(Originally published to Glitchwave on 6/1/2024)
[Image from glitchwave.com]
Half-Life 2
Developer: Valve
Publisher: Sierra
Genre(s): First-Person Shooter
Platforms: PC
Release Date: November 16, 2004
“Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman. Rise and shine. Not that I wish to imply that you’ve been sleeping on the job. No one is more deserving of a rest, and all the effort in the world would’ve gone to waste until…well, let’s just say your hour has come again. The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So, wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and…smell the ashes…”
For as monumental a game as the first Half-Life was, it’s astounding how its 2004 sequel, Half-Life 2, has completely eclipsed its impact. Lest we forget how groundbreaking and influential the first Half-Life’s innovations were not only to the FPS genre, but how it indelibly affected the entire gaming zeitgeist that will persist until the heat death of the universe. If one witnesses a game with seamless cutscenes, a linear progression path where the breaks between them are but brief loading screens, exuding a bleak atmosphere in an organic, somewhat plausible environment, one can infer that the game has an umbilical cord stemming from Half-Life feeding it inspirational nutrients. However, upon poking and prodding a developer in an attempt to force them into fessing up on the extent of how much they’ve borrowed from Valve’s visionary masterwork, they’ll never cite it as where their direction for their project initially sparked. Despite how ungrateful and downright transparent this might seem without the proper context, they’ll actually refer to Half-Life 2 as their muse every time. After all, the unique idiosyncrasies that Half-Life pioneered didn’t catch on until Half-Life 2’s release, and many of its followers proved to be some of the era-defining titles of their generation. Why does Half-Life 2 receive the credit for Valve’s revolutionary accomplishments when we can all clearly see that its predecessor was the title that furnished all of these ingenious attributes? To be quite frank, the simple reason is that Half-Life 2 is exceptionally better than the game from which it's inheriting its genetic material. Many gamers believe that the extent of Half-Life 2’s superiority is so immense that it renders the first game obsolete, a beta test merely displaying all of the innovative strides in their fetal form before launching them to prime time with the sequel. I, for one, am not this overzealous in displacing Half-Life 2 over Valve’s previous output despite my shared opinion that it triumphs over it in every possible manner. Both are distinctive enough to warrant existing on their own merits. However, Half-Life 2 excels in every single mechanical aspect of the game that plotted out the Half-Life formula, so it’s no wonder why the general public lauds it as Valve’s crowning contribution to gaming.
Half-Life 2’s status as a direct sequel is muddied enough that it’s really up to the player’s own interpretation. Yes, everyone can plainly see that the events of Half-Life 2 transpire after the first game with a cause-and-effect kind of correlation. However, the question that the game leaves suspended in the air of loose ambiguity is how suddenly this game begins after the first one ends. Half-Life 2’s introductory image mirrors the concluding sequence that finished the previous game: the shifty, enigmatic G-Man monologues to Gordon Freeman about his indispensable role in the impending chaos and disorder that will render this world in a state of ruin. Or, Gordon’s onus to ameliorate the collapse that has befallen it already. This ethereal, transient character acts as the conjunctive tendon that connects the distinct narratives of the two games. What piqued my curiosity was the bridge of inactivity wedged between both of them. As claimed in his opening statement, the G-Man isn’t suggesting that Gordon has been slacking on his duties. Still, there is a hint of idleness to Gordon’s status regarding his proactive efforts to the cause, whatever that may be. Is this sequel the “next assignment” that the G-Man alluded to at the very end of the first game, imploring him to teleport to it via a green portal? Is it a cheeky meta-comment on how the players themselves have been inoperative in controlling Gordon because of a six-year development period between the two titles? Whatever the true implications behind the G-Man’s oblique words are, the player can definitely see that an inordinate amount of time has passed since the last Half-Life game after his ominous preamble finishes and Gordon snaps back to reality.
Instead of being taken on a tram ride through a sightseeing tour, Half-Life 2’s approach of introducing the player to its setting and letting them marinate in its tone is a tad more manual. After the public transit stops, an eyesore video broadcast of a gray-haired man in brown business attire informs Gordon that a place called City 17 is his destination. Gordon’s exit trajectory out of the metro station has the unenthusiastic, wistful pacing of escorting incoming prisoners to their maximum security cells, or even cattle with the awareness that they’re being led to the slaughter. It could be the fact that the NPCs that are on the same pathway as Gordon don muted blue jumpsuits, and the stationed, uniformed men wearing gas masks conduct the flow of arrivals with the curt assertiveness of prison guards. We formally understand the orderly scope of this sequence when Gordon diverts from his intended path and the masked officers beeline up one of the city’s dilapidated apartment complexes to forcefully apprehend him. Once Gordon gets backed into a corner and one of these figures has the opportunity to concuss him, one of them surprisingly returns the favor to Gordon’s assailant and then leads him into a safer area. Gordon’s savior is a man named Barney who has been masquerading as one of the guards as a spy for the “resistance,” a group of people that Gordon must get acquainted with as soon as possible.
If there was any lingering doubt as to whether or not Black Mesa or the American government successfully contained the resonance cascade that catalyzed the events of the first game, Half-Life 2’s introduction firmly instills the fact that they failed miserably. The hostile alien threat that was at least endemic to the interior of the laboratory’s expansive walls ostensibly became too rampant to brush under the rug. It seeped into the floorboards of the collective earthly society to the point where the flood of alien influence has washed away its democratic constitution. As one would have predicted, the extraterrestrial species of Xen have exerted their superior strength and bevy of intergalactic resources to enslave the human race and are subjugating them under a dystopian dictatorship. Surprisingly enough, the face of this fascist dominion isn’t any of the warped, grotesque visages the developers could’ve conjured up from Xen. The despicable human host of the authoritarian regime that the player definitely at least glanced at from the jumbotron screen on their arrival is Wallace Breen, the former head administrator of Black Mesa who is using his administrative acumen to enlarge the scope of his position of power as the omnipotent human ruler of Earth. Yes, not one former sovereign union: the entire fucking world. Breen is both the highest bidder and the highest buyer for his home planet, negotiating with the Combine’s imperialistic terms and landing the role as the sole human beneficiary. This massive paradigm shift that shook the Earth to its core should appropriately be documented with the same comprehensive detail of both world wars and presented to Gordon/the player in a crash course of exposition to catch them up since they’ve been absent. However, even with Half-Life’s world drastically turned on its head since we saw it last, the game chooses to illustrate the havoc that occurred strictly through subtle world-building. Exactly how the Combine expropriated Earth as one of their intergalactic assets is uncertain, but we certainly get the visual impression that their efforts in the acquisition were catastrophic. Topographically, we can discern that “City 17” couldn’t be the grounds of former New Mexico where Black Mesa once stood because of the coastal highway and leafless, skinny oak trees instead of cacti interspersed between arid canyons. The district that Gordon finds himself traversing through exudes something akin to the Eastern Bloc: the cold, ruinous urban remnants of communism’s deleterious effects done to former Soviet Union Europe. Or, it could be the recurring presence of Combine agitprop strewn around, with the most shameless and laughably deceiving image being a graffiti art of a Combine soldier gently cradling a helpless human infant in its arms. Come to think of it, it doesn’t matter what area of the world is now referred to as “City 17” because the blank, numerical title of this district implies that every corner of the earth has been reduced to a series of arbitrary numbers organized by the Combine. Any and all culture has been eradicated and the potential for human prosperity is rendered totally impotent. The first Half-Life’s mood was one of tension and fear, with the prevailing anxiety of how the situation could get worse. Half-Life 2 is the affirmation of those worries come to fruition, and the excruciating weight of the Combine’s oppression leaves the general aura in a deep depression.
Even though Half-Life 2’s atmosphere conveys the impression that all hope is lost, this doesn’t halt the efforts of the resistance to overthrow Dr. Breen and his interstellar benefactors. The experience of ascending upwards from Black Mesa’s buried test chambers was a lonely excursion, and a factor of why Gordon seemed like a lone wolf on his undertaking was that every one of the NPCs was static, copy-pasted character tropes. Besides the City 17 commoners wearing their prisoner uniforms who are scared shitless of their Combine oppressors, the ones brave enough to rebel are an eclectic cast of personable characters. Firstly, a peculiarity between all of the distinctive NPCs is that they were all apparently former Black Mesa alumni who remember the day when the resonance cascade disrupted Earth’s balance indefinitely as lucidly as Gordon. For the player, what should be relieving interactions with Gordon’s former colleagues are a slew of those awkward instances of someone pressing you to remember meeting them from a party or another instance of a brief, casual interaction and they were too unimpressionable to recall. The connection I’ve made to clear the hazy confusion of reacquaintance is that the ex-Black Mesa members of the resistance militia are fleshed-out, concrete 2.0 versions of the few common NPCs surrounding the facility's perimeter. Barney is the canonical name of the pistol-wielding security guard that I once dubbed as “Security Steve,” having a rapport with Gordon as casual and agreeable as his plucky former role would dictate. Dr. Isaac Kleiner is the white Black Mesa scientist while Eli Vance is the African-American version of the scholarly men dressed in white lab coats. However, the contrast between Eli’s laid-back, cool personality and the eccentric Kleiner displays a deeper characterization beyond what was a racial color swap for the same role. My favorite essential character in the fight against the Combine does not vaguely resemble any of the avatar NPCs of the first game, for Black Mesa’s glass ceiling was evidently too bulletproof for any woman to penetrate. Or, Eli Vance’s daughter, Alyx Vance, was far too young at the time of Black Mesa’s prime and is now a capable young lady on the same scale of mechanical expertise as her dear old dad. Alyx is intelligent, athletic, adept with firearm precision, and maintains a balance between her father’s collected demeanor with her impassioned fire to dismantle the Combine’s grip on the Earth and avenge her departed mother by proxy. For my money, she’s a textbook example of an admirable depiction of women in gaming. However, even with all of her strong and nuanced characteristics, a crop of gamers are still going to take advantage of the seamless nature of the cutscenes as an ample opportunity to stare at her ass whenever she’s assisting Gordon or making conversation. Don’t leave me hanging, fellas: if I can admit it, so can you. Regardless if the NPCs are vague old friends or fresh faces to all parties involved, they all beam with absolute delight when they cross paths with Gordon. Man, this world must truly be in dire straits if this bespectacled schlub is being given the star-studded treatment comparable to Brad Pitt on the red carpet. Then again, Gordon was the Black Mesa MVP who took it upon himself to travel to Xen and slay their leader, so perhaps the little faith his presence provides goes a long way in such destitute times. If Gordon can’t do it, no one can, so he better perform a miracle for the sake of the human race.
However, another new female NPC that isn’t giddy to get Gordon’s autograph is the prickly, stern scientist Judith Mossman, who awaits Gordon in the makeshift, grassroots Black Mesa East location alongside Eli Vance. The experimental teleportation process from Kleiner’s lab works wonders on Alyx, but Kleiner’s castrated pet headcrab, Lamarr, tinkers with the machine while Gordon is strapped in the chamber. Kleiner can detach the creature’s mind-control claw, but he can’t neuter it enough to the point where it's entirely docile. As a result of the headcrab’s mischief, Gordon must travel to the remote base of resistance operations on foot and brave the Combine opposition. Once Barney gives Gordon back his trusty crowbar to defend himself, the languid introductory pacing of the first two chapters is disrupted and the game’s action is kicked into high gear from here on out. The third chapter was also when the first Half-Life stripped off its patient, quasi-cinematic initiative and revealed its high-octane FPS bearings underneath. Half-Life 2 still retains the uneven pacing structures of each individual chapter, with some like “Black Mesa East” serving as expositional midpoints in the narrative and the “Water Hazard” chapter leading up to Gordon’s arrival to Eli Vance’s hideout feeling incredibly long-winded. However, where Half-Life 2 evolves from the repeated format of pacing that the first game established is that every chapter, no matter its length, is all killer with no filler to be found. Instances such as the ball and chain strain of “On a Rail” and the inappropriately platforming-intensive “Residue Processing” are thankfully not repeated. Half-Life 2 maintains its engaging momentum by broadening and diversifying the scope of each chapter’s setting since the series is no longer confined to the premises of Black Mesa and its vast, yet interiorly restricted corporate corridors. Playing as Gordon Freeman has never felt so badass than in “Route Kanal,” painting the streets parallel to a series of storm drains and sewage systems red with the blood of the Combine police unit in what is speedily paced like a Max Payne game. Ice-T would send Gordon flowers and a “thank you” card if he could. The two chapters where Gordon infiltrates the abandoned prison turned Combine detainment center, Nova Prospekt, also exudes the adrenalized rush of FPS combat when Gordon pumps rounds upon rounds of steaming hot lead into the Combine security guards. Storming the streets of City 17 with Gordon’s fellow comrades in the resistance is equally as epic, but it's most unfortunate that the squad of allies that “Follow Freeman” are as useless as tits on a barnacle. “Water Hazard” and “Highway 17” showcase an evolved understanding of the vehicle accompaniment gimmick that “On a Rail” presented for a buggy and motorboat respectively, and there isn’t any doubt as to whether these vehicles are transporting Gordon or if he’s transporting them.
The chapter in Half-Life 2 that best encompasses the FPS thrills in what is the game’s most disparate and insulated setting is “We Don’t Go To Ravenholm,” a setback alternate route Gordon must undergo in which its foreboding title is a preempted quote from Alyx. Excuse me, Alyx, but what’s this “we” shit? I will proactively take this pathway back up to the City 17 train tracks of my own volition, thank you very much. Similarly to the town of Silent Hill, the ominous name of this secluded former mining town has me guessing whether it was always named this or if it was dubbed thee after it became a horrific cesspit. Alternatively, it could be the zoning project name given by Dr. Breen to clear the headcrab zombie refuse out of City 17 to gentrify the downtown section of the city, or at least what constitutes gentrification in his eyes. This spooky burg where it is perpetually the hour of the wolf is congested with headcrabs and their grizzly, reanimated host bodies galore. The sole exception to Ravenholm’s homogenous population is an intact human being named Father Grigori, a bald priest who perceives his misfortune circumstances here as his divine occupation assigned by God, something he compares to a “shepherd tending to his flock.” His manic laughter and zombie blood lust connote that he’s not taking his situation in stride as it seems, but at least he’s stable enough to politely escort Gordon through Ravenholm’s vacant buildings and dim back alleys of the damned. Ravenholm might discard the clever horror subtleties that both the first Half-Life and this game normally sprinkle into the prevailing tone of despair. Still, this condemned reminder of the resonance cascade’s worst effects on human society provides the pinnacle of Half-Life 2 level design, pacing, and overall fun factor. Ravenholm is one of my favorite levels across any video game I’ve played.
Speaking of Ravenholm’s infestation of headcrab zombies, some of Xen’s invaders that Gordon subdued right out of the resonance cascade have evidently gone extinct since their arrival on Earth. Instead of providing the creatively diverse arrangement of aliens as the first game did, only a few of the extraterrestrial beasts were deemed worthy of returning. The Combine haven’t found a solution to rid the world of the pesky headcrab scourge, and Gordon will still have to watch out for yard-length tongues that drape from City 17 ceilings ready to consume him whole and spit his skull out onto the pavement. Sure, the vortigaunts are seen still walking around, but returning players may be confused when Gordon is forced to lower his weapons whenever one of these gangly aliens is in their sights. Since the events of the resonance cascade, this common enemy type has been domesticated by the humans and is now in allegiance with the resistance due to their peasant status as wageless working-class slaves. They can now articulate themselves in fluent English, albeit with their own mannerisms like referring to Gordon as “the Freeman,” and they now channel their once-deadly finger energy into restoring Gordon’s armor. I almost feel inclined to apologize to them for slaughtering hundreds of them upon exiting the portal to Earth. As charmed as I am to now call the vortigaunts my friends, their assimilation into the resistance is a disconcerting reminder that the Combine have raised the stakes of the alien threat.
While the headcrabs and barnacles seem to be the remaining hostile species from Xen, Half-Life 2’s method of diversifying the enemy variety is splitting the few recurring enemies into different shades. For example, the familiar headcrabs have two new variations: a skinnier, lighter one that scurries around like a rat and a tar-black one that shrieks loudly and whose venomous bite will deplete Gordon’s health down to a single digit. Don’t worry, his HEV suit will drain the venom and gradually restore his health to its pre-poisoned status, provided he doesn’t sustain more damage while the affliction is still flowing in his bloodstream. On top of having to contend with altering forms of headcrabs, each of them also coincides with a new zombified body to latch onto and possess. Besides the lumbering, moaning headcrab zombies that became of Black Mesa’s casualties, the quicker headcrab will transform its deceased host into a savage, feral zombie that sprints at Gordon and claws him like a wild panther. The darker headcrab engulfs its victims in numbers, providing a burly shield around them as it flings its headcrab protectors onto Gordon like a disgusting vagrant flicking its scabs. The same schematic of enemy diversification also applies in the exact same fashion with the Combine troopers. The street patrol wearing white gas masks carry pistols and are the easiest to dispatch. Once Gordon exits Ravenholm and finds himself on the shores of City 17, the Combine soldiers that await him wear sturdier, padded armor. Lastly, the ones wearing a monochromatically white suit are less durable than their greyer affiliates but will launch a ball of pure energy from their weapons that will deal severe damage to all it catches in its ricocheting path. The new outlier enemy that only comes in one form are the antlions, wildcat-sized insectoid creatures that only attack Gordon if he compounds the disturbance of the Combine fracking of their sandy domain with the rumbling of his footsteps. I’m not certain whether the little flying units armed with razors that the City 17 commoners refer to as “man hacks” constitute as enemies or if they’re auxiliary tools unleashed by Combine soldiers. If you’re not convinced and still think you’ll grow weary of shooting the same kinds of enemies despite their slight deviations, the two central enemy types also exude far more personality than any of the aliens the developers have omitted. The wails from a headcrab zombie, when they are set ablaze, are morbidly hilarious, and the Combine sniper exclaiming “shit!” when Gordon lobs a grenade from their roost is a moment I wish I could endlessly rewind.
Carrying over the weapons from the first Half-Life game is also approached by making some cuts to the roster. The obligatory FPS weapons contractually transition over, which of course includes the handgun, shotgun, machine gun, and the sparsely replenished revolver with some serious kick. While they function the same, slight consideration of the amplitude of the shotgun was all this close-ranged firearm needed to change from a tepid disappointment to my standby weapon of choice. The crossbow will skewer Combine to billboards and other fixtures, and the super effective tau cannon is now a fixture of the buggy vehicle so Gordon doesn’t have to collect Combine blood on the front bumper. As delighted as I am that every returning weapon is utilized efficiently and there is no inverted aiming control to acclimate to, I cannot express the same fondness for the rocket launcher. The destructive RPG now comes with heat-seeking missiles, but the chance that they’ll hit the intended target is still a roll of the dice. They’re the only one of Gordon’s weapons efficacious enough to blow the Combine gunships out of the sky, and at least limitless ammo caches are situated around the gunship’s spawn points. Still, the best-case scenario is that the gunships will shoot the oncoming missile down, and the worst is that it will bounce back at Gordon and kill him instantly. The bugbait is in essence the same weapon as the snark, only now it bewitches antlions already found on the field into doing Gordon’s bidding by throwing it to sic them onto Combine soldiers or heeding to Gordon’s location. God only knows the odor of the pheromone this thing emits when Gordon squeezes it. Besides the automatic Combine assault weapon of the pulse rifle, the array of new toys to play with is rather unimpressive. That is, unless you disregard Half-Life 2’s prized, tour de force of offense as a weapon because it doesn’t need ammunition to function. When Gordon finally makes his rendezvous in Black Mesa East, Alyx welcomes him by giving him the latest and greatest in futuristic technology: the Gravity Gun. Before Gordon has to skedaddle on through Ravenholm when the Combine intercepts the location of the resistance’s hideout, Gordon tests this glowing, orange claw by playing fetch with Alyx’s iron giant, canine-brained guardian simply named “Dog.” In addition to every other outstanding aspect of Ravenholm, the amount of detritus scattered about that Gordon can utilize with the Gravity Gun is a sizable fraction of this area’s spectacular quality. Saw blades, barrels, detached car doors, and every conceivable piece of furniture can be pulled into the tractor beam and pushed violently onto enemies at the same deadly velocity as a bullet, with controls so simple that a monkey could operate it (but we’re glad that one isn’t). Not only does the Gravity Gun tap into an alluring sense of curiosity because it has no precursors, recycling what are usually objects of no significance as vital ammunition is a brilliantly economic way of conserving ammo for all other tools in one’s arsenal, ensuring the player is never rendered defenseless. You know how emphatically I fawn over the Metal Blade from Mega Man 2? The Gravity Gun is the 21st-century 3D gaming equivalent of the Metal Blade with its unmitigated awesomeness and unsurpassable glory.
Of course, something like the Gravity Gun would still prove to be impractical if Valve didn’t exceed yet another boundary of gaming mechanics with an unrivaled, ultramodern physics engine. Valve’s contemporaries were far too occupied attempting to advance gaming’s visuals to match the fidelity of film or real life, while Valve was focused on progressing how video games could emulate Newton’s laws that define how the real physical world abides. The Gravity Gun’s pull and push functionality is a marvelous example of witnessing real physical phenomena in action, a general smoothness with hints of wobbly movement natural for objects being manipulated by a gravitational force. Drop a household object like a soda can or a comb onto the floor from a reasonable distance and compare the way the object reacts in the fall to how Gordon unhands things in Half-Life 2, and you’ll be astonished at how mirrored both instances will be. Half-Life 2’s physics engine also makes executing enemies uproariously entertaining, as Combine soldiers will sometimes die in such animated fashions that it borders on slapstick comedy. Under the surface-level appeal of ragdoll deaths and other instances of sheer amusement, Valve cleverly utilizes their killer app with some genuinely engaging physics puzzles. One may not think that stacking cinder blocks on a plank of wood to balance it on one side so Gordon can jump onto a steep platform or collecting washing machines to meet the weight requirement for a gate would be as stimulating as mowing down Combine, but us gamers were mesmerized at these puzzles when this game was released. Furthermore, Half-Life 2 also manages to blow every other game out of the water in graphical detail anyway. All the City 17 grime is still prettier than any other game released in the same year.
For as unorthodox a weapon as the Gravity Gun is, it eventually becomes the exclusive means of offense once Gordon finds an underground passage into Dr. Breen’s citadel, a thousand-story spire situated in the center of City 17 so soaring that it impales the atmospheric barrier between Earth and space. The automated security checkpoint at the citadel’s forcefield gate disintegrates everything in Gordon’s arsenal, but the antimatter reaction somehow fuses with the intact Gravity Gun and upgrades the might of the device where it can dislodge monitors bolted to the walls and roll through Combine soldiers like bowling pins. This all-powerful apparatus makes the player feel impenetrable, and it’s exactly what Gordon needs to intimidate Dr. Breen in his quarters. But first, Gordon must rescue Eli Vance from his constrictive contraption and confront Judith Mossman for her treacherous double-agent activity working for Dr. Breen. I guess girls do go crazy for a sharp-dressed man, or maybe they’re likely to submit to the will of the man who holds one hundred percent of the executive power in the world. Instead of deploying more Combine guards to rid Gordon from his office, Dr. Breen treats this scene as a Black Mesa family reunion and expresses that he’d like to establish a working relationship with Gordon and the others akin to their positions in their former place of employment. Obviously, Gordon doesn’t cede to this megalomaniac’s bullshit, and Dr. Breen attempts to escape the citadel when Gordon denies his offer. Breen’s final act is attempting to escape the citadel by entering the portal that leads to the Combine’s homeworld, where he will stay with no way to contact him. By using the boosted power of the Gravity Gun, Half-Life 2’s climactic point is a series of tossing energy balls that flow from the radiating silos near the citadel's peak, with a couple of gunships to distract Gordon from his goal of thwarting Breen’s permanent departure. Some may complain that this hardly counts as a final boss because there is no herculean foe to conquer, but they should remind themselves how excruciatingly resilient the Nihilanth was and be thankful that this final challenge is over quickly if the player is timely enough. After all, having the celebratory feeling of victory halted by a deathly explosion affecting our two heroes, which is then frozen by the G-Man, is certainly fitting as a climax in a Half-Life game, wouldn’t you say?
I don’t even know where to begin listing Half-Life 2’s phenomenal accomplishments. I inadvertently started to claim that they were underserved at the start of this review as if the first Half-Life was the entry that truly deserved the acclaim. I may have wrongfully implied that its successor takes the credit because it translates all of its innovations into a game with sharper visuals and more quality-of-life enhancements. While this is still true, one can plainly see that Half-Life 2 had a plethora of its own radical ideas that it wanted to execute, and these innovations are as numerous as the first games. Never before has any video game mechanically felt this vibrant and immersive in the sense of branching virtual kineticism to real-life physics. For as dismal and dirty as the world depicted in Half-Life 2 is, I've rarely experienced a game that felt so lively with buoyant characters, shooting gameplay, and world immersion. If the Half-Life games were two of Thomas Edison’s inventions, the first game would be the phonograph, and this one would be the lightbulb. Both are revolutionary in their own right, but we still use the same method of illuminating a room as Edison's original model to this day. Half-Life 2 isn’t just a next-generation leap for Gordon Freeman’s story: it’s a benchmark that arguably ushered in the modern era of gaming.
(Originally published to Glitchwave on 7/15/2024)
Half-Life 2: Episode 1
Category: Addendum Game
Platforms: PC
Release Date: June 1, 2006
Everyone by now should be aware of Valve’s strange aversion to the number three. Besides all of the jokes that the internet has passed around the cyberspace campfire relating to this odd phenomenon that applies to absolutely every one of Valve’s IPs, fans were, and still are, disconcerted with the company’s inability to finalize the story of Half-Life with a well-rounded trilogy. What perplexes fans even more is that Valve evidently had more fuel in the Half-Life tank, but decided to burn that precious oil in decimal increments attached to its second entry immediately after its release. Half-Life 2: Episode 1 is the subsequent entry in the Half-Life saga that avoids Gabe Newell’s accursed number with a loophole. This way, Valve could sleep peacefully at night knowing that they’ve continued their work without provoking the consequences of whatever haunted significance the number three bears to them. Still, this bite-sized bit of Half-Life content probably wasn’t the best course of action to further Half-Life’s story.
The G-Man cliffhanger we received upon completing the base game’s story did not lend itself to an immediate resolution for what happened to our heroes, so a boost of narrative convenience is injected here to promptly pick them off where we left off without any obstructions like the tower-decimating explosion getting in the way. We can infer that G-Man’s ability to freeze Gordon into the ether of another plane of existence will shield him from total catastrophe, but what about poor Miss Alyx Vance also caught in the crossfire? The solution to preserving who was probably the most popular character in Half-Life 2 from the logical disintegration she is fated to be quite confounding. A group of purple, somewhat spiritual vortigaunts arrives to ensconce Alyx in an otherworldly black abyss, which seems to exist in the same abstract, cosmic realm as the G-Man because he looks none too pleased with their interference. Because both are saved by what could be classified as divine intervention, Alyx and Gordon can celebrate Breen’s defeat and the liberation of Earth together. However, even though the skies over City 17 rain down with the ashes of Breen’s once foreboding symbol of Breen’s absolute eminence like a flurry of snowflakes, Gordon and Alyx shouldn’t be performing a victory dance in the streets just yet. In fact, staying in the district of City 17 is the exact point of conflict that Episode 1 displays. Dr. Kleiner intercepts Breen’s telecommunications array to inform the survivors of the Combine onslaught that Gordon’s shaking of the citadel’s core has triggered a meltdown whose imminent reaction will totally obliviate City 17 and everyone still residing in it. One last train ride filled with citizens is leaving for a one-way destination, and it would be wise of Gordon and Alyx not to test their luck with another blast of nuclear annihilation and depend on arcane forces to protect them again. However, the citadel railcar that leads right to the train station is unfortunately derailed, but Gordon is no stranger to inconvenient detours.
If you couldn’t tell from the plot summary, Alyx will be following Gordon while he’s rushing to avoid being late for a very important date with his only means of escaping the deadly blast zone. Before anyone jumps to conclusions, her accompaniment is not where Episode 1 falters, despite its dreadful escort mission implications. We already know that Alyx is perfectly capable of defending herself from the invading forces caused by Black Mesa’s dire mistakes from the shining example she set in the base Half-Life 2 game. In all honesty, what Episode 1 excels in is its enrichment of what was an intermittent partner mechanic with Alyx. For example, the duo is forced to traverse through an underground tunnel infested with head crabs and their animated human host bodies they’ve infected alike. This place is as dark as the pits of hell due to the foundational dilapidation and lack of human activity as of late, and the designated power stations configured to illuminate this place are few and far between. Gordon must rely on his flashlight to guide him but much to his dismay, the tool’s utility is finite. Gordon must supplement the lack of illumination by holding the flares that are scattered about, and the flickering flame emanating from the pyrotechnic sticks gives Alyx enough of a light source to shoot the zombies dead on sight to compensate for Gordon's busy hands. Because the residue from the stress ball that emitted Antlion splooge has evidently dissipated, the bugs are back to biting Gordon with their enormous pincers. The road leading to the train station is also periodically paved with antlions nesting holes, which ceaselessly spawn the mutated insects unless Gordon plugs their exit by pushing a stationary car into it. Through this process, Alyx will execute the giant green pests more quickly if Gordon flips them on their backs with the gravity gun. I suppose Gordon doesn’t necessarily need Alyx to assist him along this distressing journey, but her continued aptitude and spunky demeanor make her anything but burdensome. At least her concrete partnership provides something nice to look at in an environment so scarred and tattered. Apparently, the feeling is mutual as many of Alyx’s quips are not-so-subtle flirtations toward the speechless scientist. You should see the look of excitement on her face when Kleiner implores the survivors to begin procreating to stabilize the declining human population.
Episode 1 adds a few new enemies to the fray of gameplay on Gordon’s trip out of the city’s confines. We might have glanced at the stalkers momentarily while Gordon was infiltrating the citadel, but the descent here in Episode 1 actually involves direct interaction with the disturbingly malformed and soulless Combine slaves. Their laser eye theoretically deals serious damage, but whatever means of protecting themselves is irrelevant when Gordon still possesses the supercharged gravity gun that ended the base game. A more daunting foe that Gordon encounters when his gravity gun has reverted back to its marginally more modest self is the “zombine,” a zombified corpse of a dead Combine soldier that answers my lingering question of whether or not the headcrabs could even penetrate and defile in the first place. Because they died wearing their sturdy police armor, this strand of the living dead will have to be pumped with considerably more lead than the average civilian zombie. The headcrab cranial recharge has also somehow made these Kamikazee soldiers more clever, using the fact that they’re already dead to grieve Gordon and Alyx with a sacrificial grenade they pull the pin on while running toward them. As fresh as these foes are, they are ultimately new ingredients intermingled with the linear shooting with occasional bits of platforming that define Half-Life. One relatively new gameplay mechanic previously unseen is protecting surviving members of the resistance as they make passage toward the train station from their nearby quarters. Unexpectedly, this process isn’t as grueling as one might expect from their experience of having this militia as an incompetent support team fighting through City 17. The meager opposition from Combine soldiers during this section illustrates how impacted they are by the closing of their interplanetary portals. However, running back and forth at least five times to retrieve more resistance members greatly grated my patience. Can’t they all form a unified line behind Gordon to their destination? Wait, that might be asking too much.
Alyx was certainly a buoyant aspect of Half-Life 2 that was greatly appreciated by its fans, and she remains a ray of sunshine in her destitute situation. However, I cannot confidently say that she was so integral to the experience that she needed to be the backbone of any subsequent Half-Life material. Besides augmenting Alyx’s capabilities because of her elongated presence, Episode 1 fails to provide anything innovative with Half-Life 2’s gameplay, making it an unworthy addendum. Is it worth it to see City 17 blown to smithereens from the caboose of the train? Somewhat, but I expect more from a developer known for flaunting effortless feats of gaming innovation.
(Originally published to Glitchwave on 7/24/2024)
Half-Life 2: Episode 2
Category: Addendum Game
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Release Date: October 10, 2007
Surely one could infer from Episode 1’s subtitle that more Half-Life 2 content would soon follow. City 17 may have reached its climactic demise, but the fight for freedom against the Combine oppressors keeps on trucking. Now that the base game’s core setting has been completely obliviated, where does Half-Life 2: Episode 2 take place to continue Gordon and Alyx’s mission of preserving the welfare of the human race? Beyond City 17 lies a plethora of possibilities, to expand the parameters that the base game set to a fresh and exciting degree. Of course, I am alluding to more than the literal narrative context that Episode 2 takes place somewhere past what was City 17’s jurisdiction. Half-Life 2 takes our heroes off the grid in both the literal and figurative sense, and it’s exactly what this episodic addendum needed.
Gordon and Alyx’s one-way destination strays away from the (literal) urban decay of City 17 considerably. Directly outside of the planned dystopian municipality are the great outdoors, fields with lanky pine trees and valleys of blustering foliage with seismic mountains as the persistent background scene. Log cabins built for the modern age of real estate reside on hills located between babbling brooks. Gordon’s train has docked itself in what looks like a scenic greeting card from the temperate wilderness of Canada, and it is quite breathtaking. One could compare the biotic environment that surrounds Episode 2 to a chapter from the base game like “Highway 17,” and the comparison is almost airtight once Gordon is given a car to traverse through the winding, hilly roads that span for miles. However, the less congested, organic setting that Episode 2 bestows is a far cry from the cloudy shores along the highway. In fact, this area is the one Half-Life environment that comes the closest to being appropriately described as beautiful, something unprecedented in a series synonymous with cold, depressed, and sterile foregrounds. Considering this is the first time I’ve issued this description for Half-Life, it goes without saying that this arboreous landscape is a refreshing change of pace, unlike the set pieces that Episode 1 reused from the base game.
But Gordon and Alyx haven’t come here to unwind and live a humdrum, Norman Rockwell existence with a few racially ambiguous children. Tension is still afoot because The Combine still haven’t accepted defeat, and now they’re trying to use the colossal energy cloud that has formed over the citadel after its devastating meltdown to rekindle their intergalactic connection to the Earth and ignite another invasion. The scientific geniuses formerly of Black Mesa predict that the incoming wormhole the Combine are attempting to generate will be so massive that it will be impossible to seal. To prevent an irrevocable fate for mankind, Gordon and Alyx must travel to yet another distant laboratory where Eli, Kleiner, and company are held up; this time, a rocket facility deep in the heart of the White Forest. Blasting off the rocket into the center with a Combine transmitter Alyx is carrying will close the portal, but she and Gordon must haul ass to test this theory.
As soon as Eli and Kleiner inform the duo of their mission, Gordon immediately has to undergo the mother of all detours that divert away from the primary goal completely. Alyx is mortally wounded by a new Combine recruit totally endemic to the White Forest, and the two impalements in her torso could be fatal if not treated. Gordon, with the aid of a helpful vortigaunt, ventures underground through the mines to an antlion nest to extract larvae with healing properties. Comparisons between the White Forest’s rural landscape and that of the base game’s less congested areas are at least understandable, but I challenge anyone to draw parallels between the antlion mines and any area from regular Half-Life 2. The sublime aura of this dank, claustrophobic cavern is most reminiscent of Xen if anything because of the otherworldly isolation. That, and some of the cavern’s crevices where groups of antlion grubs vegetate and feed are so vile that you’d think benevolent Mother Earth couldn’t possibly produce something this revolting.
This tense escapade to resurrect Alyx from the dead introduces another two enemies as Episode 1 did, but these foes are far more prevalent threats. Episode 2 does away with an enemy like the stalkers who have seen only a handful of times and were hardly a cause for intimidation, so I suppose the new breed of antlions with the bulbous heads and pale skin could be categorized as supporting troops in the same league as the zombine. Watch out for whenever this bug spits its acid saliva at Gordon, for it is so corrosive that the hazmat suit will not be able to recover Gordon’s health entirely. Alyx’s assailant is a “hunter” and while this tripedal beast the size of a moose is another variant of Combine soldier, their movement, design, and tendency to work alone puts them in a league of their own. They were originally referred to as a “mini-strider” in their development due to their heavy attack output and leathery defenses, so heed that description as a forewarning to pump these things with the heaviest of lead whenever they rear their ugly heads.
Gordon will be exhausting his ammunition, both in his arsenal and the detritus on the ground for the gravity gun to manipulate, because Episode 2 seems to be heavily skewed towards combat rather than puzzles or platforming. The first instance of Episode 2’s intense bouts of gunfire are the hoards of antlions that ambush Gordon and two guys who have been stationed down here together long enough to the point where they bicker like an old married couple. Together, they must protect the vortigaunts summoning Alyx back to the land of the living by manning the five tunnels that spew antlions like a sieve. When the Combine entraps Gordon’s car with two force fields, the battle between the horde of soldiers that flock to the nearby abandoned cabin is reminiscent of the film Straw Dogs. All of these endurance tests are merely warm-ups to Episode 2’s grand finale. An army of Striders, each with two hunters by their side, are zeroing in on the precious rocket silo mere minutes before Kleiner was ready to blast it into the unfinished interplanetary portal, and Gordon will have to knock them off their sky-scraping spider legs one by one. Before the prospect of completing this task makes the player hyperventilate with anxiety, Episode 2, fortunately, cuts the player some slack with what I consider to be Episode 2’s greatest innovation. In the time the Black Mesa alum has been working in this woodland facility, a GI character named Arne Magnusson has gathered the collective brain power at his disposal to create a weapon that he conceitedly named after himself called the “Magnusson bomb.” All Gordon has to do is toss this explosive device to the central body of the strider with the force of the gravity gun, and a successful landing will make the bomb automatically stick to the strider like glue. Shoot the bomb with a single bullet from another weapon and the strider is blown to smithereens in seconds. Gone is the tedium of pounding these juggernaut Combine AT-AT Walkers with at least a dozen rockets. Because taking down striders is far more manageable with this innovation, the rush of zooming through the forest gathering these bombs to halt the striders in their tracks before they decimate the silo is an epic example of tower defense. While we're at it, launching back the bombs that the Combine chopper drops with the gravity gun is also an appreciated new method of assaulting their air vehicles.
The happiest of happy occasions occur after the striders surrender and the expanding, worrisome portal is shut off once again, but the ecstasy of this momentous achievement is ultimately fleeting. When the personification of the word ominous known as the G-Man disrupts the story in the middle portion instead of the beginning or end, everyone knows that something horrible awaits them. This speculation is affirmed by his foreboding words to an unconscious Alyx when he relays a message to Eli to “prepare for unforeseen consequences.” When Alyx slips this line into her dialogue with her dad, the words turn Eli’s skin pale as a bedsheet. The successful defense of the silo and the closing of the portal should ideally be the satisfying falling action, but those feelings of consternation caused by their “mutual friend” still linger. The grave premonitions come to fruition when the plump Combine advisors attack Alyx, Gordon, and Eli, and one pierces the back of Eli’s head with its barbed tongue and sucks his gray matter clean. Dog intervenes to save Alyx and Gordon, and the screen turns black as Alyx is sobbing hysterically while holding her father’s dead body. Plenty of Half-Life fans are disappointed by this bummer ending, mostly because it’s been unresolved by the deferred development of any subsequent releases. Personally, I believe that the grim and shocking ending to the Half-Life saga fits the apocalyptic and grievous tone the series has always upheld.
Half-Life 2: Episode 2’s reputation has been slightly blemished by the fact that it was the last glimpse of Half-Life content for the unseen future, and killing off a major character we’ve come to respect is an upsetting last glance into this iconic series that makes most people uncomfortable. Blue balling their audience with misery and dread aside, Episode 2 finally provides a worthy expansion to a story that was arguably already resolved. Its dramatic deviation from Half-Life 2’s central setting allows new possibilities that the developers more than take great advantage of. On its own merits, which it has plenty of, Episode 2 could rival the Half-Life 2 tree it is branching from in overall quality.
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