Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Episode two brings more improvements over episode one and HL2. The flashlight is no longer competing with the sprint for your suit's energy. In HL2, take the hovercraft section for instance. It was linear and felt artificial. Almost a techdemo. You go in a tunnel and in the middle of it there is a stop just to install some gun on the hovercraft. The location didn't feel natural. It felt unnatural to have that space with a room there, in the middle of a tunnel. In episode two there is a helicopter chasing your vehicle section and it's much better than HL2. It feels much more cinematic, with a track that has trains and tunnels built in a way that both looks more natural and also better to navigate. The battle with the helicopter when the vehicle part is over is much, much more satisfying than taking down the helicopter in Black Mesa for instance. Valve clearly designed better boss battles as they progressed from HL1 to HL2 e2.
Overall I liked the battles and the challenges presented. Including the puzzles. They made the battles more meaningful than in HL2. It's clear that they become better at storytelling. The whole journey to reach the "white forest" was good. I found myself thinking "what is the white forest?", trying to picture it in my mind. The mines, the village, the junkyard, the insects nest, the road in the mountains, the river, the forests, the missile silo. Each segment had better enemy and item placement than the previous games. Better level design too. The final battle is a warzone and while it was cool, there were some problems with balancing it.
The Vortigaunt helping you save Alyx was fun and I loved the lines that they wrote for him. I played Halo 3 before playing HL2 episode two and the Vortigaunt helping you kill enemies triggered some fun memories of the same dynamic that Master Chief had with Thel Vadamee in Halo 3. Not from a plot perspective, but from the game's action perspective. It's a pity that it soon was over. It's a somewhat strange comparison, but look. In both Halo 3 and HL / BM the alien race is introduced in the plot as enemies. Later on you happen to have one of the aliens by your side helping you.
The sky in episode two amazed me in the same way of episode one and HL2. I don't know how they created that spiraling cloud pattern in the sky, but combined with the blue pillar of energy created one of the best backgrounds ever! The contrast that they've created with a darker blue sky, clouds and the sun shinning. A dawn time sky that doesn't exist in real life, but it's so majestic.
I'm not a fan of how Valve wants to tell a story without shifting to cutscenes. The same criticism towards episode one and HL2. I read somewhere that Naughty Dog also dislikes taking control away from the player and this is why they created dramatic actions scenes where the player is controlling the character, albeit there is a sequence of events that unfolds and the player cannot drift away from a certain path to be followed. I don't see any advantages in having Gordon Freeman be telekinetically pinned down against a wall while the player can't do anything but move the camera. If this means immersion to Valve, it's some very outdated concept of immersion.
In addition, I'm not a fan of never giving Gordon Freeman lines and a personality. Alyx and the Vortigaunt interact with Gordon Freeman but you never get to see a single line from him. If their idea was to make the player be immersed as if they were interacting with the NPCs, I never played while seeing myself in the shoes of Freeman.
I can't say that I liked the new Antlion Workers. They cause a yellow screen flash and your health is down to dangerous levels. They always surprise attack you. It was really annoying.
Now that I finally saw the ending of episode two I can understand why there is so much speculation about HL3. Despite all the memes and the enormous fan base, I'm not giving too much hope for a future episode. Mostly because I think that Valve found out the episodic format to be very problematic. Episodes one and two are short games. At the same time HL2 did had a lot of filler content that wasn't really necessary. The original writer of HL2 have long left Valve and according to him the original plan was to make as many episodes as he saw fit. A never ending saga where each chapter would always end with some cliffhanger. I don't think players would want a saga where each game is released some years after the previous and with a story that never really reaches a conclusion.
After playing HL2 and the two episodes I'm left with bittersweet feelings. While I appreciate there are some characters to bound with and some great moments, I think that HL2 is pretty basic. Other games have dual wield, bullet time, jet packs, super armors, etc. For ex: Tomb Raider 2013 also has some physic based puzzles. The side areas are optional, but if you do complete them you earn more than just some ammo. You get credits to spend on skills or upgrades for instance.
