Episode 1 was pretty fun, but it’s literally just the extended ending of Half Life 2. I liked how the different chapters each had something that made them different from the last. Although, they definitely could have been done better. I died so many times on the electric water puzzle, and the Strider fight at the end because I didn’t really know what I was doing. Hopefully someone comes along and makes a mod that restores whatever cut content exists for this game, and fleshes out areas/elements that weren’t explored very well like the Civil Protection trying to escape. Fun experience, but mostly just filler to justify the purchase/development time. However, Episode 2 felt like a proper sequel. It expanded upon a lot of the elements introduced in both HL2 and Episode 1. I really liked the Antlion caves. Those were really cool. The parts with Antlions fighting Zombies were also really good (when you have two enemy factions fighting and you have to decide which one to take out first that really makes the enemy encounters shine, and enhances replayable. More games need to do this). The tower defense section fighting against Antlions with Rebels and Vortigaunts fighting alongside you were really good. Tower defense/hoard modes are some of my favorites moments in games. The Hunter encounters were pretty good. Bullet sponge enemies are perfectly fine if they’re meant as mini bosses, and/or have an easily exploitable weakness. I really liked how they were super aggressive and moved a lot. The ending part with the Striders was fun, but I don’t think it was as good as people say it is. As for the cliffhanger ending I have since excepted that Half Life 3/Episode 3 most likely won’t happen because Valve cannot commit to anything now that they have Steam keeping them afloat; and the various fan projects inevitably fall apart because the devs don’t have a clear vision, are far more focused with just adding features than actually fleshing out the gameplay/levels, a lot of them don’t actually know what they’re doing, and most of the time is wasted because none of them want to do any real work. I honestly have far more faith in a Hunt Down the Freeman 2 being made. It would be absolutely hilarious if that actually did get made where Mitchel and his child army showed up at the Borealis resulting in a three way factional war between him, the Rebels, and the Combine. Half of me wants to see that because it would be absolutely hilarious, and the other half is genuinely morbidly curious about where that train wreck would take us. I don’t care what anyone says about Epistle 3, or the implications of Alyx (it would be absolutely hilarious if they had a scene where Gordon and Ellie were looking for a suitable replacement until they get Alyx back, and all the women who showed up for auditions were the different models used for the Cinematic mod). That’s canon because it’s simply too good to not be😂 On a Freeman’s Mind episode Ross Scott playing Freeman said that Alyx was most likely emotionally stunted due to trauma because she was acting childish, and didn’t seem to grasp the severity of the situation. Good video.
Even though it’s just the ending stretched out it was still a fun experience. I forgot about the part with the zombie hoard in the dark. At first it was fun, but got kind of annoying because I died a bunch. The chapter’s gimmick where you have to shine your light on targets for Alyx to see them was a cool idea. The atmosphere of that chapter was done really well.
