Break yo’self fool!

I’m pretty sure I set a new time record on Half-Life 2: Episode 1 with my run time of 13 months. Yes, I am a professional gamer, do not try this at home. But let’s talk about the game.

Half-Life 2 and Valve’s work in general has a way of becoming so immediately familiar to me that I can easily forget what they have achieved technically and in terms of gameplay. On the technical side, Episode 1 features the HDR lighting that was showcased in the Half-Life 2: Lost Coast technical demo. They also beefed up their tech for facial expressions which, in my opinion, had already beat out current-gen technology with the initial release of Half-Life 2. Alyx Vance continues to be one of the more compelling and expressive real-time game characters that I’ve experienced to date and other titles would do well to follow suit with their character development and design. *COUGH* Mass Effect *COUGH* It’s not that Half-Life 2’s characters have the sharpest visual detail in today’s market, but when they interact with you, it feels like you’re dealing with a character and a personality rather than a hollowed out, heavily normal-mapped shell of a head laden with Botox.

In terms of gameplay, Valve has such a knack for level design and maintaining momentum that there’s almost no choice but to keep playing. I actually started playing this game two days ago and only waited until last night to finish because my body betrayed me with sleepiness. Maybe I just needed some Mountain Dew Game Fuel. Continuing on my previous thought, the episodic model might be just the right thing for a game like Half-Life 2. It has so much momentum that you can’t help but play straight through. And even though there are definitive milestones in your progress, there’s no such thing as “playing just one more level” and calling it a day. That said, a full blown release, something like Half-Life 3, would likely have become tiresome after playing it straight through (and I would have). Instead, a bite sized chunk keeps things fresh and leaves me wanting more.

Finally, Half-Life 2: Ep. 1 features a “commentary track” starring the key players in the game’s development process. Once you’ve finished the game normally, it’s fun to enable the commentary which is presented in the form of floating nodes in key locations. You just activate the node and listen to a crew member (usually a designer or artist) describe the motivations and methods behind your location in the game. They’re very well done and the player doesn’t take damage while the commentary is turned on so you’re free to stroll through and listen at your leisure. It’s like a trip to the video game museum! This is a truly fantastic feature of Episode 1 and I hope that Valve continues to allow peeks behind the curtain in future titles.

The good news here is that Half-Life 2: Episode 2 is coming out on October 9th as part of the Orange Box, and my money’s already on the barrelhead. There’s plenty of other goodness in the Orange Box, but we’ll get to that soon enough.