User reviews

PC Game: Half-Life 2 Episode Two.

Genre: Sci-Fi First-Person Shooter.

Developer: Valve Software.

Publisher: Valve Software.

Release Date: 10.10.07.

Engine: Source.

Protagonist: Dr. Gordon Freeman.

Settings: City 17’s outskirts, somewhere in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Romania or Ukraine).

Continuing the plot of Half-Life 2 and Episode One, Episode Two consists of seven chapters telling the story of Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance's journey to a large Resistance base called White Forest. After the destruction of the Citadel, the Combine are working to open a massive superportal to call for reinforcements. An integral part of the plot is the transmission packet which the Combine sacrificed the Citadel to send, a copy of which Alyx and Gordon stole before making their escape. It contains information relating to the location of the Combine homeworld and allows the creation of the superportal to be controlled from the "other side". This information has to be delivered to White Forest so that the Resistance can use it to shut down the superportal and prevent another Combine invasion.

Combine Adviser pods have been scattered throughout the region, and the Combine are taking retaliatory measures after their loss of City 17 and the general weakening of their rule on Earth. As established in Dr. Kleiner's broadcast in Episode One, Earth-stationed Combine are suffering from a portal and communications blackout, leaving them isolated and disorganized. The volatile situation created by this allows other parties to intervene.

As a direct continuation of HL2EP1, no significant changes to the gameplay were undertaken. As in HL, HL2 & HL2EP1 players make their way through a linear series of levels, encountering various different enemies and allies. The gameplay is broken up between combat orientated challenges and puzzles; these include physics-based puzzles. Like HL2EP1, the gravity gun continues to play a crucial function throughout the game, granting the player extensive use of physics in combat and puzzle-solving.

The game features numerous "Achievements" for carrying out certain tasks, such as killing a Combine soldier with his own grenade, squashing all the antlion grubs in the game, preventing Striders from destroying any buildings in the final battle, or "sending the garden gnome into space" (which requires transporting the required object through most of the levels). Messages appear in the bottom-right corner of the screen to inform the player of their success, or progress with regards to numerically-based Achievements.

The new Hunter synth was revealed briefly in a recorded message in Episode One. It features through-out Episode Two and acts as a nemesis and means of emotional development for Alyx Vance. The Hunter is a powerful enemy and players must often run while seeking a means to fight back; Episode Two's environments are designed with this in mind. Two new forms of Antlion are present. The first is the glow-in-the-dark antlion grub, which is immobile, unable to attack, and is functionally a minor health pickup. The second is the Worker Antlion whose body carries strong acids; in addition to a ranged spit attack, this property makes them deadly to be near when their bodies explode on death. Functionally, they are similar to the bullsquids of the original Half-Life, but thematically, they are closer to the poison headcrab in the original Half-Life 2; a creature that the player will prioritize as a primary target.

Ep2 features no new additions to Gordon Freeman's inventory, but introduces a new form of Gravity Gun 'ammunition', the 'Magnusson Device', named after the egomaniacal head of the White Forest base rocket project Dr. Magnusson. Previous to the game's release, this weapon had been referred to as the 'Strider Buster'. The item is useless on its own, it must be deployed via the gravity gun.

An audio commentary is also featured, similarly to Episode One and The Lost Coast. The commentary is notable for its in depth details regarding Merle Dandridge's role as Alyx. I completed the game twice just in 4 days (3 days x 2 hours with commentary off and 1 day x 10 hours – on).

Original score by Kelly Bailey consists of 13 tracks in .mp3 format.

Critical and public response to Episode Two was broadly positive, praising packing various kinds of gameplay into a compressed time span, improved visuals and expansive environments. PC Gamer UK gave HL2EP2 93%. 1UP gave the game 100%, praising “the vivid, emotionally engaging, and virtually unsurpassed five-hour experience”. GameSpy and Game Critics gave 80%. Episode Two earned an overall score of 90% based on 15 reviews on review collection websites Metacritic and Game Rankings. My rates (compared to 2007’s level, of course):

Gameplay: 9.5/10.

Graphics: 9.5/10.

Sound: 9/10.

Score (OST): 8/10.

Story: 9.5/10.

Controls & Interface: 9.5/10.

OVERALL: 9.5/10.

If you like this game I also recommend: Half-Life, Half-Life Uplink, Half-Life Opposing Force, Half-Life Blue Shift, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Lost Coast, Half-Life 2 Episode One, Portal, Half-Life 2 Episode Three, F.E.A.R., F.E.A.R. Extraction Point, Doom 3, SiN, SiN Episodes, Call Of Duty, Call Of Duty United Offensive.

After playing the very disappointing Half Life 2: Episode One, I was very upset and was thinking, "How can they propel Episode Two far enough to stop it from being an episode one?". My answer was answered as I played Episode Two through steam and from the first kill, I realized something: I had to get ready for the short ride, a very short ride indeed. From what I could gather, Episode One was supposed to be shorter than Episode Two but it's slow game-play and repetitive fights made the game seem twice as long. The second episode has more legendary scale fights that keep on coming and never stop. It introduces new enemies into the game that you couldn't vs. in the other games such as the "Hunters" and "The Striders" or even both of them at the same time. The Hunters are 2.4 m tall and have the ability to go wherever the player can go. The Striders are five times as tall and their long, long legs play an important part in his height. The Hunters can be defeated with any type of gun but they have a weapon called a flechette to retaliate back with. The striders have powerful guns that can easily kill a human. We also see some old must-kill-Gordon Freeman friends such as the infamous Antlions, Who are basically still the same from the previous two games but a new Antlion Guard makes an appearance as well, the cute but deadly head crabs are back and are still causing havoc, the Combine troops are not as much in this game but if you ever get into combat with them roll 'em and sock 'em. The Zombies or Zombines, whatever, are back and are fun to demolish but the best enemy in the whole game has to be either the Hunters or striders. The level designs have been been vastly improved and a new dark atmosphere is surrounding this masterpiece which creates the perfect effect for this game. The best looking level has to be those ant-lion tunnels or whatever that you have to roam in while being chased by a scary-looking guardian. The game is, oddly, very scary and during the times in the game where you have low ammo, your pulse starts going faster and faster and more enemies come charging at you but you have to learn to use your environment to your benefit. The friendlies are very fun to have around and for the majority of the time you will have someone accompanying you whether it is Alyx Vance or the Vortigaunts, who are very powerful and weird looking. You are still playing Gordon Freeman who is more bad-ass than ever but has no means to express it since he is a mute but all that killing pretty much sums it up. You rock Gordon!!! Now go kick Master Chiefs ass. The weapons that you use are the same and no improvements have been made but, hey, you still have the shotgun with you. The pistol is more reliable to use and when ammo from the shot gun or the assault rifle have been run out, it would be wise to turn to pistol. The assault rifle is ammo wasting and not very accurate but still does a lot of damage once you hit some one with it. The firing sound for it is great to hear. The shotgun has to be my favorite weapon in the episode. The Gravity Gun is used a lot during the end fight (S) and a new type of ammo has been created called The Magnusson Device (its use will become clearer in the end). The rest of the weapons are of no use, in my opinion.

Continuing the plot of Half-Life 2 and Episode One, Episode Two consists of seven chapters telling the story of Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance's journey to a large Resistance base called White Forest. After the destruction of the Citadel, the Combine are working to open a massive superportal to call for reinforcements. An integral part of the plot is the transmission packet which the Combine sacrificed the Citadel to send, a copy of which Alyx and Gordon stole before making their escape. It contains information relating to the location of the Combine homeworld and allows the creation of the superportal to be controlled from the "other side". This information has to be delivered to White Forest so that the Resistance can use it to shut down the superportal and prevent another Combine invasion.

The story is thrilling and imaginative so much that you wish you could skip ahead to see what happens next. The ending was magnificent and I can't wait to see what will happen in Episode Three. There are twists that will shock you to the bone and 99.99% of times it is unexpected. The voice acting is superb and a lot of more effort has been put into it because the characters show a lot more ways to express their emotions and it makes the story a whole lot more serious. Two Thumbs up for Robert Guillaume voice acting as Dr. Eli Vance, the father of Alyx Vance, and his execution of him was flawless. Merle Dandridge who voices Alyx Vance was great but her voice was something that was being read out of a script and she didn't even bother to hide it. I could spot no emotion whatsoever except for the end. The Achievements system is a new style for the Half Life games because they propose challenges which are, I dunno, quite challenging. They should continue this into future half life games!! Overall, everyone should play this game because it is an adventure taht will live with you for many months. I highly recommend it to anyone, young or old.

P.S. I can't wait for Episode three!!!!!

"Over and Out." 20th of June, 2010.

"Half-Life 2: Episode Two" has a bigger diversion than "Episode One": It has new enemies, a new environment and even a new main character, which is as good constructed as the rest! Fortunately the gameplay is longer than in "Episode One".

But I think the first two chapters are maybe a bit too long: I feel like the really amazing game begins with chapter three, because the main story can continue then. I expected something larger in the last fight (as shown on the bridge...) and I don't like cliffhangers with no continuation or with a continue in about ten years!

These are just minor "mistakes". Of course I like this Episode very much.

9/10

nVison 3D works perfectly in this the latest but hopefully not the last Half-life episode. What are Valve waiting for? We gamers have been waiting patiently for HL 3 to come out but as yet there has been little if not any indication other than Valve patenting half-life 3. If you have played all four Half-life games then you like the rest of us can barely wait a moment longer for the glorious day when we finally see HL3 on our game store shelves. Nuff said other than this is a must for all first person shooter players. Not only will it grip you to your seat but you WILL finish the game begging for more. So in closing 3D works perfectly and for me it rates a definite 10/10 which is quite hard for any game to achieve from this reviewer. Maybe Gordon isn't just asleep this time, maybe he is in a coma so our enigmatic G-man may greet us with something like - "Ahh you are finally alive Misssster Freeman, Get up, get up and smell the diamonds"