"Despite Episode One's short length, its entirety is composed of the best Half-Life 2 gameplay you could ask for."

What has now come to be a household name for PC gamers, the Half-Life series never ceases to amaze. The original Half-Life, released in 1998, was an astounding achievement, and was hailed as quite possibly the best first person shooter of all time. Years later the sequel accomplished the same thing as its predecessor. Half-Life 2 was another brilliant achievement that revitalized a somewhat tired genre. Half-Life 2 provided even more depth to first person shooters, more depth than anyone could have ever imagined before that point. Every first person shooter released before Half-Life 2, no matter how good, simply cannot compare to the outstanding quality of first person shooter that is Half-Life 2. An intriguing storyline, which appears to take place in a modern setting, was intricately woven with sci-fi alien invasion elements to create on of the most bizarre, interesting and entertaining storylines with some of the most life like characters ever seen in a video game. In fact the characters in Half-Life 2 were so good they could actually rival that of some of the best actors in Hollywood movies.

Half-Life 2: Episode One, previously subtitled as Aftermath rather than Episode One, is all of this and more. Episode One breathes new life into Half-Life 2 keeping it fresher than ever. Episode One manages to break away from becoming a typical add-on, with similar gaming experiences which would make it rather lack-lustre in comparison to its original counterpart. Although, rather than a simply expansion, Episode One feels as if it is in fact truly the missing conclusion of Half-Life 2. As anyone who has played through Half-Life 2 is aware of the brief cliff hanger ending which explains literally absolutely nothing other than the fact that you are most likely going to have to wait an unknown amount of time until more will be revealed. As with the first Half-Life, Half-Life 2 ended with Gordon Freeman face to face with the mysterious G-Man, who abruptly halts Gordon in his footsteps, and places him into stasis once again.

As anyone would expect, Episode One begins with the final scene of Half-Life 2, where Gordon and his young female sidekick Alyx Vance, are caught up in the explosion of the Combine citadel's transportation device. The G-Man places Gordon into stasis, however just prior to this in Episode One, Gordon witnesses Alyx Vance being transported away by the Vortigaunts, who will most likely play a much larger role in future instalments of the franchise. Once the G-Man returns to speak with Gordon, the Vortigaunts decide that it is time for Gordon to be a free-man. Like Alyx, Gordon is transported away from stasis, and is later found buried under a pile of rubble by Alyx's wonderful sidekick, Dog, the large robot, built to protect Alyx when she was young.

Episode One finally lets you take control of Gordon, where you learn that the Combine citadel is on full alert after the explosion of the portal. Cut-off from their home world, the Combine are in a frenzy trying to send some sort of message to their home world, before they are cut-off for good. Gordon and Alyx head off to try and slow down the explosion of the City 17 Combine citadel. This is apparently the only way the Combine can send a message to their home world, in other words, they need help. Once Gordon and Alyx succeed in slowing down the explosion of the core, which involves many intricate gravity gun puzzles, the story takes you on a journey through the vast underground of City 17, which contains very interesting pitch black moments. You are required to shine your flash light on enemies to allow Alyx to take them out. You are also free to blast their noggins off with your shotgun as well. However seeing as Alyx has infinite ammo, it would be a much wiser choice to let her take care of the majority of the zombies.

It is also in this section of the game where Episode One introduces the only new enemy found in the game, the Combine zombie. For those of you who were wondering where they were in the first game, they are here now and they can pose quite the challenge. The Combine zombies add an entirely new element to zombie fighting, as they prefer to rapidly charge at you in a similar fashion to the fast zombies, which are also present in large numbers. The only different is that these suckers can take loads more punishment than their other zombie friends, and like to occasionally charge at you with a live grenade. Thankfully these can be flung away with a flick of the gravity gun.

Anyone familiar with the original Half-Life game will get a nice sense of nostalgia from certain areas of the underground portion of Episode One. There are several puzzles which involve a return of the amazing vent crawling skills of Gordon Freeman, which were noticeably absent from Half-Life 2, for the most part. The vent crawling is usually combined with the task of finding a circuit panel to open a locked door, which would allow Gordon and Alyx passage to the next area.

Finally once you emerge from the underground Episode One concludes with a very long and interesting surface battle throughout City 17. City 17 is really the only area besides the interior of the Combine citadel at the beginning, where Episode One takes place. So don't expect any vehicle sequences exploring the vast outdoors. Episode One is a panic, and a rush to escape City 17, because the clock is ticking. As with no new vehicle sequences, don't be expecting to see any new weapons this time around either. Due to the fact that Episode One takes place entirely throughout City 17, adding new weapons to the game wouldn't entirely make sense, and would ultimately be unnecessary as all your familiar weapons just barely manage to squeeze into the entirely of the game in the first place. All the weapons of Half-Life 2 are spread throughout a minimum of fourteen hours. Episode One just barely manages to condense all of these weapons into a four to six hour experience. It would have been easy to have all of them return, plus more, but they all wouldn't be entirely useful. Episode One reintroduces all of the weapons from Half-Life 2 in situations where they are useful and needed. Don't be expecting to get the sub-machine gun while fighting zombies, and just to make things clear, don't be expecting to get anything other than the gravity gun until at least a good forty minutes into the game.

Like its predecessor, Episode One manages to incorporate many different styles of gaming into one solid experience. The single player co-op with Alyx itself makes the entire game worth it, but the way that the entire game comes together as a whole is simply outstanding. In many regards Episode One is vastly superior to Half-Life 2 in the sense of its length, and what it offers. It is hard to judge Episode One as an individual game because of the fact that it feels like it was this super awesome conclusion to Half-Life 2 that just wasn't ready in time for the game's release. That being said, Episode One is an outstanding game that clearly concludes the City 17 saga of the Half-Life universe. The ending of the game opens up many possibilities for everything people want in a future expansion or sequel. New enemies and new weapons just weren't really possible in Episode One considering where the game was taking place. However, despite the fact that it feels like Half-Life 2's missing end-game conclusion, what you get is simply amazing in itself. For the most part the gameplay is vastly superior to that of Half-Life 2, due to the fact that so much of it revolves around you co-operating with another AI character in order to achieve your goals.

What makes playing a single player co-op game like Episode One so fascinating, is that yet again it contains some of the best voice acting ever to be in a video game. Episode One features the return of many familiar characters who are all voiced by their original voice actors. The music in Episode One is also nothing short of amazing. While the music is absent for much of the game it always comes in at the most opportune moment which totally brings the current situation to life. When there is an action packed sequence, fast paced techno-rock will play to pump up your testosterone, and when an upsetting scene takes place, sad music will slowly come into play to evoke emotion into the player, which is a great touch in a game like Episode One.

Much like the music and voice acting the graphics in Episode One don't disappoint. Half-Life 2 was an amazing looking game, and it would be hard to imagine it looking better than it does. Well Episode One looks much better than Half-Life 2 in many aspects. Episode One features HDR which is a nice effect, but not necessary and some don't even like it at all. However, it is still a nice feature to have the option of using if your hardware is capable of having it running. Alyx herself also looks much better than she did in Half-Life 2, and she also has her own individual lighting that makes her stand out much more. It is apparent that much more time was spent into the detail of Alyx to make her look her best for her four to six hour date with Gordon.

Although, despite the fact that Episode One adds so many amazing things to the Half-Life 2 universe it does come with it's fair share of disappointments, the first of which being the games length. Although, even though the game is not very long, it is not like it is very expensive either. Sold at budget price, Episode One offers a very engaging conclusion to Half-Life 2, while providing tons of that great Half-Life gameplay. Several other potentially disappointing factors are that there is not much in the way of new multiplayer content. The multiplayer portion of Half-Life 2 is still in a questionable position. There is loads of fun to be found, but the lack of regular updates and new maps really kills the experience of the multiplayer. Especially since Valve is using the multiplayer as a selling point for Episode One. It was disappointing to not see any new maps come out of Episode One for its multiplayer component.

Another huge disappointment, which is just a ridiculous move by Valve, is the addition of the multiplayer game Half-Life Deathmatch: Source. Half-Life Deathmatch: Source is the multiplayer component of Half-Life: Source but there are so many problems with it, it is simply ludicrous. Half-Life: Source itself was a very interesting port of the original game, featuring enhanced physics and environmental effects, while the main graphics were left unchanged. Think of Half-Life: Source as a combination of Half-Life plus fancy source engine effects and physics. Think of Half-Life Deathmatch: Source as Half-Life 1 multiplayer and the source engine brutally smashed together with a sledge hammer. Simply put, the state of this multiplayer game is a joke, and should not even be available to the public in the current situation that it is in. What makes it all the more ridiculous is the fact that Valve has the audacity to use this as a selling point for one of their games. It is difficult to comprehend how Valve is capable of releasing such amazing games, while at the same time being capable of releasing unfinished games like Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source. However, Counter-Strike: Source is no longer in this state, as it has been progressively updated over the past two years since its release, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life Deathmatch: Source still have a long ways to go until they can even be considered multiplayer games worth playing.

In light of Episode One's minor disappointments, it is truly a remarkable and outstanding continuation of the Half-Life series. It must be stressed that this is a must play for any Half-Life fan. And if you have yet to player Half-Life 2, or even Half-Life 1 it is strongly suggested that you do so, because Half-Life is destined to be a series to remember. Don't wait any longer, this is a series that must be experienced by everyone, it just keeps getting better and better. Half-Life 2 will surely go down in gaming history as one of the best series of all time.

Score:
Gameplay: 10
Graphics: 10
Sound: 10
Value: 8
Tilt: 8

Overall: 9.1

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/24/06