Half-Life Episode 2 (Contains spoilers!)

    I finished Portal yesterday, just came back from work where I finished Episode 2.

    Portal is absolutely genius, obviously. By far the most exciting thing in the package. Nuff said. TF2, amazingly good fun too.

    So Episode 2, from reading peoples comments then I'm sure most of you will disagree with me. Although I think its a really well made and paced experience then I simply couldn't shake off the feeling of there being a lack of something in it. I still have a hard time putting my finger on it, but I really don't feel that the HL2 setting is doing it for me anymore. I mean the forests areas are cool, it looks great and all, but all of this felt like something you had done before....a lot. Apart from the Strider battle (which I started out thinking was a dumb quicksave nightmare but ended up really liking when the shit completely hit the fan, awesome), then it felt more like a series of spectacular ingame sequences with some, at times, very generic bread and butter gameplay in between.

    Maybe its just me who's too much in the mood for some amazingly solid AI teamwork after playing Halo 3 (and fuck off with your hate until you've played it on Heroic or Legendary), rather than some really well presented but in the end veeery similar fights to the other HL2's. There's obviously exceptions, such as the ant lion defense bit and the fight after seeing the advisor in the barn.

    Anyway, its not bad, and I can see how Valve has tried to spice up the game while staying true to the original formula, which is obviously what people want. There's just a part of me who wishes we could get off this episodic trilogy and onto a new location and set of ideas. Valve have proven themselves of being absolutely brilliant at creating this kinda stuff, and I'd love to see a completely different environment from them.

    Oh and the story stuff (and I know I'm sounding really angry here, but I'm just being honest about this ). I donno if its just me, but in HL2 and Episode 1 it felt like Alyx's timing and dialogue felt a lot more smooth than in E2. Here I found too many awkward pauses, and I really never felt that was a problem before. Also the entire lead up to Eli's death could only have gotten more obvious if they'd tattooed a bullseye on his head

    Oh yeah, the music was brilliant, kicks in at the exact right times, awesome.

    But in the end, Episode 2 was good fun, I definitely had a good time playing it overall, even with a slight sense of deja vu. Probably a nice 8/10 from me . Gonna be exciting if they're gonna do what they kinda hinted at with the Portal/HL2 crossover. Might be a nice end for HL2 with Gordon accidentally locking himself inside a parallel universe

    After finishing Ep2, I can't wait for the SDK. My mind is buzzing with possibilities. Plus, Portal maps will be a nice change of pace from the back-breaking epic map releases most people are attempting.

    I kind of agree with Mazy about Alyx's dialog. A little too much positive gratitude now, especially after some fairly trivial puzzles - for example, when you break the wood planks to send the mine cart down the slope and break through the wood barricade to get to the first transmission station, Alyx says something like "Great job Gordon, I can really count on you, you can always find a way through!" and I'm thinking "Wow, it just took me a few seconds and 2 mouse clicks..." Overreact much?

    I liked everything else though. Vortigaunt wearing a labcoat = awesome. Magnusson and his nearly complete indifference to your fame = awesome. Fighting hunters (which are really cute, by the way) = awesome.

    -too much underground "horror movie" stuff

    -overacting from every npc involved.

    -too much of the "COOL" stuff is completely scripted/animated/prebaked and not emergent

    -uninspired techno music

    -acid spitting antlions looked and played wrong somehow

    + new blood splatter effect boosts fragging enjoyment

    + many physgun/saw blade combos possible

    + hunter enemies were cool and actually fearsome.

    + more power cable puzzles than before ( i like those )

    + citadel background looks great

    + big strider fight was awsome

    all in all 7/10 pales in comparison to tf2 = 9/10 and portal 10/10

    I absolutely loved this and Portal so I don’t want this to sound overly negative. I'll give it 10/10, but then again there's sixteen 100% reviews of Halo 3 so I might have to bump that to 12/10.

    A lot of the content is the same: Valve do things by the numbers (I’d be more surprised if I found a lift and it actually worked!), there are no new weapons and only two subtancial additions to the enemy roster. The new set-pieces were absolutely brilliant and had me grinning like a fool at my monitor… But between them both there’s about 8 hours of gameplay.

    I know what you’re going to say: “Taylor, you dolt, it’s not a new game,” and that’s fair enough - but it feels like I’ve been waiting an awful long time. Yeah, this is another in-hindsight rant about episodic content. I’ll stop myself.

    Quote from barrakid

    In my opinion valve could pull a really interesting plot twist from now on. We already know that Gordon is going to rescue something from Aperture Science in EP3, well what if in Portal 2 (if they do make one) you also have to rescue that equipment in a race against Gordon? You could see Gordon, and fight him (gravity gun vs portal gun would be interesting), and you get two games with two different characters, which have both the same objective but work for different factions.I hope they do something like this

    I think what Half-Life 2 needs now is Science and Industry!

    reading the some of the last posts, i just realized how hard it must have been to create a game/episode that offers almost nothing new and still manages to put up high scores even in game design circles.

    looking at it from that perspective, i think they've done an awesome job. and while it's true that the convergence of hl2 and portal might have upped their odds a bit, i'd still say that this is by far a superior game to most stand-alone titles released, even with what little they had. so it's only roughly 10 hours of gameplay with portal and episode 2 combined, plus a multiplayer part? isn't that just about what one can expect for a regular game, give or take some hours/features?

    instead of proposing the near impossible and very unlikely challenge of you outscoring valve given the same amount of resources and time, i'd instead urge you to look at a game from different perspective and see if you can see my point.

    note: this post should not cause offense to anyone, neither personally or as a group.

    The new antlion was not my favorite, and the ending is the most unsatifying of all.

    Well I guess were going too the Borealis but if I could shoose I would end with the helicopter leaving with gordon and the G-man looking at it as if goes into the horizon while saying something interesting for the plot :)

    "Another Black Mesa in the making" or so

    I wonder how long EP3 will take, its the only known game left Valve is now working on.

    I can see a EP3 + Portal 2 bundle somewhere in the not so distant future. Or for a change, Portal which deserves a proper game length, as a stand alone. Either way, I can't wait

    there is huge rumors of CounterStrike 2. As well there are 3-4 source engine games that im sure valve is going to be connected with due to the fact its their engine: Left 4 Dead, Deep 6, Natural Selection 2, and that weird fantasy one.

    Finished ep2, I was most amazed with the caves areas. Displacements were used so well there. The strider fights were kinda annoying because it takes forever to kill hunters. Other areas were nicely designed too.

    Now off to download Portal....

    Since I work on deep6 I can safely say Valve has no part in it so far and am pretty sure that that goes for all those you mentioned Jaboo except for testing perhaps

    I loved Ep2, there were some stuff that bothered me:

    1. Acid spitting antlions (SO GODDAMN ANNOYING!)

    2. The mines, antlion lair etc. Dark caves with the constant need to use

    the flashlight. Although they looked very nice with the displacements and

    normalmappin galore.

    3. How short it was, played it through in a couple of hours.

    4. How dramatic and silly the ending was.

    Inspite of these, it was a good game and continued the HL2 quality.

    For me the Orange Box is still Portal > TF2 > Episode 2.

    I watched a video of the ending and I don't see what all the fuss is about? I was expecting everyone to get sucked into the combine portal or something.. really underwhelming.

    I tell you one thing that fucks me off about Half-Life 2 games is the constant praise towards Gordon.. 'omfg Gordon you did it.. we love you!' ...Just get on your knees and suck his cock already.. :/

    Quote from D3ads

    I tell you one thing that fucks me off about Half-Life 2 games is the constant praise towards Gordon.. 'omfg Gordon you did it.. we love you!' ...Just get on your knees and suck his cock already.. :/

    He basically destroyed the Citadel on his lonesome, that's pretty heroic in my eyes. Plus, Dr. Magnusson doesn't really praise him much at all really.

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