Episode 1

The idea behind the Episodes for Half-Life 2 was shorter stories, more frequently. Yep, that worked.

But yeah, four hours later, I've finished it. Maybe I need to go back and grab Half-Life itself (now 50% off!), but do these things always involve a Deus Ex Machina? And then you can tell we are in the puzzle section for a while, because we don't get a weapon until later (and then lose it, boo!).

My main take-away from this game: Valve doesn't trust the player enough to do what needs to be done, so they have Alex basically hold your hand for the entire game (aside from a few sequences). Just makes it feel rather more linear than usual (and it is a linear game anyway, but this way you are at the visible mercy of an NPC to continue).

There are also a fair few arena fights that feel more like 'resource management' issues than enjoyable combat. It becomes more 'switch to something with ammo, damn pushed the wrong button causing the flashlight/gravity gun to come up, damn I have low health... and I died again.' This is even more so during the damn 'get the citizens to safety' sequence which goes on too long. Surprising considering that Valve seems to test the hell out of the game and streamline things, but I was just annoyed at how often I had to go get more. [And as for the 'get all out alive' badge, hah! Never had a chance...]

Will go back for the Developer Commentary first, but then Episode 2 awaits!

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