Old colleagues return and old friends say their goodbyes as Valve starts to unravel their prestigious franchise in style
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While you may think that Episode 2 suffers as a result of having no real beginning or end, one look across the Half Life 2 saga will show that even the series standalone titles suffer from such a fate. Half Life 2's ending was so ambiguous and left so little unanswered that it barely felt as if it had finished and the fact that Episode 1 continued from this makes its beginning only slightly more felt that this one.
The story that encompasses Episode 2 may feel like a fairly padded thing in itself (and the basic setup of delivering the transmission packet Alyx found in Episode 1 is pretty bare bones) but the events that happen within the game prove to be far more revealing than Episode 1 and maybe even the entirety of Half Life 2. The G-Man's dialogue with Freeman is far more enlightening this time around and you can already see Valve slowly starting to unveil the secrecy behind videogames most mysterious character. The combine too are actually physically unveiled this time around (albeit in the guise shown in Episode 1) and their presence is most definitely felt as their activeness steadily increases throughout your playthrough and the advisors final scenes in the game will certainly leave a mark on most gamers minds and the wait for Episode 3 will be all the more anticipated because of it.
Indeed, like Episode 1 before it, part 2 does a good job of providing a satisfying conclusion, presenting both a respectable sense of closure as well as the additional weight of expectation of what's to follow. Episode 2's ending is unquestionably well executed and for a game that is actually only the second part in a mini-trilogy it feels shell-shockingly final.
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Like Episode 1, Episode 2 is split into 2 defined sections. The first sees you exploring vast underground Antlion hives and although in essence the type of scenery may feel familiar (there is no doubt, that caverns are pretty similar to mines or labs) it still manages to provide some of the most claustrophobic and heart-pounding moments in the series so far, perfectly accented by the excellent Antlion guard sequences and perfectly aided by your impressively strong Vortigaunt companion.
The second section sees you braving the new world in the more expansive forest sections. Here, the more open ended gameplay is highlighted as the number of set-pieces steadily increases. These set-pieces encompass both housing and forest environments and lead to a great combination of the tight bottleneck encounters in houses to the larger, more distant battles through the trees. It is here that the games new enemies, the Hunters, make their grand entrance and they prove to be excellent additions to your host of adversaries. They are perhaps the best enemies to mix both gravity gun projectiles and basic gunplay into your strategies (although the temptation to simply run them over with your car can prove to be equally satisfying) and they are resilient and fast enough to feel like worthy challengers, (think of a cross between an Antlion guard and a zombie leaper and you get the idea).
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What Episode 2 essentially offers is more of the same. There is nothing in here that you will no doubt have already experienced in the other Half Life games. Things like the chase scenes, the strider battles, the underground defences and the lift waiting have all been experience in the past chapters and although they are at there very best here, they are nothing particularly new and in actuality the entire point of a set-piece is to provide something unexpected and epic and part of that comes from the need the present something new. While that may be a shortcoming for the game it is certainly not a reason to dissuade you from buying Episode 2 as what you get is at the very pinnacle of what FPS' can currently achieve and in terms of design, story, pacing and gameplay Half Life 2: Episode 2 is nothing short of excellent. It's just that what it does offer has already been showcased previously so their impact is simply less here. If you are still unsure about buying the game however just remember that you get to see DOG fight a strider. That alone is enough of a reason to pick up Episode 2.