God, what whiplash. While Half-Life 2 hasn't aged a day, Episode 1 really feels like the wheels came off at Valve during production (which they basically did!). Retreads of the Citadel and City 17 sections of the preceding game immediately feel stale, and throughout the entire run there isn't really an original idea. The best section is the elevator defense, which is entertaining enough (and pretty tense in the darkness!) but really doesn't match up to the high points of Half-Life 2.
Being accompanied by Alyx for the entire game is fun, and I imagine this was quite impressive at the time, but overbearing NPCs are maddeningly common in games nowadays, so it's not exactly impressive now.
I played through the entire game with the gravity gun to get the One Free Bullet achievement, and that injected some fun (and difficulty!) into the game, but Episode 1 has serious Middle Sequel Syndrome. Pretty disappointing, honestly! Hope Episode 2 hasn't aged equally badly.
Being accompanied by Alyx for the entire game is fun, and I imagine this was quite impressive at the time, but overbearing NPCs are maddeningly common in games nowadays, so it's not exactly impressive now.
I played through the entire game with the gravity gun to get the One Free Bullet achievement, and that injected some fun (and difficulty!) into the game, but Episode 1 has serious Middle Sequel Syndrome. Pretty disappointing, honestly! Hope Episode 2 hasn't aged equally badly.
2 Comments
I'm not sure if you mean the citizen escort or the dash through the station as a Strider attacks you, but both bits are horrendously bad. The escort goes on way too long but is never actually challenging- I got the "no citizens died" achievement while also doing the one free bullet one - and the "oooh scary strider" bit doesn't work when you've already done it like thrice before in Half-Life 2.
It's immediately clear on starting Episode 2, mind, where all the budget and ideas went. I can only imagine the little Hunter tease in Episode 1 is them going "look, we know!"
It's immediately clear on starting Episode 2, mind, where all the budget and ideas went. I can only imagine the little Hunter tease in Episode 1 is them going "look, we know!"
BeachEpisode
2 years ago