the door which the guard will let me through to get to the next map.

• Duty Calls

This section is pretty tricky, it features quite a few difficult tricks and sequences which had me resetting alot.

Instead of getting to a higher point in the waste room to shoot the barrels which will explode the gate, I just hop over the gate using the chair, then there's a pretty precise two hops to make the gap.

Next up, in the houndeye room I use a strat from the segmented run which allows me to skip lowering the other platform by circlejumping to the ladder next to it. This is also a pretty tricky and precise jump that had me failing alot.

• Captive Freight

This chapter mostly consists of fighting soldiers. Though it might seem like I'm wasting time picking up the explosives from the truck, it actually doesn't save time to skip these as without them you have to fight a large number of soldiers with just bullets, meaning you have to take out every one of them individually and therefore it's slower than taking 3 or 4 of them out at once with a satchel or rifle grenade; it's just as quick to get the explosives as it is to skip them and alot easier from my experience.

The second half of this chapter is an escort mission with probably the most annoying NPC in the entire HL1 trilogy. If you watch quadrazid's single-segment run, you'll notice that Rosenberg (the scientist you have to escort) runs all the way back up the stairs which wastes a minute, well this is not the only way he can be annoying. Sometimes he'll randomly stop in his tracks and complain he needs to take a break and if you hit your crowbar on anything he'll usually stop for a moment. Anyway, after you've escorted him to the underground lab you have to sit through a cutscene until you're teleported to the next chapter, Focal Point.

• Focal Point

One of the better and more entertaining chapters in the game. Lots of circlejumping, surfing and grenade jumping/boosting.

Not really much to comment on this chapter, most of it is self-explanatory. The only other trick I do is rapidly move my mouse left and right between the two alignment controls to save a bit of time. There's also a few rifle nade shots just before escaping Xen (alien planet) which scares the alien slaves and stops them from attacking me.

• Power Struggle

A brand new trick here inspired by Quake speedruns and the segmented run, using the bullsquid to damage boost off of and propel myself towards the speech trigger. This shaves off some seconds where you'd normally have to wait for the elevator to bring you up.

After the door has been brought down, it's important that I pick up the satchel to the left of the hall as it's useful in the final chapter. Most of this section is skipped by riflenade boosting up to the battery charging area.

• A Leap of Faith

A giant interactive cutscene, pressing a few buttons here and there. I use the satchel collected from the previous chapter to take out the soldiers after they've broken in and then it's a slightly tricky riflenade boost to press the button from the other side which is another trick taken from the segmented run.

Overall a pretty solid run that I'm happy with and hope that others will find entertaining despite the large amount of cutscenes in this game (literally half of the run consists of these). There are one or two things you can do faster if you were to run on the WON version of the game due to the uncapped speed but not really anything that significant, plus there are also one or two things that are much harder to do with the lower framerate (maximum fps of 72 as opposed to uncapped in Steam version - I used 125).