Genre:First-person Shooter
Developer: Valve
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platform: Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Mac OS X, Linux, Shield Portable
Players: 1
Classification: M (Mature)
I hadn’t realised it had been so long since I reviewed Half-Life 2 Episode 1 as it’s been a whole year and a bit since (7 years since my Half-Life 2 review) so I guess it’s High time I get the series review finished though to be perfectly honest the way things are going with the mysterious third sequel I think I’ll have more than enough time before that comes along. As you can probably guess Episode 2 is a direct continuation of Episode 1 running with the same story (and game engine) of Half-Life 2, this was the last of the ‘Episodes’ of Half-Life 2 and the ending has sparked huge anticipation of a supposed Half-Life 3 as well as much quarrelling, complaining and speculating of when it will finally arrive. I’m not going to comment on much about the gameplay or graphics as we all know this is the same as Half-Life 2 so I will concentrate on the adventure inc the story, location and new friends and enemies.
A Hunter, one of the new enemies in Episode 2 |
The spectacular view of the Citidel from the train wreck |
I go hunting through the Antlion Caves
The next chapter has one of my favourite moments in the
Half-Life series, you are led to a resistance outpost in an abandoned mine
where you and two other resistance fighters have to defend a group of
Vortigaunts who are trying to heal Alyx who is lying on a table. The resistance
fighters have a sort of Antlion
Detector system going which uses red lights to tell how many Antlions are
approaching, the more lights, the more antlions and there is four tunnels they
can come from, why they chose this place to heal Alyx I would not know. You are
given access to reprogrammed Hopper
Mines and Sentry Guns though not quite enough to hold off
the antlions by themselves though I was still pleased by this as I love Sentry
guns with their auto-firey goodness and I had lots of fun repositioning them
accordingly until they both exploded L.
It looked bad but then a whole party of other Vortigaunts came and you kicked
ass with them, truly a great moment.
Hold the Line! man watching this makes me want to do it again, need more sentry guns
You then follow your Vortigaunt companion deeper into the mines to find an Antlion Larvae to save Alyx and I saw quite a few sights along the way as well as doing a brilliant cat-and-mouse sequence with an Antlion Guardian, when you get back you get a brief visit from The G-Man just before Alex is revived as he says that the was waiting for a time when the Vortigaunts were otherwise occupied (as per their previous hinderance of him in Episode 1) and gives a cryptic warning to the sleeping Alex before she wakes up.
Hold the Line! man watching this makes me want to do it again, need more sentry guns
You then follow your Vortigaunt companion deeper into the mines to find an Antlion Larvae to save Alyx and I saw quite a few sights along the way as well as doing a brilliant cat-and-mouse sequence with an Antlion Guardian, when you get back you get a brief visit from The G-Man just before Alex is revived as he says that the was waiting for a time when the Vortigaunts were otherwise occupied (as per their previous hinderance of him in Episode 1) and gives a cryptic warning to the sleeping Alex before she wakes up.
The Antlion Spawning Cave |
The next chapters involve exiting the mine and another car driving
and stopping sequence similar to the coastal “Highway 17” chapter in Half-Life
2 except this time you have Alyx with you. There was a sequence I liked in
“Freeman Pontifex” where you searched through a mining town with Alex
supporting you from above with a sniper rifle, really saved some ammo that time
hah. The “muscle” car you eventually find has more bodywork this time and room
for two people and boy was that thing fun to drive, jumping over bridges and
hills though it was only in short bursts as it was always over so quick.
The
“Riding shotgun” chapter was good as this was the first time you faced Hunters which
are bloody fast and tough to kill though not when you run into them of course
:D, you also have probably the closest encounter ever with an Advisor
where you can see what they do to humans first hand. You fight more combine
soldiers and Hunters and a Hunter-Chopper
along the way. The next chapter has a scene where you duck-and-cover through a
junkyard with an autogun firing over your head and then get in a massive fight
with combine soldiers and Hunters in the White
Forest Inn, you also meet Dog again who defeats a strider for you.
Once you finally get to White Forest you are reunited with
Dr. Kleiner and Eli Vance and also a new character Dr. Magnussen,
another former Black Mesa Scientist who you saw previously through radio/visual
contact, I almost liked him as much as Dr Breen with his grumpy and aloof
demeanor. White forest is a large Resistance base where Dr.
Kleiner and Magnussen are organising the launch of a special rocket which they
plan to use, in conjunction with the satellite array launched during the events
of Half-Life and Alyx's data packet, to close the Combine superportal.
This part has a lot of speculation for the supposed sequel, Kleiner and Vance
decode the message that Gordon and Alyx brought and it appears to be a message from Judith Mossman in an arctic location saying that she has found the Borealis,
which is a ship that contained a secret project started by the Aperture
Science company who we know from the Portal series. Kleiner and Vance are at odds for the first time, the former saying they
should use the technology to fight the combine, the latter saying they should
destroy it to avoid another Black Mesa Incident, I feel like this may be a
choice in the future, woo that’d be a first for Half-Life.
Shotgun!, oh wait I'm driving |
The Combine Advisor in the barn |
Dog wrestles a Strider |
The crew discussing Dr. Mossman's discovery iof the Borealis |
Defending the base from Striders using the Magnussen Device and running over Hunters.
The rocket is then launched and successfully destroys the
combine portal effectively stopping the remaining combine from receiving any
reinforces from other combine worlds. There is a brief celebration then comes
the very climactic final scene where Gordon and Alex are about to embark on a
journey to the Borealis in a helicopter and we all know what happens then, if
you don’t then play the damn game, all of them if you haven’t, play the entire
series do it now! I can’t stress this enough if you haven’t played any of the
Half-Life series you should definitely play through the original Half-Life,
then 2 then the episodes as it’s a brilliant experience.
Saying that I can’t remember
whether that was the second or third time I’ve done that, possibly the third
and although sometimes it can be a bit of a grind, I purposefully play it on
easy to get through some of the repetitive shooting of mass amounts of combine
soldiers quicker but it’s amazing each time as the graphics are great and the
menu design is so click that I sometimes wanna play it just to use it again as
there’s nothing like it in other games really.
So that marks the end of the Half-Life 2 series of games
with the exception of Lost Coast
but that’s barely worth a mention, now we sit back and wait (patiently) for the
next installment. Frankly I don’t know which I’d prefer, for it to be the last
in the series and explain everything or fore there to be many, many more but I
expect the latter.
The Portal is finally closed |
That slick menu |
JD
Hurry up Mr. Freeman