Genre: First Person Shooter
Year: 2006
Developed by: Valve
Published by: Valve
Platforms: PC, XBOX 360, PS3, Mac, Linux
#47
Feeling Like: Alex, honey, look away…
If you’re going to improve upon Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One, you better go for broke and Valve definitely succeeded on that front with Episode Two. It’s a short experience, but about as sweet as you can get. Valve made sure to add, not subtract and the new setting of White Forest was a paradigm shift from the city setting I’d experienced in the previous two games. It felt right, the rebellion was hiding out and the Combine were coming. Were they ever!
I wish I could properly describe the intricacies of the controls, or the feel of the guns, or the sleek visuals, or the natural sounding NPCs but I’d be at risk of repeating myself. Needless to say, it’s still a Valve Half-Life game, so the production quality is top notch, the gameplay is thrilling and the characters are unforgettable.
The reason Half-Life 2: Episode Two is this high on the 500 is the battle in the forest at the end of the game. Striders, aptly named giant robots that have long legs, are on the way. They’re protected by hunters, nearly as deadly. It’s your job to hunt them all down. You’ll have a vehicle, on the back is an ever-spawning MacGuffin which you can use your Gravity Gun on to latch it to the Striders and then proceed to blow them to kingdom come.
There’s a time limit, the Striders fire back at you and the hunters aren’t a one-shot kill either. It’s the hardest level I’ve played in any Half-Life. It’s also the best.
It is utterly thrilling, I was completely transfixed. The map itself isn’t a straight line, so I was constantly careening around corners and jamming the accelerator to find the next Strider before it collapses any hope of humanity’s survival. Because I was placed in an environment I’d never seen before in a Half Life game and the scenario was fresh, it felt doubly impactful. I couldn’t believe how challenging it was, I must have died at least ten times, but the challenge was fair. To be honest, you don’t have a lot of time to think during what you’re doing, so the reflection comes later.
There’s just something about a Half-Life game that you can’t get anywhere else. One time, I slammed into one of the Strider’s buddies, killing it instantly. I quickly realized I was out of ammunition for my rifle but then, as long as you have the Gravity Gun, that’s not a major drawback. Find a log, find a rock, find some debris and nature itself becomes your greatest weapon. I flung some wood at the second hunter before sprinting back to the car, loading up the shine-o-ball-o and blasting it right at the Strider. Switch to my pistol and BOOM. Onto the next one.
I, like many others, thought for sure Valve would go straight to Episode 3, or Half-Life 3 but we never got one. That may be what vaults Half-Life 2: Episode Two so high on the 500 – it was the last Half-Life game I played. But what a way to go out! The incredibly tight mechanics and White Forest finale were absolutely masterfully crafted and I would’ve been moderately satisfied from a story standpoint…but there’s a cliffhanger!
And what a cliffhanger. It’s heartbreaking, it’s shocking, it’s emotional whiplash. You go from being the hero (WAY TO GO, FREEMAN! YOU DID IT!) with dozens of fellow soldiers congratulating you to being ambushed and witness utter misery.
How many games end, with the credits rolling, over one of the main characters sobbing over their murdered parent? There’s no closure after this. Half-Life: Alyx is a prequel. We never get to avenge Eli, we never get to tell the G-Man to go jump in a lake, or fend off the aliens that have invaded our home.
Valve dances to the beat of their own drum. No game studio would dare to leave the audience hanging with THAT ending, but here we are 17 years later and Valve has all but said there will never be a Half-Life 3. The script (I think?) was leaked online, but I have no desire to view it, or find out the major plot points. If it’s a Half-Life, I want to be right next to Dog, Alex, Barney and the rest – not just read what would have happened.
Maybe that’s it, the longing. The wanting of more. Is it better to have nothing than to be disappointed with something? Vale seems to think so, and maybe it’s good they stuck to their guns. They only produce winners, and they’re not afraid to shelve something they’ve been working on for years if it doesn’t meet their standards. What that does for consumers is give them a massive vote of confidence. If you’re buying something from Valve, the odds are very good you’re going to enjoy it. That kind of respect and expectation is extremely difficult to earn with gamers, only a handful of developers have ever made it there. Valve is one of them.
I suppose I could have completely merged Half-Life 2 and its DLC episodes into one entry. If I had, odds are that it would be even higher on The 500. I don’t know why I didn’t; maybe I felt the experiences were different enough from each other to warrant their own entry. Or maybe because there wasn’t/isn’t an Episode 3 and I thought there was one coming when I initially created the Almighty Spreadsheet (oh Henry, you sweet summer child) and I would change things up when it arrived. But it never did.
So, here lies the highest rated Half-Life game on my blog. It is a superb experience, one that developers are still taking lessons from and trying to mold their own narrative-heavy First Person Shooter experience in the vein of Valve’s masterpiece(s). Eli may have told Alex to look away, but I never could. I still can’t.
The 500 