Half-life 2: Episode Two

System: PC
Release Date: 2007
Published By: Valve
Reviewed by: Darien
Rating:

Episode Two picks up more-or-less right where Episode One left off; there's no break in the chain of events (and, uniquely for the Half-life series, no explanation on offer for why the heavily-armed Dr. Gordon Freeman is suddenly weaponless). As in Episode One, you begin play armed only with the Gravity Gun, but over the course of the game you'll pick up the entire Half-life 2 arsenal (except for the Bugbait). As such, the game plays fundamentally the same as the previous Half-life 2 games, and really shines when it finds new ways to use the old mechanics. It does seem a bit more linear than the previous games, which is odd, since they've all been pretty much a straight line. Maybe it's just more obvious this time around, with more ledges you have to jump down from and doors that automatically close behind you.

The first third of the game is spent crawling around in a cave fighting antlions, which I must say appeals to me considerably less than does fighting the Combine in City 17. If you're a fan of giant bugs in bug tunnels, though, this is the game for you. After that, Gordon and Alyx wind up in what appears to be a deserted factory and have to hack their way through zombies to get out onto the road and start moving toward White Forest - a new resistance lab base, much like Black Mesa East. In all areas of the game, from the antlion tunnels all the way up to the outskirts of White Forest, there's actually a surprisingly small amount of combat; the game really plays up the tension of hearing odd things but not seeing any mobs. In fact, the best sequence in the game - hiding from the antlion guard at the end of the cave section - doesn't involve any fighting at all (though I must confess the reason why you can't just kill the guard doesn't make much sense to me).

There are three new types of mobs here that we haven't dealt with before: acid antlions, hunters, and advisors. The acid antlions are interesting; instead of charging in and trying to bash you like normal antlions, they stay at range and spit acid globules that apply the same type of poison effect as the black headcrabs (the game really loves the poison effect - almost all headcrabs you see all the way through are black). They can be tough to fight at first, but you'll get the hang of it, and they don't really become dangerous until they start showing up along with normal antlions. The hunters I must confess I don't care for; they're a high-end mob, tougher than a Combine Elite but not on-par with a strider, and they seem to use sort of a "max assault" strategy, ignoring their own well-being in favour of just trying to kick Gordon's ass in multiple unpleasant ways. Advisors are frightening horrible things, but you don't ever actually fight one; the two times in the game when an advisor appears, it incapacitates Gordon and gets dealt with in a cutscene.

While we're on the subject of cutscenes, there are a lot in Episode Two, which seems a bit uncharacteristic for the series. The previous games have told their stories primarily by and through the action, whereas here we have frequent breaks where the NPCs all chat. Some of the cutscenes are quite good, and some of the dialogue is brilliant, but I'd prefer a smaller volume of them all told. Still, that's not a major complaint.

Which isn't to say I don't have any major complaints. Because I do. First off, I don't like the car, and you spend a lot of time with it. I have never to date enjoyed vehicle levels in an FPS, and the trend has not reversed itself here; fortunately, the car is mainly used for transportation along a road and not for too many proper car courses; there's a short stretch of "oh shit run from the helicopter," but it's nothing on the boat course in Half-life 2. It's also nice that the car doesn't flip over anymore - or, if it does, I never managed it, and I promise I tried. So while that doesn't bug me too much, the final battle I'm afraid I hated. Hated hated hated. To death and hell and everything. I don't want to spoil it, but it's vehicle-y, and gimmick-y, and long, and just genuinely annoyed the piss out of me. That means the Half-life series is presently 1-for-4 on final battles I enjoyed (Episode One, for those keeping score).

Episode Two is thirty bucks and pretty short, but worth the money. There's a lot of really fun stuff here. If you never played Half-life 2 or Episode One, this is a great time to get into them, since you can pick up the Orange Box over Steam for $50 (or follow the link down below to get it from Amazon.com for $40) and get the whole Half-life 2 series, plus Team Fortress 2 and Portal, which you may or may not care about. The game is truly great until the final battle, and, hey, there are cheats for that. So it's a win-win situation.

Buy this game from Amazon.com!