Half-Life 2: Episode One
City 17.
Now, what are you thinking? The oppressive tower of the Citadel dominating the skyline. Striders the size of flatblocks melting a path through the scenery. Jackbooted Combine forces beating cowering human civilians. Helicopter gunships strafing resistance hideouts. Parasitic headcrabs turning the weak into flesh-eating hordes. And in the distance, flanked by a battle-hardened young researcher and her home-made robot pet, is the world's most violent theoretical physicist.
Of course, you might not be thinking of these things. You might be thinking, "City 17? What's that?" If you are, then I am afraid I will have to ask you to leave now. Although Episode One is marketed as a standalone game in the Half-Life universe, it is a direct sequel to HL2 and assumes total familiarity with that game. Continuing on from just after the bombshell of an ending, Gordon is thrown right in at the deep end with the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator and is expected to know what to do with it.
In fact, it's quite some time before he finds any other hardware to play with. With that in mind it's a good job that he's not so alone this time. The original Half-Life 2 was a tremendous achievement, conjuring up a highly detailed world with an involving storyline, populated by believable characters with a range of emotions, all dressed up in a GPU-shattering graphical shell and powered by a physics engine that brought a new dimension to interactivity and made the already tangible City 17 solid. And it did all that under the guise of a first person shooter, a genre which considers a shotgun with more than two barrels a revolutionary concept. Yet even among all that, rising head and shoulders above the competition (due to being held up by Dog at the time) was one Alyx Vance.
From the start, Alyx was shown to be a true character with her own position in the world. Far from being a typical FPS NPC clone, Alyx gave the resistance a believable human face and dramatically increased the sense of fighting for something instead of just fighting to get to the next checkpoint. Plus, she kicked ass. However, Alyx's role was generally that of a mobile cutscene, appearing from time to time to press on the story like a sexy deus ex machina. Episode One rectifies this by giving her the screen time she deserves, fighting alongside Gordon for much of the episode. Taking up arms together is an unusual dynamic, as she cannot be controlled but at the same time does not need much in the way of protection. Indeed, Gordon is more often than not the one in the support role, following along while Alyx saves the world. Dark, zombie-infested tunnels need the HEV suit's torch to become navigable and to highlight the enemy while she does the shooting, for instance.
Alyx's scenes, some of which are scripted and others delivered off the cuff, provide an emotional hook in the typically clinical world of the first person shooter. Leave her alone in the tunnel and she might get scared, or exact revenge by pretending to be a zombie when the light goes out. She cracks jokes about the zombified Combine - the Zombine - and cracks up under the fast-paced pressure of combat. While she always feels like an AI character responding to the world around her according to coded guidelines, Alyx carries with her an unusual air of subdued believability and almost pulls off the sense of cooperation. She is neither a vulnerable waif to be escorted around and kept out of the action, nor an immortal tank sent in first to clear rooms on Gordon's behalf.
The more alert reader may have detected a rather singular focus thus far on Ms. Vance, and not a great deal about the rest of the game. The reason for this is that there isn't a lot else to write about. As an "expansion pack" it is little more than a fairly short sequence of new stages in which to fight familiar enemies with familiar hardware. It is a focused and more streamlined affair than the original, with a greater emphasis on smart set pieces and fewer corridors taking up the space between them. The further progression of the story, trademark physics games, expansion into new environments, and other surprises are left for future episodes.
Episode 1 is Alyx's story, told short and told sweet. Gordon is there to shoot some things on the way.
In Conclusion
The Half-Life 2 fanboys will be all over Episode One like Dog on a rollermine, but take a step back and you'll see that it's really not that special. Ep1 is a joy to behold and should be savoured, and its lessons in characterisation will be studied by other developers for time to come, but as a playable experience it's not quite the revolution many will say it is. What it is, though, is more Half-Life 2. Now, that's not so bad, is it?
| Episode One |
|---|
|
| Plan Nine |
|
| Final Score | |
|---|---|
| Physics: | Lots |
| New stuff: | Scattered |
| Alyx: | Shiny |
| 50% of the Lifespan | |
| Like, well, an expansion pack, really. Without much expanding. | |
