"And then there will be cake."
So today I beat Episode 2 and Portal; still some possible spoilers, so I'll put the rest of my thoughts behind the cut. If you haven't beaten them, don't peek! It's better if you don't.
Episode 2 took me about 2 hours to finish up today, and I have to say it still seems a little short. It was longer than Episode 1, but only by a couple of hours probably. On the other hand, I found the last phase of the game to be much better than the last phase of Episode 1. I thought when I got to White Forest that the game would have one final battle and that would be the end of it. However, there were, in fact, a pair of battle sequences, and a number of very well done cutscenes (or whatever you call Halflife's cutscenes when they occur in the game engine). However, my brother had some disappointment with the final battle and I have to say I did as well.
While the Strider/Hunter pack combo was a good pairing, and tricky to beat, my brother said what he would like to have seen was something a lot more epic, with more than just two kinds of enemies. Imagine Striders moving in while Combine troops drop behind you, or a swarm of manhacks going crazy on the battlefield. Imagine a barrage of headcrab shells hitting first, perhaps turning your former allied soldiers into zombies. I hope that we get something like this for Episode 3, which will presumably be the end of this particular storyline.
On the other hand, actual end was pretty gutwrenching. Now, while Jeremy says he saw this coming as soon as Eli tried to have a heart to heart with you, I was not expecting something quite so horrific. The fact that this end is most likely what the vortigaunt was speaking about in the trailers that came out for the game, and not the predicted Alyx death that many people were expecting, was a nice switch (though I admit that I doubt most people thought they would kill Alyx and give it away in the trailers). It definitely did the job of making me want to play the next episode to get some payback.
A few bits from the end as well -- the credits confirm that Tony Todd and Adam Baldwin did do voices for the game, and Jeremy pointed out another Gordon Frohman (of the excellent comic Concerned) sighting in the rebel base. Lamarr also gets to be the first headcrab in space (well....at least in a conventional way)!
Portal, on the other hand, was even shorter than the two Halflife Episodes; I finished in about 4 hours. On the other hand, the game is very good. The portal gun mechanic is a lot of fun to play with (as anyone who saw the trailers for the game can surely attest), and the puzzles were challenging, but not so crazily obtuse as to drive you mad. I do not enjoy jumping puzzles as a rule, and I generally like games in spite of them, not because of them. Still, despite the fact that most of Portal's puzzles are essentially variations on jumping puzzles, I never had too much trouble and never really got too frustrated. I got stuck a few times, but I only had to ask for a hint once. Even then, I probably could have figured it out, given enough time.
I had assumed Portal would be more of a straight up puzzle game when I first saw it -- that is not really the case. There is a definite storyline and there's obviously something bigger at work in the universe of the game than you can really see. It appears, from things at the end of Episode 2 and within Portal, that Halflife and Portal take place in the same universe. Portal is also surprisingly good at creating an atmosphere of suspense and horror, along with a sense of dark humor, and while there are no real "enemies" aside from the computer running the tests, you definitely get the feeling that you are being hunted. I enjoyed the end of the game quite a bit, and the credit sequence even features a song by Jonathan Coulton, he of the awesome "Re: Your Brains."
Overall, I think these games were worth buying the Orange Box for, especially since I can give away a copy of the games I already own. I do think they are a tad overpriced on their own -- $15 is probably more reasonable than $20 -- but I'm willing to pay a bit more for quality content, especially if Valve continues to use Steam to provide a lot of games that have sort of been lost in the shuffle. I'll probably try out Team Fortress 2 at some point as well, but I'm not super excited about it like I was about the other two.
While the Strider/Hunter pack combo was a good pairing, and tricky to beat, my brother said what he would like to have seen was something a lot more epic, with more than just two kinds of enemies. Imagine Striders moving in while Combine troops drop behind you, or a swarm of manhacks going crazy on the battlefield. Imagine a barrage of headcrab shells hitting first, perhaps turning your former allied soldiers into zombies. I hope that we get something like this for Episode 3, which will presumably be the end of this particular storyline.
On the other hand, actual end was pretty gutwrenching. Now, while Jeremy says he saw this coming as soon as Eli tried to have a heart to heart with you, I was not expecting something quite so horrific. The fact that this end is most likely what the vortigaunt was speaking about in the trailers that came out for the game, and not the predicted Alyx death that many people were expecting, was a nice switch (though I admit that I doubt most people thought they would kill Alyx and give it away in the trailers). It definitely did the job of making me want to play the next episode to get some payback.
A few bits from the end as well -- the credits confirm that Tony Todd and Adam Baldwin did do voices for the game, and Jeremy pointed out another Gordon Frohman (of the excellent comic Concerned) sighting in the rebel base. Lamarr also gets to be the first headcrab in space (well....at least in a conventional way)!
Portal, on the other hand, was even shorter than the two Halflife Episodes; I finished in about 4 hours. On the other hand, the game is very good. The portal gun mechanic is a lot of fun to play with (as anyone who saw the trailers for the game can surely attest), and the puzzles were challenging, but not so crazily obtuse as to drive you mad. I do not enjoy jumping puzzles as a rule, and I generally like games in spite of them, not because of them. Still, despite the fact that most of Portal's puzzles are essentially variations on jumping puzzles, I never had too much trouble and never really got too frustrated. I got stuck a few times, but I only had to ask for a hint once. Even then, I probably could have figured it out, given enough time.
I had assumed Portal would be more of a straight up puzzle game when I first saw it -- that is not really the case. There is a definite storyline and there's obviously something bigger at work in the universe of the game than you can really see. It appears, from things at the end of Episode 2 and within Portal, that Halflife and Portal take place in the same universe. Portal is also surprisingly good at creating an atmosphere of suspense and horror, along with a sense of dark humor, and while there are no real "enemies" aside from the computer running the tests, you definitely get the feeling that you are being hunted. I enjoyed the end of the game quite a bit, and the credit sequence even features a song by Jonathan Coulton, he of the awesome "Re: Your Brains."
Overall, I think these games were worth buying the Orange Box for, especially since I can give away a copy of the games I already own. I do think they are a tad overpriced on their own -- $15 is probably more reasonable than $20 -- but I'm willing to pay a bit more for quality content, especially if Valve continues to use Steam to provide a lot of games that have sort of been lost in the shuffle. I'll probably try out Team Fortress 2 at some point as well, but I'm not super excited about it like I was about the other two.
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I've heard a lot of criticism that Portal was too short, and on the one hand I can see where people are coming from -- the single player storyline is only a few hours long -- but on the other hand, I don't think all games need to be long. It's like the first rule of movie comedy: it's far better to have the audience walk out begging for more than looking at their watches. I think the length they gave it fulfilled the potential of the game mechanics without becoming repetitive, which is just the way it should be.
Of course, the price should be appropriate for what you get. Personally, I think $45 for the Orange Box is entirely reasonable, and a real steal for people who don't yet have Half-Life 2. If I were buying Portal individually, I might think more about the price, but as part of the Orange Box package I'm not disappointed at all.
All that said, the game is not necessarily as short as it might appear at first glance. After you beat the main game, there are quite a few bonus levels which are unlocked. These are basically advanced versions of the original levels, where the tried-and-true methods you used to beat them the first time around no longer work, and you have to get a bit creative. While these extra features don't really add to the story or the atmosphere, they do give you more hours of gameplay.
Oh, and Chas:
Spoilers follow for Half-Life 2: Episode Two
When a father-figure in a book/movie/game pensively tells you to look after his daughter before sending you off on a secret mission fraught with weighty moral responsibility, he's going to be dead within half an hour. Just FYI.
Maybe, but did you expect him to die like that that? Come on!
Did you see the review of this by Yahtzee at Escapist Magazine? Worth checking out. His reviews are always fun. Even for games he likes, such as this one :)
Yes, I did....it was hilarious. :)