But when the torch fails, the red flares die away and you're standing in inky blankness, surrounded by the groans of a full cast of zombies - it's truly terrifying. Flares litter the corridors and can be left to burn merrily and throw gorgeous, yet feeble light on affairs. Room after room is blanketed in darkest pitch your torch constantly dying out. Trapped underground in a network of decaying lifts, vents, carparks and shambling zombies, it's all very reminiscent of the original Half-Life's ascent to the surface, but more importantly, it showcases Valve nudging a renewed emphasis on the power of darkness into their blueprint.
Let's look at the ways that Valve by and large get around this, though - a good example appearing in the hour that follows Alyx and Gordon's exit from the Citadel (itself a train journey of scripted tension unrivalled by any other shooter on the market). The result is a wonderful five-hour game, but a wonderful five-hour game with a far greater punctuation of peaks and troughs than in previous works. With the two primary environments of this episode already copiously explored the last time around, Valve's new prerogative is to find new and interesting gameplay styles to use within them - a challenge they tackle with furious aplomb, but perhaps not quite enough to avoid the occasional sag into over-familiarity. With Episode One, Valve are fighting the fact that not only was Half-Life 2 released 18 months ago, but also that many of us will have completed it a fair number of times. It's that good.Įpisode One is never less than enjoyable - but even the most ardent of fanboys could not deny that it fluctuates between periods of absolute exhilaration and periods of, "You know? I recognise that this is an expansion, but I do rather feel that I did this to death last time around." It's a feeling that kicks in during a fair amount of the street fighting and survivor-ferrying at the close of the game, too. Weekend At Bernie's perhaps Or even Body Of Evidence. Anthony Holden said something along the lines that it could well be seen as our chosen medium's Citizen Kane - but on this evidence, even higher plaudits should be attached. Its opening, its 'rollercoaster moment', its train ride from hell: all among the best that the Half-Life universe has ever had to offer. The staging of Episode One is breathtaking. Never played through a scene with more emotion, humour, excitement and genuine warmth than what follows Dog's opening unearthing of Freeman at the foot of the crumbling Citadel - nor will I, in all probability, until the unlock of Episode Two.įrom the warm hug given by Alyx to the clever grounding of Half-Life's science-fiction sensibilities from the use of Dog's metallic form as a television reception booster all the way through to a demonstration of the heart-rending bond between father and daughter. Let's start uncontroversially at the beginning - the construction of which surpasses any game in recent memory. As far as Valve are concerned, you're still playing Half-Life 2, and if Gordon Freeman hasn't been anywhere since his last outing, then why the hell should you? No, for very much better and (as we'll see later on) a little worse, this is a direct continuation of that game we knew and loved all of 18 months ago. It won't break the habit of a lifetime by explaining its intricate plot in its first scene, nor will it magic up a new setting for the sake of it, or invent all manner of new power-weapons that the Combine must have forgotten about the first time around. It isn't a new game, nor is it an expansion in the traditional sense. Don't expect Episode One to be something it's not.
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