The UK's finest video magazine for switched on men

Login | Register

games: Half Life 2: Episode 2

Hey there gamers,

Time to dust off your PCs and practice your mouse clicks as we check out Half Life 2: Episode 2 today, and Team Fortress 2 on Wednesday.

The whole Orange Box package is available for download on Steam here or you can pick it up from Amazon on Xbox 360 or PS3 next week.

Hope you enjoy it; we certainly did!

We would also like to thank Brian Ashcraft over at Kotaku for brightening our office day by posting this little gem!

-K

Direct Links to:

Quicktime and iTunes subscribe
Windows Media and WMV RSS feed
Divx and Divx RSS feed

comments

zort
October 15th, 2007 - 1:11pm

I have to admit that I’ve only played the first 30 minutes of the game so far, but those were pretty boring in my book. Nothing but narrow bug filled tunnels — meh.
What totally blew my mind was Portal; such an awesome thoughful and funny game. You should review that. I’d love to know what you think about it.

nice show btw., gonna watch it regularly now.

P.S.: The cake is a lie!

Operator99
October 15th, 2007 - 1:55pm

Just watched all 7 episodes and gotta say - great job. The reviews seem balanced and yet pull no punches. Love the set and collections all about, but when are they gonna let you have a real desk and chair. Here’s hoping for a long and successful show. BTW, this viewing occasioned by Wil on TWIT, in case you care.

October 15th, 2007 - 8:59pm

Great show! I just finished HL2: Ep 2 yesterday. Look forward to more shows! I also got the plug from Wil on TWIT. :-)

Jason
October 16th, 2007 - 1:21am

Agreed. It’s an amazing game and hopefully developers will put this much thought and effort into more shooters for PC/console. 5/5

Katharine
October 17th, 2007 - 8:37am

Thanks so much for all the feedback and encouragement guys, and thanks to TWiT for sending you all over here! :)
Oh no, sorry to hear you’re not loving Ep 2 Zort - but thanks for the Portal recommend. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet but it does look good and I will try to get to it asap. I probably won’t be able to schedule a full on review on it, but I’ll throw a comment on here for sure.

Operator 99 - haha thanks! But did you not see my little red strapya mushroom? All the chair a gamer needs!

jamspoon
October 18th, 2007 - 10:33am

Hmmm, I fear you failed to spot the fact that HL2:2 is dated, derivative and unimaginative. It’s the same old scripted, on-rails stuff with invisible switches, endless doors that don’t open and contrived gameplay. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the orig HL2, it was really polished and has glimpses of innovative gameplay, despite being fairly old fashioned in many ways. Frankly, it was actually superior with more varied gameplay than this new episode.

***Slight spoiler below***

A good example is the final battle sequence where it’s necessary to kill the hunters before the sticky bombs will destroy the striders. It’s just plain contrived platform-esque gaming where you must do A before you can damage B.

***Slight spoiler ends***

Overall, there was little new in this ep of note, the gravity gun has largely become a pointless gimmick and while it’s extremely polished it generally smacks of churn - ie churning out very samey levels that fail to take the promise of the original HL2 and really deliver.

PCxxy
October 24th, 2007 - 10:57am

nice review, i enjoyed it much

BigText
October 25th, 2007 - 1:22am

Are you playing these games on a toaster? Why is the framerate so horrendously low? Also, I’ve been looking through a bunch of your videos. What HASN’T been rated 5 stars?

Katharine
October 26th, 2007 - 5:59am

Just a note on BigText’s framerate comment, yes we’re aware that something’s not quite right with the PC game footage. It’s not the framerate though. I think it’s something to do with the capturing software that’s making it a bit jerky. We’re working on it though and hopefully we’ll get it sorted pretty soon. Sorry about that guys!

Schmung
October 26th, 2007 - 8:26am

Didn’t one of the Soldier of Fortune games have you sprinting through the Middle East somewhere merrily decapitating soldiers, some of who bore a remarkable resemblance to Saddam? Then there was one of the Delta Force games that had you stomping around Mogadishu and shooting everything up, not forgetting the Desert Storm games either. It’s not really a new thing to have games taking place nearish the present day, though I am rather surprised that the developers have addressed the issue directly and thats probably more a reflection of peoples attitudes to the ongoing situation in the Middle East rather than anything to do with the subject matter itself.

Whys it always the bloody Russians though? They seem to be staple bad guys du jour for way, way too long now.

Does look to be quite fun, but my PC isn’t up to the job and I’m just not sure I could bear to play it on the 360 with a mouse and keyboard in the next room.

ernievzla
November 9th, 2007 - 11:49pm

to jamspoon

why do you use your opinion as fact, thats only your personal opinion, but many people think this is probably the best in the series yet…

its linear yes, but Half Life has allways been linear and thats because its a very story driven game, and the fans love the character driven story-line and the big universe….

the pacing is more to the point and you allways know what to do, where to go and why are you going there…

the only con of this game is its lengh but its episodic gamming so what the hell…

IMHO completely deserves 5/5

to zort:

i agree the mine section of the game its a bit dull, but it really kicks off from there…

add a comment

Subscribe to newsletter?