Half-LifeŽ 2: Episode Two is the second in a trilogy of new games created by Valve that extends the award-winning and best-selling Half-LifeŽ adventure.
As Dr. Gordon Freeman, you were last seen exiting City 17 with Alyx Vance as the Citadel erupted amidst a storm of unknown proportions. In Episode Two, you must battle and race against Combine forces as you traverse the White Forest to deliver a crucial information packet stolen from the Citadel to an enclave of fellow resistance scientists.
Episode Two extends the award-winning Half-Life gameplay with unique weapons, vehicles, and newly-spawned creatures.
Half-Life 2 was an amazing game and still one of our favorites ever made on the PC. Episode One wasn't as sweet, but still had some wonderful moments and helped develop Alyx Vance further as a character and tie her even more into the storyline. The newest, Episode Two, combines the excitement, variety, and spectacular level design of the original with the character and story development of Episode One creating an amazing package that anybody who played Half-Life 2 should gobble up as soon as possible whether that be alone or in the Orange Box.
The story finds Gordon Freeman, the silent but deadly scientist from Black Mesa, and Alyx Vance, the ever capable and crafty daughter of old friend Eli Vance, on the outskirts of City 17 and looking to make their way to resistance headquarters to deliver information vital to the cause.
While there's still a strong amount of environmental storytelling, you'll hear a lot more conversations from a lot of different sources explaining the events in more detail. This helps fill out the events happening around you and has the added benefit of helping give the secondary characters more depth. Alyx, Eli, Dr. Kleiner, and the return of the blowhard Magnusson fill out a terrific cast that continues to grow in size and depth of personality. The voice actors lend their gusto along with improved facial animation to insert a range of emotion that's basically unmatched in games. Add in the character models and body animation that also improve and you've got yourself a cast of characters that really come alive and that you begin to actually care about. Even the Vortigaunts (who now fit better into the visuals with awesome new models and textures) have an increased level of importance and personality.
Another returning favorite character, one you may be able to guess, drops another puzzle in our laps about past events and hints at true histories of certain characters. The sequence is inserted in such a perfect way that makes you feel angered, intrigued, and vaguely helpless towards a future you don't fully understand. This moment along with the awesome introduction to the Advisors and a couple others help set up the story for the future. The fact that the ending is exciting and moving only helps complete the package. The only negative side-effect of this all is that we really, really want to play the next episode so that we can find out what's going on and see how much farther Portal ties in to the whole thing.
Half-Life 2 was special for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest was the diversity of the levels and how there was never, ever a dull moment. One moment you'd be fighting Combine through the sewers and the next speeding across the beach in a buggy and all the while entering very distinct environments to fight different kinds and different combinations of enemies. Episode Two continues in that tradition by including creepy (and sometimes disgusting) claustrophobic tunnels filled with antlions, expansive outdoor areas and smaller buildings with the new Hunters, large abandoned structures filled with zombies and Combine, and one spectacular final battle which you have to participate in to really appreciate. There really is never a moment where you're going to feel let down or bored. If there's not a fight going on, there's some story happening and conversations to pay attention to. If neither of those things is happening, there's some scene in the distance or background that begs attention. And most of the time, no matter how many conversations you seem to be having, you're probably not but a couple of seconds from the next big battle.
But it had the most saddest ending, I ever played any game.Even my tears came out.
I hope Valve will make another sequel soon to make the series end happily because I got mad at the end of the game.
Linear Mode
