Ships Ahoy - Half-Life 2: Episode One

Valve announces that Half-Life 2: Episode One is now available via Steam:
Valve Launches First of an Episodic Trilogy

Bellevue, WA, June 1, 2006 - Valve®, developer of the blockbuster series Half-Life® and Counter-Strike™, announced Half-Life® 2: Episode One is now available via Steamgames.com for just $19.95 and at retail outlets around the world.

The first in a trilogy of episodic games, Episode One reveals the aftermath of Half-Life 2 and launches a journey beyond City 17. Episode One does not require Half-Life 2 to play and also includes a first look at Episode Two, which will ship by year's end.

In addition to the new single player experience, two multiplayer games are included. And those who purchase Episode One will have free access via Steam (www.steamgames.com) to Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, the interactive technology demo that introduces High Dynamic Range lighting to the SourceTM Engine, Valve's award-winning game technology.
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Jun 5, 2006, 20:56
... Jun 5, 2006, 20:56
Jun 5, 2006, 20:56
 
I suppose you could consider the Stalker an "old" monster, but seeing as you never got to fight them before, I think they count as new.
The stalker is definitely old and you don't fight them properly in this anyway.
Disagreed.

Marc Laidlaw wrote the plot. He's a published SciFi author.
Valve wouldn't have hired, before HL was even released, a published SciFi author to write a plot for their game if they didn't plan on have a written, planned plot for their game.
Just because he is a published author doesn't make him any good - the storyline for Ep1 (if it can be classified as such) completely blew. I don't care how many awards he's won or if every other story he wrote is goddamn amazing, if this one sucks it sucks. I didn't mind HL2 being vague because I thought it was going somewhere but the ridiculous conclusion at the start of Ep1 was just dire - people were expecting the Gman to step in again (after the ending of HL2) and more detail to be revealed about his character and abilities, yet instead we just have randomness. I would have preferred it if the explosion turned to an implosion and sucked them into another dimension, or a new mysterious rival to the Gman appeared (not shitty aliens that suddenly reveal absurd powers that had not even been hinted at, but a corporation with access to alien technology or Kleiner from the future), or Gordon was sent back in time to Black Mesa (getting back to some of the classic gameplay, along with the newer aliens taken back with him), or Kleiner managed to freeze time and open up a portal to get them out (only to discover that his technology was awful and they end up in some completely random place), or anything with a bit of originality to it. They're only a few ideas and I'm sure most typical people, let alone professional writers, could have come up with even better ideas.

Really it needed to feature the Gman - did they have a dispute with the voice actor or something, as not including him went against everything that HL2 suggested? A cliffhanger is only as good as its conclusion, which really blew here, and that is obviously a result of bad writing. They could have taken it in a hundred different directions and it would still have been great, yet they pick this cop out... and it is a cop out.

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