| |
|
I finished this over the weekend. My first thought was that it was very good, and very short.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
I mean, you basically have three scenes - The citadel, the city and the train station. The citadel is a great graphical experience - I love the way that the technology in the Citadel just doesn't quite make sense, but is coming into focus progressively more. The stalkers were, I thought, underused, but then there's something quite cool about having a species of enemy that are basically harmless but _really unpleasant_. The bit in the train is fantastic in part because these things are basically helpless. It does feel a bit like a graphics demo - the juiced-up gravity gun almost removes any real thread from the baddies, even for a moderate player like me.
The city is fun, but familiar - I like the introduction of the Zombines - they're a coherent addition to the game, say something useful about what has happened (the Combine has lost control over the monsters it has used to terrorise the resistance) and also have some sort of emotional depth (no, really - they're suicidal, effectively - it gooes back to my recurrent thing about how the people underneath the headcrabs are still in some way conscious at some level, and are in Hell). And, finally, Exit 17 is a coda - it's difficult, but difficult in a fairly predictable way.
Pluses - well, the maps are beautifully designed, even if they do depend too much sometimes on separating you from Alex. And Alyx. Alyx is both one of the best things in the game - her script is very good, she moves intelligently, only occasionally pushes you around and has not yet blocked a bottleneck for me, but she's also in a sense one of the worst things, just because she's artificially powerful. This might be rectified on higher difficulty settings, but on medium and on my first, and therefore rookie, pass, Alyx not only never died but never gave any impression that she was going to die. Given that you are in a suit of powered armour and she is in a pair of jeans and a Black Mesa hoodie, this just feels a bit wrong - even Barnie had body armour, at least. Between that and the infinite ammo, there's a tendency to hang back and let her lead the violence. On the other hand, when she's covering you while you try to plug antlion nests or similar, it works really well, and it gives you a sense of having someone in your corner far more convincingly than the interchangeable troops in HL1. Also, I love her. However, if she is a total tank, then the effort of seperating Freeman and Alyx from Dog seems a bit wasted - I quite like the idea of an episode in which Dog just kicks ass through an entire level and you just have to follow him appreciatively.
For me, the most exciting part was the final "interactive cutscene" at the end - suddenly, there was something new and entirely unlike the action of HL2. From the trailer, I have high hopes for Episode 2, along with a hint of NOOOOOOOOOOO!, but it just makes me feel more like there was no need for pretty much the entire Citadel episode and a good few chunks of the evacuation of City 17, and then get on with the rich and strange stuff hinted at with the Vortigaunts. Now, they would be a fun fireteam - powerful but fragile - you'd need to try to draw fire away from them, rather than using them to soak up fire as one can with Alyx.
So, qualified thumbs up. It's absolutely beautiful, and the facial animation are stunning, but it feels short and a bit too much like HL2. |
|
|
