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Friday 8 February, 2008
Gameplay:
The game only took two hours to complete, but during the end the action was intense. In the final boss battle, I, along with a couple dozen NPC rebels (not that they survived very long) had to take out thirteen Striders, giant three-legged machines of war who can seriously back a punch. And if that wasn't tough enough, each Strider was accompanied by one to three Hunters. It was impossible to kill the Strider with the “Magnasun Devices” without first killing the Hunters, since they could shoot the devices out of your grasp. Killing each Strider was immensely satisfying-the Magnasus Devices stuck directly to the Striders and exploded with a very satisfying crunch as the now separated legs fell to earth. The NPCs would cheer with each kill, then an urgent message would come in, warning that yet another Strider had been spotted nearby.
After all the Striders had been killed, the game was pretty much over, except for the rocket launch that would close the Combine portal and save the earth, then an attack by Combine advisors. I would have liked to have my gun when the advisors picked us all up and slammed us into the walls, then began to kill people one by one. Even if it didn't make a difference, it still would have felt like I was doing something, rather than just watching a movie unfold.
Design:
My favorite improvements over Episode 1 are: 1) Flashlight power separated from suit power, so you can swim in dark places without worrying about your oxygen running out twice as fast while using the light. 2) The ammo now has little icons that show up both when you are using the weapon and when you pick up the ammo, instead of just when you pick up ammo. This was a big problem for me the first time I played Episode 1, since I never could figure out what ammo I had picked up and when I could use the more powerful weapons again. 3) The models are much better. This also means that Episode 2 took up a whopping 3 gb on my hard drive, but the enhanced quality is worth it.
I found the puzzles fairly easy to figure out. There was nothing inherently new about any of it (though driving a vehicle that didn't have a weapon for the WHOLE time made me feel slightly exposed). However, the levels didn't seem so linear as in Episode 1, giving the game a more open feel. Of course, it was still progressive gameplay, but it didn't feel so much that way.
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