![]() ![]() In comparison, combat set pieces like an underground, flashlight-lit battle with waves of zombies certainly stand out, but much of the traditional run-and-gunning can't help but feel like filler. These segments build so well off of the gravity gun puzzles of Half-Life 2, you get the feeling Valve would have turned Episode One into Gravity Gun: The Game if they could have gotten away with it. ![]() The gravity gun-without a doubt, Half-Life 2's highlight-serves as Gordon's first weapon, and much of the beginning entails using it and only it to solve environmental puzzles. In retrospect, the early sections of Episode One underline how uninterested Valve was in just making another FPS. While her constant presence did a good job of highlighting protagonist Gordon Freeman's complete lack of humanity, Alyx's competence felt like a true achievement-one game developers had been chasing for quite some time. While Half-Life 2 experimented with AI by giving you slightly dull squad mates to give simple commands, Episode One pairs you alongside a fairly bright computer-controlled Alyx Vance for most of the adventure. While its visuals definitely feel more modern than its predecessor thanks to a better lighting engine, Episode One's biggest feature could be found front and center on the box-or the Steam cover art-in the form of Alyx. Coincidentally, Valve's own Portal would bring this revelation to the world a little over a year later: Much of its buzz centered on how it defied conventional wisdom with the power of brevity.Įpisode One could have never had the same impact as 2004's Half-Life 2, but Valve still used it as the testing ground for some pretty impressive tech. (Admittedly, $19.99 might have been a little steep, but Valve was clearly in uncharted territory.) It wouldn't take long for our values to shift, but the rise of indie games still had a few years before it could show us an experience could be perfectly satisfying if it ended after just a few hours and left us wanting more. ![]() The value of games still amounted to a length-based proposition, meaning, to some, Half-Life 2: Episode One's three-hour running time was nothing short of preposterous. For Valve, this approach seemed ideal: Rather than spending another five to six years on Half-Life 3, episodic content would give them the chance to strike multiple times while the iron was still hot, and prevent the arduous production cycle of Half-Life 2 from ever happening again.Įven as short as 10 years ago, it's interesting to see just how different our priorities were. PC gaming enthusiasts had experienced a similar style of release in the past with expansion packs, but rather than existing as simply more content bolted onto Half-Life 2, these episodes would be stand-alone-albeit interconnected-experiences. Not only did this release continue Valve's efforts to double down on Steam it would also begin their initiative to produce episodic content. In this turbulent, unpredictable climate of 2006, Valve released Half Life 2: Episode One, which took advantage of its developer's largesse and critical acclaim to test the waters in more ways than one. And, faced with the prospect of losing their customer base entirely, retailers had begun fighting tooth and nail to keep physical game releases viable. With the iTunes Store and its DRM protection only coming into being a few years prior, consumers were rightfully skeptical over how much they would truly own their digital content years down the road. And though the sale of boxed PC games were then on the decline, digital sales had not yet become the default. Steam hadn't come close to capturing its modern ubiquity, and many still regarded the platform as a hijacking of their PCs. (And honestly, who can blame them?)īack when hope still existed for Half-Life 2, the gaming industry was a very different beast. We weren't only robbed of a conclusion that left us hanging we were also robbed of another experience from Valve's most creative and fruitful era-one they've since left behind to rest on their laurels count their Dota 2 money. But instead of sneering derision towards a misguided IP that had gone stale before Y2K, in the case of Episode Three, the joke is squarely on us. While many wonderful experiments would spawn from the technology and brainpower behind Half-Life 2, its long-awaited final Episode has now taken the role of the Internet's new Duke Nukem Forever joke. Unfortunately for us, only part of this prediction came to pass. With Episode One just a week away, it seemed as if Valve would finally close the curtain on this acclaimed FPS, and move on to bigger and better things by the time 2008 kicked into gear. On May 24, 2006, Valve announced Half-Life 2: Episode Three-the true finale to 2004's Half-Life 2-would launch in December of 2007. ![]()
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